Society for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at the chapter house in St. Paul’s church-yard. This society was established by letters patent granted in the 13th year of the reign of King William III. by which the archbishop of Canterbury, and ninety-three of the bishops, clergy, nobility and gentry were incorporated, and impowered to purchase 2000l. per annum inheritance, with goods and chattels of any value: and allowed a common seal, which has the representation of a ship under sail, making towards a foreign coast, where the natives near the shore, stand with their hands stretched out, or lifted up, and some on their knees: A minister in a gown, in the fore part of the ship, is looking towards them, with the gospel open in his right hand; and in a label in the middle of the seal are the words, Transiens adjuva nos. The sun is represented shining; and round the edge are these words, Sigillum Societatis de promovendo Evangelio in partibus Transmarinis.
This society has sent several ministers of the church of England to his Majesty’s colonies in the West Indies, to instruct the English and such Indians as live near them in the principles of the Christian religion; and have dispersed throughout our plantations common prayer books, and other devotional and practical tracts. They have also contributed to the propagation of the gospel in Malabar, in the East Indies, and not only sent thither an impression of the new testament in Portuguese, but a printing press, types, and paper, together with a printer.
By their charter they are annually to meet upon the third Friday in February in order to chuse a president, one or more vice-presidents, a treasurer, or treasurers, two or more auditors, one secretary, and such other officers, ministers, and servants, as should be thought convenient for the ensuing year.
No act of the society is valid, unless the president, or vice president, and seven others of the members be present, and consenting thereto.
The society is every year to give an account in writing to the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper of the great seal, the Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, or the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, or any two of them, of the several sums of money by them received and laid out, and of the management and disposition of the revenues and charities of the society.
The members of the society meet once a month or oftner at the late archbishop Tenison’s library in St. Martin’s in the Fields, and several committees are besides appointed to meet at the chapter house at St. Paul’s. But their annual meeting on the third Friday in February is at St. Mary le Bow church in Cheapside, at which time they have there an anniversary sermon.
Society for the Reformation of Manners. This society began in the year 1690, when five or six private gentlemen, members of the church of England, meeting and consulting together of the most advisable methods of putting the penal laws in execution against the profaneness and other public vices, practiced openly in the streets, entered into a fraternity for remedying these evils. This being afterwards made known to the lords spiritual and temporal, and to the judges, a considerable number approved of it under their hands; the society, which was continually encreasing, was also countenanced by most of the bishops in extraordinary circular letters printed in 1699; and one of the chief ministers of state laying the affair before King William, he promised the society his protection.
This design was, however, violently opposed by the champions and advocates for debauchery; yet by the favour of the above Prince, and his royal consort Queen Mary, the patronage of Queen Anne, and the countenance of the clergy of the greatest figure in the church, it soon met with prodigious success, and many virtuous and pious persons of the several denominations readily united their endeavours, and joined in the expences necessarily occasioned by putting the laws in execution against vast numbers of the vicious and profane.
This society appoints and encourages constables and others to go about the streets, markets, and other public places, to take up drunkards, and profane swearers; to suppress lewd and disorderly houses, and to prosecute, all who encourage tippling, or follow their professions on the Lord’s day.
By the endeavours of this society many thousands of lewd and scandalous persons have been brought to legal punishment: great numbers have been convicted in the court of King’s Bench, and at the sessions, for keeping houses of lewdness, and punished by fine and imprisonment, by which means the streets have been much cleared of night-walkers, and other public places of gangs of detestable sodomites. In short some thousands of good books have been dispersed through the kingdom, and put into the hands of the profane, the lewd and the vicious, which in many instances have, by the divine blessing, produced a singular reformation, even among those who seemed the most abandoned.