RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Freethinker Frenoli Revolution
himself the title of " Christian statesman." It is said that no other American layman was ever associated with so many great religious and charitable enterprises. He was president of the American Bible Society 1846-62, of the American Tract Society 1842-48, and for sixteen years president of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was vice-president of the American Sunday-school Union 1826-61, and for many years was vice-president of the American Colonization Society.
Bibliography: T. W. Chambers, Memoir of Theodore Frelinghuysen, New York, 1863.
FREMANTLE, WILLIAM HENRY : Dean of Ripon; b. at Swanbourne (17 m. n.e. of Oxford), Buckinghamshire, Dec. 12, 1831. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., 1853), and was ordered deacon in 1855 and ordained priest in 1856. He was fellow of All Souls, Oxford, 1854-63 and fellow of Balliol and tutor 1883-94. He was curate of Middle Claydon, 1855-57, vicar of Lewknor, Oxfordshire, 1857-65, rector of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, London, 1865-83, and canon of Canterbury 1882-95. Since 1895 he has been dean of Ripon. He was chaplain to Bishop and Archbishop Tait 1861-82, select preacher to the University of Oxford in 1879-80, Bampton Lecturer in 1883, and William Belden Noble Lecturer at Harvard University in 1900. He has written The Influence of Commerce on Christianity (London, 1854); Lay Power in Parishes (1869); The Ecclesiastical Judgments of the Privy Council (in collaboration with G. C. Brodrick; 1865); Reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ (1870); The Gospel of the Secular Life (university sermons; 1882); The World as the Subject of Redemption (Bampton Lectures; 1885); Eighty-Eights: Sermons on Armada and Revolution (1888); The Present Work of the Anglican Communion (1888); and Christian Ordinances and Social Progress (Noble lectures for 1900; Boston, 1901). He also translated the works of St. Jerome and Rufinus in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (in collaboration with G. Lewis and W. G. Martley; Edinburgh, 1893), and edited Church Reform (London, 1888) and the Sermons of B. Jowett (3 vols., 1895-1901).
FRENCH CONFESSION OF FAITH.
can Confession.
See Galli-
FRENCH PROPHETS : A fanatical sect in England started in 1706 by refugee Camisards (q.v.), who pretended to have the gift of prophecy and the power of working miracles. Their special mission, they claimed, was to declare the speedy establishment of the Messiah's kingdom, which was to be accompanied by wonders and the infliction of severe judgments on the wicked. For a time they produced a deep impression in London and the larger provincial cities and won the allegiance of such well-known people as Lady Jane Forbes, Sir Richard Bulkeley, and John Lacy. Bulkeley claimed to have been miraculously cured of continuous headache, stone, and rupture, and contributed large sums to the support of the sect, at the time of his death (1710) he was on the point of
selling his estates and distributing the proceeds among the prophets. He wrote in their defense, An Answer to Several Treatises Lately Published on the Subject of the Prophets (London, 1708).
Lacy, who was a member of Edmund Calamy's church, fell under the influence of the prophets soon after their arrival and " entered into all their absurdities, except that of a community of goods, to which he strongly objected, having an income of two thousand pounds per annum." He became a seer and healer and published several works for the cause, including A Cry from the Desert, or Testimonials of Miraculous Things Lately Come to Pass in the Cevennes (London, 1707), a translation from the French of Francis Maximilian; Prophetical Warnings of Elias Marion (1707); The Prophetical Warnings of John Lacy (1707), a collection of his own prophecies; A Relation of the Dealings of God to his Unworthy Servant, John Lacy (1708), an answer to an attack by Edmund Calamy; and A Vision of J. L., Esq., a Prophet (1715), inspired by the Jacobite rising. In 1707 the prophets were convicted of publishing false and scandalous pamphlets and holding tumultuous assemblies and placed in the pillory, though prosecutions against Lacy and Bulkeley were quashed. This seems to have made the sect temporarily more popular than ever, and soon there were no less than 400 persons spreading their fanatical prophecies in various parts of the country. They even went so far as to predict that one of their number, Thomas Emes, lately deceased, would rise from the dead on May 25, 1708. In a pamphlet entitled The Mighty Miracle, or the . Wonder of Wonders, Lacy issued a general invitation to everybody to come to Bunhill Fields to witness this event. The failure of Emes to emerge from his grave at the time appointed weakened the influence of the prophets, and from that time they fell into disgrace.
Bibliography: D. Hughson [pseudonym for Edward Pugh], A Copious Account of the French and English Prophets, London, 1814; R. Adams, The Religious World Displayed, Edinburgh, 1809; English Review, ix (1852), 22-23; and especially DNB, xxxi. 382-383, where a copious literature on the subject is indicated.