The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650)

The Reformed Librarie-Keeper
(1650)

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Title: The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650)
Author: John Dury
Release Date: February 28, 2005 [EBook #15199]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
THE REFORMED LIBRARIE-KEEPER
(1650)
JOHN DURY
Introduction by RICHARD H. POPKIN
and THOMAS F. WRIGHT

Publication Number 220
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
1983

GENERAL EDITOR DAVID STUART RODES, _University of
California, Los Angeles_
EDITORS CHARLES L. BATTEN, _University of California, Los
Angeles_ GEORGE ROBERT GUFFEY, _University of California,
Los Angeles_ MAXIMILLIAN E. NOVAK, _University of California,
Los Angeles_ NANCY M. SHEA, William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library THOMAS WRIGHT, William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library ADVISORY EDITORS RALPH COHEN, University of
Virginia WILLIAM E. CONWAY, William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library VINTON A. DEARING, _University of California, Los
Angeles_ PHILLIP HARTH, _University of Wisconsin, Madison_
LOUIS A. LANDA, Princeton University EARL MINER, Princeton
University JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_
NORMAN J.W. THROWER, William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library ROBERT VOSPER, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
JOHN M. WALLACE, University of Chicago PUBLICATIONS
MANAGER NANCY M. SHEA, William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library CORRESPONDING SECRETARY BEVERLY J. ONLEY,
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
FRANCES MIRIAM REED, _University of California, Los Angeles_

INTRODUCTION
This work, with its quaint sentiments and its grim picture of what
librarians were like in the mid-seventeenth century, is more than a
curiosity. John Dury was a very important figure in the Puritan
Revolution, offering proposal after proposal to prepare England for its
role in the millennium. _The Reformed Librarie-Keeper_ is an integral
part of that preparation. To appreciate it one must look at it in terms of

the plans of Dury and his associates, Samuel Hartlib and Johann Amos
Comenius, to reform the intellectual institutions of England so that the
prophecies in the books of Daniel and Revelation could be fulfilled
there.
John Dury (1596-1680), the son of a Scottish Puritan, was raised in
Holland.[1] He studied at the University of Leiden, then at the French
Reformed seminaries at Sedan and Leiden, and later at Oxford. He was
ordained a Protestant minister and served first at Cologne and then at
the English church in the West Prussian city of Elbing. There he came
in contact with Samuel Hartlib (?-1662), a merchant, who was to
devote himself to many religious and scientific projects in England, and
with Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1670), the leader of the Moravian
Brethren, as well as with other great educational reformers of the
Continent. The three of them shared a common vision--that the
advancement of knowledge, the purification of the Christian churches,
and the impending conversion of the Jews were all antecedent steps to
the commencement in the foreseeable future of the millennium, the
thousand-year reign of Christ on earth. They saw the struggles of the
Thirty Years' War and the religious conflict in England as part of their
development of providential history.
In terms of their common vision, each of them strove during the decade
1630-40 to help the world prepare for the great events to come.
Comenius started redoing the educational system through his textbooks
and set forth plans for attaining universal knowledge. Hartlib moved
from Germany to England, where he became a central organizing figure
in both the nascent scientific world and the theological world. He was
in contact with a wide variety of intellectuals and brought their ideas
together. (For instance, he apprised Dury of the millenarian theory of
Joseph Mede, which was to be so influential in the Puritan Revolution,
and he spread Comenius's ideas in England.) Dury devoted himself
principally to trying to unite all of the Protestant churches in Europe
and to this end began his peregrinations from Sweden and Germany to
Holland, Switzerland, France, and England. These travels were to
continue throughout the rest of his life, as he tried to negotiate an
agreement on the essentials of Christianity in preparation for Jesus'
return.
In 1640, as the Puritan Revolution began, Hartlib, Comenius, and Dury

saw the developments in England as the opportunity to put their
scientific-religious plans into effect. They joined together in London in
1641 and, with strong support, offered proposals to prepare England for
the millennium. They proposed setting up a new university in London
for developing universal knowledge. In spite of the strong backing they
had from leaders of the State