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Clergymen and Conflict 1660–1763

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

D. Napthine  and
W. A. Speck
W. A. Speck
Affiliation:
University of Hull, Newcastle College of Arts & Technology
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Extract

The views of clergymen towards virtually any activity under the sun, and many over it, are preserved in an inexhaustible seam of sermons published between the Restoration of Charles II and the end of the Seven Years’ War. Thousands were listed by Sampson Letsome in his The Preacher’s Assistant, which appeared in 1753, and in an updated sequel by J. Cooke in 1783. Nor were these all-inclusive.

Faced with this mass of evidence, historians are forced to be selective. They can concentrate on the works of certain preachers, on precise dates or on particular genres of sermon, such as those preached at Assizes or funerals. The authors of this paper have studied three types. One of them is working on the Jeremiad in the years 1660–1720, Jeremiads being sermons preached during, immediately after, or on the anniversary of such national disasters as the plague in 1665, the fire of London in 1666 and the hurricane of 1703. War featured in them as one of the many visitations of Providence held to be afflicting the nation. The other addressed himself specifically to fast and thanksgiving-day sermons published during the wars of 1739 to 1748 and 1756 to 1763. These were delivered expressly to comment on military setbacks and failures, and to celebrate victories.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 20: The Church and War , 1983 , pp. 231 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1983

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References

1 The B.L. copy of the 1753 edition (1025 R 8) has manuscript notes at the end listing ‘sermons in the Museum not taken notice of in this book.’ These can now be supplemented with titles recorded in the Eighteenth-century short-title catalogue, which are accessible on BLAISE. The authors wish to thank the ECSTC and BLAISE for producing a print out of fast and thanksgiving day sermons published between 1756 and 1763 currently held by the B.L.

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