Printed sermons were ubiquitous in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. Dozens of sermons were printed each year between 1700 and 1760, and contemporaries noted that booksellers' shelves simply groaned with sermons. Sermons from a wide variety of occasions and before a range of audiences were printed, and these discourses made up a significant proportion of the publications from this period, constituting an important and distinct genre. They also reached a broad audience, providing them with current, topical and relevant commentary on many of the most important issues of the day, and presented the public face of the various religious denominations in England. The importance and significance of sermons has been increasingly recognised by scholars. However, despite the frequent reliance of these studies on printed sermons, until relatively recently, little attention has been paid to the specific genre of printed sermons, and there have been few attempts to survey the genre as a whole.

This chapter aims to begin to fill this gap by providing an overview of printed London sermons, particularly those that were printed soon after being preached, which were both numerous and influential. This analysis includes not only Anglican sermons, but also those of Dissenters and preachers of foreign denominations in London to provide a comprehensive overview of sermon culture in the capital. It situates this important medium in the cultural life of the capital and examines the nature of these discourses, including the most important venues, occasions and audiences, as well as the range of preachers and denominations publishing sermons in the capital between 1700 and 1760.