National Thanksgivings and Ideas of Britain, 1689-1816 1783273585, 9781783273584

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NATIONAL THANKSGIVINGS AND IDEAS OF BRITAIN 1689–1816

Title page of James Stillingfleet’s National Gratitude, Enforced in a Sermon (London, 1798) © The British Library Board, shelfmark 4473.d.6(4).

National Thanksgivings and Ideas of Britain 1689–1816

Warren Johnston

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Warren Johnston 2020 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Warren Johnston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2020 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 978-1-78327-358-4

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A catalogue record of this publication is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate This publication is printed on acid-free paper

This book is dedicated to my son James, and to the memory of my son Andrew, for the joy they have always brought into my life

Contents Acknowledgementsix Notes on elements of the textxi List of general thanksgiving days 1689–1816xiv Introduction1 1 Sermons and thanksgiving-day sermons in the long eighteenth century 11 2 Thanksgiving-day sermons – purposes and meanings 31 3 ‘The Palladium of our Safety’ – Providence and Britain 59 4 Political theory and principles 91 5 ‘This Carping Age’ – the politics of unity and discord 115 6 War 151 7 Costs of war and consequences of peace 174 8 Commerce and Empire 205 9 Anglicanism, dissent, anti-Catholicism, and infidelity 231 10 Others and Britons 260 Conclusion292 Appendix A: Thanksgiving-day preachers’ and sermon details297 Appendix B: Denominational breakdown of thanksgiving-day preachers330 Appendix C: Main scriptural texts used for thanksgiving-day sermons331 Bibliography of primary sources333 Bibliography of secondary sources379 Index387

Acknowledgements This study would never have begun without William Gibson’s kind invitation to contribute a chapter on thanksgiving-day sermons for The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon, 1689–1901 that he and Keith Francis were editing. Once I began that project, I realised there were almost six hundred such sermons published between 1689 and 1816, and this was certainly more than enough material for a much larger work on the subject. I am grateful to Bill for having asked me to be involved in his volume, as it led to this book. Stephen Taylor and Tim Harris read and commented on earlier drafts of this work. I am grateful to them for their careful and thoughtful responses to those previous versions. Their critique and suggestions allowed me to make this book better. We also, however, agreed to disagree on certain approaches I have chosen to maintain: therefore, any shortcomings of the final version remain entirely my own. I received financial support in the form of a publishing subvention from the Algoma University Research Publications Fund. I am extremely grateful to Dr Pedro Antunes and the members of the Algoma University Research Advisory Committee for supporting my application for this subvention. I must next thank the librarians and staff of the Wishart Library at Algoma University, and especially to Anne Beaupré, Helen Pereira, Tracy Spurway, Robin Isard, and Ken Hernden. Once more they have shown the great ability, despite a limited budget and extensive demands on their time and resources, to provide firstclass research services. It never ceases to amaze me what they have supplied to meet my research needs, and always willingly, and with such effectiveness. I am grateful for the ongoing support of my colleagues in the Humanities Faculty, especially the willingness of Celia Ross and Linda Burnett to take on the Faculty Chair responsibilities in my place, which allowed me to devote more time to this book. The Algoma Historians Writing Group has read and commented on several early versions of chapters, so I thank Marisha Caswell, Bruce Douville, and Robert Rutherdale for their useful suggestions on revisions. I must acknowledge several colleagues individually whose impact on me has been very significant. I thank Michael DiSanto for his always thoughtful responses in our many conversations, and for his trustworthiness: these continue to greatly influence my own scholarly endeavours. Neil Cruickshank has been an example of tenacity for just causes, and has also never failed to be available for a chat and a drink when I most needed them. Cathy Denomme’s office door has always been open for collegial support, and her friendship has helped me innumerable times throughout the past decade. I am grateful for the friendship of Alice Ridout; our many discussions of

x  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS academic ideas and principles have forced me to broaden my perspectives in important ways. The friendship and comradery of Istvan Imre, Paul Gregory, Marisha Caswell, Tom O’Flanagan, Pat O’Flanagan, Sofia Silberberg, and Martin Pochtaruk, Trevor Tchir, Aaron Gordon, Tony Fabiano, and Dave Marasco have been essential during my time at Algoma. Several earlier versions of chapters of this book were presented at the Midwest Conference on British Studies annual meeting. I am thankful for all of the people I have come to know at the MWCBS during my time as a member of that wonderfully warm and supportive organisation, and especially for the help and friendship of Lia Paradis and Eric Tenbus. It was also at the MWCBS that I first met Melinda Zook, and she remains an academic inspiration, as do Mark Goldie and Ariel Hessayon. Their willingness to read, discuss, and comment on my work has been vital to any success it may have had. I conclude with the most important of all. First, I thank my friend, partner, and wife, Lisa Parlee, for all of the many things she has given and sacrificed over the past quarter century. From her thoughtful responses when I discuss ideas with her, to help and advice with preparing manuscripts, and so many things much more important, anything good I have accomplished has been because of her. My parents Ernie and Olga, have been strong supporters of anything I have chosen to do for as long as I can remember; I know my mom would have loved to see this book in print, as she was always the most ardent advocate and champion of me achieving my academic dreams. My sisters, Bonnie and Karen, have given me so much unconditional love and care that it is impossible to put into words, and I could not ever hope to repay all that they have done for me. Finally, this book is dedicated to my son James, and to the memory of my son Andrew, who died just as the proofs were being prepared: their love, humour, wit, and companionship has always given me immense joy, and they both continue to inspire me.

Notes on elements of the text Dates Old Style dating is used up to 2 September 1752, except that the new year is taken to begin 1 January. New Style dating is used from 14 September 1752 onwards.

Primary sources A vast majority of the primary sources used in this study were found on two electronic databases: sources published between 1689 and 1700 were located on Early English Books Online (http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home); sources published between 1701 and 1800 were located on Eighteenth Century Collections Online (http://galenet. galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO). Sermons published after 1800 were accessed at the British Library, as were a few published prior to 1801 that could not be located on the other two databases.

Citation of sermons The titles of early modern sermons have several common characteristics: they are often long, unwieldy, and titles repeat similar information that makes it difficult to differentiate between them. For convenience for the reader, and in order to streamline the footnotes and avoid superfluous detail, a short-title form has been used for citing sermons. Those abbreviated titles still include the author’s first (in the first citation in each chapter) and last name and the date the sermon was originally delivered (if the year is not found in the original title, it has been added within square brackets). The full titles of sermons have been included in the bibliography of sermons, organised by thanksgiving date, found at the back of the book. It should also be noted that throughout the book, sermons are referred to by the year in which the thanksgiving day occurred (not according to the year they were published).

xii  NOTES

ON ELEMENTS OF THE TEXT

Spelling and punctuation For the most part, spelling and punctuation in early modern sources have been left as in the original. However, obvious errors or unusual conventions in punctuation and syntax have been silently amended.

Biographical information Much of the basic biographical information about the preachers comes from the sermons themselves. When necessary, that biographical information found in the text and in Appendix A was confirmed and supplemented from one of the following sources: Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835 (http://theclergydatabase.org.uk/) John Cooke, The Preacher’s Assistant, (After the Manner of Mr. Letsome) Containing a Series of Sermons and Discourses Published Either Singly, or in Volumes, by Divines of the Church of England, and by the Dissenting Clergy, Since the Restoration to the Present Time, Specifying Also the Several Authors Alphabetically Arranged Under Each Text – with the Size, Date, Occasion, or Subject-matter of Each Sermon or Discourse, Volumes I and II (Oxford, 1783) Dictionary of Canadian Biography (www.biographi.ca/en/) Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1500– 1714: Their Parentage, Birthplace and Year of Birth, with a Record of Their Degrees, Early Series, 4 volumes (Oxford, 1891–1892); accessed from British History Online (www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714) Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886: Their Parentage, Birthplace and Year of Birth, with a Record of Their Degrees, Later Series, 4 volumes (Oxford, c. 1888–1891); accessed from Internet Archive (https:// archive.org/index.php) Alexander Gordon (ed.), Freedom after Ejection: A Review (1690–1692) of Presbyterian and Congregational Nonconformity in England and Wales (Manchester, 1917); accessed from Internet Archive (https://archive.org/index.php) Sampson Letsome, The Preacher’s Assistant, in Two Parts. Part I. A Series of the Texts of All the Sermons and Discourses Preached Upon, and Published Since the Restoration to the Present Time. Part II. An Historical Register of All the Authors in the Series, Containing a Succinct View of Their Several Works (London, [1753]). A.G. Matthews, Calamy Revised: Being a Revision of Edmund Calamy’s Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660–2 (Oxford, 1988) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (www.oxforddnb.com/) John Venn and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, From the Earliest Times to 1900, Part I: From the Earliest Times to 1751, 4 volumes, and Part II: From 1752 to 1900, 6 volumes (Cambridge, 1922–1954); accessed from Internet Archive (https://archive.org/index.php)



NOTES ON ELEMENTS OF THE TEXT  xiii

Walter Wilson, The History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses in London, Westminster, and Southwark; Including the Lives of Their Ministers, from the Rise of Nonconformity to the Present Time, 4 volumes (London, 1808–1814); accessed from Internet Archive (https://archive.org/index.php) When biographical information comes from another source or when further detail is included, it is noted in a footnote in the text.

List of general thanksgiving days 1689–1816: dates and occasions Note: this list is compiled from information in the sermons themselves. For a fuller list, with much more detail, of national special worship services in Britain during this period, see Natalie Mears, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor, and Philip Williamson, with Lucy Bates (eds), National Prayers: Special Worship Since the Reformation, Volume 1: Special Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings in the British Isles, 1533– 1688, Church of England Record Society 20 (Woodbridge, 2013), ‘Analytical list of particular occasions of special worship, 1533–2012’, pp. cxxx–cxlvi, and especially Philip Williamson, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor, and Natalie Mears (eds), National Prayers: Special Worship Since the Reformation, Volume 2: General Fasts, Thanksgivings, and Special Prayers in the British Isles, 1689–1870, Church of England Record Society 22 (Woodbridge, 2017), pp. xix–xxviii and 1–770. 1689 31 January (London) & 14 February – ‘deliverance’ of England by William, Prince of Orange 1690 19 October – military success achieved in Ireland 16 November (Ireland) – military successes achieved in Ireland 1691 26 November – William III’s safe return & military successes 1692 27 October – William III’s safe return & victory at sea near La Hogue 1693 12 November – William III’s safe return & a victory at sea



LIST OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING DAYS

1689–1816   xv

1694 2 December – William III’s safe return 1695 8 (London) & 22 September – the taking of the town of Namur 1696 16 & 23 (Ireland) April – discovery of an assassination plot against William III & prevention of a French invasion 1697 2 December – peace (Treaty of Ryswick) ending the War of the League of Augsburg 1702 12 November (in London) & 3 December – military successes 1704 7 September – Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim 1705 23 & 28 (Ireland) August – military successes 1706 27 June – victory at Ramillies 31 December – the year’s successes 1707 1 May – Union between England & Scotland 1708 19 August – deliverance from invasion & victory near Audenarde 1709 17 February – protecting her majesty & successes of the last year’s campaign 22 November – victory at Blaregnies, etc.

xvi  LIST

OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING DAYS

1689–1816

1710 7 November – victories in Flanders & Spain 1713 7 July1 – peace (Treaty of Utrecht) between Britain & France 1715 20 January – peaceable accession of George I 1 March (Ireland) – peaceable accession of George I 1716 7 June – suppression of the Jacobite rebellion 1723 25 April – preservation of England from the plague that struck France 1745 18 July (Massachusetts) – taking of Louisbourg 1746 26 June (Scotland) – victory at Culloden 9 October – suppressing the Jacobite rebellion 1749 25 April – peace (Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle) ending the War of the Spanish Succession 1759 25 October (Massachusetts) – victory at Québec 29 November – military successes

1

This thanksgiving day was originally set for 16 June but was postponed in England and Wales by royal proclamation: Great Britain, By the Queen, A Proclamation, for a Publick Thanksgiving (London, 1713).



LIST OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING DAYS

1689–1816   xvii

1760 6 March (Connecticut) – military successes 9 October (Massachusetts) – conquest of Montreal & Canada 1763 5 May – peace (Treaty of Paris) ending the Seven Years’ War 11 August (Massachusetts) – peace (Treaty of Paris) ending the Seven Years’ War 2 September (Jamaica) – peace (Treaty of Paris) ending the Seven Years’ War 1783 (American) 11 December – peace (Treaty of Paris) ending the American Revolutionary War 1784 29 July – peace (Treaty of Paris) ending the American Revolutionary War 1789 23 April – king’s recovery from illness 1797 19 December – naval victories 1798 16 January (Ireland) – naval victories 29 November – Nelson’s victory at the Nile 1799 10 January (Québec) – Nelson’s victory at the Nile and suppression of revolt in Ireland 1802 1 June – peace (Treaty of Amiens) with France, Holland, Spain 1805 5 December – Battle of Trafalgar

xviii  LIST

OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING DAYS

1689–1816

1814 13 January – military successes 21 April (Québec) – military successes 3 June (Upper Canada) – military successes 7 July – peace (Treaty of Paris) with France 1816 18 January – peace (Treaty of Paris) with France 18 June (Upper Canada) – peace (Treaty of Paris) with France

Introduction This book focusses on sermons for national thanksgiving days in Britain from 1689 to 1816. It is based on material found in 587 published sermons produced for more than forty commemorations of national thanksgiving during that period. These celebrated some of the most significant events in Britain from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. They include the Revolution of 1688–89, the numerous military successes of Queen Anne’s reign, the Union of England and Scotland, the Hanoverian succession, the defeat of the Jacobite rebellions, victories over the French in the War of the Austrian Succession and in the Seven Years’ War, and the victories at the Battle of the Nile, Trafalgar, and Waterloo. Each of these was marked by special thanksgiving services, allowing windows into cultural, social, and political ideas articulated on such occasions over the course of the ‘long eighteenth century’. The study examines thanksgiving-day sermons in particular and will not include sermons for annual observances like the anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot (5 November) or of the ‘martyrdom’ of Charles I (30 January): while significant in their own right, such annual commemorations were associated with a fixed and historical set of circumstances and often followed a traditional rhetoric and message. They were not so much ‘of a moment’ and usually tended to have a purposeful and significant part of their attention aimed at looking backwards. In contrast, thanksgiving days were very much occasional in their topics and in their placement within the year. This allowed for, and indeed inspired, a much more spontaneous response to the topics being considered and the conditions which the nation found itself in on those days, in the present and looking forward. For convenience, the term the ‘long eighteenth century’ will be used throughout the book as a general description of the chronological period from 1689 to 1816. ‘Britain’ and ‘Britons’ refer to the territories and people of the British Isles. These expediencies are not an argument to suggest an entire national cohesion and unanimity for this 127-year period, nor do they neglect an awareness that Scotland, England, and Wales did not exist as a single political entity before 1707, and that Ireland was not absorbed into the United Kingdom until the turn of the nineteenth century; neither are they ignorant of the complexities and diversities of Britain’s various nationalisms, regional variants, and colonial holdings. It is simply less tedious for the reader to have these terms applied somewhat less meticulously, rather than the author repeatedly detailing the more precise distinctions between, for example, 1689–1699, 1689–1707, 1700–1799, 1707–1801, and 1801–1816. Where such chronological, national, and political distinctions are pertinent, they will be articulated.

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Though the thanksgiving days used here were instigated for a variety of occasions, the predominant impulse was Britain’s involvement in war. Of the thanksgiving-day occasions discussed, twenty-eight were celebrated for military successes, the prevention of invasion, or the defeat of internal rebellion, and eight others were celebrated for peace settlements ending war. Additionally, one celebrated William of Orange’s arrival in England, one the Union with Scotland, one was an accession occasion, and one each were for the preservation of England from the plague in 1723 and for George III’s recovery from illness in 1789.1 It should also be noted that there were two periods of at least twenty years (1724–1745 and 1764–1783) when no national thanksgiving days were celebrated in Britain. National thanksgiving days were instigated through royal order and accompanied by special liturgical forms, demonstrating their importance to the state, as well as its interest in providing a structure of celebration for the nation. However, the composition and preaching of sermons in hundreds of churches throughout the realm resulted in many and varied expressions on developments within British society from the end of the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century. This diversity of viewpoints is a result of the number of preachers who delivered sermons, the great volume of extant printed sermons from this period, and the varied circumstances over more than a century. The topics covered include ideas on the establishment and growth of empire, the celebration of military strength, responses to the costs – financial, human, and otherwise – of war, the rise of British naval power and maritime interests, the development of economic interests and trade, domestic concerns, emerging international rivalries, and reaction to the French Revolution with its accompanying threats to the social and political stability of Britain as it entered the nineteenth century. When brought together, these demonstrate some significant long-lasting and ongoing views, attitudes, and beliefs about British society. The language used in the sermons is central to the analysis, and therefore the study depends on the preachers’ words themselves, showing the way things were said and the rhetorical characteristics of the sermons. The chosen examples illustrate common ideas present across multiple works, but the text and notes do not offer every instance found within the sermons. Preachers’ thoughts from this vast body of material, around themes present in many sermons and over the course of 127 years, provides a powerful sense of what thanksgiving-day audiences were hearing and reading throughout this period. The intent is to compile and present a collection of ideas put forward in thanksgiving-day sermons along an extended timeline. Despite the analysis covering more 1

In calculating these figures, thanksgiving days that celebrated the same occasion and were in close chronological and/or geographical proximity to one another were only counted once. Colonial thanksgiving days were treated as separate events, except when dealing closely with the same occasions (for example, the thanksgiving days in Britain, Massachusetts, and Jamaica to commemorate the peace to end the Seven Years’ War in 1763 were counted as a single event). The 1783 American thanksgiving to celebrate independence and the end of the Revolutionary War will be used for a particular purpose in one of the chapters below, but it was not included in the tabulation of the reasons for British thanksgivings.



INTRODUCTION  3

than a century and a quarter of British history, it will allow meaningful examination and comparison: the purpose of these events and the means to deliver their messages remained relatively constant throughout this period, and the argument in the chapters is formed around topics found across the sermons. Yet, even within the customary format of thanksgiving days, different interests, views, and forms of ideas were expressed. So, the book points to connections and similarities, as well as to differences and distinctions, in themes and ideas discussed by preachers in a genre that responded to events of national compass, and of significant frequency, across a broad spectrum of time and place. The overall purpose is to organise ideas and material from a variety of clergymen and pulpits, in order to show perspectives espoused in thanksgiving-day sermons from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. The import is not so much who said these things, but that they were being said across a wide chronological period and across a large geographical area, from Yorkshire to Cornwall to Edinburgh, and from London to Jamaica to Boston, Massachusetts to Québec. From this, a variety of viewpoints emerge about a number of aspects of British society during the long eighteenth century. Anglican and dissenting sermons have both been used, allowing for a diversity of perspectives from within the established church and from Protestant dissent. The denominational makeup of the extant sermons is noteworthy. Though a majority (64.4 per cent) of the published sermons used were by Anglican preachers, 22.8 per cent were by Protestant dissenters.2 This shows a significant involvement in these events of public and national celebration by pastors and congregations outside of the Church of England, confirming trends noted in other studies.3 Anglican and dissenting ministers’ concern about participation in thanksgiving days demonstrates a sense of shared interest and duty, as well as an identification with the nation on these occasions. This book uses printed, published sermons as its sources and as an important and cohesive genre that spanned more than a century. It treats these as written texts, but, while not claiming the printed sermons were exactly the same as those delivered during the thanksgiving service, it does assume that the ideas and topics discussed were similar in oral and printed versions and that, in these forms, the sermons were 2

3

See Appendix B. Of the remaining approximately 13 per cent, nine sermons (1.5 per cent) were by Presbyterian ministers of the Church of Scotland, two by Presbyterian ministers in Canada, four by foreign Protestant ministers in England, two by English Catholic priests, and one by a Canadian Catholic priest; seven sermons were by pastors in colonial New England before 1775, and seven by American preachers in 1783. There is one sermon by an Anglican imposter (Laurence Hynes-Halloran), and seventeen (2.9 per cent) by preachers whose denomination is unknown. Jennifer Farooq, Preaching in Eighteenth-Century London (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 33–4; Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, ‘The Churches and the ’45’, in The Church and War: Papers Read at the Twenty-First Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Second Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. W.J. Sheils (Oxford, 1983), p. 253; Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, ‘Eighteenth-Century Sermons and the Age’, in Crown and Mitre: Religion and Society in Northern Europe Since the Reformation, ed. W.M. Jacob and Nigel Yates (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 107–9; Donald Spaeth, The Church in an Age of Danger: Parsons and Parishioners, 1660–1740 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 6.

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able to reach substantial audiences. It presumes that the significance and recurrence of thanksgiving days, the number of pulpits such sermons were preached from, and their availability in printed form indicates the popularity and impact of these texts. It will not undertake an assessment of how the sermons were preached or received when first delivered from a church pulpit. Nonetheless, it assumes the intent of both the preaching and the publishing – to inform, to persuade, and to present specific ideas about the occasion and surrounding circumstances – remained consistent in the oral and the printed versions. The analysis makes no pretence of universal assertions about attitudes in Britain as a whole regarding the themes and ideas it considers. However, it does demonstrate an accumulation of ideas whose weight must have made some impression upon the nation. The affirmation and repetition of such views in relation to prominent national moments were intended to impact the audiences they were directed towards over the course of more than a century. Putting forward and reiterating certain perceptions, the sermons told Britons what they should be thinking about themselves and their country. Though the thanksgiving sermons may not reflect all of, or even the predominant, views on the topics they consider, they do represent the ideas widely discussed in the sermons themselves.

Ideas of Britain and the thanksgiving-day sermons As its title suggests, this book examines ‘ideas of Britain’. As national occasions that had a prominent publication footprint, thanksgiving-day sermons certainly attempted to contribute to perceptions of what the nation was and how such celebrations reinforced concepts of what constituted central ideas of Britain and its people. The relationship between faith and identity, though at times problematic, is also a ‘compelling explanatory force’,4 and this relationship is declared, emphasised, and applied again and again in the thanksgiving-day sermons. As Natalie Mears has shown regarding fast sermons, early modern public worship was an event where a kingdom’s collective failings were considered and its responses through sermons, prayer, and fasting were all political actions.5 To those occasions, which emphasised the shortcomings of the nation, can be added the events when reminders of deliverances and providential favours were reiterated. So, just as fasts focussed people on collective repentance and sacrifice for a national cause, thanksgivings reminded Britons of their collective blessings and emphasised the country’s receipt of special divine attention. All of this allowed thanksgiving preachers a considerable potential

4

5

Tony Claydon and Ian McBride, ‘The Trials of the Chosen Peoples: Recent Interpretations of Protestantism and National Identity in Britain and Ireland’, in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge, 1998), p. 26. Natalie Mears, ‘Public Worship and Political Participation in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies, 51:1 (2012), 21–2.



INTRODUCTION  5

to articulate a variety of ideas about the characteristics of the nation, about its principles, and about Britain’s place in the world. The topic of British identity has received much attention over the past three decades. This was largely instigated by the publication of Linda Colley’s influential study Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (1992). Colley finds a shared sense of Protestantism and a sustained period of warfare helping to develop and strengthen ‘Britishness’ in the face of threats from external enemies during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.6 Applying Benedict Anderson’s concept of nations as ‘imagined communities’ and seeing the eighteenth century as a key period in the establishment of nationalist identities in western Europe, Colley argues that Great Britain was ‘an invented nation superimposed, if only for a while, onto much older alignments and loyalties’. Eighteenth-century Britons defined ‘themselves as Protestants struggling for survival against the world’s foremost Catholic power… against the French as they imagined them to be… [and] in contrast to colonial peoples they conquered, peoples who were manifestly alien in terms of culture, religion and colour’.7 In the time since Britons was published, many have weighed in on the issue of British identity and identities. Colley’s thesis looms large in these analyses, with scholars supporting, refining, or opposing her original assertions. Jonathan Clark has argued that Colley’s emphasis on ‘otherness’ in defining British identity too greatly discounts the ways that Britons had already acquired to characterise and distinguish themselves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.8 Indeed, in the decade prior to the publication of Colley’s book, Clark had emphasised the importance of Anglicanism along with a set of shared political and social values as foundational elements in the development of English identity in the early modern period.9 In turn, Colin Kidd’s studies of British identities assert that ‘England’s patriotic intelligentsia of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries… do not conform to the narrowly xenophobic picture of national identity’ put forward by Colley.10 Though Kidd maintains that ‘there was no coherent, convincing and comprehensive vision of British nationhood’ in the early modern period that overwhelmed ‘North British’ identity, he goes on to contend that the leaders of the Scottish Enlightenment looked admiringly at

6

7

8 9

10

Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992). See also Linda Colley, ‘Britishness and Otherness: An Argument’, Journal of British Studies, 31:4 (1992), 309–29. Colley, Britons, p. 5. Cf. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 2006; revised edition [first published in 1983]). J.C.D. Clark, ‘Protestantism, Nationalism, and National Identity, 1660–1832’, The Historical Journal, 43:1 (2000), 249–76. J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 1985); J.C.D. Clark, ‘England’s Ancien Regime as a Confessional State’, Albion, 21:3 (1989), 450–74. Colin Kidd, British Identities Before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 213.

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particular aspects of English political and commercial development which Scotland would benefit from sharing in and emulating.11 Tony Claydon and Ian McBride introduce their volume on Protestantism and National Identity in Britain and Ireland from the mid-seventeenth to the midnineteenth centuries by noting problems with the ‘bi-polar approach’ and its preoccupation with ‘the other’, the neglect of pre-modern formation of nationality, and the renewed emphasis on religion as an aspect of national identity at the expense of recognition of other factors, though they conclude with a recognition that there is still much strong evidence to demonstrate that Protestantism and national identity were firmly connected for eighteenth-century Britons.12 In that same volume, Steven Pincus finds the presence of a ‘nationalist ideology’ in the Revolution of 1688–89 that, rather than being solely based on religious identity and xenophobia, is ‘subtle and sophisticated… based on economic, political and cultural engagement’.13 In turn, Tim Harris notes that the ‘common sense of Protestantism and shared antipathy towards Catholicism’, to which Colley points as a uniting factor in the eighteenth century, had not been enough to overcome profound differences in British societies throughout much of the seventeenth century.14 Though Jeremy Black acknowledges the importance of war, anti-Catholicism, and anti-French sentiment in British identity in the long eighteenth century, he also has challenged both Colley’s and Clark’s assertions of religious homogeneity and unity in Britain, arguing instead that they were not as pervasive or effective as contemporary sources or modern historians have claimed.15 Similarly G.M. Ditchfield posits that neither a shared Protestantism nor Anglicanism were strong enough to unite into a common British national identity.16 While some have focussed on the limitations of Colley’s premise, a number of others have found it useful in detecting aspects of an emerging British identity in the eighteenth century. Anthony Smith identifies a strong Protestant flavour in English national sentiment that developed in the period of the Reformation and melded 11

12 13

14

15

16

Colin Kidd, ‘North Britishness and the Nature of Eighteenth-Century British Patriotisms’, The Historical Journal, 39:2 (1996), 361–82, quotations at 363–4; Colin Kidd ‘Sentiment, Race and Revival: Scottish Identities in the Aftermath of Enlightenment’, in A Union of Multiple Identities: the British Isles, 1750–1850, ed. Laurence Brockliss and David Eastwood (Manchester, 1997), pp. 110–26. Claydon and McBride, ‘The Trials of the Chosen Peoples’, pp. 7–9, 26. Steven Pincus, ‘“To protect English liberties”: the English Nationalist Revolution of 1688–1689’, in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge, 1998), quotation on p. 79. Tim Harris, ‘The British Dimension, Religion, and the Shaping of Political Identities during the Reign of Charles II’, in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge, 1998), p. 156. Jeremy Black, ‘Exceptionalism, Structure and Contingency: Britain as a European State, 1688–1815’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 8:3 (1997), 11–26; Jeremy Black, ‘Confessional State or Elect Nation? Religion and Identity in Eighteenth-Century England’, in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 53–74. G.M. Ditchfield, ‘Church, Parliament and National Identity, c. 1770–c. 1830’, in Parliaments, Nations and Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1850, ed. Julian Hoppit (Manchester, 2003), pp. 64–82.



INTRODUCTION  7

into British identity in the eighteenth century.17 Stephen Conway and Pasi Ihalainen have shown the importance of warfare in the emergence of modern British national identity in the mid to late eighteenth century, while Laurence Brockliss and David Eastwood have acknowledged the presence of ‘different and conflicting identities’ along with the influence of the long period of war with France in forming ‘a genuine British identity’.18 Stressing the ‘multifaceted and plural’ nature of national identities, David McCrone accepts the importance of Colley’s identification of Protestantism and war with France in the creation of ‘a genuine sense of Britishness’, noting, as Colley herself did, that Britishness was ‘superimposed over an array of internal differences in response to contact with ‘the Other’.19 In the same vein, Atsuko Ichijo finds a consensus emerging in the acceptance of Britain as a civic, rather than an ethnic, state, and Britishness as ‘something one can choose rather than have imposed’.20 Paul Langford recognises ‘a process of rhetorical state-building’ in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain that was in addition to, rather than conflicting with, existing identities and loyalties.21 The interest in Britishness in the long eighteenth century has also prompted consideration of the role that ideas of national identity played in the period preceding the usually accepted origin of modern nationalism around the turn of the nineteenth century. A number of historians have found the roots of nascent nationalism, or at least national identities, in the early modern period. Noting the reticence of political scientists to designate late sixteenth-century applications of the term ‘nation’ to England as ‘nationalism’, Patrick Collinson instead applied the terms ‘patriotism’ and ‘national sentiment’ to English identity that developed from the prominent biblical rhetoric of the Reformation.22 Colin Kidd has asserted that ‘nationalism’ is ‘a label… [that is] misleading when applied to the early modern period, which witnessed national consciousness but nothing so explicit or doctrinaire as

17 18

19

20

21 22

Anthony Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford, 2003), pp. 46–8, 115–23. Stephen Conway, ‘War and National Identity in the Mid-Eighteenth-Century British Isles’, English Historical Review, 116:468 (2001), 863–93; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘Patriotism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century English and Prussian War Sermons’, in War Sermons, ed. Gilles Teulié and Laurence Lux-Sterritt (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009), pp. 107–29; Laurence Brockliss and David Eastwood, ‘Introduction’, in A Union of Multiple Identities: the British Isles, 1750–1850, ed. Laurence Brockliss and David Eastwood (Manchester, 1997), pp. 1, 3. David McCrone, ‘Unmasking Britannia: the Rise and Fall of British National Identity’, Nations and Nationalism, 3:4 (1997), 582, 584, 587. See also, for example, Colley, Britons, p. 6. Atsuko Ichijo, ‘Civic or Ethnic? The Evolution of Britishness and Scottishness’, in History, Nationhood and the Question of Britain, ed. Helen Brocklehurst and Robert Phillips (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 113, 114. Paul Langford, Englishness Identified: Manners and Character 1650–1850 (Oxford, 2000), p. 13. Patrick Collinson, ‘Biblical Rhetoric: The English Nation and National Sentiment in the Prophetic Mode’, in This England: Essays on the English Nation and Commonwealth in the Sixteenth Century (Manchester, 2011), p. 167.

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nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalisms’, and in its place Kidd uses terms such as ‘historic patriotisms’ and ‘ethnicity’ to describe expressions of identity.23 Both Kidd and Jonathan Clark have found eighteenth-century national sensibilities being formed and represented especially within, and in reference to, early modern political, social, ecclesiastical, and confessional structures and ideologies.24 Others agree that eighteenth-century concepts of nation and identity were founded on existing, previously developed early modern, and even medieval, foundations of community and government.25 In addition to these political and religious sources, Benedict Anderson points to the importance of the establishment and growth of the early modern book trade in forming identities in western Europe by allowing ‘rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves, and to relate themselves to others, in profoundly new ways’; for Anderson, the ‘coalition between Protestantism and print-capitalism… quickly created large new reading publics… and simultaneously mobilized them for politico-religious purposes’.26 The discussion of eighteenth-century Britishness is complicated by the existence of a number of multiple, separate identities within the British Isles. Even leaving aside other types of allegiances (local, regional, or denominational, for example), English, Scottish, and Irish national identities are present, and these predated and endured past the formation of the British state in the early eighteenth century. England was the dominant partner in the union with Scotland in 1707, and, to English eyes at least, Englishness often superseded, or passed for the same as, British identity.27 This can be seen, in part, in the fact that the Act of Union was much less contentious in England than in Scotland, where an extended and involved debate occurred over its potential effects on Scottish identity and autonomy.28 For Scots, advantageous participation in the empire was an important consideration in accepting the Union,

23 24 25

26 27

28

Kidd, British Identities, p. 6. Kidd, British Identities, pp. 287–8; Clark, English Society, pp. 9, 43; Clark, ‘Protestantism’, pp. 251, 265. See for example: Kathleen Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 7; Rebecca Langlands, ‘Britishness or Englishness? The Historical Problem of National Identity in Britain’, Nations and Nationalism, 5:1 (1999), 54, 61; Murray G.H. Pittock, Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685–1789 (New York, 1997), p. 56; Claire Jackson, ‘Conceptions of Nationhood in the Anglo-Scottish Union Debates of 1707’, The Scottish Historical Review, 87, Supplement (2008), 66; Claydon and McBride, ‘The Trials of the Chosen Peoples’, p. 8; Pincus, ‘“To protect English liberties”’, pp. 76–7, 80, 88–9, 90; Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 12. Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 36, 40. See also Wilson, Island Race, pp. 31–2. Ben Wellings, ‘Empire-nation: National and Imperial Discourses in England’, Nations and Nationalism, 8:1 (2002), 95; Keith Robbins, Great Britain: Identities, Institutions and the Idea of Britishness (London, 1998), p. 264; Jim Smyth, The Making of the United Kingdom, 1660–1800 (London, 2001), p. 154; Langford, Englishness, pp. 13, 14; Langlands, ‘Britishness’, pp. 59, 61; Pittock, Inventing, p. 58; Conway, ‘War’, pp. 871–2. Wellings, ‘Empire-nation’, p. 96; Robbins, Great Britain, pp. 264, 284; Jackson, ‘Conceptions’; Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden, 2005), pp. 188–9, 195; Clark, ‘Protestantism’, p. 274.



INTRODUCTION  9

which was also a principal instigation to the creation of a sense of British identity for all of the component entities of the empire; however, this did not mean a loss of those separate individual identities, which instead existed apart from, rather than being engulfed by, Britishness.29 This continued existence of identities separate from Britain was also true for Ireland after its absorption in 1801.30 What emerges from these studies, then, is a recognition that a sense of Britishness in the eighteenth century existed alongside other, distinct identities, and did not destroy or replace other loyalties. It has been described as a ‘supranational identity overarching constituent ethnic identities’ and ‘resting lightly on top of Britain’s constituent nations’.31 As Linda Colley puts it, identities ‘are not like hats’ and people ‘can and do put on several at a time… The sense of common identity here did not come into being, then, because of an integration and homogenisation of disparate cultures. Instead, Britishness was superimposed over an array of internal differences in response to contact… [and] conflict with the Other.’32 Thus, while a British identity was especially beneficial and meaningful when people needed to refer to and define themselves in response to threats and specific conditions, those same people within the British Isles continued to think of and refer to themselves as English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish, among other things. They did find reassurance and use in British commonalities such as Protestantism, shared political and commercial values, their perceived special status, and opposition to (in succession) Catholic, republican, and Napoleonic France.33 But they also found reassurance in other identities, too. Even with the broad consensus on the presence of British and multiple national identities in eighteenth-century Britain, it is still difficult to pin down exactly what national identity meant in different circumstances, in various contexts, and to particular people. In response to her own rhetorically posed question ‘What is identity?’, Kathleen Wilson has said ‘Scholars of eighteenth-century Britain aren’t sure, but they think they know it when they see it.’ Wilson further points to the formation of identity as a complex process that is ‘tentative, multiple and contingent… rendered through religion, politics, geography, sociability’ among other things, defined and represented individually and collectively, as well as one that changes over time and that is expressed through many different verbal and visual forms. Likewise, Peter Mandler explains national identity formation as dependent on multiple processes, and its definition by historians is ‘elusive’ because determining 29

30 31 32 33

Kidd, ‘North Britishness’, pp. 362–4; Kidd, ‘Sentiment’, pp. 110–11; Colley, Britons, p. 130; McCrone, ‘Unmasking Britannia’, p. 584; Ichijo, ‘Civic’, pp. 112, 114; Conway, ‘War’, p. 869; Clark, ‘Protestantism’, pp. 262–3; Robbins, Great Britain, p. 269. Robbins, Great Britain, p. 278; Conway, ‘War’, pp. 869, 870; Smyth, Making, pp. 1, 3. Ichijo, ‘Civic’, p. 113; Wellings, ‘Empire-nation’, p. 103; Smyth, Making, p. 81. Colley, Britons, p. 6. See also Colley, ‘Britishness’, p. 316. Robbins, Great Britain, p. 262; Langlands, ‘Britishness’, pp. 62–3; Clark, ‘Protestantism’, p. 275; Conway, ‘War’, pp. 871, 874, 876, 893; Wellings, ‘Empire-nation’, pp. 96, 98, 99, 101; David Allan, ‘Protestantism, Presbyterianism and National Identity in EighteenthCentury Scotland’, in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge,1998), p. 197; Kidd, ‘North Britishness’, pp. 370, 373, 376, 378.

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‘What goes on in people’s heads is very complicated and difficult for historians to pin down’. Roberto Romani similarly describes the attempt to delineate national character or identity as complicated and ‘elusive’.34 Thanksgiving sermons do weave ideas about British identity into their discourse because they make assertions about what Britain and Britons were, and what they were not. However, as the preceding survey of the recent historiography demonstrates, British identity in the long eighteenth century was multifaceted and divergent, denoting different things in different contexts and in differing types of media and messages. So, rather than examine how the messages of thanksgiving-day sermons fit into these theories of national identity, this present book will simply concentrate on the fact that, over the course of the long eighteenth century, thanksgiving-day sermons were a prominent and regular vehicle through which ideas of Britain and about Britons were being presented. It will not argue that the views expounded from the pulpit were universally accepted, nor does it claim to define what Britishness was from 1689 to 1816. Instead, it will demonstrate that Britons were being told about themselves and their nation on a particular type of occasion and in response to specific events. The purpose is to show what was being attempted from thanksgiving-day pulpits and publications, but not to determine how successful such efforts were in establishing a shared British identity, in displacing other identities, or in seeping into national consciousness. It is enough to prove here that preachers did employ, and try to construct, ideas about the nation, and to discuss the particular ways in which they did so. Though it is safe to assume that what was being asserted from pulpit and press in thanksgiving sermons regarding Britain and Britons had a significant forum and audience, the present study will not delve into how this was received and absorbed.

34

Wilson, Island Race, pp. 1, 3; Peter Mandler, ‘What is “National Identity”? Definitions and Applications in Modern British Historiography’, Modern Intellectual History, 3:2 (2006), 275, 281; Roberto Romani, National Character and Public Spirit in Britain and France, 1750–1914 (Cambridge, 2002), p. 2.

1 Sermons and thanksgiving-day sermons in the long eighteenth century For readers in the early twenty-first century, it can be difficult to understand the importance of sermons in early modern British society. The impediment is not simply due to the decline in the presence of the church in contemporary people’s everyday lives, but also the fact that sermons are viewed often with trepidation (at best) or derision. For those who regularly attend church services, sermons are perhaps seen as necessary moral and theological guidance, or instigation to social awareness. But even these aspects can now be found more readily in other places and through other media. Even historians of English religion at times do not provide much encouragement to seek out sermons from the early modern period: in his seminal study of the public sermons given in London at Paul’s Cross, Millar MacLure described the sermon literature from the beginning of the English Reformation to the eve of the Civil Wars as including ‘a great maze of repetitious bad rhetoric… singularly dull humourless pedestrian thought and expression’. More recently, Patrick Collinson, the late prominent historian of the Elizabethan and Jacobean churches, called seventeenth-century fast sermons and jeremiads ‘theologically limited, intellectually impoverished, and almost unbearably repetitious’.1 Stark judgements like these from historians who used hundreds of early modern sermons in their work make it more difficult to argue the case for the study of sermons as beneficial and significant. The context of the ‘Information Age’ also makes it challenging to recognise the role sermons played in early modern society. As James Downey has observed, modern scholars’ disregard of sermons ‘arises from the failure to appreciate the importance that sermons once had in secular as well as religious life. In an age of mass media, compulsory education, … [and] highly-specialised entertainments… many former functions of the pulpit have been taken over by other agencies.’2 Though it may seem trite, it bears remembering that the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries were a time without the availability and distractions of all of the forms 1

2

Millar MacLure, The Paul’s Cross Sermons 1534–1642 (Toronto, 1958), p. 143; Patrick Collinson, ‘Biblical Rhetoric: The English Nation and National Sentiment in the Prophetic Mode’, in This England: Essays on the English Nation and Commonwealth in the Sixteenth Century (Manchester, 2011), p. 178. James Downey, The Eighteenth Century Pulpit: A Study of the Sermons of Butler, Berkeley, Secker, Sterne, Whitefield and Wesley (Oxford, 1969), p. 1.

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of information sources we take for granted today: because of this, it was the pulpit and the press that accounted for much of the spread of ideas and news that occurred then. Andrew Lacey describes the early modern pulpit as ‘one and the same time the newspaper editorial, the press office, the soap box, the convention platform and the television studio of the age, and from this platform both clergy and laity assumed and expected the great issues of the day would be discussed, dissected, moralised and preached up’.3 In addition to being a significant form of the transmission of ideas, sermons were also important and popular among congregations.4 Though opinions of the role of preaching in later medieval English church are being re-examined,5 scholars point especially to the influence of ideas associated with Protestant reform as having a profound effect on the place and function of the sermon in church services and individual belief. With the elimination of the requirement of confession to a priest, sermons took on a more immediate significance and became a necessity for moving believers to think about repentance and redemption.6 The sermon became the ‘centrepiece’ and an ‘essential’ aspect of worship in the Reformation; its purpose was to edify the godly through their consideration of the theological and exegetical points raised by the preacher.7 The transformed function of the sermon in Protestant worship amplified its meaning and consequence among its hearers. Congregations were not only told of the new importance of sermons, but also came to expect them as part of their religious experience. People heard and followed the ideas of long (by modern standards) sermons, they preferred services that included sermons, and they became practised in the art of taking notes, analysing, and critiquing sermons and those who preached them.8 In addition to their theological points, sermons presented ideas that ‘were

3 4

5

6 7

8

Andrew Lacey, The Cult of King Charles the Martyr (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 115. See for example, John Craig, ‘Sermon Reception’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), p. 181; Mary Morrissey, ‘Interdisciplinarity and the Study of Early Modern Sermons’, The Historical Journal, 42:4 (1999), 1111–12. For changing opinion on the place of preaching with the later medieval Church, see for example, Susan Wabuda, Preaching During the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 26–7, 33–6; Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons, 1558–1642 (Oxford, 2011), p. 26; Eric Josef Carlson, ‘The Boring of the Ear: Shaping the Pastoral Vision of Preaching in England, 1540–1640’, in Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period, ed. Larissa Taylor (Leiden, 2001), pp. 250–4; Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), p. 62. Carlson, ‘The Boring of the Ear’, p. 250; see also pp. 261–2. James Thomas Ford, ‘Preaching in the Reformed Tradition’, in Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period, ed. Larissa Taylor (Leiden, 2001), pp. 66–8; Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and Their Audiences, 1590–1640 (Cambridge, 2010), p. 9. John Spurr, The Laity and Preaching in Post-Reformation England (London, 2013), pp. 6–7, 33; Wabuda, Preaching, p. 97; Donald Spaeth, The Church in an Age of Danger: Parsons and Parishioners, 1660–1740 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 189–90; Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 9–10; Morrissey, Politics, pp. 39–40; Caroline Francis Richardson, English Preachers and Preaching 1640–1670 (London, 1928), pp. 48–9, 70; Jeremy Gregory, ‘“For all sorts and



SERMONS AND THANKSGIVING-DAY SERMONS  13

not merely spiritual’, and they became vehicles for transmitting news and political messages, as well as a means of education and social guidance.9 Churches were also physically transformed to accommodate the function of hearing sermons: interiors were rearranged, fixed seating facing the preacher was added, prominent pulpits were built, and galleries were attached to allow for increased capacity for services with sermons.10 The impact of these changes continued into the eighteenth century, with sermons retaining influence and popularity, as well as remaining as ‘one of the most important and accessible ways for ministers to communicate with the laity’.11 Considering the thanksgiving-day sermons alone, and those who composed, delivered, and published them, we see that five generations of Britons received at least some of their political, social, historical, and religious education by means of such services and commemorations. The neglected study of sermons after the mid-seventeenth century in Britain is part of a larger discounting of the influence of religious thought and ideas in the period that followed. This was, it is supposed, the age of the Enlightenment, when the predominant ecclesiastical influences on European society were rapidly pushed aside in favour of ‘reason’ and secular impulses, to the exclusion of religious ideas. Because of this, as William Gibson and Robert Ingram have pointed out, ecclesiastical historians of the eighteenth century, unlike their counterparts looking at the

9

10

11

conditions of men”: the Social Life of the Book of Common Prayer during the Long Eighteenth Century: or, Bringing the History of Religion and Social History Together’, Social History, 34:1 (2009), 39–40; John Walsh and Stephen Taylor, ‘Introduction: The Church and Anglicanism in the “Long” Eighteenth Century’, in The Church of England c. 1689–c. 1833: From Toleration to Tractarianism, ed. John Walsh, Colin Haydon, and Stephen Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 24. See for example, Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden, 2005), p. 27; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘Patriotism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century English and Prussian War Sermons’, in War Sermons, ed. Gilles Teulié and Laurence Lux-Sterritt (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009), p. 109; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘The Political Sermon in an Age of Party Strife, 1700–1720: Contributions to the Conflict’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), pp. 494, 496; Natalie Mears, ‘Public Worship and Political Participation in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies, 51:1 (2012), 5; Jennifer Farooq, Preaching in Eighteenth-Century London (Woodbridge, 2013), p. 218; Downey, Eighteenth Century Pulpit, p. 10; W.J. Torrance Kirby, ‘The Public Sermon: Paul’s Cross and the Culture of Persuasion in England, 1534–1570’, Renaissance and Reformation, 31:1 (2008), 6; William Gibson, The Church of England 1688–1832: Unity and Accord (London, 2001), p. 160. Christopher Marsh, ‘Sacred Space in England, 1560–1640: The View from the Pew’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53:2 (2002), pp. 288, 293; Craig, ‘Sermon Reception’, pp. 181–2; Julia Merritt, ‘Puritans, Laudians, and the Phenomenon of Church-Building in Jacobean London’, The Historical Journal, 41:4 (1998), 946; Gregory, ‘“For all sorts and conditions of men”’, p. 39. Farooq, Preaching, p. 2. See also Tony Claydon, ‘The Sermon, the “Public Sphere” and the Political Culture of Late Seventeenth-Century England’, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature and History 1600–1750, ed. Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (Manchester, 2000), p. 211.

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sixteenth and seventeenth, ‘have often felt compelled to prove their subject’s very worth’.12 However, over the past several decades, the ‘secularisation’ thesis has been modified and moderated: while, certainly, the place of the church in British society changed during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, historians have clearly shown that it did not disappear as an important institution, and it maintained an influence on social and political ideas in Britain long past its supposed decay. As Jeremy Black has stated, in this revised historical interpretation ‘religion has not simply been seen as a system of faith, but has been interpreted as the primary means of creating political and ideological cohesion, as the language through which such cohesion was discussed and challenged’.13 In her influential study of British identity from the Union with Scotland to the mid-1830s, Linda Colley points to the powerful role that Protestantism played in affecting ideas of Britishness.14 Even before this, Jonathan Clark has asserted that, without recognising the place and influence of Christian belief and teachings in eighteenth-century England, historians would find the social structures of that society ‘unintelligible’. More specifically, Clark argues that the Anglican Church was responsible for upholding the political and social hierarchy into the first three decades of the nineteenth century, and stating that ‘the Church must occupy a large place in any picture of eighteenth-century English society’.15 More recently, Clark has observed the ‘reintegration of religious history into accounts of phenomena which had formerly been secularized’, affirming religion’s important role in shaping ‘different ideas of collective identity’.16 In regard to sermons specifically, Arnold Hunt notes, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries preaching ‘occupied a pivotal place in public discourse… which has made it increasingly difficult to maintain that preaching was pushed to the margins by a gradual process of secularisation’.17 Though fewer historians will now need as much convincing of the enduring importance of religion in eighteenth-century Britain, many will still not turn readily to sermons in particular as evidence of that abiding influence, a reticence that extends to the early modern period as a whole. While a number of early seminal works exist,18

12

13

14 15

16 17 18

William Gibson and Robert G. Ingram, ‘Introduction’, in Religious Identities in Britain, 1660–1832, ed. William Gibson and Robert G. Ingram (Aldershot, 2005), p. 1. See also Gibson, Church of England, pp. 4–27. Jeremy Black, ‘Confessional State or Elect Nation? Religion and Identity in Eighteenth-Century England’, in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge, 1998), p. 54. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992), for example, pp. 18, 22–5, 31, 368–9. J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 87, 200, 277. See also J.C.D. Clark, ‘England’s Ancien Regime as a Confessional State’, Albion, 21:3 (1989), 458. J.C.D. Clark, ‘Protestantism, Nationalism, and National Identity, 1660–1832’, The Historical Journal, 43:1 (2000), 252. Hunt, Art of Hearing, p. 92. These include MacLure, Paul’s Cross Sermons; J.W. Blench, Preaching in England in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: a Study of English Sermons 1450–c.1600 (Oxford,



SERMONS AND THANKSGIVING-DAY SERMONS  15

scholars have only recently returned to examine sermons specifically and systematically. A number of these recent studies have demonstrated the important place of sermons within the political, social, and intellectual spheres of early modern Britain. These include Peter McCullough’s and Lori Anne Ferrell’s studies of court preaching in Elizabethan and Jacobean England (along with their edited collection on the English sermon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), two volumes of the Oxford Handbook series (on The Early Modern Sermon, edited by Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan; and on The British Sermon, 1689–1901, edited by Keith Francis and William Gibson), Susan Wabuda’s Preaching During the English Reformation, Mary Morrissey’s new look at the Paul’s Cross sermons, Arnold Hunt’s work on preachers and audiences from the late Elizabethan period to the eve of the Civil Wars, John Spurr’s compact analysis of the reception of preaching in post-Reformation England, Robert Hole’s examination of preaching and politics from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, and Jennifer Farooq’s fine study of preaching in eighteenth-century London.19 In addition to these books, a considerable number of articles have also examined sermons and sermon literature in Britain, as will be demonstrated in the notes below.

Sermons in print The relationship between the sermon as an oral (and aural) text and as a printed, published pamphlet disseminated to a much wider and more disparate audience was of concern for early modern preachers. Though this current study draws its information specifically from printed texts, it is crucial to recognise that sermons were originally delivered from a pulpit, in a particular place and time, and that those circumstances conveyed some additional characteristics and meanings. For example, while printed sermons could be picked up and put down at the reader’s leisure, the timing of the sermon when it was delivered in the church was an important consideration. In early modern Britain, the standard time of sermons changed as the period progressed. Through much of the seventeenth century, sermons were generally an

19

1964); Downey, Eighteenth Century Pulpit; Richardson, English Preachers; John F. Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament: Puritanism During the English Civil Wars, 1640–1648 (Princeton, NJ, 1969). Peter McCullough, Sermons at Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching (Cambridge, 1998); Lori Anne Ferrell, Government By Polemic: James I, the King’s Preachers’ and the Rhetorics of Conformity, 1603–1625 (Stanford, CA, 1998); Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (eds), The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature, and History 1600–1750 (Manchester, 2000); Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon (Oxford, 2011); Keith Francis and William Gibson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon, 1689–1901 (Oxford, 2012); Wabuda, Preaching; Morrissey, Politics; Hunt, Art of Hearing; Spurr, Laity and Preaching; Robert Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order in England 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1989); Farooq, Preaching. In addition, Robert Ellison has taken this study of sermons far into the nineteenth century with his The Victorian Pulpit: Spoken and Written Sermons in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, 1998).

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hour long, and timed by an hourglass that was often attached to the pulpit or beside the lectern; both the congregation and the careful preacher paid attention to the sermon’s timing.20 By the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the trend was towards sermons a half an hour long.21 The delivery was also important. In order to draw their listeners into their message, early modern preachers considered inflection, tone of voice, gestures, and the language they used.22 There were also changing opinions on how the sermon should be constructed and then presented. In the later sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, ex tempore sermons, delivered without the use of a written text or notes, were highly credited; by the second half of the seventeenth century it became more acceptable to use carefully prepared notes for sermons, and by the middle of the eighteenth century it was becoming common for Anglican and dissenting preachers to read fully prepared written texts from the pulpit.23 Still, the purpose of a sermon remained the same throughout the period: it was intended ‘to persuade – indeed compel – men and women to embark upon a spiritual course of action’.24 This intent was shared by both the spoken and the printed sermon, and in the mid-seventeenth century and after there was a growing recognition of the importance of print as an effective means for preachers to spread their messages, as well as for audiences to receive them.25 20

21

22

23

24 25

David J. Appleby, ‘Issues of Audience and Reception in Restoration Preaching’, in Readers, Audiences and Coteries in Early Modern England, ed. Geoff Baker and Ann McGruer (Newcastle, 2006), p. 18; McCullough, Sermons at Court, p. 129; Richardson, English Preachers, p. 113; Emma Rhatigan, ‘Preaching Venues: Architecture and Auditories’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), pp. 93–4. Rhatigan notes the depiction of the preacher’s hourglass in the frontispiece of the 1569 Bishops Bible and, to a different purpose, in Hogarth’s 1736 The Sleeping Congregation print. Claydon, ‘The Sermon’, p. 213; Jennifer Farooq, ‘The Politicising Influence of Print: The Responses of Hearers and Readers to the Sermons of Gilbert Burnet and Henry Sacheverell’, in Readers, Audiences and Coteries in Early Modern England, ed. Geoff Baker and Ann McGruer (Newcastle, 2006), p. 31. Ian Green, ‘Orality, Script and Print: the Case of the English Sermon c. 1530–1700’, in Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, Volume I: Religion and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700, ed. Heinz Schilling and István György Tóth (Cambridge, 2006), p. 237; Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 84–6, 90–1; Appleby, ‘Issues of Audience’, p. 11; Walsham, Providence, p. 315. Green, ‘Orality’, pp. 237–8, 240, 248; Carlson, ‘The Boring of the Ear’, p. 282; Farooq, Preaching, pp. 9–11; Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 12–13, 131–5, 180, 184–6, 394–5; Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, ‘Eighteenth-Century Sermons and the Age’, in Crown and Mitre: Religion and Society in Northern Europe Since the Reformation, ed. W.M. Jacob and Nigel Yates (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 111–12; Ellison, Victorian Pulpit, pp. 33–42; Gibson, Church of England, pp. 224–5. Ellison, Victorian Pulpit, p. 19. James Rigney, ‘“To lye upon a Stationers stall, like a piece of coarse flesh in a Shambles”: the Sermon, Print and the English Civil War’, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature, and History 1600–1750, ed. Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (Manchester, 2000), pp. 190–1; James Rigney, ‘Sermons into Print’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), pp. 200, 203, 206–7; Farooq, ‘The Politicising Influence’, pp.



SERMONS AND THANKSGIVING-DAY SERMONS  17

For evidence of the ongoing influence of sermons on eighteenth-century Britain, one does not have to go much further than booksellers’ stalls: sermon literature formed a very significant proportion of items in print and being sold (and read) in early modern Britain, and this did not abate with the supposed age of reason in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Ian Green estimates the number of sermons printed from 1660 to 1783 at between 12,000 and 15,000 titles, Tony Claydon asserts that sermons ‘dominated book production’ and formed ‘one of the most reliable parts of the publishers’ market’ by the later seventeenth century, and Jennifer Farooq suggests that perhaps as many as one in every fourteen published titles were sermons, ‘which meant that about two or three sermons a week came off the presses during the eighteenth century’.26 Eighteenth-century sermons have been characterised as ‘bestsellers’, profitable to publishers, a form of popular reading that ‘outranked most other forms of publication well into the late eighteenth century’; they were ‘ubiquitous in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England’, with contemporary sources noting ‘that booksellers’ shelves simply groaned with sermons’.27 This interest was due to the popularity of sermons in general, as well as other factors: in the eighteenth century published sermons were advertised in newspapers, reviewed in serial publications, available in coffee houses, and read aloud in homes.28 Sharp distinctions between the sermon as an oral and as a written text were diminishing by the eighteenth century.29 This facilitated a more seamless transposition between the sermon as delivered and as printed. Of course, there continued to be hundreds of sermons preached from pulpits every week in Britain during the eighteenth century, so printed sermons do represent ‘only the tip of the iceberg’, as one

26

27

28 29

38, 45; Claydon, ‘The Sermon’, p. 214; Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 12–13, 43–59; Morrissey, Politics, pp. 42, 63–7; Mears, ‘Public Worship’, p. 25; Green, ‘Orality’, pp. 243, 248–9, 251; Downey, Eighteenth Century Pulpit, p. 8; Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, p. 45; Henry P. Ippel, ‘British Sermons and the American Revolution’, Journal of Religious History, 12:2 (1982), 193; Walsham, Providence, pp. 55–6. Green, ‘Orality’, pp. 250–1; Tony Claydon, William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge, 1996), p. 87; Farooq, Preaching, pp. 37, 74. James Caudle’s unpublished PhD dissertation gives a precise figure of 14,834 sermons printed in Britain during the eighteenth century: James Caudle, ‘Measure of Allegiance: Sermon Culture and the Creation of a Public Discourse of Obedience and Resistance in Georgian Britain, 1714– 1760’ (Yale University, 1996), p. 128. Citing The Preacher’s Assistant (1753), a catalogue of authors, titles, and scriptural texts of sermons printed in England between 1660 and the mid-eighteenth century, William Gibson finds over 14,000 sermons listed as published during that period: Gibson, Church of England, p. 224. Downey, Eighteenth Century Pulpit, p. 4; Rosemary Dixon, ‘Sermons in Print, 1660– 1700’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), pp. 460, 466; James Caudle, ‘Preaching in Parliament: Patronage, Publicity and Politics in Britain, 1701–60’, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature, and History 1600–1750, ed. Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (Manchester, 2000), p. 236; Farooq, Preaching, p. 39. Ippel, ‘British Sermons’, p. 193; Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, p. 45; Caudle, ‘Preaching’, p. 256. Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 182–5, 393–4.

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historian has put it.30 But the absence of manuscripts of each of these sermons, and of many of those subsequently printed, means that the attempt to determine what was preached in the pulpit ‘must be grounded in written or printed texts’, making the recovery of the original context of the orally delivered sermon ‘problematic’ and only possible through ‘informed guesses about how close the published versions were to what was said in the pulpit’.31 However, if we cannot know for certain how closely printed sermons were to the orally delivered text, then we are left to determine how to deal with them. Though something might be said for treating them as completely separate entities, there was clearly not a complete and entire disjoint between the two types of texts.32 Indeed, by the eighteenth century, sermons were often considered written texts, even by the preachers when delivering them from the pulpit. In addition, the published text – whether its message was altered from the original sermon or not – had the potential to reach and influence a far larger audience. So, while it is necessary to recognise some difference in the impact of the original setting and context of the oral delivery, most often there was much overlap and consistency between the messages and ideas in the version presented from the pulpit and the one that was printed, with preachers themselves keenly aware of, and expressing the need for, that similitude. In addition to the number of sermons published during the period and their importance in the marketplace, there were further motivations to encourage clergymen to print their work. Published sermons were becoming more popular in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, serving different purposes, and filling different needs. Printed sermons allowed readers (laity and clergy alike) opportunities that were not available from sermons delivered from the pulpit. Printed sermons could be studied, considered and reflected upon in the reader’s own time, they exposed people to sermons that they had not had the chance to hear in person, and they allowed those outside of their original congregations and immediate audiences to experience the sermons of skilled and effective preachers.33 Published sermons reached far beyond their first purchasers, with one historian estimating that the number of readers of printed works (like sermons) in the eighteenth century would be well beyond the estimated four people who read every magazine or book bought in the late twentieth century.34 Scholars have noted that sermons were an important commodity, a specific literary category in their own right, as well as having similarities in form and price to the pamphlet literature of the day.35

30 31 32 33 34 35

Deconinck-Brossard, ‘Eighteenth-Century Sermons’, p. 111. Appleby, ‘Issues of Audience’, p. 11; Spurr, Laity and Preaching, pp. 26–7. See also Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 8–9, 11–12, 147–8, 160–1; Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, p. 42. Morrissey, Politics, pp. 35, 48–9, 66; Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 148–9, 159–60. Farooq, Preaching, pp. 38, 75, 117–18; Green, ‘Orality’, pp. 241–2; Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, p. 27. Murray G.H. Pittock, Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685–1789 (New York, 1997), p. 40. Caudle, ‘Preaching’, p. 236; Downey, Eighteenth Century Pulpit, p. 3; Farooq, ‘The Politicising Influence’, p. 37; Rigney, ‘“To lye upon a Stationers stall”’, p. 190; Rigney, ‘Sermons into Print’, p. 205; Ippel, ‘British Sermons’, p. 194.



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There are some aspects of the recent renewed interest in sermon studies that need to be addressed here. First, the practice of ‘source mining’ of sermons has been contrasted to the proper study of sermons as ‘texts and events’ and a genre in their own right.36 This distinction is significant, and the focus of this present book will be on thanksgiving-day sermons as a specific sub-genre. However, it should also be noted that the current study is not an analysis of sermon forms, styles, or preaching practices and methods but, rather, an examination of the ideas presented in thanksgiving-day sermons that reflected predominant themes of concern in British society from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The concern is with political, social, and cultural content, not sermon style and form. In addition, the analysis will only very occasionally comment upon whole sermons in their entirety. Instead, it will look for significant elements that emerged in these sermons throughout the long eighteenth century. Still, the context and atmosphere of the sermons as part of thanksgiving-day commemoration will be retained throughout the study, keeping the idea of these sermons as occasions, events, and a genre in their own right. It is also important to recognise that much historical attention is turning to try to recover the response to and reception of sermons in early modern Britain as they were originally preached. In part, this has been undertaken to correct the neglect of this consideration in the past, and to place congregations, audiences, and readers at all levels of society back into the picture of sermons as events, readings, and ideas.37 The issue of reception of sermons is clearly an important and complex avenue of enquiry – as several historians have noted, it would require the examination of a wide variety of hundreds more diverse sources, including letters, parish records, anecdotal observations, court proceedings, magazines, reviews, diaries, and journals, among others38 – and justice cannot be done to it here. This current study will focus on examining the messages being delivered from pulpits and publications throughout Britain across a wide chronological period. Based on the popularity of thanksgiving days, it assumes that there were extensive audiences hearing, reading, and considering such views, and the strong presence of printed sermons across the period demonstrates that publishers, booksellers, and readers found them important and in demand. Indeed, the availability of printed thanksgiving sermons confirms their reach and capacity to influence a much larger segment of the public than in their original oral (and aural) form.

Thanksgiving sermons in print Historians have noted that special worship services like thanksgivings and fasts facilitated a direct connection between religion, worship, and political circumstances,

36 37 38

Morrissey, ‘Interdisciplinarity’, pp. 1113–15; Hunt, Art of Preaching, p. 9. See for example, Hunt, Art of Hearing; Appleby, ‘Issues of Audience’; Craig, ‘Sermon Reception’; Farooq, Preaching, pp. 108–42; Spurr, Laity and Preaching. Ippel, ‘British Sermons’, pp. 194–5; Craig, ‘Sermon Reception’, p. 179.

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with political sermons becoming very popular as printed works in the eighteenth century.39 Such events also served the interests of the government. For example, Torrance Kirby finds the government using the Paul’s Cross public pulpit in 1534 to affirm ‘the legitimacy of the reconstituted institutions of religious authority’.40 Similarly, authorities used thanksgivings in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to confirm political settlements and institutions in 1689, 1707, and 1714 that were literally ‘reconstituted’. Thanksgiving days were also associated with public celebration and were widely observed, making them very attractive and popular for preachers.41 Those who published their sermons had various reasons for doing so. The printed versions of thanksgiving sermons demonstrate that preachers were aware of the oral, aural, and printed nature of their texts for these occasions. Still, it is apparent that there was uncertainty about the transition from the spoken word to success on the printed page. Lewis Atterbury, a royal chaplain and rector of Shepperton in Essex, worried that what his congregation ‘so well approved of when deliver’d from the Pulpit, will be less so when it comes from the Press’. The dissenting preacher William Wood, from Darlington in Durham, apologised for ‘the Meanness of his Talents’ in a two-decade career spent ministering to the needs of his congregation and practising medicine, leaving himself, and thus his sermon, lacking in ‘the Study of Elegancy and Politeness’.42 Often ministers excused potential shortcomings with declarations of their lack of intent to have ever published their sermons. For example, John Swynfen, lecturer at St Magnus in London, explained that his ‘Discourse was not composed with any Design to be made Publick, and therefore wanteth that Correctness of Stile, and… strict Coherence of Reasoning it ought otherwise to have had’. The dissenter James Bowden protested that his sermon had been ‘prepared only for the pulpit’ but he had relented ‘to the importunate request of many who heard it… [and] ventured to offer [it] to the public’. Because his sermon was ‘prepared without any view to publication’, the vicar of St Martin and All Saints in Leicester, Edward Vaughan, feared ‘it will be found in many respects defective and inaccurate’.43 It is interesting to note that many preachers described printing their sermon as making it ‘public’, clearly an expression of its exposure to a wider audience. Apprehension over publication was countered by a growing recognition of the sermon as both an oral and a written text. Though repeating the trope that his 39

40 41 42

43

Mears, ‘Public Worship’, pp. 5, 24; D. Napthine and W.A. Speck, ‘Clergymen and Conflict 1660–1763’, in The Church and War: Papers Read at the Twenty-First Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Second Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. W.J. Sheils (Oxford, 1983), p. 250; Claydon, William III, p. 110; Caudle, ‘Preaching’, p. 256. Kirby, ‘Public Sermon’, p. 19. Farooq, Preaching, pp. 43, 224. Lewis Atterbury, A Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), sig. A2r; William Wood, Britain’s Joshua. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1746), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.). John Swynfen, A Sermon… Second of December, 1694 (London, 1695), sig. A2r; James Bowden, The King’s Recovery… a Sermon… April 23, M.DCC.LXXXIX (London, 1789), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.); Edward Vaughan, The Lesson… A Sermon… July 7 [1814] (Oxford, 1814), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.).



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sermon had not been composed with the idea of publication in mind, Abraham Rees, minister to the dissenting meeting in the Old Jewry in London, went on to affirm that, if it was read ‘with the same candour with which it was heard, the Author will have no occasion to regret his having yielded to the urgent solicitations of his friends’. William Corbin, preacher at Bromley St Leonard in Middlesex, saw both forms, oral and written, as having a similar purpose for his audience: the one having ‘reached the Ears of most, or all of you from the Pulpit’ and the published version ‘now returns to refresh your Memories from the Press’.44 Benjamin Wallin, a London Baptist, suggested that there was no need to excuse publishing his sermon, ‘for, why should not the Press as well as the Pulpit proclaim the Songs of a Nation sensible of their high Obligations to the Almighty?’ By the beginning of the nineteenth century, John Clayton, Congregational minister to the King’s Weigh House Chapel in London, could confidently say ‘It is never improper for a preacher to print a sermon; it is ever commendable in a pastor to preach the word… exhorting from the pulpit or the press.’45 Regard for their audience was a significant consideration for thanksgiving preachers because of the need to fit the style and message of the sermon to the particular set of people it was being delivered to.46 However, this became problematic when publication in print changed the reach and recipients for a sermon. Preachers-cum-authors acknowledged such issues in order to explain, excuse, or amend their work. The rector of Patching in Sussex, Thomas Blennerhaysett, described his sermon as a ‘Plain Discourse which was Design’d for, and Deliver’d to, a very Small, but very Honest Audience’, and Thomas Scott similarly depicted his, initially delivered to the parish of Olney in Buckinghamshire, as ‘containing plain truths, in plain language, originally preached to plain people, and now published for the benefit of such’. For William Hawtayne, his congregation in Elstree in Hertfordshire was ‘an unlearned audience’ and his sermon intended to instruct them ‘in their own duty and happiness’.47 While such introductions explained the nature of the sermons that followed, they also served the purpose of seeking pardon for their flaws or justifying their amendments. Thomas Dikes, curate of St John’s in Hull, expected his readers to ‘make allowance for the defects of a plain discourse, written for a popular audience, and without a view to publication’. Though not specifically identifying his congregation, Harry Davis, curate of South Newington in Oxfordshire, noted that the sermon he 44

45 46

47

Abraham Rees, The Privileges… A Sermon… 29th of November 1798 (London, 1798), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.); William Corbin, EΥΧAΡIΣTIA: Or, a Grateful Acknowledgment… a Sermon… 22d of September 1695 (London, 1695), sig. A4r. Benjamin Wallin, The Joyful Sacrifice… A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1760), p. iii; John Clayton, The Great Mercies… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. xi. Mary Morrissey, ‘Scripture, Style and Persuasion in Seventeenth-Century English Theories of Preaching’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53:4 (2002), 694; Spaeth, Church, p. 53; Spurr, Laity and Preaching, p. 27. Thomas Blennerhaysett, Plus Quam Speravimus: or; The Happy Surprize. A Sermon… January the 20th, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 1; Thomas Scott, A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached July 29, 1784 (Northampton, n.d.), p. 4; William Hawtayne, A Sermon… Twentieth of January, 1714 [1715] (London, 1714), sig. A2r.

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prepared (and published) for the 7 July 1814 thanksgiving day had actually not been delivered from the pulpit because he deemed another ‘Discourse in a plainer and less elevated style… more proper for the Author’s usual audience’.48 In the Epistle Dedicatory to his 1799 thanksgiving sermon, the Anglican bishop of Québec, Jacob Mountain, distinguished between oral and published sermons by stating that the ‘Hearers of Sermons, and the Readers of them are, for the most part, different classes of people’. Mountain further declared it the ‘business of the Preacher to go as directly as he can to the understandings and the hearts of his Congregation’ but in doing so it was often ‘not only safe, but expedient’ to neglect the refinements of exact composition… [and] be little solicitous about the structure of a sentence, or the rounding of a period’. Printed sermons, on the other hand, required ‘a greater regard to the established Rules of Composition, and to the graces of a correct and elegant diction’, and Mountain feared that the ‘many defects in it as a composition’ would, when discovered ‘when read in the closet’, diminish ‘the favourable opinion which You formed of it, when You heard it delivered’.49 As these examples show, distinctions were made at times between sermons as they were spoken in churches and as they were published. Historians have discussed some of these differences in an effort to prevent the ‘simplistic’ assumption that printed sermons are direct evidence of what was said from the pulpit.50 In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when print was still in its infancy, printed sermons were seen as less trustworthy than orally delivered ones.51 Even as print became more acceptable as a medium for spiritual messages, differences remained between those presented orally, or even written out in manuscript copy, and published versions of those same sermons.52 Printed sermons could also be expanded beyond the capacity of those delivered from the pulpit by including explanatory notes and marginal references to scriptural quotations and citations, as well as to other literary and popular publications.53 Additionally, the proliferation of printed sermons allowed for the traditional practice of ministers studying and, at times, ‘borrowing’ elements from others’ sermons to repeat in their own pulpits.54 However, the availability of

48

49 50 51 52

53 54

Thomas Dikes, The Effects… A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (Hull, 1798), ‘Preface’ (no pag.); Harry Davis, A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Banbury, n.d.), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.). Jacob Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799 (Québec, 1799), pp. iii–iv. See Green, ‘Orality’, p. 238. Carlson, ‘The Boring of the Ear’, pp. 280–2; Rigney, ‘“To lye upon a Stationers stall”’, p. 189; Rigney, ‘Sermons into Print’, p. 200; Hunt, Art of Hearing, p. 119. Dixon, ‘Sermons in Print, 1660–1700’, p. 461; Green, ‘Orality’, p. 254; Jacqueline Eales, ‘Provincial Preaching and Allegiance in the First English Civil War, 1640–6’, in Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Conrad Russell, ed. Thomas Cogswell, Richard Cust, and Peter Lake (Cambridge, 2002), p. 187; Richardson, English Preachers, p. 120. Rigney, ‘“To lye upon a Stationers stall”’, p. 193; Rigney, ‘Sermons into Print’, p. 202; Spurr, Laity and Preaching, pp. 26–7. Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, p. 45; Dixon, ‘Sermons in Print, 1660–1700’, p. 460; Caudle, ‘Preaching’, p. 236; Downey, Eighteenth Century Pulpit, p. 6; Gibson, Church of England, pp. 224, 226, 227.



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sermons in print could also be limiting for ministers: while hundreds of published sermons were available to be used by preachers by the later seventeenth century, these same sermons could also be read by their congregants. The kind of problems this could cause is found in the example of William Clewer being accused by his Croydon congregation of plagiarising from printed sermons.55 Thanksgiving-day preachers themselves recognised and remarked on the differences between the two forms of sermon delivery. Contrary to concerns over the shortcomings of printed sermons during the early Reformation, two and a half centuries later John Hodgson, curate of Jarrow in Durham, declared that judgement was surer ‘in reading than in hearing’, and the anonymous author of A Sermon Preached to Two Country Congregations [1814] affirmed ‘that a Sermon Read oft-times, will produce a very different effect upon the mind and judgement, from a Sermon Preached’.56 Printed sermons also allowed for the benefit of alteration and revision. Thomas Reynolds, Presbyterian pastor to the Great Eastcheap meeting in London, indicated that he had ‘made large Additions, but have not altered the Method and Thread of Discourse’ of his sermon, and Benjamin Wallin asked not to be blamed ‘for attempting an Improvement’ on the sermon his congregation had heard.57 Both John Newton, rector of St Mary Woolnoth in London, and Robert Young, Presbyterian minister to the London Wall Scots Church, excused any variations between the oral and printed versions of their sermons because of their being delivered originally without benefit of a written text.58 Other preachers used the opportunity to combine elements of several sermons. In justifying the departure from what he had delivered from the pulpit, William Huntington, dissenting minister to Providence Chapel in London, mentioned having had to preach seven more sermons ‘soon after’, and that he acceded to another publication request by having ‘interwoven a few heads of that in this discourse’. Robert Burns, Scottish minister in Paisley, amalgamated a sermon from a local synodal thanksgiving in December 1813 with one from the national thanksgiving day in January 1814 in his publication, and the Congregational minister to the Merchants Lecture in Stepney, Matthew Mead, incorporated his sermon from a week earlier with one from the thanksgiving-day in January 1689, producing a complex and lengthy discourse that surely had not been delivered in that form from the pulpit.59 Elements specific to print, such as footnotes, endnotes, marginal references, and prefatory material, were used to distinguish differences between oral and published 55 56

57 58 59

Rigney, ‘“To lye upon a Stationers stall”’, p. 198; Rigney, ‘Sermons into Print’, p. 205. John Hodgson, A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (Newcastle, 1814), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); Anonymous, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (Mansfield, n.d.), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.). Thomas Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); Wallin, Joyful Sacrifice… November 29, 1759, p. iv. John Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1798), p. iii; Robert Young, A Sermon… Dec. 5, 1805 (London, 1805), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.). William Huntington, A Watchword… A Sermon… Dec. 19. 1797 (London, 1798), p. 85; Robert Burns, Illustrations… A Sermon… Thursday Jan. 13, 1814 (Paisley, 1814), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.); Matthew Mead, The Vision of the Wheels… January 31. 1688/9 (London, 1689), sig. A3r-v.

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forms. Thomas Foxcroft, a minister to the Old Church in Boston, Massachusetts, used an explanatory footnote to announce that the supplements to his 1760 sermon were originally omitted ‘for Brevity… or else [having] escaped me in the hasty composing of it’ but could not be left out from ‘my Transcript for the Press, without some Injustice to the Subject, and perhaps as much to my self ’. In 1814 Thomas Gisborne, curate of Barton under Needwood chapel in Staffordshire, included a footnote to note his objection to the terms of peace with France, a matter he thought inadvisable to bring up in the original delivery of the sermon to his congregation.60 Notes could also be used to provide information to supplement the oral text, and some printed sermons had extensive explanatory and expository notes.61 In addition to marginal scriptural references, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century published sermons came to include notes referring to other publications, including newspapers, Shakespeare, and Milton.62 Notes also displayed a growing recognition of the need to acknowledge elements taken from others’ sermons, as shown in Jacob Mountain’s citations of sources that included a 1797 thanksgiving sermon by George Pretyman; similarly, William Abdy, curate of St John’s Southwark, acknowledged that his conclusions, along ‘with two or three other short quotations’, came from a sermon by Thomas Robinson.63 As such, though including different information from the original, the use of notes often did not signify an alteration but, rather, an addition of information to the version delivered from the pulpit. Evidence in some published versions of thanksgiving-day sermon texts suggested they bore close resemblance to the version heard on the day. Methods of delivering sermons were changing over the course of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and it became common for ministers to read complete, well-constructed, fully written-out versions from the pulpit, which could be quite readily converted to

60 61

62

63

Thomas Foxcroft, Grateful Reflexions… A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, 1760), p. 16n.; Thomas Gisborne, A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 20–21n. For example, John Payne’s published 1759 thanksgiving-day sermon included thirty-one pages of text plus nineteen pages of notes: John Payne, ‘Discourse VIII’ [1759], in Evangelical Discourses (London, 1763), pp. 213–31. George Thomas had five pages of notes, with quotations from other works and notes expanding upon ideas from his sermon text: George Thomas, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (n.p., 1802), pp. 31–5. William Goode included a five-page appendix of accounts of Trafalgar and letters from Nelson and others: William Goode, The God of Salvation, a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, 1805), pp. 25–30. Edward Popham, ‘A Sermon Preached on July 29, 1784’ in Two Sermons (Bath, 1784) quotes from Milton’s Paradise Regained several times: pp. 29, 33, and 33–34n. Among its notes, Samuel Butler, The Effects of Peace… A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Shrewsbury, n.d.) includes the transposition of a letter published in The Sun: pp. 21–9. John Stonard, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Chertsey, 1806) cites Shakespeare, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Sophocles, and Homer: pp. 8n., 14n., and 15n. Samuel Barker’s notes include citations of Edmund Burke, Shakespeare, and Milton: Samuel Barker, ‘The Manifold Mercies… A Sermon… 13th Day of January, 1814’, in Two Sermons &c.. (n.p., n.d.), pp. 43–7. Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799, 15n., 10n.; William Abdy, A Sermon… June 1, 1802… (London, n.d.), 23n. Though not in a note, John Dawson was careful to indicate his indebtedness ‘for some of his best thoughts in this Discourses, to the reading of the late Dr. John Erskine’s sermon upon the death of Professor Robertson’: John Dawson, England’s Greatness… a Sermon… Dec. 5, 1805 (Sheffield, 1805), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.).



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a short, pamphlet-sized publication.64 Comments in thanksgiving sermons suggest that many preachers preferred the printed work stay as close as possible to the oral text that was delivered. William Wood, who had already excused himself for the lack of polish of his sermon, noted that his congregation had ‘petitioned to have this in the Dress in which it had been exhibited,… without Diminution, or Alteration; not as a Labour of tortured Thought’. Though it had been a month between his preaching and writing out his sermon for the press, John Smith took pains to assure readers that, though the work was not ‘Verbatim as delivered’, it was ‘nearly so’, with its ‘Matter and Expression… much the same, both for Substance and Phrase’. Likewise, the Anglican chaplain William Mann stated his sermon had been preached without notes or written plan but also that he had reproduced it with ‘the whole of the plan, and… very much of the expression’.65 John Swanne, curate of Shipston on Stour Chapel in Gloucestershire, had specific reasons for keeping to his spoken version: Swanne’s determination to maintain his sermon ‘Verbatim’ was motivated by rumours being spread that he had attacked the Church of England. An introductory epistle from ‘The Bookseller’ reflects Swanne’s wish to have his work published as he had spoken it, having submitted ‘the Original, and order’d me to keep to the Letter of it, that no Man might say, he has Publish’d what he did not Preach’.66 There were also rhetorical structures in the printed sermons demonstrating that the pretence of oral delivery was intended to be maintained.67 Some referred to the time constraints of the day, like White Kennett, the London curate of St Botolph’s without Aldergate, claiming to ‘have transgress’d the bounds of our usual Time’. Samuel Clapham, vicar of Great Ouseburn in Yorkshire, requested of his audience ‘the continuance of your attention a little longer, whilst I more immediately advert to the cause of our present meeting’. John Tillotson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, entreated his listeners’/readers’ ‘patience a little longer’, self-effacingly reassuring them that ‘I may be tedious, but I will not be long’.68 Others retained congregational greetings, like William Huntington’s expression of being ‘very glad to see so many of

64

65

66 67 68

Farooq, Preaching, pp. 9–11; Green, ‘Orality’, pp. 237–8, 249; Deconinck-Brossard, ‘Eighteenth-Century Sermons’, pp. 111–13; Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, p. 42; Claydon, ‘The Sermon’, p. 213; Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 119, 159–60; Richardson, English Preachers, p. 75. Robert Ellison notes that this change, which was occurring from the middle of the seventeenth century, was almost complete by the end of the nineteenth century, when ‘Sermons were no longer regarded primarily as orations, but rather as “written pieces”’: Ellison, Victorian Pulpit, p. 31; see also pp. 18–31. Wood, Britain’s Joshua…. October 9, 1746, Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); John Smith, The Circle Blessing… a Thanksgiving-Sermon… May 5, 1763 (Northampton, n.d.; second edition), p. v; William Mann, A Sermon… November 29th, 1798… (London, n.d.), pp. iii, iv. John Swanne, A Sermon… April the 16th, 1696 (London, 1697), sig. A2r-v, C1v. For a discussion of ‘scripted extemporisation’ and other efforts to make printed sermons seem more like the version that had been preached, see Hunt, Art of Hearing, pp. 159–60. White Kennett, A Sermon… September VII. 1704…. (London, 1704), pp. 23–4; Samuel Clapham, A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797… (Leeds, n.d.), p. 23; John Tillotson, A Sermon… 27th of October… [1692] (London, 1692), p. 27.

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you here this morning’, or Thomas Lancaster, curate of Feltham in Middlesex, who welcomed ‘all of you, who are assembled here this day’.69 The popularity of printed sermons made their publication attractive to preachers. The existence of almost six hundred published thanksgiving-day sermons is evidence of the desire and ability of those clergymen who preached them to get their work into print. Their motives ranged from the attraction of having their ministry reach a wider audience, to the desire to be noticed and thus ‘get ahead’.70 However, such self-serving reasons were rarely admitted. Instead, title pages, epistles dedicatory, and other prefatory material in published thanksgiving sermons were filled with preachers’ justifications, exonerations, and defences in some variant of the form ‘Published at the Request of the Hearers’.71 The intent in providing this explanation was to avoid what one preacher called the accusation of ‘Vain-Glory, or Affected Ostentation’. It was often also an attempt to shield their work from criticism when it was exposed to a wider reading public – one minister described his congregation’s request to publish as ‘the Midwife that ushered it into the World’ and thus the responsibility for his printed sermon, ‘how mis-shapen soever it is, call it your own’.72 Some preachers ridiculed the pretext of denying any self-interest, demonstrating that practice’s prevalence. For example, Josiah Hort, rector of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, expressed his lack of understanding of ‘that Complaisence of exposing confessed Imperfections and Weaknesses to all the World for the sake of Obliging an Importunate Friend’, and concluded with his candid hope that his sermon ‘having prov’d acceptable to the Hearers,… it may do some good to those that shall read it’. The dissenting minister Joseph Standen asserted that the usual protestations about the unsuitability of a sermon for the press ‘are generally made with a very ill Grace, while (after all the Pretences We urge) no Body forces Us to appear in the World’. By 1814 the oft-repeated statements of humility surrounding publication were characterised by Thomas Langdon, a Baptist minister in Leeds, as ‘suspicious’.73 In 1698 Edmund Arwaker, rector of Drumglass in in Dungannon in Ireland, gave a more 69 70

71

72 73

Huntington, Watchword… Dec. 19. 1797, p. 5; Thomas Lancaster, The Christian Duty… A Sermon… April 23, 1789… (London, 1789), p. 6. For suggestions of reasons for preachers to publish, see for example: MacLure, Paul’s Cross Sermons, p. 143; Farooq, ‘The Politicising Influence’, p. 45; Claydon, William III, p. 87; Ippel, ‘British Sermons’, p. 193; Green, ‘Orality’, p. 243. Examples of the wide variety and forms of these apologies in the published thanksgiving-day sermons are far too numerous to cite here. Other common attributions for the push to publish were the congregation, influential or distinguished members of the congregation who heard it preached (Lord Mayor, aldermen, the monarch, parliament, aristocratic patron, etc.), ‘friends’, or simply the phrase ‘by request’ or ‘by desire’ on the title page. Timothy Cruso, The Mighty Wonders… a Sermon… January 31, 1688/9 (London, 1689), sig. A2r.; Corbin, Grateful Acknowledgment… 22d of September 1695, sig. A4r. Josiah Hort, A Sermon… 31st of December 1706 (London, 1707), sig. A2r; Joseph Standen, A Sermon Preach’d May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), sig A2r; Thomas Langdon, God Maketh Wars to Cease. A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Leeds, n.d.), [Introduction] (no pag.). Langdon is identified as a Baptist minister in Timothy Whelan (ed.), Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library (Macon, GA, 2009), p. 415.



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forthright explanation, earnestly stating he could ‘make no Apology… for sending this Discourse abroad… but that I believe the Occasion of it sufficiently Agreeable and Satisfactory’.74 Despite the numerous efforts to deny any personal inclination to publish, many preachers did reveal why they chose to have their sermons printed. One common reason was to provide a benefit to the state. Though still slightly protesting his sermon’s inadequacy, Christopher Wyvill, dean of Ripon Cathedral, yielded to the thought ‘it might be serviceable to the Present Government’. Luke Milbourne, rector of St Ethelburga’s in London, intended to ‘prevent the fatal Effects of such Men’s Malice to all Government, which is not in their own Hands’. The Anglican scholar John Parkhurst rather vaguely affirmed an intent to bear ‘a more public testimony against those seditious principles and practices, which if not timely repressed, may… end in the destruction both of Church and State’.75 For other preachers, extending the purposes and effects of thanksgiving were sufficient in themselves. Benjamin Jenks, rector of Harley in Shropshire, wanted the ‘Overflowings of my Joy and Gladness for so rich a Blessing to our Church and Nation’ to be carried beyond ‘the narrow Bounds’ of his sermon’s original reach. To the possibility of an inordinate number of sermons being published on the 1789 thanksgiving, John Newton responded that they were ‘testimonies of loyalty to the King’ and gratitude to God, which ‘can scarcely be too numerous’.76 By the late eighteenth century, another worthy motivation for publication of thanksgiving-day sermons was to distribute profits from their sale to charity. Beneficiaries included Sunday schools, the St Pancras Charity School for girls, widows and orphans of sailors who died in battle, the London Missionary Society, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, among others.77 Some encouraged the bulk purchase of sermons to distribute to the poor, including the indication of prices for multiple copies.78 There were also reasons beyond altruistic attitudes towards the government, the church, and other socially beneficial causes. Though preachers of thanksgiving 74 75

76

77

78

Edmund Arwaker, God’s King… A Sermon Preached on the Day of Thanksgiving For Peace [1697] (Dublin, 1698), sig. A2r. Christopher Wyvill, A Sermon… 22d of September, 1695 (London, 1695), ‘Epistle Dedicatory’ (no pag.); Luke Milbourne, Peace… a Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); John Parkhurst, The People’s Duty… A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, n.d.), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.). Benjamin Jenks, A Sermon… December 2. 1697 (London, 1697), ‘To the Publisher’ (no pag.); John Newton, The Great Advent. A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.). See for example: William Ellis, The Due Method… A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (Gloucester, 1784), title page; Stonard, Sermon… 5th of December, 1805, title page; Henry Mead, God’s Goodness… A Sermon Preached April 23, 1789 (London, n.d.), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.); Christopher Hodgson, A Sermon… 19th Day of December, 1797 (Peterborough, 1798), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.); Tufton Scott, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), title page, p. vii; Greville Ewing, The Duty of Christians… 29th November, 1798 (Edinburgh, 1799), title page verso. See for example, James Gardiner, The Duty of Peace… A Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713), title page: ‘Price 3d. or 20s. per Hundred’; Clapham, Sermon… 19th of December, 1797, title page: ‘Price 3d. – or Twelve for 2s. 6d.’.

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sermons would hardly promote their publications as blatant efforts to raise their profiles and places within society, there are a few instances when such self-interested motives become apparent. The title page of Abraham Wallett’s 1789 thanksgiving sermon announced it was published at his parishioners’ request ‘for his benefit’. Wallett, vicar of Clare in Suffolk, dedicated his work to the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, and told of Wallett’s efforts to secure a church living while supporting ‘a large family’. Having finally obtained a vicarage with ‘a very small income’, Wallett complained that its duties prevented him from obtaining ‘an increase of it, by the care of another church’, causing him ‘at the expense of delicacy’ to seek the Chancellor’s patronage.79 The price per copy of Wallett’s sermon was listed on its title page as 2s 6d, at least half again as much as the going rate for other quarto sermons in 1789. Though not quite so shameless as Wallett’s effort, David Brichan, Presbyterian pastor to the Scots Church in Artillery Street in London, described the printing of his 1805 sermon as an ‘attempt at publicity’ to ‘help him decide, whether he is qualified to extend his professional usefulness beyond the limits of his immediate charge’. Lawrence Blakeney, curate of Lechlade in Gloucestershire, used the final page of his sermon to solicit six ‘Young Gentlemen’ students seeking a ‘Liberal Education’ at a tuition rate of 120 guineas per year. Richard Warner, curate of St James’s in Bath, published his sermon to challenge the ideas of another minister, Edmund Poulter of Winchester, as well as to present a memorial to the recently deceased prime minister, William Pitt.80 More often publication was justified as an effort by preachers to reclaim or defend the ideas they presented from the pulpit. This could be a common concern in a period when the copying, bootleg printing, and interest in sermons was widespread.81 In 1704 the royal chaplain and soon-to-be bishop of St Asaph and later Ely, William Fleetwood, announced that he was publishing his sermon ‘against my will, without Command, and without Request’ in response to someone ‘who took this Sermon from my Mouth… to print it, without my Consent’. Fleetwood labelled this act a ‘secret Violence’ that forced him to ‘give this Sermon up’.82 Fleetwood, and his booksellers, likely had much more at stake than just his reputation: Fleetwood’s 1716 sermon on the thanksgiving day for the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion went into at least eleven editions within a year, attesting to the popularity of Fleetwood’s sermons, making them lucrative for printer, bookseller, and author alike. Though such illicit, and perhaps inaccurate, appropriation could be harmful, even more damaging were accusations that a sermon had introduced subversive or dangerous opinions. A number of thanksgiving sermons were printed to try to clear 79 80

81 82

Abraham Wallett, A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (Bury St Edmunds, 1789), p. iv, title page. David Brichan, A Sermon… Fifth of December, 1805 (London, 1806), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); Lawrence Blakeney, A Sermon, For the 13th January, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 23; Richard Warner, National Blessings… a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Bath, 1806), pp. vi, xv–xx. Caudle, ‘Preaching’, p. 250; Downey, Eighteenth Century Pulpit, p. 5; Appleby, ‘Issues of Audience’, p. 23; Morrissey, Politics, p. 64. William Fleetwood, A Sermon… September the 7th [1704] (London, 1704), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.).



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preachers from such criticisms. Abiel Borfet was dismissed from his parish of Richmond in Surrey after being reported for preaching opinions against the government in his 1696 sermon. In response to these accusations, he published it to ‘expose the same to the Publick for an Experiment… whether or no the Impartial and Indifferent Eyes of mere Strangers can easily discern that Crime… which mine own… cannot see’. Interestingly, the criticism of Borfet also led Christopher Johnson, a schoolmaster in Richmond, to print his own 1696 thanksgiving sermon (plus two others) ‘to prevent Mistakes concerning the Author’ because several persons had mistaken him for Borfet: Johnson published his sermons to distinguish his ideas from Borfet’s ‘Scandalous and Ill Notions’.83 Charles Bean published his sermon on the Union with Scotland, delivered to Oxford University, due to similar worries about his reputation. Bean told how ‘Malice, and Scandal’ had ‘forced’ his sermon into print, having been accused of criticising the government and ‘having shewn too much Indifferency, and too slight a Zeal for our Establish’d Church’. Through the publication of his 1716 sermon, Lewis Atterbury hoped that his audience ‘may become sensible, how little Reason there was for those unjust Censures which were pass’d upon it’.84 Such concerns and motivations continued throughout the period. William Nesfield’s parishioners in Durham urged him to publish his 1797 sermon in order to refute the opinion that it contained ‘inflammatory and seditious’ passages. When John Black, curate of Butley in Suffolk, became a candidate for mastership of the grammar school in Woodbridge, he ‘dragged’ his sermons ‘into the light’ to vindicate himself from ‘efforts… to calumniate my character, and represent my principles as hostile to Government’. William M’Kechnie, minister to the Scottish Presbyterian Relief Church in Musselburgh, responded to accusations that he had ‘spake seditiously’ by supposedly expressing sympathy for the French fleet and against the British victory at the Nile, deciding his ‘best mode of defence… is to publish the discourse’.85 Though misrepresentation or valid criticism of a preacher’s opinions could occur in response to any sermon, it is likely that thanksgiving-day sermons, concerned with national events where political feelings ran high, might more readily expose a minister to accusations of impropriety from those holding opinions that differed from his. Finally, it is useful to briefly discuss several characteristics of printed thanksgiving-day sermons. In regard to their physical attributes, Jennifer Farooq’s thorough analysis of Preaching in Eighteenth-Century London provides very good information on printed sermon formats in general. Farooq establishes that octavo editions of 83

84 85

Abiel Borfet, The Minister of Richmond’s Sermon [1696] (London, 1696), sig. A2r-v; Christopher Johnson, ‘The Living Lord… Sermon III… April the 16th. 1696’, in Three Sermons (London, 1696), title page, Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.). Charles Bean, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), sig. A2r; Atterbury, Sermon… June 7. 1716, sig. A2v. William Nesfield, ‘[Sermon I]’, in Two Sermons… the First on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1797 (Durham, n.d.), ‘Copy of a Letter…’ (no pag.); John Black, ‘A Sermon,… 19th. December, 1797’, in Political Calumny Refuted (Ipswich, n.d.), pp. iv, iii; William M’Kechnie, Nelson’s Victory… A Discourse [1798] (Edinburgh, 1799), p. v.

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sermons were the most popular size, followed by quarto, with size being the crucial factor in the cost of printing sermons.86 The intended audience, the length of the sermon, the preacher’s reputation and popularity, among other things, determined the choice of size format, print run, paper quality, and number of editions.87 Information collected from thanksgiving-day sermons confirm the conclusions regarding popularity of format: of the 587 sermons used in this study, 335 (57.1 per cent) were octavo editions and 241 (41.1 per cent) were quarto; there were also ten (1.7 per cent) duodecimo editions, and only one folio.88 A general sense of the cost of thanksgiving-day sermons can be gleaned from the prices listed on them over the period. In the 1710s an octavo sermon was selling for 3 to 4 pence per copy; by the 1740s the usual price was 6 pence per octavo copy, which remained the same into the early 1760s. In 1789 most octavo editions were selling for 1 shilling, a price that continued into the late 1790s, though some could be found for as low as 6 pence. By the end of the period, prices for octavo thanksgiving sermons generally ranged from 1 shilling to 1 shilling 6 pence.89

86 87

88

89

Farooq, Preaching, pp. 87–8, 90, 92–3. Farooq notes that the cost of print runs of quarto and octavo sermons both ranged from £1 to £2: p. 93. Farooq, Preaching, p. 97. See also Farooq, ‘The Politicising Influence’, p. 37; Dixon, ‘Sermons in Print, 1660–1700’, pp. 463, 466, 468; Rigney, ‘Sermons into Print’, pp. 206–7; Richardson, English Preachers, p. 120. The information of the size format of the sermons was obtained from the Eighteenth Century Collections Online database (Gale Cengage Learning – http://galenet.galegroup. com/servlet/ECCO) and the British Library Online Catalogue (http://explore.bl.uk/). It should be noted that some titles may have been produced in several size formats; however, the data here includes only the particular editions that were accessed and read for this study. This cost information is based on the limited data obtained from prices listed on copies of sermons from 1702 to 1816, with approximately 125 thanksgiving-day sermons having price information on them.

2 Thanksgiving-day sermons – purposes and meanings In 1763 Richard Richmond, vicar of Walton in Lancashire, preached a sermon in Dunkeld, Scotland on the occasion of the thanksgiving day to celebrate the treaty with France to end the Seven Years’ War. Richmond told his audience that their obedience to the directive to thank God for this peace ‘is not the unmeaning sacrifice of fools, but both a reasonable and laudable service’.1 Richmond’s statement stipulated his listeners’ and readers’ several responsibilities for the occasion: not only were Christians to properly acknowledge God’s blessings in their lives but also, as British subjects, they were to attend to a duty prescribed by their government for the advantages they had received as part of a nation that had benefited from providential dispensations. Thanksgiving days were moments when religious and secular obligations intersected in this particular way in churches in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as, at times, in British colonies throughout the long eighteenth century, when the nation as a whole was meant to come together to express its appreciation to God. In this, thanksgiving days conveyed a number of meanings, fulfilled a variety of purposes, and satisfied a series of obligations for preachers, congregations, and their government. The sermons preached and published for thanksgiving days embodied a range of ideas about the purpose and meaning of thanksgiving to those who delivered, heard, and read them. These included the historical and religious origins of thanksgiving observances, their importance to the state, and the significance of commemorating and worshipping together as a nation. Throughout a period that lasted over 125 years, the sermons reiterated similar messages about the need to properly observe these commemorations, to recognise the source of blessings, and to acknowledge what was required to have those advantages continue. The biblical texts chosen as foundations for the sermons were used as more than the basis of theological and doctrinal lessons, instead relating and contextualising contemporary circumstances within a larger, divine political and religious plan. In all of these things, Britain was depicted and positioned as a central, unique component in European and world affairs. In their elaborations on these grand considerations, the ministers who preached and published sermons perceived their efforts as speaking to issues of national interest and good, but they did so by expressing their views and opinions in a variety of ways. 1

Richard Richmond, ‘A Sermon… May 5th, 1763…’, in Sermons and Discourses… (London, 1764), p. 173.

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In this chapter, the articulation of the reasons and general motivations for thanksgiving days will act as an entryway into this sermon literature from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century in Britain. It will examine the sermons, as expressions of and exhortations to thanksgiving, presenting examples of prominent characteristics, and showing sermons as integral elements in the development of these important parochial and national occasions. This will provide the backdrop for the examination of the significant themes and ideas about British society that emerge from the thanksgiving sermons in subsequent chapters.

Thanksgiving celebrations in Britain Special religious services and national commemoration in Britain did not originate in the early modern period but instead had roots in British kingdoms back to the early medieval period; in the mid to late sixteenth century these occasions of fasting, thanksgiving, and commemoration increased as appropriate responses to events of national significance like wars, failed plots against the government, outbreaks of disease, or reprieve from such threats.2 The Elizabethan government was the first to take advantage of the growth in printing to produce consistent prayers and liturgies, making them available for use in parishes throughout England, and a half century later the political crises of the 1640s and 1650s saw over 100 occasions of public fasting or thanksgiving.3 By the early eighteenth century, the government was circulating thousands of copies of the forms of prayer to be used in nationwide services: for the 1716 thanksgiving (marking the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion), 15,000 copies of the special liturgy were printed, including 2,000 in Welsh.4

2

3 4

Natalie Mears, ‘Special Nationwide Worship and the Book of Common Prayer in England, Wales and Ireland, 1533–1642’, in Worship and the Parish Church in Early Modern Britain, ed. Natalie Mears and Alec Ryrie (Farnham, 2013), pp. 33, 36–7, 49–50, 58–71; Natalie Mears, ‘Public Worship and Political Participation in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies, 51:1 (2012), 7; Christopher Durston, ‘“For the Better Humiliation of the People”: Public Days of Fasting and Thanksgiving during the English Revolution’, Seventeenth Century, 7:2 (1992), 129; Tony Claydon, William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge, 1996), p. 101; Jeffrey Stephen, ‘National Fasting and the Politics of Prayer: Anglo-Scottish Union, 1707’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 60:2 (2009), 297, 299; Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), p. 245. Mears, ‘Public Worship’, p. 8; Mears, ‘Special Nationwide Worship’, pp. 41–2; Durston, ‘“For the Better Humiliation”’, pp. 132–4. William Gibson, The Church of England 1688–1832: Unity and Accord (London, 2001), pp. 159–60. For a detailed analysis of the various types, aspects, elements, and materials of special worship occasions, including thanksgivings, in Britain from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, see Philip Williamson, ‘Introduction’, in National Prayers: Special Worship Since the Reformation, Volume 2: General Fasts, Thanksgivings, and Special Prayers in the British Isles, 1689–1870, Church of England Record Society 22, ed. Philip Williamson, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor, and Natalie Mears (Woodbridge, 2017), pp. liii–clii; for the printing and distribution of the forms of prayer for these services, see pp. xcviii–cxxxvii in particular.



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Ministers who preached and published thanksgiving-day sermons throughout the long eighteenth century recognised these occasions as part of an even longer tradition of gratitude and atonement. Some saw the acknowledgement of divine mercies originating in very primal instincts, ‘the Voice of Nature, as well as Revelation’, ‘founded on the immutable Law of Worshipping God’, ‘in all Nations, and in every Age, the inward Sense a People have generally had of the peculiar Smiles or Frowns of Heaven upon them… manifested by outward demonstrations of Joy or Sorrow’.5 In the late eighteenth century, George Pretyman, a prebendary of Westminster who would become the bishop of Lincoln and later Winchester, traced such oblations back to their ‘heathen’ and ‘Hebrew’ origins, and, using Enlightenment terms, he described to the House of Commons the ‘reasonableness of those duties… suggested to us by the dictates of nature, and engraven upon our hearts at their original formation’.6 The practice of thanksgiving was substantiated by the Old Testament record, which abounded with ceremonies of thankfulness and repentance that the Israelites directed towards God. According to Samuel Butler, curate of Little Berwick and headmaster of Shrewsbury School, these customs then became part of Christian practice and ‘the wisdom of every established Church to impress its members collectively… to appoint days of national humiliation, or national thanksgiving, as often as circumstances seem urgently to call either for public contrition, or public gratitude’. Using the example of the apostles Paul and Silas (Acts 16: 22–25), John Hewlett, morning preacher to the Foundling Hospital in London, observed that if ‘the duty of praise and thanksgiving be so universal as to extend to every difficulty and distress, … surely its obligations will be felt with double force when we are enjoying, under divine mercy, apparent benefits and blessings’.7 Based on these traditions, monarchs and governments began to implement such occasions, and preachers noted instances of thanksgiving in the recent past. In the Massachusetts colony, Samuel Woodward, pastor of Weston, pointed to ‘our pious rulers, even from the Days of our Fathers, [who] have statedly called this obliged People, to the Duties of publick Thanksgiving’. The dissenting minister Samuel Bromesgrove, preacher to the Tabernacle in Spitalfields in London, cited the English examples of Henry V after his victory at Agincourt and Elizabeth I after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The vicar of Merrington in Durham, Thomas Knaggs, similarly praised Elizabeth who, on that latter occasion, had ‘appointed a General Thanksgiving to be made throughout Her whole Dominions, and Herself Rode to St. Paul’s Cathedral in great Pomp and Grandeur to give publick thanks to God’.8

5

6 7 8

William Marston, A Sermon… Seventeenth Day of February, 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 1; John Spademan, Deborah’s Triumph… A Sermon… June 27th, 1706 (London, n.d.), p. 12; Samuel Woodward, A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760. (Boston, MA, n.d.), p. 6. George Pretyman, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), pp. 5–10, quotation on p. 10. Samuel Butler, The Effects of Peace… A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), p. 7; John Hewlett, The Duty… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (n.p., 1798), pp. 6–7. Woodward, A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760, p. 8; Samuel Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 19; Thomas Knaggs, A Sermon… August the 19th. 1708 (London, 1708), p. 4.

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By the late seventeenth century, when England entered into a protracted period of warfare, the government expanded the use of occasions for special worship.9 The long tradition of special religious commemoration of events of national importance was well established by the late seventeenth century in England, and provided the foundation for the thanksgiving-day services that continued all the way through the early nineteenth century. A number of historians have noted the importance of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century church in delivering messages of national importance and in providing the government with a valuable vehicle of communication with its subjects, and this, combined with the popularity of sermons, made thanksgiving day services a useful means of conveying information throughout Britain.10 The sermons themselves explain a number of purposes and reasons for the thanksgiving observances: some of these relate to more general aspects of proper belief and worship, while others concern the needs of the state and the particular kinds of events being commemorated in the thanksgivings of the period. In general, the underlying purpose of thanksgiving-day services was to have people express gratitude to God for dispensing the blessings they were enjoying in their lives. Though this idea of thankfulness to God was expressed in every thanksgiving sermon, there were nuances to how this belief and obligation were interpreted. Nicholas Brady, curate of St Katharine Cree in London, ended his 1691 sermon with a summary of the ‘vast Returns of Gratitude… due upon our side; … by Praises and Thanksgivings to Almighty God, the Author and Fountain of them all… by Loyalty and Obedience to their present Majesties, … by Love and Affection one towards another, … and… by shewing Charity to our distressed Brethren’. John Tillotson, reminded his royal audience that they were gathered together ‘to pay our Solemn acknowledgements to the God of our Salvation’, with the redemptive commitment of the final words conveying both a present and a universal meaning. In his sermon before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, Samuel Barton, rector of Great Brickhill in Buckinghamshire and chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, noted ‘the many and Signal Favours of Providence’ towards England since the Reformation, and he went on to marvel at the ‘Kindness, Compassion, and Tenderness of Almighty God’ towards ‘a People so Unthankful and Insensible, many

9 10

Claydon, William III, pp. 105–10. Jennifer Farooq, Preaching in Eighteenth-Century London (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 29, 218–19; T.C. Barnard, ‘The Uses of 23 October 1641 and Irish Protestant Celebrations’, The English Historical Review, 106:421 (1991), 889; Claydon, William III, pp. 58–60, 83–4, 110; Tony Claydon, ‘The Sermon, the “Public Sphere” and the Political Culture of Late Seventeenth-Century England’, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature and History 1600–1750, ed. Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (Manchester, 2000), pp. 212, 215, 217; Ian Green, ‘Orality, Script and Print: the Case of the English Sermon c. 1530–1700’, in Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, Volume I: Religion and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700, ed. Heinz Schilling and István György Tóth (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 249–50; Mears, ‘Special Nationwide Worship’, pp. 52, 55; Mears, ‘Public Worship’, p. 5; Stephen, ‘National Fasting’, pp. 301–2.



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of whom, instead of seeking to avert his Anger, had bin courting and labouring for their own and their Countrey’s Ruine’.11 Regarding the civic purpose of thanksgiving, Richard Lucas, rector of St Stephen in Coleman Street in London, asserted that it ‘engages God to us’ and ‘will make us better Men’, which would accomplish ‘the chief Design of this Day’s Solemnity; for what makes us good, will certainly make us great and prosperous’. In contrast, John Kiddell, a dissenting preacher from Devon, argued that the intent was ‘to raise our thoughts above the immediate and visible causes of the national prosperity and glory’. In turn, Ipswich Congregational pastor Thomas Scott declared that ‘to ascribe our National Successes to God is ascribing them to their true original Cause’ but had the added effect of producing ‘a spirit of piety, reformation from wickedness, and the prevalence of social Order and Virtue among a people’.12 This emphasis on the varying significances of proper thanksgiving resonated into the early nineteenth century. In 1814, as two decades of warfare were almost at their end, Samuel Barker, curate to Burgh Castle in Suffolk, affirmed that the nation was ‘collectively bound to manifest our love and obedience to that Supreme Dispenser of events, who has repeatedly and visibly interposed to ward off from us impending and most tremendous dangers; – for preservation in the midst of ruin and desolation; … for the protection of the temples and true faith of the Lord Jehovah’.13 The ostensible reason for thanksgiving days was acknowledgement of benefits already received. However, preachers were not beyond pointing out commemoration’s additional, pragmatic purpose of building up divine credit for future succour. As William King, dean of St Patrick’s and later archbishop of Dublin, succinctly remarked, thanksgiving was ‘the securest way for continuing their present and procuring new Blessings’, and John Clowes, rector of St John’s in Manchester, similarly stated ‘gratitude for past mercies is the best security for future ones’.14 An anonymous sermon from 1696 advised that proper recognition of providential deliverances will save a people in the future, when God ‘may defend and protect them, when subtle Heads, and powerful Hands are attempting their Ruine; that when Plots, and barbarous Designs are framing against them, he may suddenly blast, and totally disappoint them’:15 the occasion of this sermon, the discovery of an assassination plot against William III, highlighted the ongoing need for God’s extraordinary knowledge to thwart secret planning by the nation’s enemies. Yet, as Queen Anne’s royal chaplain White Kennett later warned, ‘we must not presume that God will be 11

12

13 14 15

Nicholas Brady, A Sermon… 26th of November, 1691 (London, 1692), pp. 23, 25, 26; John Tillotson, A Sermon… 27th of October [1692] (London, 1692), p. 26; Samuel Barton, A Sermon… Octob. 27th 1692 (London, 1692), p. 22, 24–5. Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XII… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 7. 1710’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), pp. 233–4; John Kiddell, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1760), pp. 6–7; Thomas Scott, The Reasonableness… A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (Ipswich, n.d.), pp. 5, 10. Samuel Barker, ‘The Manifold Mercies… A Sermon… 13th Day of January, 1814’, in Two Sermons &c.. (n.p., n.d.), p. 30. William King, A Sermon… 16th of November. 1690 (Dublin, 1691), p. 1; John Clowes, A Sermon… 13th of January, 1814 (Manchester, 1814), p. 15. Anonymous, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 15.

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working daily Wonders for us… that we shall be fed with Miracles’. Instead, there was a need to make reasonable and practical preparations to defend British interests, and Kennett trusted that the ‘Wisdom of a Nation knoweth this, and cannot fail in what shall be sufficient… for its own Safety, and Increase of Honour’.16 Still, God’s necessary role in the perpetuation of British military successes was widely acknowledged. Josiah Woodward, curate of Poplar in Middlesex, styled the sure means to defeat Britain’s enemies as ‘a firm Alliance with God’, and this would be attained by ‘even more earnest and powerful Prayers’. If people honoured and served God faithfully, Humphrey Prideaux, the dean of Norwich Cathedral, assured his audience ‘that the same good Successes of our Fleets and Armies, which we now praise him for, will be continued unto us, and that from year to year we shall have new reasons for new Thanksgivings’.17 But not everyone shared this future-looking perspective on thanksgiving. In his consideration of naval victories at the end of the eighteenth century, Church of Scotland minister Alexander Fleming would lament ‘that mankind seldom sufficiently think of the value of benefits till they are deprived of them’, focussing ‘not upon what we have received’ but upon the blessings we wish to obtain’.18 Thanksgiving services emphasised God’s power and dominion over earthly events but the more immediate authority behind their implementation was a secular government. The circumstances of a temporal power enacting an obvious religious duty led to some divergence in response. Even before the laws against Protestant dissent were suspended permanently, the Presbyterian minister John Flavell took a self-assured tone: when observing the 1689 thanksgiving day, Flavell announced his having performed the ‘Duty of Thanksgiving to God, enjoyned by publick Authority, with the same alacrity that Moses his Mother obeyed the Command of Pharoah’s daughter, to nurse her own Child’. Over seventy years later, the Massachusetts pastor John Mellen echoed Flavell’s sentiments concerning the inevitability of praising God, this time for the defeat of French forces in Canada. Mellen told his congregation that if the government had ‘hindered holy Convocation and the Return of publick Praises, at such an extraordinary Season, [it] might have exceeded the civil Magistrate’s Power’.19 In contrast, the rector of St Cuthbert’s in York, George Halley, praised ‘how prudently and religiously’ Parliament had behaved in enacting the 1689 thanksgiving day ‘to pour forth our Praises to him, who hath so strangely redeemed, so miraculously deliver’d us from the hand of the enemy’. The Kent schoolmaster George Davis accepted the duty of thanksgiving ‘in obedience to

16 17 18 19

White Kennett, Glory to God… A Sermon… 22d. of Nov. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 6. Josiah Woodward, A Sermon… February 17th, 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 12; Humphrey Prideaux, A Sermon… December the 3d, 1702 (Norwich, 1703), p. 24. Alexander Fleming, The Duty of Considering… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (Glasgow, 1798), p. 1. John Flavell, Mount Pisgah. A Sermon… February xiiii, 1688/9 (London, 1689), ‘Epistle Dedicatory’ (no. pag.); John Mellen, A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), p. 9.



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the pious injunctions of Government’, and Thomas Forster, vicar of Tunstead in Norfolk, noted the ‘wisdom and piety of our superiors… [in commanding] us to assemble this day’.20 Some preachers acknowledged both the spiritual and civil compulsions. In 1759 William Fletcher, rector of St Mary’s in Dublin, confirmed that ‘We are met together this day… in obedience to the motions of our own hearts, [as well] as to the Royal Precept.’ John Mackqueen, curate of St Mary’s in Dover, similarly noted a dual authority for a 1709 thanksgiving, declaring that it ‘is from God’s Blessing and Concurrence… that our religious Queen has called us and all the nation together this Day’. Preaching before the House of Commons at St Margaret’s Westminster, the royal chaplain and dean of Gloucester cathedral, William Jane, saw the thanksgiving day as a duty ‘which the Lord calls for… and [for] which we are assembled by public authority’.21 Although Charles Whiting, rector of Ross in Herefordshire, suggested to his audience that he ‘need not say, by whose Command and Appointment… we are met here’,22 it is apparent there was some difference of opinion among his eighteenth-century contemporaries. Despite this lack of unanimity regarding the chief authority behind the activity of thanksgiving, there was a consensus that it served the purpose of defending and advancing the monarch and her/his government. The bishop of Killaloe, Nicholas Forster, told his Dublin audience that they should pray especially for people in government ‘who continually watch over our Safety and Protection, in whose Welfare each particular Member of the Community is interested, and on whose Prosperity the publick Peace and Security of a State or Nation depend’. According to Forster, this was because such prayers ‘are of more general and extensive Benefit to Men, than those we offer up for Private Persons’.23 In Newcastle upon Tyne Thomas Knaggs advised worshippers that ‘if we love our Country, … the Protestant Religion, … our Temporal Rights and the Common Good, we must from the bottom of our hearts pray for our King’s prosperity’, and Abiel Borfet dubbed each subject ‘one of the King’s Life-Guard, and accordingly to be on continual Duty in his place for the safety of his Prince’. On the thanksgiving for George III’s recovery from his debilitating illness, Samuel Hayes told St Margaret’s Westminster of the importance of this celebration because no person ‘who thinks national tranquility an object of importance, or believes that publick felicity is secured and confirmed by the virtue of those who govern, can on this occasion refuse the tribute of religious gratitude’.24

20

21

22 23 24

George Halley, A Sermon… Fourteenth of February, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 21; George Davis, A Sermon… Fifth of May, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 4; Thomas Forster, ‘Sermon IX…. For a General Thanksgiving’ [1784], in Sermons Upon Various Subjects, Volume II (Tunbridge Wells, [n.d.]), p. 226. William Fletcher, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (Dublin, 1760), pp. 11–12; John Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon… 17th of February, 1708’ [1709], in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), p. 116; William Jane, A Sermon… 26th of November, 1691 (Oxford, 1691), p. 9. Charles Whiting, A Sermon… Dec. 3. 1702 (Oxford, 1703), p. 9. Nicholas Forster, A Sermon… First of March, 1714/15 (Dublin, 1715), p. 4. Thomas Knaggs, A Sermon… 22d. of September, 1695 (London, 1695), p. 9; Abiel Borfet,

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Dissenting preachers also strongly encouraged their congregations to pray for temporal magistrates. The London Presbyterian Samuel Slater declared the ‘King’s Salvation is and ought to be the Matter of our Rejoycing; because by means thereof there is the continuance of our peace and prosperity’, and in Anne’s reign Thomas Freke dedicated the first section of his 1709 sermon to an ‘Exhortation to publick Prayers and Thanksgivings… particularly for Magistrates’, noting that ‘Prayers and Supplications are to be made in all Christian Assemblies for Kings… and for all that are in Authority… [which] has been the Custom of the Church of God in all Ages’. Vincent Alsop, the Presbyterian minister to the Tothill Street meeting in London, asserted that a ‘religious and Loyal People can never want just cause to praise, and give thanks to God for their Kings and Governors’.25 In thanksgivings throughout the eighteenth century, British subjects of all denominations were continually reminded of their government’s role in upholding and defending the nation, as well as their own duty to acknowledge their rulers as one of God’s important blessings. The need to protect the British monarch and the government was intensified by warfare or the threat of war, which were prevailing conditions for much of the period. During the 1690s William III’s military campaigns on the Continent saw an accumulation of motives for thanksgiving. The 1692 thanksgiving day consolidated the protection of the government, the preservation of the king’s life while on expedition, the discovery of an assassination plot, a naval victory, and the king’s return to England all into one occasion. Such themes were repeated throughout the reign. Men as diverse as the Quaker (later turned Anglican) George Keith and Edward Walkington, bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland would add their voices to the occasions. Keith noted the discovery of an assassination plot against William and the foiling of a French invasion as ‘matter for high Praises and Thanksgiving, that God hath graciously and wonderfully Saved and Delivered the King from the hands of bloody men that designed his Destruction, and the Ruin of these Nations’. Walkington recounted the blessings which the British kingdoms enjoyed in the late seventeenth century, including ‘Peace, Plenty, Liberty, and the most excellent constitution of Government in the world, both Civil, and Ecclesiastical’, and he asked rhetorically ‘what Nation under Heaven has such reason as we have to adore and praise the divine goodness?’26 Similar motives for thanksgivings continued into the eighteenth century. British victories in Flanders and in Spain prompted Richard Lucas to confirm ‘that the liberty of Europe, and the safety of this Nation, depend upon the Success of this War’, to which he further included ‘our Religion, our Laws’ and, somewhat cynically, ‘what seems to some Men dearer than both, the Wealth, the Places, the Power, that we contend for’. In response to the duke of Marlborough’s famous victory at

25

26

The Minister of Richmond’s Sermon [1696] (London, 1696), p. 2; Samuel Hayes, A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 14. Samuel Slater, A Sermon… 27th Day of October, 1692 (London, 1693), p. 7; Thomas Freke, Prayers and Thanksgivings… a Sermon… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), pp. 4, 5; Vincent Alsop, Duty and Interest… a Sermon… Sept. 8. 1695 (London, 1695), p. 7. George Keith, A Sermon… 16th. of the Second Month, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 26; Edward Walkington, A Sermon… October the 8th. 1695 (Dublin, 1695), p. 13.



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Blenheim in Bavaria in 1704, Nicholas Brady, now the curate of Richmond chapel in Surrey, bluntly underscored the significance of the event, telling his audience ‘we cannot be so dull and stupid as not to welcome This Mercy with a most lively Gratitiude, in which we and all of Europe are so eminently concern’d’.27 The last years of Queen Anne’s reign saw peace negotiated with France, followed by the successful succession of the first Hanoverian king of Britain, George I. This final displacement of the remaining Stuart descendants of James II and VII would have repercussions on thanksgivings to follow: as the dissenting minister Thomas Simmons observed to his congregation, this ‘happy and peaceable Accession’ came in spite of ‘the mischievous Designs and Contrivances of the King’s and their Countrey’s Enemies’. Simmons’s comment proved prophetic, as internal rebellion would break out the next year, and again three decades later. The thanksgiving day for the defeat of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion celebrated the failure of ‘Men who intended so much Mischief to their native Country, the Protestant Interest, and the whole European World… in their wicked and blind Attempt’, and the thanksgiving thirty years later likewise commemorated ‘the Suppression of the late wicked and unnatural Rebellion, threatening both us and our Children with the Destruction of our civil and religious Rights, and the Loss of every thing that is dear and valuable to Protestants and Britons’.28 By the mid-eighteenth century, global, imperial warfare would come to dominate the focus of thanksgivings. On the occasion of British forces’ victory over the French at Québec in 1759, the Massachusetts pastor Amos Adams informed his Roxbury parishioners that it ‘becomes us… when our Enemies fall, to rejoice from a good Principle… a single Regard to the general Good; the Preservation of our Lives, Properties and Religion’. For the Connecticut thanksgiving day the next year, his colonial counterpart, Mather Byles, advised his New London congregation of the obligation to properly acknowledge God’s role in the benefits they had received ‘while the Almighty so wonderfully asserts our Cause, and our Enemies flee before us; while every Express that arrives from our Frontiers, and every Pacquet that crosses the Atlantick, adds a new Article to the joyful Tidings, and a fresh Laurel to the British Brows’.29 Yet the effects and cost of war did not go unnoticed. The Nottinghamshire rector Charles Plumptre juxtaposed the ‘unequivocal’ cause of celebration for the recovery of the king in 1789 against the ‘dear-bought successes of our fleets and armies, and doubtful victories in contests of doubtful equity’.30 The periods of prolonged warfare were punctuated by interruptions, the peace settlements of the period, which allowed preachers to comment on a different and contrasting result of British international relations. Benjamin Loveling, vicar of 27 28

29 30

Lucas, ‘Sermon XII… November 7. 1710’, pp. 237–8; Nicholas Brady, ‘A Sermon… Sept. 7th. 1704…’, in Fifteen Sermons (London, 1706), p. 415. Thomas Simmons, The King’s Safety… A Sermon… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 4; Simon Browne, Joy and Trembling. A Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 6; John Barr, A Sermon… Ninth of October [1746] (Lincoln, n.d.), p. 3. Amos Adams, Songs of Victory… a Sermon… October 25, 1759 (Boston, MA, 1759), p. 12; Mather Byles, A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760 (New-London, CT, 1760), p. 12. Charles Plumptre, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1789 (Nottingham, 1789), p. 9.

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Banbury in Oxfordshire, differentiated between previous ‘meaner Occasions’ of thanksgiving and the 1713 peace with France and Spain. This latter event, ‘being at this time much more considerable, does therefore justly call for much greater degrees of holy Exultation’. Thomas Fothergill’s sermon to Oxford University in 1749 introduced the day as a thanksgiving to God for ‘restoring Peace to these Kingdoms, after He had for nine Years visited them with an expensive and bloody War’. In the 1763 celebration of the end of the Seven Years’ War with France and Spain, Gideon Castelfranc, rector of St Andrew in Kingston, Jamaica, expressed his thanks ‘for putting an end, by a glorious series of successes, to the just and necessary war we are engaged in with two of the most powerful Potentates on earth’.31 The end to the war with the nascent United States was more sombre, with the vicar of Greenwich, Andrew Burnaby, acknowledging the return of peace ‘after the late bloody and expensive war’. Edward Popham also called for his Wiltshire congregation to offer thanks to God for ‘putting an end to the late bloody, extended, and expensive War’, and added conspicuously ‘the bitter consequences of which, cannot but be deeply imprinted on every serious and considerate mind’.32 In 1814 the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars dominated discussion. Before the Lord Mayor and Alderman of London at St Paul’s Cathedral, William Tooke anticipated an impending end to the war with France by calling it the ‘greatest occasion England ever had; and in the proper consequences of it, perhaps the greatest that Europe ever had, of praise and thanksgiving’.33 Tooke can be forgiven for not having predicted that the upcoming 1814 peace would be short-lived and followed by an even more celebrated British victory and subsequent European peace settlement in the following year.

Thanksgiving participation and the nation As the examples used so far have shown, participation in thanksgiving-day services was not limited to ministers and parishes of the Church of England. Attitudes towards the occasions, the government, and the monarchy in thanksgiving sermons from dissenters are as consistently supportive as those coming from Anglican pulpits. Still, it was necessary for dissenters to confirm their loyalty. The influential London Presbyterian minister Daniel Williams published his thanksgiving sermon in the first year of Anne’s reign to disprove ‘A Report, that the Success of her Majesties Arms was not pleasing to us Dissenters’. His Congregational counterpart, Joseph Jacob, used the same occasion to remind his audience to be thankful for their ability to participate in the commemoration, ‘for the Call and the Liberty we have to keep

31

32 33

Benjamin Loveling, Peace… A Sermon… Seventh of July, 1713 (Oxford, 1713), p. 8; Thomas Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Oxford, 1749), p. 3; Gideon Castelfranc, A Sermon… Second of September, 1763 (Kingston, Jamaica, 1763), p. 7. Andrew Burnaby, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 12; Edward Popham, ‘A Sermon Preached on July 29, 1784’, in Two Sermons (Bath, 1784), p. 23. William Tooke, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 21–2.



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this Day’.34 On the thanksgiving day for the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion in 1746, the Presbyterian preacher Thomas Newman underscored the loyalty of dissenters during the uprising, ‘who set apart many more days for the same work, on behalf of our King and Country’, and in his 1763 sermon London Congregational minister John Richardson conveyed to readers his pleasure in relating ‘that the generality of the Protestant Dissenting Ministers in and about this Metropolis, on the late solemn day, were as fervent in their Thanksgivings to God, and as zealous to inspire their respective Congregations with pacific sentiments, as any of our Brethren of the Established Communion could be’.35 In 1789, the Baptist minister John Martin told his Grafton Street meeting in London that any suggestion of resisting the king’s proclamation of a public thanksgiving ‘would manifest those features of the human mind which none could admire, and discover such misconduct as few would venture to applaud’. However, Martin would stop short of reading from the special Church of England liturgy for that day, pronouncing himself and his flock ‘content with that sequestered shade into which liberty herself has led us’. In contrast, fellow Baptist John Evans ended his service in July 1814 by reading from the official service ‘for the use of the Established Church this day’.36 Though there was widespread endorsement among Anglican and dissenting ministers, the sermons do indicate that support for thanksgiving services was not unanimous. For example, in the 1790s Britain was in the midst of what would become two decades of warfare, a circumstance that lent itself to divergence of opinion and debate. In the 1797 commemoration of naval victories in the past year, William Goode, rector of St Andrew by the Wardrobe and St Ann Blackfriars in London, alluded to some who believed ‘the present situation of our affairs rather requires a fast [day], and the spirit of deep humiliation, than the dispositions implied in the [thanksgiving] exercises of this day’. Adam Gordon, rector of West Tilbury in Essex, remarked on ‘the scoffs and reprehensions of the disaffected’ towards the thanksgiving, but he discounted them as ‘Trifling’. The next year John Martin, now ministering to the Keppel Street meeting in Bloomsbury, recounted the ‘chief objections I have heard against the devotion of this day… that all war is unlawful; and… that the present war is not to be defended’, which he then proceeded to refute.37 On the thanksgiving day for the victory at Trafalgar, Robert Wood, curate of St Mary’s in Nottingham, recognised ‘there are some men who disapprove of our National Fasts, or days of humiliation… [and] others, who… do not give a cordial countenance and 34

35

36 37

Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702 (London, 1702), p. iii; Joseph Jacob, The Works of God… a Sermon… 12th of the 9th Month, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 45. Thomas Newman, Vows Made… A Sermon… Ninth of October, 1746 (London, 1746), pp. 3–4; John Richardson, The Sovereign Goodness… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), p. iii–iv. John Martin, Social Dispositions… a Sermon Preached April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), pp. 22, 12; John Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 41–2. William Goode, Mercies in Judgment: A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1797), p. 5; Adam Gordon, Due Sense… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 4n.; John Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798 (London, 1799), p. 14.

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approbation to our Feasts, or days of National Rejoicing’, and the vicar of Keynsham in Somerset, Thomas Simpson, claimed that the propriety of fast and thanksgiving days had been debated since the earliest days of the Christian Church. In 1814, George Bates opened his sermon at St Giles Cripplegate by attacking those ‘who are unwilling to join in devout thanksgivings to God for his merciful interpositions in our own behalf, and in that of our allies’, describing those hold-outs as unpatriotic and unchristian.38 Despite such stout defences, some were willing to give voice to their objections and concerns within thanksgiving-day sermons themselves. As with support for thanksgivings, disaffection also came from across denominational boundaries. Though William Nesfield, curate of Chester-le-Street in Durham, accepted the propriety of obeying monarchical authority in assembling his congregation for the 1797 thanksgiving, he went on to contend that contemplation of ‘the actual situation of this country at this particular period’ would ‘justify the doubt, whether the present day be well appointed for the purpose of general thanksgiving’. After reviewing the circumstances affecting Britain and Europe, Nesfield concluded ‘We yield no doubt, with due deference to that authority which has called us here; but no human authority can justify us, should we approach the throne of grace with hypocritical deceit.’39 In a similar vein, Richard Warner used the preface to his printed sermon to critique promotion of the war with France, laying a large portion of the blame at the feet of the ministers who participated in the national services. Warner contended that ‘injudicious exhortations delivered in our churches have… rouzed within them a sentiment of personal malignity against their enemies, which it should seem to have been the duty of a Christian priesthood rather to allay than to excite’.40 Those concerns notwithstanding, the requirement of public commemoration was the crucial element of thanksgiving-day services. While every right-thinking Christian was to be thankful in their ordinary lives, thanksgiving days were based upon the idea of the nation, as a whole, acknowledging extraordinary divine favour: the appropriate response was an open demonstration of the people’s appreciation to God for those blessings. The royal chaplain and rector of St James Westminster, Samuel Clarke, preaching in 1709 before the House of Commons at St Margaret’s, asserted that national blessings called for public response in order to ‘declare to the World our being duly sensible from what Hand they come’. Richard Chapman, vicar of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, declared ‘Publick and National’ blessings should be ‘solemniz’d too with a publick National Thanksgiving’, and William Elstob, vicar of St Swithun’s and St Mary Bothaw in London, informed his audience that thanksgiving days commemorated ‘more publick and universal’ benefits ‘what do not so much concern us in a Private Capacity, as in being Partakers of a National Blessing’.41 38

39 40 41

Robert Wood, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Nottingham, n.d.), p. 6; Thomas Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Stroud, n.d.), p. 3.; George Bates, Causes For… National Thanksgiving. A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 5–6. William Nesfield, ‘[Sermon I]’, in Two Sermons… the First on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1797 (Durham, n.d.), pp. 10, 12–13. Richard Warner, National Blessings… a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Bath, 1806), p. vii. Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 11; Richard



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Dissenting preachers also emphasised the importance of public thankfulness. As the Congregational minister Simon Reader expressed it, ‘Though our great Business, as private Persons, is to mind well the Concerns of our own Souls with God, … yet we are also bound to extend our Views to the Welfare of the Public, to be touched by its Calamities, and rejoice in every Occurrence of Providence that is favourable to it.’ Samuel Chandler, pastor to the Old Jewry dissenting chapel in London, pointed to the enhanced value of such appreciation: ‘let private Blessings be ever so great, they are nothing in Comparison [with] those which are of a publick Nature’. For another dissenting preacher, Hugh Farmer, from Walthamstow in Essex, not only were ‘Publick Thanksgivings certainly due… for Blessings of a publick Nature’, but they had the added benefit ‘to stir up thoughtless Sinners to take Notice of the Hand from whence deliverance comes from’.42 The public nature of thanksgiving days was connected to their purpose in inspiring a unified and widespread response to important events. The popularity of sermons on these national occasions allowed for messages about the country’s interests to be disseminated to a wide audience, and for that audience to become engaged with those issues.43 Thanksgiving preachers used perceptions of national interests and concerns to reinforce shared ideals and objectives. People were encouraged to consider themselves part of a single entity in their thanksgivings, ‘met to employ ourselves in [work] as a Nation’, ‘for the Dedication of a whole people’, considering ‘ourselves in the light of a connected body – of a society – of a Nation – mutually interested and sharing in the evils and adversity, the happiness and prosperity, the comforts and privileges of the Government under which we live’.44 Therefore, in addition to being ‘public’, thanksgiving worship was also ‘national’, because public blessings were of general concern. John Shower, Presbyterian pastor to the Curriers’ Hall meeting in London, used a powerful analogy to assert that ‘Publick National Deliverances and Blessings, require Solemn, Extraordinary Rejoycing and Thanksgiving from all who love the Peace and Prosperity of Jerusalem’. The Newcastle upon Tyne dissenting minister Samuel Lowthion prompted his congregation

42

43

44

Chapman, The Providence of God… a Sermon… Decemb. the 3d. 1702 (London, 1703), pp. 9–10; William Elstob, A Sermon Upon the Thanksgiving For the Victory… Near Hochstet [1704] (London, 1704), p. 3. Simon Reader, Thanksgiving and Prayer… A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763 (London, n.d.), pp. 1–2; Samuel Chandler, National Deliverances… A Sermon… October 9, 1746… (London, 1746), p. 16; Hugh Farmer, The Duty of Thanksgiving… a Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 13. Simon Reader is identified as a Congregational minister in his posthumously published The Christian’s Views and Reflections during His Last Illness (London, 1794), p. v. Pasi Ihalainen, ‘The Political Sermon in an Age of Party Strife, 1700–1720: Contributions to the Conflict’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), p. 495; Farooq, Preaching, p. 222; Mears, ‘Public Worship’, pp. 12, 22; Donald. Spaeth, The Church in an Age of Danger: Parsons and Parishioners, 1660–1740 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 7. Newman, Vows Made… Ninth of October, 1746, p. 9; Beilby Porteus, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789; third edition), p. 18; Wood, A Sermon… December 5, 1805, pp. 6–7.

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to remember ‘the uneasy and anxious apprehensions we laboured under for our country and constitution, and for everything valuable and dear to us as Britons, and as Protestants’, and Samuel Bromesgrove labelled the hearts and faces of everyone worshipping ‘entirely English’.45 This kind of categorisation also led to differentiations regarding whom the nation encompassed, and whom it did not. James Clarke, vicar of Preston in Sussex, declared ‘A National Religion can only be supported by Public Acts of National Faith. They mark the line between hypocrites and true disciples; they renovate the sacred lamp of devotion, and call forth the virtues of a kingdom.’ For a thanksgiving a century earlier, Charles Nicholetts, a dissenting minister from Hampshire, distinguished ‘Sinners’, who would not benefit from the recent peace, and the ‘Saints’, who did have ‘cause to rejoyce at this dispensation… ’tis they and only they shall have the good of it’.46 Such distinctions ultimately led to perceptions of the characteristics of proper, patriotic attitudes and sentiments towards the nation. William Corbin concluded his 1695 sermon with a series of invocations that included the litaneutical device ‘Salva Britannia, salva Ecclesia Anglicana, salvus Gulielmus’, to which he encouraged ‘every true-hearted English-man’ to respond ‘with one Voice, Amen, Amen’. As John Hewlett described it at the end of the eighteenth century, thanksgiving ‘superadds a peculiar fervor arising from the attachment which we all feel to our Native Land. The love of our country… was wisely implanted in us for the best of purposes, and is a common principle of human nature.’47 The sermons and the circumstances of the long eighteenth century provided the opportunity for this expansion of British patriotism. The traditional vehicle of the thanksgivingday sermon was used to purposefully advance new ideas about the nation, what one historian has claimed was a key element in the transition ‘from early modern religious national identities towards more modern, increasingly secular national identities’.48 By their repeated connection to the ongoing warfare of the period, the sermons also strengthened the bond created between Britons through their shared concerns of defence, conquest, and empire.49 A sense of unanimity was also found in the perception of the monarch’s participation in thanksgiving-day services and ceremonies. Within the sermons, the monarch was a symbol for Britain’s abiding and emerging interests. In praying and giving 45

46

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John Shower, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Sixteenth of April, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 3; Samuel Lowthion, The Blessings… A Sermon… (Thursday, May 5, 1763) (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1763), p. 3; Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704, p. 20. James Clarke, ‘A Sermon… December 19, 1797’, in Naval Sermons (London, 1798), pp. 207–8; Charles Nicholetts, The Great Work… a Sermon… Decemb. 2d. 1697 (London 1698), pp. 23–4. William Corbin, EΥΧAΡIΣTIA: Or, a Grateful Acknowledgment… a Sermon… 22d of September 1695 (London, 1695), pp. 21, 22; Hewlett, The Duty… December 19, 1797, pp. 14–15. Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden, 2005), pp. 14, 25. Linda Colley, ‘Britishness and Otherness: An Argument’, Journal of British Studies, 31:4 (1992), 316.



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thanks for the monarch in 1695, Vincent Alsop said ‘we pray for the Nation, and so for our selves: the prosperity and success of the King, is the prosperity of the whole Kingdom’. Two years later, Thomas Comber, dean of Durham Cathedral, called ‘A good Prince… The foundation of all the publick Blessings his people enjoy. Our happiness and his Preservation are so visibly linck’d together, that we are bound… to praise the Lord unanimously.’ In the Connecticut colony in 1760, Mather Byles found ‘the Honor and Happiness of this much-favoured Nation’ in the fact ‘that we have a devout Monarch upon the Throne, who enjoins this Practice [of thanksgiving] upon us… and recommends it by his royal Example’.50 The idea of monarch as the foundation and centre of the kingdom made for some striking allusions and imagery. James Clarke described George III ‘surrounded by his family, publicly returning thanks for those victories’ as ‘a Palladium of Faith, which ought to be displayed… that all may be assured, the pillars of British Liberty continue to rest upon a Rock, against which, the gates of hell shall not prevail’. Preaching before Parliament, the bishop of Bath and Wells, George Hooper, noted that it was Queen Anne’s piety that assembled all the parishes of England and ‘this great Assembly, the State of the whole Kingdom’ to offer thanks, the ‘Tribes of our Israel, the Princes and Elders of the People, by the Direction of their Sovereign… victorious as David, and peaceful as Solomon, come up now to the Great House of God in our Metropolis’. Like Hooper, Samuel Bromesgrove created the sense of a mutual, concurrent celebration at the very centre of, and throughout, the whole kingdom, as well as of the nation over time, by comparing the thanksgiving for the victory at Blenheim to Queen Elizabeth’s proclamation of a thanksgiving day ‘throughout the whole Realm’ for the defeat of the Armada and her ‘Dedicating the Enemy’s Ensigns to God in the Cathedral of St. Paul’s, London (the very place in which our now Gracious Queen [Anne] is paying her Devotions and her Thanks to God)’.51 This image of the monarch participating in worship and thanksgiving was used to further enhance the impression of unity of the occasion and the nation. In 1704 White Kennett advised his audience that the proper method of thanksgiving was to ‘follow the Precept and the splendid Example of our Gracious Sovereign the Queen, … assemble our selves together in the Houses of God… jointly in the Great Congregation’. From Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire, the dissenting pastor George Lambert directed his audience’s thoughts to George III ‘attended by his Family, Lords, and Commons’ going up ‘this day… to the House of the Lord’ in London.52 Preaching to the university , Benjamin Woodroffe, canon of Christ Church Oxford, described St Paul’s, where Anne would be participating in the day’s service, as ‘the great Temple of the Nation’, noting ‘that We, with several Assemblies of the whole Nation met 50

51 52

Alsop, Duty and Interest… Sept. 8. 1695, p. 6; Thomas Comber, A Sermon… Second of December [1697] (London, 1697), pp. 10–11; Byles, A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760, p. 13. Clarke, ‘A Sermon… December 19, 1797’, p. 208; George Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), pp. 4–5; Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704, p. 19. White Kennett, A Sermon… September VII. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 2; George Lambert, Britain’s King… April 23, 1789 (Hull, 1789), pp. 24–5.

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together this Day, may add our selves to this great Train’. At that same time, in that very venue, the bishop of Exeter, Jonathan Trelawny, described his thanksgiving service, with ‘the Queen, attended with Her Two Houses’ in the audience, as ‘in effect, the Act of the whole Kingdom’.53 In his London parish over eight decades later, John Newton opened his sermon by pronouncing ‘Our beloved King is now on his way, amidst the acclamations of an affectionate people, to St. Paul’s Cathedral’, giving a further sense of the grandeur of the occasion by depicting the scene as ‘a joyful sight to thousands’.54 For Thomas Belsham an awareness of the throngs of people that accompanied a royal thanksgiving day procession created a different effect: he delivered his July 1814 thanksgiving sermon to his London Unitarian congregation on the Sunday preceding the actual official celebration, concerned that the crowds who gathered for the event would make it ‘impracticable to open the Chapel in Essex Street… on the Thanksgiving Day’.55 Though Belsham’s approach was pragmatic, the intent of thanksgiving days was to create a sense of unanimity by having every congregation in the whole kingdom simultaneously involved in the services. In Hertfordshire, William Goldwin, citing Acts 2: 46, declared ‘we are with one accord in the temple’, offering up ‘a Sanctified Heart, and the calves of our Lips’ in order to ‘send up our joint-petitions to the Throne of Mercy for our publick and private Benefits, imploring Blessings upon the Ecclesiastical and Civil State’. Giving a very brief overview of all of the ‘deliverances’ the nation had received since the Reformation, Giles Pooley, vicar of St Leonard Shoreditch in London, affirmed that ‘our Nation, at least, the greatest Part of it’ had always given thanks for these ‘with Joy and Chearfulness, without any Discontent, Repining or Reluctancy, with one Heart, and one Voice’. To Ebenezer Latham, a dissenting minister in Derbyshire, the thought of ‘a whole Nation in the raptures of joy and gratitude, giving thanks to our great Preserver’, was ‘enough to inspire us to the warmest devotion, and awaken every tender passion’.56 The depiction of the entire kingdom worshipping together for the same purpose had a powerful resonance in many of the thanksgiving sermons. In his sermon,

53

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Benjamin Woodroffe, A Sermon… Decem. 3. 1702 (Oxford, 1703), p. 2; Jonathan Trelawny, A Sermon… Nov. 12. 1702 (London, 1702), p. 14. Jennifer Farooq has described royal participation in thanksgiving and fast day commemoration in Queen Anne’s reign. Processions of dignitaries would parade through London streets to St Paul’s and civic officials would accompany the queen to the cathedral. This would take several hours and attract large crowds. When the service was over, popular festivities such as bonfires would take place: Farooq, Preaching, pp. 222–3. John Newton, The Great Advent. A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 1. Newton commented that many of his parishioners might have preferred to be spectators at the royal procession, but went on to say that the attendance at his service was large. He suggested that the absentees might be those ‘residing in or near the line of procession, [who] could not attend, with propriety, nor, perhaps, with safety’: p. 2. Thomas Belsham, The Prospect… a Thanksgiving Sermon… July 3, 1814 (London, 1814), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.). William Goldwin, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 31st of Decemb. 1706 (London, 1707), p. 5; Giles Pooley, A Sermon… June 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 4–5; Ebenezer Latham, Great Britain’s Thanks… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (Derby, 1746), p. 4.



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Robert Wright, rector of St John at Hackney, presumed ‘the whole Nation are at This Time… lifting up their Hearts in their publick Assemblies of Worship’, and Charles Plumptre vividly portrayed ‘a nation from one end of it to another, from thronged metropolis to the most remote corner of it… together with one voice praising God for an act of deliverance’, which he supposed ‘must be a pleasant sight to Angels… and acceptable to God Himself ’.57 In Ireland, William Knox, bishop of Killaloe, told how ‘On this day and at the same instant, have all the inhabitants of a great and populous Empire, prostrated themselves before the throne of the Almighty’, and in Oxford Thomas Fothergill found it ‘wonderfully pleasing’ to imagine ‘many Thousands… a whole People… breathing forth at the same Hour from all Quarters their thankful Acknowledgements to the Deity’.58 In such imagery, thanksgiving sermons attempted to bolster the idea of a united nation and empire, and create the impression of a common set of values, goals, struggles, and blessings shared by all British people.

Thanksgivings, biblical texts, and Britain The emphasis thanksgiving-day services placed on the deliverances, victories, and providential assistance Britain received from God encouraged contemplation about the nation’s current place in the divine plan, which included anchoring the nation upon a biblical foundation. This had been extremely important to the British Protestant mindset since the Reformation, and it continued into the eighteenth century.59 It was particularly evident in the biblical texts that thanksgiving-day preachers chose and used, and around which they constructed the themes of their sermons. This selection and application of the texts was extremely important: the printed sermons clearly identified and quoted them, almost always at the top of the first page of the sermon, and they usually included an explanation of the appropriateness of the

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Robert Wright, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 8; Plumptre, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1789, pp. 8–9. William Knox, A Sermon,… 29th of November, 1798 (Dublin, 1798), p. 2; Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… April 25. 1749, p. 3. Patrick Collinson, ‘Biblical Rhetoric: The English Nation and National Sentiment in the Prophetic Mode’, in This England: Essays on the English Nation and Commonwealth in the Sixteenth Century (Manchester, 2011), pp. 170–1; Kevin Killeen, ‘Veiled Speech: Preaching, Politics and Scriptural Typology’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), pp. 396, 401; Mary Morrissey, ‘Scripture, Style and Persuasion in Seventeenth-Century English Theories of Preaching’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53:4 (2002), 694; Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, ‘Eighteenth-Century Sermons and the Age’, in Crown and Mitre: Religion and Society in Northern Europe Since the Reformation, ed. W.M. Jacob and Nigel Yates (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 105–6, 109; Walsham, Providence, pp. 287, 289; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘Patriotism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century English and Prussian War Sermons’, in War Sermons, ed. Gilles Teulié and Laurence Lux-Sterritt (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009), pp. 110–13; Anthony Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford, 2003), p. 77.

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passage, as well as its biblical context. For example, in 1715 the Presbyterian minister Samuel Wright identified the last clause of 1 Peter 2: 17 (‘Honour the king’) as the text for his sermon on the thanksgiving day to celebrate George I’s peaceful succession, but went on to spend the next four pages describing his deliberations over at least five other passages he had considered but rejected.60 William Mavor, vicar of Hurley in Berkshire, reminded his 1797 audience of the contemporary pertinence of the biblical text, instructing them to not let ‘the distance of time and place weaken the force of the Scripture precepts, nor lead us to suppose that we were not equally in the contemplation of the Prophets and Apostles with those to whom they immediately addressed themselves, and equally called upon to profit by their promises, their invitations, and their threatenings’.61 The pattern of the biblical texts used for thanksgiving-day sermons from 1689 to 1816 is telling. Out of 587 sermons from this period used in this study, 517 (88.1 per cent) had an Old Testament passage for their main text;62 273 (46.5 per cent of the total sermons) were from the Psalms. After this, the next most frequently used book was Isaiah (forty-five sermons; 7.7 per cent), followed by Deuteronomy (twenty-four; 4.1 per cent) and 2 Chronicles (twenty-one; 3.6 per cent). The sermons that used New Testament texts (seventy) were 11.9 per cent of the total; Luke and Romans were the New Testament books most frequently used (eleven times each, or 1.9 per cent of the total sermons from each book). The overwhelming preference for Old Testament texts by thanksgiving preachers can be explained by several factors. As noted previously, the period, and the thanksgivings associated with it, was often concerned with war, a theme that is abundantly more prevalent in the Old Testament. However, more significantly, and beyond this convenience of martial context, the main focus of Old Testament histories and prophecies centred on God’s relationship with the ancient Israelites as a special nation and a favoured people: this spoke to preachers’ perceptions of contemporary Britain. One of the ways in which biblical accounts of the Israelites provided a fitting example for eighteenth-century Britons was as a source of lessons to a people who saw themselves specially singled-out and protected by God. The bishop of Chichester, John Buckner, found ‘no national event, of either sorrow or joy… that can prescribe to a people humiliation or gratitude, to which an apposite application may not be found in the History of the Jews’. William Hawtayne saw in his text (Psalm 92: 4) an occasion when ‘Our Pious King, as Holy David did on his Subjects, calls upon us now to joyn with him in Songs of Praise and Thanksgiving to God.’63

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Samuel Wright, Of Honouring the King. A Sermon… Jan. 20. 1714/15 (London, 1715), pp. 3–7. All biblical quotations will be taken from the Authorised (King James) Version translation. When verse numbers cited in the sermons differ from this version, or are in error, they will be silently amended. William Mavor, The Duty… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Oxford, 1798), p. 6. Mavor’s text on this occasion, celebrating the naval victories of 1797, was Isaiah 42: 10 – ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song… ye that go down to the sea… the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.’ See Appendix C. John Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 5; William Hawtayne, A Sermon… Twentieth of January, 1714 [1715] (London, 1714), p. 7.



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Samuel Clarke’s use of Psalm 145: 2 was because the things God had done for Britons were ‘no less wonderful and remarkable, than for the Jews of old; and it becomes Us to praise him after the same Pattern’. Likewise, Richard Welton, rector of the London parish of St Mary Whitechapel, justified his use of the Psalms (107: 8) by explaining the ‘great share of which we have been Partakers in the strange Indulgence of Almighty God, has laid as great an Obligation upon us to join our Voices with Holy David’.64 Applications of Old Testament history to Britain were largely connected to the themes of deliverance, providential blessings, and the obligations of proper gratitude and thanksgiving. Of his use of Psalm 124: 6–8 (‘Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth….’), William Talbot, dean of Worcester Cathedral and later successively bishop of Oxford, Salisbury, and Durham, maintained ‘if our Deliverance be as great as that of Israel’s, ’twill be but fit that we should join with them in Returns to God, and make the same Acknowledgments of it’. Similarly, Thomas Goddard, a canon of Windsor, found the opening lines of Psalm 126 ‘applicable to the State of the Church of God in this Kingdom since the Reformation’, and the nation could be ‘glad with David, and partake of his holy Joy… for their Deliverance’. In 1705, with England involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and with party conflict emerging as a major political issue, Francis Higgins, prebendary of St Michael’s in Dublin, provided the biblical context of 1 Chronicles 16: 34–36 (a thanksgiving prayer by David) and pronounced it ‘very Applicable to… our present circumstances in relation to God’s Goodness and Mercy to us’.65 After the defeat of the second Jacobite rebellion, the dissenter John Allen explained his use of the text ‘’rejoice with trembling’ (Psalm 2: 11, latter half ) as suitable for a thanksgiving when joy and unease were so closely related, a sentiment echoed by the London Presbyterian minister Thomas Tayler who used the same text in 1798.66 In the early years of the Napoleonic wars, Thomas Bowen, minister of Bridewell Hospital in London and chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London, comforted his audience at St Paul’s with Deuteronomy 31: 6 (‘Be strong and of a good courage…’), adding that when ‘the happiness of a whole community is at stake, when difficulties perplex, and dangers threaten a Nation, then it is, that men should neither fear, nor be dismayed’. On the same thanksgiving in 1798, William M’Kechnie focussed instead upon the positive implications of Nelson’s victory at the Nile, asserting ‘Our nation, too, like ancient Israel, is assembled this day, to express thankfulness to God, for that manifestation of his providential goodness’; tellingly, M’Kechnie used a text from Moses’s song of celebration after the destruction of Pharaoh’s forces in the Red Sea (Exodus 15: 6).67 64 65

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Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710 (London, 1710), p. 5; Richard Welton, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 4. William Talbot, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 8; Thomas Goddard, The Mercy of God… A Sermon… 7th of November, 1710 (London, 1710), p. 4; Francis Higgins, A Sermon… 28th of August… [1705] (Dublin, 1705), pp. 5–6. John Allen, Rejoice With Trembling. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 4; Thomas Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 1. Thomas Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798

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Such convinced belief in God’s providential interventions on Britain’s behalf provided consolation and assurance. Explicitly reinforcing the meaning of his text (Psalm 66: 13–14), itself marking ‘a national deliverance… a new joy created in the heart of a kingdom' for Israel and King David, Thomas Newman emphasised the importance of sincere thanksgiving for the nation in 1746, ‘called to it by Providence, and by our Prince, on account of a national deliverance wrought for us by the divine hand, demanding our most liberal and fervent acknowledgements’. In celebrating the victory at Trafalgar, Thomas Stevenson, curate of St John’s in Blackburn in Lancashire, found in Psalm 44: 5–8 (‘Through thee we will push down our enemies…’) ‘sentiments and feelings congenial’ to those of the present commemoration.68 For the Presbyterian Alexander Spark, minister of the Scots Church in Québec, his text (Psalm 30: 1) gave the example of David, a ‘pious Prince’, who gathered his subjects together to give thanks ‘for the success, which by the favour of Providence, had recently been obtained over his Enemies’, an occasion ‘we are, [on] this day, assembled… and invited to the like pious duty’. Perhaps sensitive to the relative recentness of the acquisition of Québec and the infancy of British allegiances there, Spark added the further moral that ‘good and loyal subjects are those, who duly estimate the national blessings, which they enjoy, and feel gratitude to their Prince and Rulers, by whose kindness and care, they are secured to them’.69 Allusions within the sermon texts to God’s relationship with the Israelites were instructive as lessons. However, some preachers took Old Testament commitments much further. Not just historical examples, sometimes these scriptural references were presented as direct analogies to the messages and context of the day. Using Psalm 31: 23 as his text, the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, John Hough, noted the conditions of David’s kingdom, and proclaimed ‘We cannot but observe how applicable they are to our selves and our own Circumstances.’70 John Evans, Presbyterian minister of Wrexham and of Ewell in Surrey, likened Britain’s interactions with France in the early eighteenth century, and particularly the victory at Blenheim, to Israel’s under Deborah, which ‘had been long harass’d by Neighbouring Prince, Jabin King of Cannan; but… he is overcome in a signal Battle’; Evans used part of Deborah’s thanksgiving song as his text (Judges 5: 12 – ‘Awake, awake, Deborah… arise Barak…’), and further equated the duke of Marlborough to Deborah’s victorious general Barak.71

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(London, 1798), p. 10; William M’Kechnie, Nelson’s Victory… A Discourse [1798] (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 21–2. Newman, Vows Made… Ninth of October, 1746, pp. 5, 9; Thomas Stevenson, A Sermon… December 5 1805 (Blackburn, 1805), p. 7. Alexander Spark, A Sermon… the 21st April, 1814 (Québec, 1814), pp. 4, 5. John Hough, A Sermon… 22d of November, 1709 (London, 1709), p. 5. John Evans, A Sermon… Septemb. 7th. 1704 (London, 1704), pp. 3–5, quotation on p. 3. Other comparisons between Marlborough and Barak are found, for example, in: John Grant, Deborah and Barak… A Sermon… Seventh of September, 1704 (London, 1704), pp. 3, 5, 7; Spademan, Deborah’s Triumph… June 27th, 1706, p. 16; Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704, p. 8.



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The events of George I’s succession to the British throne supplied further evidence of correspondence between early eighteenth-century Britain’s and ancient Israel’s monarchical circumstances. On the thanksgiving for the king’s accession, the dissenting minister William Roby set out to describe God’s actions to place David as king of Israel (2 Samuel 5: 12) and then to ‘shew how remarkably Divine Providence has appear’d in securing the Protestant Succession, and in bringing His present Majesty to the Throne’. Vicar of Horley and rector of Newdigate in Surrey, Samuel Billingsly’s particular choice of words in introducing his text (Psalm 18: 49–50) as ‘composed by David, some time after he was in Possession of the Kingdom, … [had] baffled and slain the Pretender Ishobeth, … [and] suppressed the unnatural Rebellion of Absolom, and the Crown was fixed upon his head’ was no coincidence in the aftermath of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion. For John Jenings, vicar of Gamlingay and Great Gransden in Cambridgeshire, 2 Samuel 18: 28 ‘does happily correspond with the glad and joyfull Tydings to the pious K. George, upon a Parallel Deliverance and Salvation sent from God… by giving Victory and Success… over a large Crew of Wicked and Desperate and Confederated Rebels’.72 The wars of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries supplied further opportunity to compare Britain’s circumstances to those of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah under David. In the context of Zechariah 12: 8 (‘In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem…’) the dissenting minister Thomas Rutledge described how Israel and Judah were outnumbered and threatened by invasion but protected by God, and then asked ‘hath he not acted in a similar manner to us, as a people… While Heaven hath permitted them to deluge other countries with blood, to ravage, to rob, to plunder kingdoms and states, … hath he not preserved Great Britain from their sacrilegious hands[?]’ William Goode applied his text (Psalm 101: 1) to liken ‘Our situation’ to that of David: ‘Our enemies, like his, are many and malicious, desirous of sinking us into despondency, with insinuations of invincible power. Our sins afford cause for deep humiliation, and great fear.’ More than a simple comparison, Goode’s assertion powerfully declared the nation’s prophetic and spiritual pre-eminence: ‘it is the glory of Britain that to it in a peculiar sense belong the oracles of God, the ordinances and institutions of his worship, and the light of his salvation’.73 More succinctly, in 1802 William Williams, curate of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, claimed that the prophetic meaning of his text (Zephaniah 3: 14–15) ‘will apply to the true Israel of God, and we may fairly accommodate them to our present state and feelings’.74 These last illustrations demonstrate applications of sermon texts that are more than just examples, instead implying that Britain was essential to the unfolding 72

73

74

William Roby, A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), pp. 6–7; Samuel Billingsly, A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 5–6; John Jenings, K. George’s Victory… A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 4. Thomas Rutledge, God the Defence… A Thanksgiving Sermon… 5th of December 1805 (London, 1806), pp. 3–6, quotation on p. 6; William Goode, The God of Salvation, a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, 1805), pp. 2, 8. William Williams, The Removal… A Thanksgiving Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (High Wycombe, 1802), p. 6.

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divine plan for the world, that Britons were, in fact, God’s favoured people. Such beliefs are evident in thanksgiving sermons throughout the period. In 1709 Edward Chandler declared that ‘God’s Providence is not restrained to the Jews alone; and what happen’d to them, is a Type o[f ] the continual care that God exercises in behalf of his Church in all Ages… the very Instances the Psalmist urges [107: 42–43], do demonstrate in our Days and our Country’.75 Chandler asserted that the central intent of the biblical message was being carried out in his day, in and for Britain itself. In this typology, just as David was a type of Christ, it was the Israelites that were a type of Britain, and Britain would fulfil God’s design for the world. After setting out his text (Psalm 98: 1–3), George Harvest, curate of Thames Ditton in Surrey, reminded his audience that the Jews had been God’s ‘peculiar, chosen, People’ governed ‘by an extraordinary Providence… continually making himself manifest to them, by wonderful Acts of Favour and Goodness’. Harvest then asserted ‘the Words of my Text are justly applicable to US also; particularly in our present Circumstances’. Later in his sermon Harvest continued on this line of argument: ‘Whoever reads the History of Our Nation reads, as I may truly say, the History of another Israel: The History of a Rebellious and Ungrateful, and yet a Favourite and Beloved People.’ Britain had also ‘been delivered from our Egyptian Bondage, the Slavery and Oppressions, of Civil and Religious Tyranny’; it was ‘a Land of Canaan… as much distinguished from all other Lands, by the signal Blessings of Providence, as ever the Canaan of the Jews was by its Milk and Honey’.76 Though not quite as extensive as Harvest’s assertions, the implication was just as clear when John Warden, the Church of Scotland minister in Perth, pronounced the blessings Britain had received as ‘incomparably greater’ than those bestowed on the Jews, and when he ‘transposed’ his reading of Deuteronomy 33: 29 to read ‘Happy, greatly happy, art thou, O Britain!’ Also clear was Richard Lucas’s similar substitution (‘Happy art thou, O England, …’) forty years earlier.77 In 1798 Alex Black, a Church of Scotland minister in Musselburgh, compared the ‘kind of interposition of a superintending providence’ on Britain’s behalf to that which the Israelites had received. Black proclaimed that the words of his chosen text (Psalm 85: 1 – ‘Lord, thou hast been favourable unto thy land…’) ‘apply to us, as well as to the Jews’, describing ‘with a peculiar force, our circumstances, as a nation highly favoured of God’.78 These preachers’ interpretations of scripture presented an opinion of Britain’s standing as God’s chosen nation, one which could not help but to affect the context within which their audiences understood the events they were commenting upon.

75 76

77

78

Edward Chandler, A Sermon… Twenty-Second Day of November [1709] (Worcester, 1710), p. 3. George Harvest, ‘Protestant and Jewish Blessings Compared. A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746’, in A Collection of Sermons (London, 1754), pp. 128, 140, 143 (emphasis in the original). John Warden, The Happiness… a Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Edinburgh, 1749), p. 7; Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 216. Alex Black, National Blessings… a Sermon… November 29. 1798 (Edinburgh, 1798), p. 4.



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Thanksgiving and the sins of Britain Despite often reminding the nation of its blessed status, admonitions and rebukes for its sinfulness were also a ubiquitous refrain from thanksgiving preachers. Some sermons, like Simon Browne’s The Guilt and Provocation of Taking Encouragement to Sin, from the Mercies of God (1710), were almost wholly devoted to reproving people for their ungodly behaviour in the face of providential favour. Some preachers devoted sections to these issues, while others simply referred to them in passing. Very few ignored them entirely. Britain’s sins were ‘of the deepest dye’ and Britons were ‘a sinful, an ingrateful, a provoking People… who have trampled and perverted most endearing Favours of Heaven’.79 Robert Drummond, the bishop of St Asaph, warned that God’s benefits would be lost ‘when the body of the people is corrupt… the power and the glory of the nation moulders away by degrees; and the Constitution… is continually depraved and weakened by the prevalence of vice’. With recent military campaigns in mind, the Presbyterian minister John Howe advised of ‘more Noble Conquests to be obtain’d’ over adversaries ‘worse than Foreign Enemies: Prophaneness in Manners, and Pernicious Doctrines in Religion that… Expose us to a Fearful War with Heaven’.80 Special attention was paid to how sins affected the entire community. Alexander Spark claimed that the hardships that had befallen Britain and its empire were due to the sins of its people because ‘the aggregate of the nation is made of individuals, hence the vices of individuals have a certain influence on the national character… even private vices are public and national injuries’. Worse still, Robert Wright contended that, unlike individuals, nations could only be punished for their sins in the present, not in the afterlife; because of this, ‘whenever any sore Calamity befals a Nation, we cannot err in ascribing it to the Sins of That Nation, and the Wrath of God’s Venegeance poured out upon it’. Jonathan Trelawny told Queen Anne and her Parliament that sin ‘is a sort of Treason’ which ‘diffuses it self with a contagious Influence, on our Prince, and our Country’ and sin brought about ‘Over-turnings, and changes Governments’.81 While the application of Old Testament scripture told the nation of its special place in the divine plan, it could also provide cautionary tales, notices that providence and divine favour could be squandered with the lack of suitable conduct and demeanour on the part of the nation. Simon Browne, a dissenting minister in Portsmouth and later London, did find his nation ‘singled out like Israel of old’ but also ‘our carriage towards the Author of our Mercies, too like the behaviour of that ungrateful People’ returning ‘Insults and Provocations, for his unmerited and unexpected deliverances of Us’. In this way, according to the Anglican chaplain

79 80 81

John Bowden, A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 27; Anonymous, A Sermon… February 14. 1688 [1689] (London, 1689), p. 18. Robert Drummond, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 20; John Howe, A Sermon… Decemb. 2. 1697 (London, 1698), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.). Spark, A Sermon… the 21st April, 1814, pp. 16–17; Wright, A Sermon… April 25, 1749, pp. 4–5; Trelawny, A Sermon… Nov. 12. 1702, p. 15.

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Joseph Sharpe, the ‘people of the Jews are held forth as an awful warning and lesson to all generations of the abused mercies of Providence’.82 The dissenting minister John Norman said that his text (Deuteronomy 28: 7 – ‘The Lord shall cause thine enemies… to be smitten…’) contained ‘a great Blessing promised to the Israelites’ but added, pointedly, ‘if they behaved themselves answerably to what God required of them’. Abraham Rees saw his text (Isaiah 5: 4 – ‘What could have been done more to my vineyard…’) as a reminder of the ‘Jewish nation’ falling into sins and vices until they were destroyed, which conveyed ‘instruction and warning to us… in our collective and national capacity’.83 If Britain allowed its deliverances to weaken moral standards, James Gardiner, rector of St Michael, Crooked Lane in London, warned that it would ‘cause God to be weary of us… to let loose our Enemies upon us again… and quench the Light of our Israel’. Likewise, John Burton, vicar of Mapledurham in Oxfordshire, claimed that Britons’ behaviour ‘has too nearly resembled that of the men of Israel: We have been a wicked and ungrateful people, unmindful of our deliverer, and the ends of our deliverances: We have perverted our Liberty into Licentiousness, and disgrac’d the purity of our Reform’d Religion by the degeneracy and corruption of our manners’.84 Despite being for occasions of thanksgiving, some sermons took on the tone of a jeremiad. Observing the faults of the nation, John Collinges, a Presbyterian minister in Norwich, wondered how could ‘a pure and Holy God spare so prophane, so vile, and sinful a People as this’; he hoped that through ‘Fasting and Prayer, and bitter mourning… the bitter Cup may possibly pass over’. John Grant, vicar of the London parish of St Dunstan’s in the West, announced ‘our National Sins bode nothing else but common Destruction and Ruin to us’, and almost a century later William Agutter, chaplain to the Asylum for Female Orphans, was still lamenting that ‘God only knows where these calamities are to end… If moral improvement is the end intended, the prospect is dark indeed.’ Even after the victory at Trafalgar, according to Thomas Simpson, the states of religion and morals in Britain ‘are of such a nature as to provoke God to pour upon the land the largest vial of his wrath’, and Simpson spent several pages listing the sins of the nation.85 Like Simpson, other preachers throughout the period enumerated the nation’s and its people’s sins. Common among these transgressions were cursing and swearing, drunkenness, ingratitude towards God, irreligion, and corruption. However, preachers had differing perspectives, identifying particular sins or describing them in

82 83

84 85

Simon Browne, The Guilt and Provocation… a Sermon… Nov. 7. 1710 (London, 1711), pp. 3–4; Joseph Sharpe, A Sermon… July the 7th, 1814 (Macclesfield, 1814), p. 19. John Norman, A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 5; Abraham Rees, The Privileges… A Sermon… 29th of November 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 5–7, quotation on p. 7. James Gardiner, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… April 16th. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 13; John Burton, The Expostulation… A Sermon… Oct. 9. 1746 (Oxford, 1746), p. 4. John Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9 (London, 1689), pp. 20–1; Grant, Deborah and Barak… Seventh of September, 1704, p. 15; William Agutter, Deliverance… A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 14; Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805, p. 9.



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particular ways. In 1689 John Flavell found England ‘swarming’ not only with drunkards but also ‘Persecutors, Formalists in Religion, yea, Atheists and Scoffers at all practical and serious Piety’. Fellow dissenter Matthew Mead also denounced atheism and persecutors, but went on to criticise parents and masters for not catechising their families and servants.86 The London Baptist minister John Piggott detected the downside of providential blessings, noting that Britain’s physical separation from warfare on the Continent ‘has render’d us stupid, and our Plenty has been abus’d by Excesses’. While Hugh Farmer acknowledged that Britons should ‘be jealous of our Liberties’, he cautioned that ‘Licentiousness has often occasioned the Loss of them’. Moulding his message to his audience, Richard Hardy’s sermon before the University of Cambridge stressed the importance of their duty, as educators of the nation’s youth, to guard against immorality.87 In the aftermath of the French Revolution, Thomas Middleton, rector of Tansor in Northamptonshire, predicted the ‘Decline of Public Spirit’, the advance of ‘wild speculation and political experiment’, and the growth of apostasy could lead to Britain’s ruin. Among the threats the Methodist preacher Thomas Taylor identified were ‘plays, novels and romances’ that formed a majority of the collections in ‘our circulating libraries’.88 Concerns over sinfulness and proper behaviour also were directed towards the thanksgiving days themselves. The intent of a thanksgiving was to acknowledge God’s role in events that had benefitted the nation and, as such, it was essential that this recognition be appropriate in order to ensure that divine care and support would continue. As Thomas Bradbury, a Congregational minister in Stepney, summarised it, ‘Follow every Victory… with Prayer and Faith: Do nothing upon these occasions unworthy of the Glory you bear at present, or that you expect hereafter.’89 It was important, given the predominant theme of many of the thanksgivings of the period, to properly deal with issues of war and victory. Thomas Knaggs declared that ‘it is not agreeable to the Spirit of the Christian Religion to delight in Blood, or pray for the Destruction of our Enemies… We Praise God only this Day for our Preservation and Deliverance.’ Similarly, Birmingham Baptist minister Samuel Pearce advised ‘though we dare not rejoice at the misery of others, we ought to be thankful for the security we enjoy ourselves’.90 In regard to thanksgiving church services, there were several major elements that preachers concerned themselves and their audiences with. Attendance and involvement needed be carried out cheerfully and voluntarily, ‘that it may appear we are

86 87

88

89 90

Flavell, Mount Pisgah… February xiiii, 1688/9, p. 19; Matthew Mead, The Vision of the Wheels… January 31. 1688/9 (London, 1689), pp. 68–9. John Piggott, A Sermon Preach’d the 7th of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 30; Farmer, The Duty of Thanksgiving… 9th of October, 1746, p. 20; Richard Hardy, A Sermon… Dec.19, 1797 (Cambridge, 1798), pp. 13–14. Thomas Middleton, The Blessing… a Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (Norwich, 1798), pp. 13–17; Thomas Taylor, Britannia’s Mercies… Two Discourses… November 29, 1798 (Leeds, 1799), p. 27. Thomas Bradbury, A Sermon… Novemb. 7. 1710… (London, 1710), p. 13. Knaggs, A Sermon… August the 19th. 1708, p. 11; Samuel Pearce, Motives to Gratitude: a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Birmingham, n.d.), p. 19.

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not forc’d to the Work of this Day’, ‘a noble Offering from His Free-Will, Praise and Gratitude of Choice, and not of Necessity’. The proper attitude was to be sincere, ‘hearty, zealous and universal, not meerly a matter of course and formality, but accompanied with real influence, and impression upon our hearts’. And, of course, celebrants needed to properly ‘recollect in your grateful Breasts… each particular Blessing, which, as Protestants and Britons, we have received’.91 To Simon Paget, the rector of Truro in Cornwall, the most satisfying affirmation of a suitable thanksgiving was the ‘full Congregation we had at Church, and how devoutly every one performed the Publick Service for the Occasion’.92 Improper deportment in thanksgiving ceremonies was also a concern. This could take the form of negative feelings, discontent, or insincerity. John Mackqueen counselled worshippers not to ‘mingle Murmurs with Songs of Triumph, nor suffer any Languishments or Vexations to cloud the Joy of the Day’. William Marston, chaplain to the duke of Marlborough and the vicar of Redbourn in Hertfordshire, told ‘well-wishers to the Common Cause’ that ‘no Sullen Brow, or Discontented Look should be seen, no Murmering, or Complaint, should be heard this Day’.93 Unsuitable performance of thanksgiving devotions could take a number of forms. It could be the ‘base and horrid Ingratitude of some’ who were not properly thankful, or it could be rejoicing that took the form of ‘Vain-Glorious boasting, Luxury or Intemperance’. There was even concern that the participation of unrighteous people in thanksgivings ‘would be some Kind of Detraction’: while God ‘might Pardon and accept’ the praise of the ‘Ignorant’, that of ‘Ill Men is Scandal’.94 In his sermon for the thanksgiving for the Trafalgar victory, Hugh Worthington, pastor to the dissenting congregation at Salters’ Hall in London, spent four pages describing the forms that improper worship could take, including hatred, pride, joy in war, and overconfidence. William Nesfield worried that thanksgiving be ‘actuated by the true spirit of christian benevolence, as well to our enemies as to ourselves’ and warned against ‘ambitious views of conquest… pride and malice’. In his 1708 sermon, delivered before Oxford University, Henry Stephens, a fellow of Merton College, cautioned that imperfect or insincere acknowledgement and repentance caused God to hold off ‘for a time to give the last finishing to the Martial labours of our Great General, till we become more thro’ly sensible of, and thankfull for his illustrious Victories’.95 In 1816, the Unitarian minister Thomas Jervis railed against the 91

92 93 94

95

Anonymous, Nahash’s Defeat… A Sermon… August 19. 1708 (London, 1708), p. 22; John Adams, A Sermon… September 8, 1695 (London, 1695), p. 15; Jane, A Sermon… 26th of November, 1691, p. 9; James Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Exeter, 1760), pp. 10–11. Simon Paget, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1698), p. i. Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon… 17th of February, 1708’ [1709], p. 132; Marston, A Sermon… Seventeenth Day of February, 1708/9, p. 2. John Adams, A Sermon… Novemb. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 1; Thomas Knaggs, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 9; Adams, A Sermon… September 8, 1695, p. 12. Hugh Worthington, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, n.d.), pp. 7–10; Nesfield, ‘[Sermon I]’ [1797], p. 9; Henry Stephens, A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708 (Oxford, 1708), p. 2.



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‘external formalities of thanksgiving, … the ostentatious and puerile parade of a vainglorious exultation… the hypocritical cant of devotion’. Edward Chandler criticised ‘meer Complacence’, and William Jackson, preaching to the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, proclaimed ‘All is hypocrisy, if with our thanksgiving there be not this humiliation of ourselves’ without proper piety and acknowledgement of God.96 Some preachers’ attention to appropriate thanksgiving worship could even turn to consider royal involvement. In 1789 preachers like the dissenter George Lambert and the Leicestershire curate William Tremenheere found it inspiring for George III to be ‘solemnly consecrating himself, his family, and his future life to God in open view' of his subjects, a sight to awaken ‘in his people a proper sense of the frailty of their condition, and their dependence upon God for all that they have, and all they are’.97 But the Congregational minister George Townsend, after first making it clear that he spoke ‘freely as a citizen and as a Briton’ and that he was a strong supporter of the ‘Brunswick line’, condemned ‘public pageantry’ in thanksgiving-day worship and advocated the freedom ‘to dissent from all parade in religious exercises’, arguing that ‘hurry, parade, pomp and shew… hath a tendency more to formality, than real piety’. James Bowden simply fretted about the effects of ‘the noise and clamour, the fatigue of body, and the agitation of the mind’ that involvement in the public procession to St Paul’s would have on the recently recovered king, though he would note in the printed version of his sermon that God had intervened by keeping the crowds orderly and calm.98 As these last examples show, thanksgivings also saw public celebration outside of and beyond the church services for the day. These could include feasts, parades, toasts, bonfires, the ringing of church bells, and could even lead to riots.99 Many preachers felt it necessary to comment on the propriety and impropriety of these extra-ecclesiastical activities. Samuel Slater called for ‘well regulated, well govern’d Joy’ to be given ‘its full scope, but… in its right place, and within its due Bounds’, and Vincent Alsop countenanced ‘lawful expressions of our joy… such as may be illuminations, Bone fires, Ringing of Bells, Fireworks, [and] the disloding of Guns’. The dissenter John Cottingham called for celebrations that were ‘rational and religious, not according to those festive riots, more like insanity than sound sense’.100 Benjamin Wallin noted ‘the remarkable Sobriety’ with which the 1759 thanksgiving day was celebrated, and the bishop of London, Beilby Porteus, reminded his austere audience, which included both houses of Parliament and the king, that the

Thomas Jervis, God the Author… A Sermon… January 18, MDCCCXVI (London, 1816), p. 6; Chandler, A Sermon ... Twenty-Second Day of November [1709], p. 12; William Jackson, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Oxford, 1798), p. 8. 97 Lambert, Britain’s King… April 23, 1789, p. 16; William Tremenheere, A Sermon… Twenty-Third of April, 1789 (Exeter, n.d.), p. 5. 98 George Townsend, The King’s Recovery… in Two Discourses… April the 23d 1789 (Canterbury, 1789), p. 63; Bowden, The King’s Recovery… [1789], pp. 26 and 26n. 99 Farooq, Preaching, p. 224. 100 Slater, A Sermon… 27th Day of October, 1692, p. 25; Alsop, Duty and Interest… Sept. 8. 1695, p. 32; John Cottingham, A Commemoration… a Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 38. 96

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thanksgiving day required ‘decent, modest, chastised, and sober chearfulness’ that ‘(with some exceptions)… usually distinguished it in this kingdom’.101 It becomes clear, however, that Porteus’s observation may have been overstated, and that such guidance and appeals for moderation were often not heeded. Preachers throughout the period bemoaned and censured thanksgiving celebrations that included ‘drinking and Guzling, … feasting and rioting, … Carding and Gaming’, ‘Drunkenness, … Frenzy and Debauchery’, ‘wildness of mirth’, ‘extravagant fallies [follies] and intemperate indulgences’.102 Although people ‘spared an Hour or two from our Worldly Concerns’ to attend church services on thanksgiving days, William Marston lamented ‘how soon have we forgotten all again?… how often have these Public Solemnities concluded in the most Criminal, and Scandalous Excesses?’ Simon Browne deplored those who ‘reckon themselves authoriz’d to act the Beast, as a Testimony of their Joy and Gratitude: As if it were fit employment on a Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God… to enrage our Lusts by immoderate gratifications, to drown our Reason, tire our Appetites, and debauch ourselves’.103 The nature and range of these concerns across the period suggest that they were not speculative but known by thanksgiving-day experiences. This chapter demonstrates the importance and meaning of thanksgiving-day commemorations over the course of the long eighteenth century in Britain. The examples included here not only indicate the variety of purposes of thanksgivings as they were portrayed in sermons, but also illustrate the wide range of preachers, locations, denominations, and opinions represented on those days across the period from 1689 to 1816. It also shows how emphasis upon thanksgiving impacted upon ideas of the nation and its place in God’s designs for the world. While the current chapter has concentrated on the significance of thanksgivings themselves, the rest of this book will explore the array of topics pertaining to British society that thanksgiving-day preachers and sermons discussed. This will give an indication of the ideas that were being delivered to congregations in Britain on these significant and popular occasions, and many of the subjects and themes touched upon in this chapter will be reiterated as elements of other topics.

101 Benjamin

Wallin, The Joyful Sacrifice… A Sermon… November 29, 1759, pp. iii–iv; Porteus, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789, p. 21. 102 Nicholetts, The Great Work… Decemb. 2d. 1697, p. 28; Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710, p. 25; John Jefferson, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 11; Thomas Lancaster, The Christian Duty… A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 16. 103 Marston, A Sermon… Seventeenth Day of February, 1708/9, p. 24; Browne, The Guilt and Provocation… Nov. 7. 1710, p. 15.

3 ‘The Palladium of our Safety’ – Providence and Britain To touch on every mention of providential intervention in thanksgiving-day sermons would, as one late eighteenth-century preacher put it, require ‘a volume, rather than a single discourse’.1 Thanksgiving days were founded on the premise of active and ongoing divine operation in the world, making providence the essential element of consideration: it was God who had intervened on Britain’s behalf, and God was to be thanked for that oversight and benevolence. Preachers like Thomas Taylor, the vicar of Bicester in Oxfordshire, drove this home to his audience by asking: if God ‘were unconcern’d at the Successes, or Misfortunes of our Present Life, of what use would be a great part of our Services and Devotions? Why should we pray unto him for temporal Mercies, or return thanks for Benefits received… if there were nothing in the whole event, but what was owing to humane Strength and Policy, and the natural course of things?’2 Whether in passing or as a principal theme, every thanksgiving-day sermon throughout the period from 1689 to 1816 mentions the role of providence in some way. To appropriate the phrase Alexandra Walsham applies to events like the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot,3 thanksgiving days were celebrations of ‘providential landmarks’ in the late seventeenth, the eighteenth, and the early nineteenth centuries. Walsham’s study of Providence in Early Modern England proves the great significance of the concept of providentialism to English culture and worldview in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was not simply a religious viewpoint, but instead permeated early modern English understanding of how God, and the world, functioned, ‘a set of ideological spectacles through which individuals of all social levels and from all positions on the confessional spectrum were apt to view their universe’.4 Walsham also asserts that special celebrations marking important providential anniversaries and victories were used successfully by the government to develop a sense of community amongst English people, and Mary Morrisey and Natalie Mears have confirmed that the sermons for those occasions reinforced the providential understanding of contemporary events, as well as those which had 1 2 3 4

William Backhouse, God the Author… A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (Canterbury, n.d.), p. 10. Thomas Taylor, A Sermon… Second Day of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 19. Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), p. 249. Walsham, Providence, pp. 2–3.

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occurred throughout English history.5 Jonathan Clark argues that this providential understanding of worldly affairs carried into the eighteenth century. Clark asserts that consideration of political events supplies ‘One of the largest bodies of evidence’ of a continued providential commentary; they ‘were scrutinized to find in them the hand of God’.6 British thanksgiving days provide further confirmation of continuing providential explanation across the long eighteenth century. This chapter will give a brief overview of the general place and meaning of providential ideas in thanksgiving-day sermons, especially as a principal element of Christian belief, and of the way that divine will was carried out within the world. It will also examine the sermons’ discussion of the means God used to effect that determination, and of God’s working in history and through human governments. The chapter will then turn to focus on the implications of providential beliefs on ideas about Britain’s place in the world and in the unfolding course of events throughout the period from 1689 to 1816.

Providence and thanksgiving Thanksgiving-day preachers repeatedly emphasised God’s role in human affairs, not only in remarkable events but also in everyday life. To deny providence and God’s role in governing the world would be ‘to banish all Joy, all Peace, all Hope, all Comfort for ever, from all those who have the power of thinking’, and anyone who discounted the effects of providence was ‘a downright Epicurean… next door to an Atheist’, ‘but a remove or two from Idiots’.7 Belief in providence was ‘imprinted… deep… [in] plain and legible Characters in the Nature of Man’, and it was as fundamental to Christianity as the existence of God, with ‘all the Transactions performed in the Court of this World… [being] but Dispensations of his Providence’.8 The Massachusetts episcopal preacher East Apthorp declared ‘a beneficient Providence’ as ‘among the first principles of natural religion’, and his colonial counterpart Mather Byles asked ‘if the hairs of our Head are all accurately numbred’ then God was

5

6 7

8

Walsham, Providence, pp. 247–8; Mary Morrissey, ‘Presenting James VI and I to the Public: Preaching on Political Anniversaries at Paul’s Cross’, in James VI and I: Ideas, Authority, and Government, ed. Ralph Houlbrooke (Farnham, 2006), p. 112; Natalie Mears, ‘Public Worship and Political Participation in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies, 51:1 (2012), 17, 20, 22, 25. J.C.D. Clark, ‘Providence, Predestination and Progress: or, Did the Enlightenment Fail?’, Albion, 35:4 (2003), 582–3. John Sharp, A Sermon… 12th of November, 1693 (London, 1693), p. 2; Benjamin Loveling, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, n.d.), p. 18; Edward Fowler, A Sermon… Sixteenth of April, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 21. William Pearson, A Sermon… Septemb. VII. 1704 (York, n.d.), p. 8; John Evans, The Being and Benefits… a Sermon Preached on Septemb. 7 [1704] (London, 1704), p. 1; John Mackqueen, ‘A Sermon… 7th of September, 1704’, in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), p. 7.



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certainly ‘not an idle Spectator of the more important Transactions of the Globe, the tumults of People, the Revolution of States & Kingdoms’.9 Declarations of the fundamental importance of providential convictions were repeated often by preachers. In 1763 George Davis pronounced the ‘belief of the divine superintendance over the affairs of this lower world… the only one that can administer comfort and support under affliction, or supply us with any real ground for confidence and exultation in our prosperity and success’. Similarly, in 1805 John Blakeway, rector of St Mary’s in Shrewsbury, described the ‘superintending providence of God’ as ‘one of the most consoling, and at the same time one of the most awful truths of the christian revelation’, and George Pretyman opened his 1797 sermon by proclaiming there was ‘no article of Religion in which mankind is more interested than in the doctrine of the providence of God, superintending the works of his hands, and directing the agency with which he invested them to the gracious purposes of his will’.10 Beilby Porteus described providential convictions as ‘that most comfortable doctrine… which Revelation teaches and established on the firmest grounds’, and, inspired by the victory at the Battle of the Nile, Thomas Rennell told the House of Commons that the ‘movements of God’s Providence are steady, uniform, and consistent’, and there were no such things as ‘chance, accident, fortune, [or] destiny… whatever in the life and concerns of man’.11 Such assertions were a reminder of the powerlessness of human actions in the face of God’s will and the divine plan. Preachers often spoke of mistakenly attributing important developments and achievements to the human means that seemingly carried them out. In the early years of William and Mary’s reign, John Tillotson advised that the ‘secret Providence of Almighty God… can so govern and over-rule both the understandings and the wills of men, as shall best serve his own wise purpose and design’. In 1702 Jonathan Trelawny purposefully reminded his audience, which included both houses of Parliament and Queen Anne, that many people mistakenly credited God’s blessings and punishments to the wrong sources, ‘either our Ministers of State appropriating the Mercies to their own Conduct; or others, looking upon the Judgments as matters of Chance’. Trelawny made his point clear, declaring ‘Worldly Providence, or Policy, cannot make good the expected success without God’s Assistance’.12 In his 1716 sermon, dedicated to the duke of Marlborough, Robert Cocks, rector of Bladon with Woodstock in Oxfordshire, likewise observed that the ‘Wise of this World may act as if they could make their own Destiny… yet

9

10

11

12

East Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times. A Sermon… XI August, MDCCLXIII (Boston, MA, 1763), p. 2; Mather Byles, A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760 (New-London, CT, 1760), p. 7. George Davis, A Sermon… Fifth of May, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 3; John Blakeway, National Benefits… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), p. 18; George Pretyman, A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 5. Beilby Porteus, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789; third edition), p. 9; Thomas Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 2 (emphasis in the original). John Tillotson, A Sermon… 27th of October [1692] (London, 1692), p. 6; Jonathan Trelawny, A Sermon… Nov. 12. 1702 (London, 1702), pp. 4, 9.

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even then God’s Providence ruleth all Things, disposeth all Things, orders all Things’ and ‘the greatest Monarch of the Universe can’t go beyond the Bounds which Providence has ordained him’. In 1798, Thomas Bowen noted the importance of fighting for a cause ‘such as may interest the Providence of God’; though he was celebrating a decisive naval victory, Bowen warned that ‘Impious brutal force may succeed for a while, but cannot ultimately prevail’. In the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, John Allen stated that it ‘will puzzle Politicks and all the Maxims of human Prudence, to account for a great many Things, which our Eyes have lately seen’.13 Building on assertions of the essential role of providence in worldly affairs, preachers stressed the need for people to clearly acknowledge God’s intervening on their, and the nation’s, behalf. Thomas Reynolds found the ‘great Changes that are brought to pass in the World… are more owing to the Power of Prayer than the Strength of Armies’, and John Doughty, curate of St James Clerkenwell in London, stressed ‘That, in Times of Danger and Trouble, the only Foundation whereon to build Hopes of Success, is a firm Reliance upon the Divine Providence.’ Gilbert Burnet, chaplain to William III and soon to be made bishop of Salisbury, told the House of Commons of their ‘Duty… to take care that God be always on our side, for the best laid and most prospering designs are soon blasted, when they are crost by him’.14 Using the current ‘interpositions of Divine Providence’, in 1798 Thomas Tayler advised his congregation to remember that such events ‘lay no foundation for presumption, and vain glory’ and that they were ‘dependent upon God for the continued enjoyment of our civil and Sacred privileges’. More figuratively, Samuel Slater described ‘Divine Providence’ as a midwife that brings ‘Mercy into the World’; he extended the metaphor for the thanksgiving by remarking ‘we should be very disingenuous, ingrateful, and unworthy if we should not heartily Welcome it, embracing and hugging it with joyful Arms’.15 The sermons frequently commented on punishment and deliverance, the effects of providential intervention. It is not surprising that deliverance was a frequent theme for days devoted to thanksgiving for the defeat of imminent threats. Preachers reiterated, again and again, that God was ‘the happy instrument’ for the ‘great Deliverance’ of the nation, and audiences were reminded often that they should not ‘ascribe our preservation to any other cause than the kind providence of God toward us’.16 In 1709 Samuel Clarke described the nation as having been ‘rescu’d by wonderful Deliverances, from the Rod of Arbitrary

13

14

15 16

Richard Cocks, The Beauty… A Sermon… June 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 4, 6; Thomas Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 11; John Allen, Rejoice With Trembling. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 15. Thomas Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. 13; John Doughty, A Dependance… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 4; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of January, 1688 [1689] (London, 1689), p. 30. Thomas Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 5; Samuel Slater, A Sermon… 27th Day of October, 1692 (London, 1693), p. 6. Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of January, 1688 [1689], p. 34; Anonymous, England’s Causes… A Sermon… November 1798 (York, n.d.), p. 5.



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Power, from the Follies of Enthusiasm, and from the Superstitions of Popery’. John Norman noted in 1746 that the ‘Providence of God, which universally operates, and is always employed in the Government of the World, has appeared in a Variety of Ways for the Preservation of his People’.17 Such interpretations continued to the end of period. In 1802 John Whitehouse, rector of Armthorpe in Yorkshire, admired ‘the providence which, amidst the late distractions, has preserved this kingdom from the horrors of anarchy and civil discord; and provided for our wants and necessities, by the late abundant and plentiful harvest’.18 Anticipating Napoleon’s first fall, John Clowes, rector of St John’s in Manchester, asked his congregation to consider ‘the astonishing deliverances’ they had recently seen, ‘the sudden and unexpected check… to a lawless and destructive tyranny; the restoration of just rights and liberties to so many nations and people…; the revival of trade’. Clowes underscored his point, ‘that all these… are the wonderful results, not of our own prudence, but of the Divine Providence’. With their commemoration of numerous victories and successes, thanksgiving days also gave preachers the chance to remind their audiences of the constant need for repentance and acknowledgement of God’s role. Underlying the message of deliverance was the possibility that catastrophe was never far away. As John Flavell advised in 1689, people needed only to ‘Look upon the other side of these Providences, and think what your Condition had been, if the Lord had left your Estates, Liberties and Lives to the Wills and Mercies of your Enemies.’ Similarly, John King, rector of Witnesham in Suffolk, warned that if ‘the Lord, for just provocations or the fulfilment of his counsels, should withdraw his protection, we should soon become prey to others, and sink into obscurity’. Though ‘God’s Treasury is never exhausted’ and he ‘hath Victories still in store, and Deliverances still ready’, in the late 1790s William Corbin continued to assert that ‘Ingratitude will cause him to hold his hand, and render an Ungrateful People… despised and rejected.’19 Thanksgiving, though by its nature dedicated to commemorating beneficial outcomes, still provided the opportunity to show how God could use adverse results to achieve his ends. Punishment was the opposite, and complementary, result of deliverance. While asserting that God’s purpose ‘is to do all Good, at all Times, to all his Creatures’, the archbishop of York, John Sharp, nevertheless noted that ‘Correction, and Chatisement, and Punishment is in some cases more expedient for the bringing People to Rights, and promoting their true Interests’. Sharp concluded by comparing such instances to the way that ‘every wise Parent deals with his Children’.20 In the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, the Edinburgh 17 18 19

20

Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 22; John Norman, A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 13. John Whitehouse, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Doncaster, 1802), p. 23; John Clowes, A Sermon… 13th of January,1814 (Manchester, 1814), pp. 7–8. John Flavell, Mount Pisgah. A Sermon… February xiiii, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 22; William Corbin, EΥΧAΡIΣTIA: Or, a Grateful Acknowledgment… a Sermon… 22d of September 1695 (London, 1695), p. 12; John King, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Ipswich, n.d.), pp. 7–8. Sharp, A Sermon… 12th of November, 1693, pp. 18–19.

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episcopal minister George Carr pointedly affirmed that, when God must punish ‘the Offences of a sinful Nation, he withdraws from them for a Time his protecting Arm’ and unleashes ‘the Passions of wicked Men, and permits them to commit Iniquity with Greediness, and spread Desolation without Controul’. In veiled reference to the political turmoil that had been poised to erupt in George III’s reign, Benjamin Dawson, rector of Burgh in Suffolk, used the occasion of the king’s recovery in order to characterise his illness as a means ‘to awaken us to some better sense of our public advantages, by awfully admonishing us… how soon He could deprive us of them, and how wretched we should be in the loss, or even the suspension of them for any considerable space’.21 Such assertions reminded the nation what God did for it, and what would happen without such divine support: preachers were always quick to stress the role of providential intervention and the power it had to inflict negative repercussions on a people tardy to acknowledge God’s power and their own need to atone.

Providence and justifying the ways of God to men Thanksgiving-day preachers’ emphasis on providence also caused them to discuss the means by which God was involved in earthly events. Explanations characterised such actions as manifold, subtle, and largely unperceived by humanity. Yet, even with many of the workings of providence going immediately undetected, people were still expected to recognise and acknowledge its effects. Describing the regular order of the natural world, in 1710 Samuel Clarke asserted that ‘Scripture, (and Reason also,) teaches us more justly, to acknowledge God… and to be sensible who it is that, being the Author and Director of Nature,… does thereby dispose and order, as he pleases, the Events of all Humane Affairs.’ More forcefully, at the end of the century, William Nesfield asserted ‘reasoning… from the visible works of the Creation, as also from the communications of divine Revelation, we must be perversely blind, if we do not trace the Creator in every turn; even in the things which appear to us the smallest and the least significant’.22 As for more noticeable incidents, William Gallaway, chaplain to His Majesty’s Artillery, saw ‘diversity of Opinions, the Humours of Men,… the Intreagues of States, the Differences in Families, with a Thousand little accidents’ occur like ‘silent and unseen Waters, wandring in secret and distant Channels beneath the Surface of the Earth’ but eventually uniting to ‘gush into a Fountain’. Despite such things beginning seemingly in ‘a more abstruse and intricate Manner’, by way of ‘deep humane Counsels… and sometimes proceeding from… unforeseen and unexpected Accidents’, Simon Paget declared ‘if we believe any thing of a super-intending Providence, we must run all these remarkable Occurences up to

21 22

George Carr, A Sermon… June 26. 1746 (Edinburgh, 1746), p. 7; Benjamin Dawson, The Benefits… A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (Ipswich, 1789), p. 12. Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710 (London, 1710), p. 19; William Nesfield, ‘[Sermon I]’, in Two Sermons… the First on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1797 (Durham, n.d.), p. 2.



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their Fountainhead, and derive them all in the various turnings and windings from God their Author’.23 It was in these noteworthy episodes where providence was most evident. Commenting on the unfolding political circumstances of 1688–1689, Simon Patrick, rector of St Paul’s Covent Garden and soon to be made bishop of Ely, opened his sermon by declaring ‘we cannot take notice of the several Wonderful Events that fall out in the World… the strange Changes… and unlookt for Revolutions… but it will dispose us to confess the Providence of God’. Patrick went on to recount how the ‘very foundations of our Government were about to be rased. The whole Fabrick did not only shake and totter; but was upon the point of being buried in Rubbish. When, behold, the hand of God supported it… and on a sudden hath broke in pieces the Power that pusht at it.’24 In regard to the string of military triumphs of the first decade of the eighteenth century, White Kennett compared ‘any single Enterprize boldly undertaken, and bravely accomplished’ that ‘might be imputed to Chance, or… Fortune’ to ‘a continu’d Series of Successes and Victories, a long Chain of Glories, compact and uniform, without any Breach’, and concluded that the latter ‘must be the Hand of God!’ According to Edward Chandler, if such great affairs could be dissected like ‘a Humane Body… they would discover no less Contrivance, and Harmony and Beauty in the whole’. For Chandler, the term ‘fortune’ simply described ‘something… with which the will of Man had no Conexion, as a cause; for God, the event was foreseen, and ordered by him’.25 The course of an entire century did not lessen preachers’ convictions about God’s involvement in significant events. In 1802 George Thomas, rector of Wickham in Hampshire, opened his sermon by affirming, through the use of reason and revelation, ‘we… are enabled to ascribe the wonderful events, and final issues, of war, and the surprising changes and revolutions that result from it, to its only true and adequate cause – the providential superintendence of that Almighty Being whose kingdom rules over all’. Listing the ‘series of astonishing, and… distressing events… in the course of the last twenty-four years’, in 1814 Thomas Langdon assured his audience that the ‘revolutions and counter-revolutions… [the] rivers of human blood… shed… our fellow men, in the prime of life,… fallen victims to the devouring sword… hurried headlong into eternity’ all would result in God’s providential wisdom being carried out. Two years later Thomas Jervis similarly comforted his congregation with the assurance that, with ‘states and kingdoms overturned and… Amidst the revolutions of empires, it is a source of unspeakable consolation to know, that all is ordered by infinite wisdom, under the direction of infinite benevolence.’26 23 24 25

26

William Gallaway, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… Dec. IId. 1697 (London, 1697), p. 9; Simon Paget, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1698), p. 14. Simon Patrick, A Sermon… Jan. XXXI. 1688 [1689] (London, 1689), pp. 1, 24. White Kennett, Glory to God… A Sermon… 22d. of Nov. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 6; Edward Chandler, A Sermon… Twenty-Second Day of November [1709] (Worcester, 1710), pp. 9, 11. George Thomas, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (n.p., 1802), pp. 4–5; Thomas Langdon, God Maketh Wars to Cease. A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Leeds, n.d.), pp. 6–7; Thomas Jervis, God the Author… A Sermon… January 18, MDCCCXVI (London, 1816), pp. 35–6.

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The predominance of war as a theme for thanksgiving days in the long eighteenth century inspired preachers to comment on its particular providential significations. In 1702 Edward Clarke, vicar of St Mary’s in Nottingham, described God presiding over and moderating the affairs of kingdoms, and marching ‘out into the Field with their Armies, either for their Assistance or Overthrow’. Commenting on the victory at Blenheim in 1704, the dissenter Richard Norris viewed war as a providential arbitration between states, ‘an appeal unto God, inasmuch as two Parties contending about their Right, do put it upon such a Determination as none but God can give’.27 The end of the war of the Austrian Succession in mid-century caused Thomas Fothergill to observe war and peace as results not bound by the laws of nature ‘but immediately depend[ing] on the Providence of God for their Guidance and Determination’. James Johnson, the bishop of Worcester, described the military victories during the first half of the Seven Years’ War as ‘occasions… which no human foresight could have discerned, which no counsel of man could have devised’. Johnson further characterised war as ‘an acknowledgement of the power of God… an appeal to him for a decision of the rights of nations… His hand directs the events of battles, and the revolutions of empires’. Taking a different tack, in 1797 Richard Hardy explained war as ‘One of the calamities, usually inflicted by the angry Deity upon a sinful Nation’.28 The recognition of God’s immediate operation in worldly events made it necessary to also explain how human society, and human nature, functioned in the midst of this direct divine manipulation. Only three years after the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687), Gilbert Burnet noted that God, ‘having put the whole Frame of Nature under certain Rules and Laws, the greatest part of Providence is only the Supporting and Directing of those Beings that do still act according to their own Natures’. In 1763 Richard Richmond felt compelled to note that the doctrine of providence ‘is perfectly agreeable to right reason and true philosophy; confirm’d by observation and experience’, and Philip Bennet, a fellow of Magdalene College, proclaimed to his 1749 University of Cambridge audience that ‘the goodness or providence of God… is governed by universal laws’.29 With the subtlety of God’s involvement causing some to doubt the existence of providence, in 1784 the rector of Deal in Kent, William Backhouse, decried the emphasis on human action being ‘so much in vogue, that no account is had of the First Cause’. At the turn of the eighteenth century, Thomas Taylor already acknowledged that God did not govern people and the world as he had during the time of the Old Testament, explaining instead ‘he deals with them in a way, more suitable to the exercise 27 28

29

Edward Clarke, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, 1703), p. 13; Richard Norris, A Sermon Preach’d on September 7. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 11. Thomas Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Oxford, 1749), p. 21; James Johnson, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 9–10, 6; Richard Hardy, A Sermon… Dec.19, 1797 (Cambridge, 1798), p. 8. Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 19th Day of October, 1690 (London, 1690), p. 7; Richard Richmond, ‘A Sermon… May 5th, 1763…’, in Sermons and Discourses (London, 1764), p. 165; Philip Bennet, ‘The Means of Enjoying… A Sermon… April 25. 1749’, in Harmony Between Justice and Peace (Cambridge, 1749), p. 32.



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of their Reason and their Faith… The great Opera of his Providence is carried on in so uninterrupted a Tenor… that nothing but uniform Nature presents it self to the Vulgar Spectator’s eye.’ Still, Taylor noted that, despite the seamlessness of providential interventions in human affairs and despite being endowed with ‘Liberty’, humans were not exempt from divine jurisdiction. To this point, Benjamin Loveling differentiated between the free ‘Actions of Men… in a private capacity’, and when ‘they are incorporated into large Societies, [when] they are questionless under the irresistible Conduct and Influence of Heaven’.30 Consideration of providence touched on the extent of human free will. The importance of this question is demonstrated by William Jane spending five pages of his 1691 sermon reconciling divine foreknowledge with the existence of human liberty. Six decades later Richard Dayrell, rector of Lillingstone Dayrell in Buckinghamshire, maintained that, ‘Though God over-rules, yet he does not arbitrarily controul the Powers of Man’; instead, humans were ‘endued with Abilities and Faculties on Purpose for the Government, and Management of them’. For John Blakeway in 1805, God’s foreknowledge and foreordination of all things was a certainty, as was the principle that ‘man is a free agent… for otherwise he could not be addressed, as God perpetually does…, as a rational creature’.31 During the same period, filled with revolution and warfare, John Cottingham asserted that God, ‘without involving the liberty of his creature,… can turn their passions and the desires of their hearts, to fulfil his own righteous will’. Against some who suggested that Britain should not resist France, because it was providence’s design for that nation to rise, the bishop of St Asaph, Samuel Horsley, argued human action was necessary because God employs ‘natural causes’ for carrying out providential ends, ‘and among them he makes men, acting without any knowledge of his secret will, from their own views as free agents, the instruments of his purpose’.32 Though many preachers firmly maintained the existence of providence and the inviolability of human free will, their explanation often depended upon the mysteriousness and hidden nature of divine operations. Just as humans were providential instruments, so too were the elements, a belief which also required reconciliation between the workings of nature and those of God. From the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, numerous events were seen to turn upon natural forces. In 1692 John Tillotson focussed on the ability of God to use ‘a remarkable change of the Seasons and the Weather’ in order to ‘interpose to decide the events of War’, recounting how ‘great Snows, or violent Rains… remarkable Winds and Storms at Sea’ had allowed ‘all of our late signal Deliverances and Victories’.33 Over a century later the Norfolk rector Henry Manning still referred to ‘the artillery of the elements’, and William Tooke cited Job 38: 22–23 30 31

32 33

Backhouse, God the Author… July 29, 1784, pp. 11, 9; Taylor, A Sermon… Second Day of December, 1697, pp. 4–5, 6; Loveling, A Sermon… December 3. 1702, p. 18. William Jane, A Sermon… 26th of November, 1691 (Oxford, 1691), pp. 12–16; Richard Dayrell, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 23–4; Blakeway, National Benefits… December 5, 1805, p. 5. John Cottingham, A Commemoration… a Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 26; Samuel Horsley, The Watchers… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, 1806), p. 25. Tillotson, A Sermon… 27th of October [1692], pp. 10–11.

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(‘Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or has thou seen the treasures of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?’) and explained the ‘meaning of which is, that the providence of God sometime interposes to determine the events of war, by governing the seasons and the weather’.34 Several times in the 1690s and the early 1700s such powers were on display. In 1692 the wind and the sea, ‘by a most propitious Providence, kept back our Enemies fleet till we were ready for it, and then deliver’d it into our hands’. Four years after this, the seeming misfortune of ‘obsequious Winds, by the Direction of… Divine Providence’ that kept the English fleet in harbour actually facilitated the auspicious result that ‘we might be ready to defend our selves’ against an intended French invasion. 1709 saw another ‘Disappointment of the Invasion the Enemy intended’ carried out by ‘the hand of him whom the Winds and the Sea obey, interposing in our Defence’.35 Those same favourable natural occurrences caused Benjamin Lacy, a Devon schoolmaster, to proclaim to the mayor and aldermen of Exeter how God ‘doth not only preserve the Frame of Nature, and the regular Operation of all things… but he also directs and governs them so as to correspond with the several Ends of his Providence’. Lacy detailed the means by which providence rewarded or punished ‘by a salubrious or an infected Air, by plentiful or scanty Crops;… by Wind or Weather’. In 1749 the Baptist minister of the Little Wild Street meeting, Joseph Stennett (the younger), said that there was ‘hardly any measure of Divine conduct, which more magnificently displays the power and goodness of God’s nature, and over-rules the impetuosity of national quarrels, and stays the madness of the people,… [than] the raging of the seas’. For John Newton the planned French invasion of Ireland in 1797 was thwarted because the ‘Lord blew with his wind, and scattered them’.36 These interpretations of divine support for the nation’s maritime endeavours fit nicely with the growing importance of Britain’s naval might. In the early nineteenth century, the most conspicuous recent example of God’s use of weather was the failure of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Though James Smith, a Church of Scotland minister in Paisley, conceded that northern Russia was inclement, he argued that ‘it was uncommon… that winter should set in some weeks earlier, and with greater severity, than is usual even in that climate’. Smith contended that, if people accepted God determined the cycle of the weather throughout the year, ‘as we all very willingly do’, then ‘would it not be impious and absurd to deny that he is the dispenser of the seasons, when they manifestly have an influence upon the events of war?’ Thomas Lancaster, curate of Merton in Surrey, asked his 34 35

36

Henry Manning, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], in Three Sermons (Thetford, 1814), p. 9; William Tooke, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 27. Samuel Barton, A Sermon… Octob. 27th 1692 (London, 1692), p. 24; John Piggott, ‘A Good King… A Sermon, Preach’d April 16. 1696’, in Eleven Sermons (London, 1714), p. 27; Francis Hare, A Sermon… Feb. 17. 1708/9. (London, 1709), p. 20. Benjamin Lacy, A Sermon… 31th of December [1706] (Exeter, 1707), pp. 4–5; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), pp. 10–11 (Stennett refers to Psalm 89: 9 here); John Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 27.



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congregation ‘Can you hear of this mad-man losing his numerous and powerful army… on the snowy plains of Russia… and not perceive, “that the Lord your God is he that hath fought for you”?’ In turn, the Congregational minister John Arundel, of Whitby in York, asked ‘Did he not arm the elements with vengeance and with death, in order to check the powers of haughty France…?’37 As with free will, belief in providence necessitated some attempt to reconcile its activities with the consistent and predictable operation of nature based on unchanging and universal laws, especially by the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Again, much was left to the mysterious functioning of the divine will directing natural (like human) forces at its discretion. So, while many eighteenth-century preachers agreed that the time of direct revelation and miraculous intervention had ended, they still believed providence acted upon the world.38 In order to achieve this, God utilised natural elements and people as ‘secondary’ agents to carry out the divine plan. In 1784 George Walker, Presbyterian minister to the High Pavement chapel in Nottingham, asserted starkly ‘Man is but an instrument of God, as the winds, and seas, and fire are; and equally capable of being a scourge or a blessing’. For Beilby Porteus, God could ‘render the most regular operations of the material world, and the freest actions of his creatures, subservient to his will; and by the instrumentality of second causes, can accomplish every purpose of his wise and righteous Government’. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Samuel Butler declared it was ‘surely as easy for God to make the operation of second causes contribute to his government of the world, as to interfere with the settled order of things by a miraculous interposition’.39 In 1814 Alexander Spark noted there was ‘a Power and Agency superior to all these causes’, and even ‘actions and events, which appear to depend upon the free agency of man, are still, notwithstanding, under the empire, and subject to the control of Providence’. Over half a century earlier the rector of Great Tey in Essex, Nathaniel Ball, stated the ‘God indeed governs the World by second causes, by outward means and instruments’, and Ball compared the means by which this was done to the power and authority of ‘a Prince who sends Ambassadors into a foreign Country with Instructions to execute his Will’.40

37

38 39

40

James Smith, Evidences… A Sermon,… 13th January 1814 (Paisley, 1814), pp. 24–5; Thomas Lancaster, The Great Things… A Sermon… 13th of January 1814 (London, 1814), p. 18 (Lancaster quotes from Joshua 23: 3); John Arundel, National Mercies… A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 25. John Arundel is identified as a Congregational minister in Gideon Smales, Whitby Authors and Their Publications (Whitby, 1867), pp. 71–4, https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=kMAIAAAAQAAJ&rdid=bookkMAIAAAAQAAJ&rdot=1&pli=1 (accessed 23 February 2015). See also Clark, ‘Providence’, for a discussion of the debate over this issue in the eighteenth century. George Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 17; Porteus, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789, p. 14; Samuel Butler, The Effects of Peace… A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), p. 5. Alexander Spark, A Sermon… the 21st April, 1814 (Québec, 1814), pp. 7–8; Nathaniel Ball, The Evil Effects of War… a Sermon… 25th of April, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 15.

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Preachers were determined to ensure people understood that such secondary causes acted within the confines of providential accomplishment, and not independent of it. Comparing his time to that of ancient Israel, in 1805 David Brichan advised ‘We are not to expect in these days such visible and immediate interpositions of Providence’; instead, ‘in accomplishing the destiny of nations, the Almighty employs the instrumentality of second causes and human agency’ but such instruments were still ‘the appointment of heaven’ and ‘the ordination of Providence’. Samuel Lowthion agreed in 1763, affirming that anything ‘brought about by secondary causes, is brought about in virtue of that power and efficacy with which the God of nature originally endowed them, and which they retain… by his constant energy and all-sustaining influences;… whatever is thus effected must be ultimately resolved into his constitution and providential government’. George Conway, schoolmaster of Blandford Free School in Dorset in the early eighteenth century, applied his text (Jeremiah 9: 23–24 – ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might…’) to remind his audience to give proper credit to God, not to ‘Second Causes’. Conway asserted ‘it is our Duty still to give God the Glory, because he raises up proper Instruments for the effecting what he has Pre-determined’.41

Providence, government, and nations Continued belief in the powerful influence of providence offered a means for thanksgiving-day preachers to explain and comment on the place and roles of earthly governments. The sermons located nations, and those who governed them, at the forefront of providential activity. In this role, rulers became special instruments to carry out the divine designs for the world. As Samuel Barton declared in his 1692 sermon before the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, ‘if the Providence of God do concern it self, and over-rule in all Humane Affairs, then it follows that Kings and Princes are more especially under the Care of it’. A year earlier, to the same audience, William Wake described rulers as ‘dear to Heaven, and raised up by it to be the Instruments of Providence, in reforming the Manners, and redressing the Oppressions of an injured and groaning World’.42 The dissenting minister Samuel Clerke specified that if ‘Divine Providence watcheth over… Kings in general,… what then must he needs be in those Kings who are Nursing-Fathers to his Church and People?’ The reason ‘providence should be so peculiar in its care of kings and princes’ was, as the Anglican preacher John Walsh explained in 1814, ‘because God maintains the society of mankind by government, and religion: therefore this is sufficient reason for this particular care over… his immediate instruments, and…

41

42

David Brichan, A Sermon… Fifth of December, 1805 (London, 1806), 10; Samuel Lowthion, The Blessings… A Sermon… (Thursday, May 5, 1763) (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1763), p. 19; George Conway, A Sermon… February the 17th 1708/9 (London, 1709), pp. 4, 14. Barton, A Sermon… Octob. 27th 1692, p. 15; William Wake, A Sermon… 26th of November [1691] (London, 1691), p. 28.



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over the concerns of state, and its inseparable interests, Christ’s church militant here on earth’.43 Specific reigns and certain monarchs were singled out as particular instances of divine attention. George Keith believed that, while he knew no king could equal the biblical king David, ‘there… may be Kings in the World that may be said to be God’s Kings… raised up for some singular and eminent work’, and he prayed for God to make William III such an ‘Instrument’.44 For other preachers, William was ‘a Darling of Providence’, ‘Lawful and Rightful Sovereign, by repeated Acts of special Protection’.45 When Queen Anne ascended the throne, Richard Fiddes, rector of Halsham in Yorkshire, suggested ‘a visible Success attended her in all Her Consultations at Home and Her Operations abroad’. After the 1715 Jacobite rebellion, the dissenter William Fisher confirmed that ‘Good Princes’ – certainly implying that the recently crowned George I was among this group – ‘are under the peculiar Protection of God; and He sees into all the Treason and Villany of those that conspire against them’.46 Even bad reigns and wicked rulers were used by God to effect his plans. In 1704 John Dubourdieu, minister to the French congregation at the Savoy in London, asserted that God ‘would not be a Soveraign and perfect Being, if he were not in Babylon as well as Jerusalem, and in the Armies of Moab and Amalek as in the Camp of Israel’. In 1789 Samuel Cooper, curate of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, argued that, at times, God empowered tyrants to induce nations and subjects to prayer and supplication. The anonymous author of an 1814 thanksgiving sermon told his audience ‘We cannot be insensible that “the prosperity and the adversity of nations work alike for the general good of man.”’47 Thanksgiving-day preachers in the early nineteenth century found a particularly pertinent demonstration of providential use of a bad ruler in the example of Napoleon. For Henry Knapp, curate of St Andrew Undershaft in London, Napoleon had been ‘an instrument in the hands of the Almighty, eventually to accomplish purposes best known to, and best directed by his Eternal Wisdom… to punish the nations for their wickedness and infidelity’. George Skeeles, curate of Great Saxham in Suffolk and of Denham in Buckinghamshire, asserted ‘we cannot help considering this tremendous tyranny, which has desolated Europe for twenty years, as an instrument in the hand of God to punish the wickedness of France… as well as 43 44 45 46 47

Samuel Clerke, A Sermon… Eleventh of November [1693] (London, 1693), p. 18 [vere, 19]; John Walsh, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (Dublin, 1814), p. 12. George Keith, A Sermon… 16th. of the Second Month, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 26. Clerke, A Sermon… Eleventh of November [1693], p. 27; Piggott, ‘A Good King… Preach’d April 16. 1696….’, p. 30. Richard Fiddes, A Thanks-Giving Sermon on the 23 of August, 1705 (York, 1705), p. 12; William Fisher, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 5. John Dubourdieu, A Sermon… 7th day of September [1704] (London, 1704), p. 6; Samuel Cooper, The Consistency… a Discourse, Preached… April the 23d, 1789 (Yarmouth, 1789), pp. 13, 16; Anonymous, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (Mansfield, n.d.), p. 7: the quotation within is from the morning prayer in the official service for this thanksgiving day: A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God… on Thursday the Thirteenth Day of January 1814 (London, 1813), p. 6.

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to correct the general spirit of scepticism and rebellion, which had been propagated in other countries also’.48 Lawrence Blakeney declared ‘No serious Christian… can doubt, that the usurper of France… has been raised up by the Almighty, as an express instrument in his hand, for punishing the wickedness and impiety of surrounding nations.’ William Mavor maintained that Napoleon ‘forgot… that, though he might be made an instrument… to produce some future events decreed by thy providence, he was only frail dust and ashes, the work of thy hands’.49 All of this was a reminder of the direct workings of providence and its effect on worldly governments, which ultimately served God’s purpose and plan. However, John Strachan, who would later become the bishop of Toronto, was sure to be clear that, even though God used corrupt revolutions and their results to achieve good, in the end those who instigated them were still guilty.50 In the turbulence and mutability of temporal affairs, providence guaranteed divine oversight and care. In 1814 John Courtney, vicar of Sanderstead in Surrey, declared ‘Kings dethroned, Empires overturned, and Nations annihilated, all declare the power of Jehovah!… we may rest assured that the all-searching eye of God has, from the beginning of our troubles, been intent only on the good of his creatures’. Making the same point, but a century earlier, Thomas Blennerhaysett affirmed that ‘the Disposal of Crowns and Kingdoms, is in the Hand of God, who… Entrusts the Supreme Government of Nations and States with Such Persons, and for Such Ends, as are Most Agreeable to his own Will and Wisdom’.51 In the 1740s John Blackburn, Presbyterian minister to the King John’s Court meeting in Southwark, stressed that God, ‘as the supreme Governor, has the affairs and situations of men, and of nations and kingdoms, under his disposal; and, accordingly, either disappoints their views and designs, or crowns them with success, as he sees proper, and as will best answer his own wise and just designs’. Writing at the same time, Nicholas Nichols, rector of Patrington in Yorkshire, saw rulers’ actions ‘set on Work and managed by the overruling Hand of Providence… [to] carry into Execution some great Design, which he in his wise Government of the World has ordained should be’.52 If rulers did happen to run into trouble, preachers again emphasised the role of providence in intervening on the nation’s behalf. Referring to the social and political threats unleashed by the French Revolution, Adam Gordon determined it was only ‘the irresistible and gracious interference of the Most High’ that could have ‘quelled this madness of the people’ by ‘enduing our rulers with wise and determined

48 49

50 51

52

Henry Knapp, The Origin… a Sermon… January 18, 1816 (London, 1816), p. 19; George Skeeles, The Recent Events… A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (Bury St Edmunds, n.d.), pp. 5–6. Lawrence Blakeney, A Sermon, For the 13th January, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 20–1; William Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon. January 13, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance (London, 1814), p. 18. John Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814] (Montréal, 1814), pp. 29–30. John Courtney, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 19–20; Thomas Blennerhaysett, Plus Quam Speravimus: or; The Happy Surprize. A Sermon… January the 20th, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 7. John Blackburn, Reflections on Government… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (London, 1749), p. 13; Nicholas Nichols, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746. (Hull, n.d.), p. 10.



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measures’. According to John Mackqueen ninety years earlier, when God did choose to carry out ‘the depressing of Kings, Decay of Kingdoms, or to stem the Current of an impetuous encroaching Power, he chooses suitable persons, disposes favourable Opportunities, frames a Chain of convenient Circumstances, all conspiring together to carry on the same’.53 Without this kind of divine manoeuvring and guidance, no kingdom or subjects could be safe. In the absence of a particular providence over kings and princes, William Wake asked ‘What would become of All Peace, and Order, and Government of the World?’ Though rulers might set laws and establish peace for their own territories, ‘What precarious things would All these be were they left open by God to the Violence and Fury of every bold Invader; and no longer to be of any Force…?’54 As George Halley succinctly put it in 1689, ‘it is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in Princes’. This firm belief in the role of providence in the important political events of the day was no less applicable at the end of the long eighteenth century than it was at the beginning. Upon the celebration of the final defeat of Napoleon and the peace that followed, Archibald Alison, the episcopal minister of Cowgate Chapel in Edinburgh, declared ‘If there was an hour in the history of mankind, when the providence of God was visible in the government of the world, that hour is the present’.55 The reason for God managing governors and governments so closely was because actions of and for nations were viewed as more providentially significant than those of and for individuals. In 1799 Jacob Mountain told his Québec audience ‘it is in the affairs of nations, and the rise and fall of empires, that the effects of this invisible direction come most in reach of human observation’ because ‘in the concerns of a whole people, in the consequences that result from their conduct, the immediate agency of Providence is more easily discovered’. Similarly, in the same year Thomas Rennell found ‘the secret hand of the Almighty… hid from the eyes’ of individual men, but ‘the great features of the Divine administration to communities are incomparably more distinct, and prominent’. In 1690 Gilbert Burnet affirmed ‘There appear often Eminent Characters of God’s Providence, in raising up and preserving of Kingdoms… If there is a Providence that watches over any part of this lower World, then certainly the most eminent parts of it, upon which the rest does so much depend, are its chief care.’56 Associating the workings of providence with those of the physical world, the Oxford scholar John Wilder stated that ‘Nature seems principally concern’d… in the Preservation… of Universals; so the God of Nature does remarkably display his incontroulable Power in the Rise, and Continuance, and

53

54 55

56

Adam Gordon, Due Sense… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 5; John Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon’ [1708], in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), p. 74. Wake, A Sermon… 26th of November [1691], pp. 11–12. George Halley, A Sermon… Fourteenth of February, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 19; Archibald Alison, A Discourse… Jan. 18, 1816 (Edinburgh, 1816), p. 8; Smith, Evidences… 13th January 1814, p. 9. Jacob Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799 (Québec, 1799), pp. 4–5; Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798, pp. 2–3 (emphasis in the original); Burnet, A Sermon… 19th Day of October, 1690, p. 6.

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Fall of Kingdoms and Empires.’ Nathaniel Ball echoed that comparison, reasoning that since ‘the Omnipotence of God is… active throughout all the natural and the moral World… it has a proportionable Influence over the momentous Concerns of States and Kingdoms’.57 The wide reach of effects on kingdoms and monarchs gave providential events at that level more influence and impact, not only touching one or several individuals, but instead affecting whole nations. Preachers gave examples of how providence had intervened at the level of states and empires on important occasions in the past. Though people could not always see the individual acts of providence that are carried out around them, these were noticeable by looking at ‘nations in the glass of history, if we stand far enough off to take in at one view their origin, their progress, their decline, and their fall’. Such evidence could be found since the beginning of time. Andrew Burnaby located it at ‘the creation of the world… [when] God visibly took in the direction and regulation of human affairs. – After the flood… it was confirmed… by God’s covenant with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.’58 The thanksgiving sermons are full of historical examples, demonstrating God’s role in the triumphs and adversities of Israel, taken from Old Testament accounts. According to Simon Paget in 1697, ‘God did love his ancient people the Jews when they observed his Statutes and Judgments… and give them Peace because he loved them’, which was a lesson for the present because ‘so does he continue to do the same now to all the Nations and Kingdoms of the Earth’. A hundred years later Richard Hardy made the same point, maintaining that the ‘Jews are represented as a People selected for a particular purpose and acting generally under a divine commission’, and their history became ‘elevated, as a Beacon on the top of an Hill, to direct all Nations, in future Ages of the World, in the narrow track of Duty’. Anglican minister Jeremiah Collins agreed that the recent, and sudden, events of 1815 and 1816 in Europe provided historical parallels to God’s interventions on behalf of the ancient Israelites.59 The rise and fall of other ancient kingdoms also confirmed the workings of providence. Asserting that both scriptural and ‘prophane’ history demonstrate providential action in the world, Samuel Barton noted how ‘the Romans were wont to ascribe the greatness of their Empire more to the Favour of their Gods, and to Fortune, as they call’d it, which was but another name for an over-ruling Providence, than to any strength of their own’, and Barton reconciled Christian doctrine with the rise and power of Rome by pointing to fulfilment of prophecies in the book of Daniel.60 Roman imperial power was also used as an example of the mysterious workings of providence, demonstrating how seemingly negative events could lead to positive ends. This could be shown in the Roman empire’s role in the establishment

57 58 59 60

John Wilder, A Sermon… 27th of June, 1706 (Oxford, 1706), p. 9; Ball, The Evil Effects of War… 25th of April, 1749, p. 14. Blakeway, National Benefits… December 5, 1805, p. 19; Andrew Burnaby, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 9. Paget, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697, p. 14; Hardy, A Sermon… Dec.19, 1797, pp. 2–3; Jeremiah Collins, A Sermon… 18th of Jan. 1816 (Truro, 1816), p. 12. Barton, A Sermon… Octob. 27th 1692, pp. 12–13.



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of Christianity and its conquest of Britain, which led to the civilising of the island and preparing the way for its receipt of the gospel.61

Providence and God’s ‘darling Nation’ Beliefs within the thanksgiving-day sermons regarding the influence and sway of providence over the world – general arguments about the centrality of providence within Christian belief, ideas about divine deliverance and punishment, the importance of God’s intervention in earthly government and significant events, and historical examples of providential actions – allowed for the further and more specific application of assertions of providential benefits directly to and upon Britain. The types of occasions celebrated on thanksgiving days naturally lent themselves to such perceptions about the workings of providence in British affairs. However, it becomes clear that convictions of the special place and role of Britain in God’s plan for the world were expansive and had deep roots. Ideas about the providential advantages Britain received were not limited to the political or religious realms. Even Britain’s geography was viewed as a special and important divine endowment.62 In the early eighteenth century, Richard Lucas listed ‘a fruitful Soil, a healthy and a temperate Climate’ as advantages of ‘our Country’, and he explained ‘the Sea that is about us is not only a Fence and a Security… but an Abyss of Treasure, ministering no only to our Safety, but to our Grandure too’. In 1759 Thomas Smith, lecturer of St Giles without Cripplegate in London, said of England ‘as the hills stand about Jerusalem,… even so has the Almighty environed this kingdom, and defended it on all sides by his Providence’.63 Encouraging his congregation to appreciate the benefits of being ‘natives of Great-Britain’, in 1798 John Booth, assistant curate of Wibsey Chapel in Yorkshire, boasted of the ‘invaluable advantages… by being born in high and imperial Albion, a country, which the Almighty hath surrounded by the ocean, and on which he hath bestowed the empire of the main’. That same year Abraham Rees used the imagery of the vineyard in Isaiah 5: 4 to distinguish Britain being ‘separated… from other nations by the ocean… furnished with advantages, of defence and commercial intercourse superior 61 62

63

Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784, pp. 17–20; Lewis Atterbury, A Sermon… August the 23d, 1705 (London, 1705), p. 16. For some discussion of the development of such views in the early modern and modern periods, see Ken Lunn and Ann Day, ‘Britain as Island: National Identity and the Sea’, in History, Nationhood and the Question of Britain, ed. Helen Brocklehurst and Robert Phillips (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 124–36; David Lowenthal, ‘The Island Garden: English Landscape and British Identity’, in History, Nationhood and the Question of Britain, ed. Helen Brocklehurst and Robert Phillips (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 137–48; Kathleen Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London, 2003), p. 55; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992), p. 18. Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 217; Thomas Smith, The Terrible Calamities… A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (London, 1760), p. 26.

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to those of every other kingdom’.64 Rees’s categories of ‘separation – protection – and cultivation’ nicely summarised Britain’s geographical benefits. Preachers saw the ocean as a providential ‘barrier’, ‘bulwark’, or ‘rampart’ defending Britain from its enemies. The sea furnished a physical separation, especially in regard to the warfare that dominated long stretches of the period. In 1749 Thomas Fothergill characterised Britain as ‘a Nation divided by Nature from all other Kingdoms, a People that dwell alone,… like a Family situated in a remote Place… bound to study the mutual Happiness of each other, by multiplying domestic comforts, and cultivating Peace and Unanimity among ourselves’. Almost half a century later William Agutter found a similar comfort in ‘our insular situation; for though engaged in a most alarming and extraordinary war… yet war has not been in our gates. We have slept secure.’ Henry Stephens was already extolling the benefits of this separation in 1708, noting ‘while we are crown’d with Conquests abroad, we enjoy quiet at home. The Scene of this bloody Tragedy is at a distance; we onely hear of wars and rumours of wars, and feel no other effects, of ’em.’65 Britain’s geographical circumstance could take on an additional, biblical significance. In 1702 Benjamin Loveling described ‘Our very Situation’ as ‘a peculiar Blessing’, and, quoting Exodus 14: 22, when the Israelites entered the parted Red Sea, he asserted ‘The Waters are a Wall to us on our right hand and on our left, as they sometimes were to God’s own People.’66 Other preachers made similar comparisons. In the mid-century the Presbyterian George Benson, minister to the Crutched Friars meeting in London, suggested that like ‘the rocks were round about Jerusalem; so is the mighty ocean round about Great Britain. This prevents the sudden invasion of our land, and, and causes us to have peace and tranquility in our borders.’ Recounting all ‘the natural Advantages that Providence has vouchsafed’ Britain, John Duncombe, assistant preacher at St Anne’s Westminster, added the ‘natural and almost impregnable Barrier which the Waves afford us; those Waves, which, like the Sea to the Israelites, are a Wall to us’.67 In addition to its insular circumstances, thanksgiving sermons also celebrated the environmental and climatic conditions of Britain. The dissenting minister Josiah Woodcock praised ‘the noblest Island in the World… large and populous, of very good Climate and Soil; fruitful, and abounding in all things necessary for Life and Refreshment’.68 Other preachers mentioned the benefits of Britain’s climate to various economic activities, including agricultural production, industry, 64

65

66 67

68

John Booth, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (Huddersfield, n.d.), p. 9; Abraham Rees, The Privileges… A Sermon… 29th of November 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 8–9. The allusion to biblical ‘vineyard’ imagery is found in many of the thanksgiving-day sermons. Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… April 25. 1749, p. 29; William Agutter, Deliverance… A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 4; Henry Stephens, A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708 (Oxford, 1708), p. 14. Loveling, A Sermon… December 3. 1702, p. 26. George Benson, ‘Sermon XVII…. Oct. 9, 1746’, in Sermons on the Following Subjects… (London, 1748), p. 419; John Duncombe, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 10–11. Josiah Woodcock, A Sermon Preach’d August 19, 1708. (London, 1708), p. 16.



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and mining.69 There were further advantages as well. While recognising Britain’s climate did not allow ‘luxuriant scenes of vegetation’ through all seasons, Samuel Hayes went on to appreciate the lack of natural disasters – ‘those concussions of the elements, which frequently, and in a moment, lay waste the beauties of nature, and leave the miserable natives without provision, or habitation’ – that tropical locations seemed to regularly suffer. Similarly, John Jefferson, lecturer at St Anne’s Westminster, praised the absence of ‘pestilence, the earthquakes, the hurricanes, the famines – the scourges and terrors of other lands, [which] the Divine clemency averts from us’.70 John Stonard, curate of Sundridge in Kent, mentioned the freedom from fierce animals, reptiles, and insects, as did William Mavor.71 Again, parallels to ancient Israel were drawn in regard to Britain’s environmental situation. Nathaniel Goodwin, curate of Souldern in Oxfordshire, pronounced ‘our own native Land, like that of Canaan, is both fruitful and pleasant’, and William Farmerie, rector of Heapham in Lincolnshire, asked rhetorically ‘How has God blest this our native Land with Plenty, and Pleasure of all kinds, so that we may conceive our selves planted in another Canaan?’72 Belief in the divinely endowed geographical circumstances of Britain was only one aspect of a larger certainty that the nation held special providential station. Throughout the period many examples proving the workings of providence in the sermons also suggested that Britain had a privileged place in God’s ordering of the world. Such claims were plain and overt. After the Battle of Trafalgar, Caleb Colton, curate of Prior’s Portion in Devon, asserted that Britons were called ‘by Providence, to act a most distinguished part, on the grand theatre of human affairs,… on the issue of our exertions must hang the fate of an expecting, and a trembling world’. Looking back from 1691 on the events of the recent past, Nicholas Brady noted ‘How signally and remarkably we have felt the comfortable refreshings of Divine Goodness… If we look upon the Preservation and Establishment of our tottering Religion, the happy Union of ourselves at home, and the successful progress of our Arms abroad, we cannot but acknowledge that God has compassed us about with Songs of deliverance.’73 In 1802 Henry Majendie, bishop of Chester, directed his audience ‘to consider, from a retrospect of some of the principal features in the history of this 69

70 71 72

73

See for example, Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… 27th of June 1706 (London, 1706), p. 21; Robert Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a. A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 8; Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… November 22. 1709’, p. 224; Benson, ‘Sermon XVII…. Oct. 9, 1746’, p. 420; Agutter, Deliverance… December 19th, 1797, p. 4; Martin Benson, A Sermon… For the Late Victory [1797] (London, 1797), p. 12; David Lloyd, England’s Privileges: A Thanksgiving Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Hereford, 1797), p. 10; Hugh Worthington, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, n.d.), p. 11. Samuel Hayes, A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 9; John Jefferson, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 13. John Stonard, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Chertsey, 1806), pp. 4–5; William Mavor, The Duty… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Oxford, 1798), p. 10. Nathaniel Goodwin, God’s Care… a Sermon… January the 20th 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 10; William Farmerie, The Ingratitude of Israel… A Sermon… Seventh of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 15. Caleb Colton, A Sermon… December 5th 1805 (Tiverton, 1805), p. 22; Nicholas Brady, A

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country… whether there result not abundant proofs of God’s providential care and favour towards us’. As Thomas Foxcroft declared four decades earlier, ‘surely, upon the least Reflexion, all must confess, the merciful Favours of Providence towards us (I mean the People of Great Britain, and of these its dependent Colonies)’.74 Providential implications of the Reformation, and incidents in its aftermath, such as the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, and the ousting of James II/VII from the throne, were often repeated. William Lane, lecturer at Hereford Cathedral, described how it was ‘By many extraordinary Providences’ that God had ‘in former times, been pleased to preserve this Church and Nations from the pernicious Designs of open and secret Enemies to our Liberties, and the Reformation’. Despite there being ‘no particular visible Miracle wrought for the bringing about the Reformation’, Charles Bean, now the vicar of Lydd in Kent, nonetheless argued ‘from the Progress it made, from the Opposition it bore down, from the Power and Policy it defeated, it was visible that the Hand of God was concerned in the guidance of the second Causes that produced it, as it has been ever since in the Preservation of it’.75 In his early eighteenth-century thanksgiving sermon John Piggott thought ‘it may not be unsuitable briefly to recite some Mighty Acts of special Providence which God has wrought for this Nation… the defeat of the Spanish Armada,… Discovery of the Powder Plot… the Happy Revolution by the Illustrious Prince of Orange’. Reflecting in 1759 on ‘our blessed Reformation from Popery, or the happy Restoration of our Constitution, on the glorious Revolution, and the most seasonable Accession of the illustrious House of Hanover to the Throne’ provided William Henry, rector of Urney in Ireland, ‘a pleasing Meditation to a religious Observer of Providence’.76 Such historical events became proof of more than just the generic workings of providence, instead highlighting the central place of Britain within providential affairs. These claims of Britain’s distinct and extraordinary providential status were a common theme of thanksgiving sermons throughout the eighteenth century. Some of this evidence was distant, but much came from the more immediate past. The events that inspired thanksgivings themselves substantiated claims of Britain’s special providential status. Preachers did not need to look back too far, as the period was punctuated by positive results for the kingdom. The Congregational minister Thomas Masters, took his audience only to ‘the happy Revolution’ twenty years before, in order ‘to recapitulate some of the Wonders of Providence we receiv’d therein, and since down to this very day, which come little or nothing short of Israel’s deliverance from Babylon’. In the midst of the Seven Years’ War, the Church of Scotland minister Robert Walker proclaimed ‘it was the Lord our God who fought

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Sermon… 26th of November, 1691 (London, 1692), pp. 22–3 (Brady’s last phrase is taken from Psalm 32: 7). Henry Majendie, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 8; Thomas Foxcroft, Grateful Reflexions… A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, 1760), pp. 8–9. William Lane, A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 25; Charles Bean, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 14–15. John Piggott, A Sermon Preach’d the 7th of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 12; William Henry, The Triumphs… A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Dublin, 1759), p. 7.



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for us… who in Germany and Canada revealed his mighty arm on our side… and made us triumph over them that hate us’. Highlighting the efforts of revolutionary France and its allies against Britain, William Goode exclaimed ‘in every attempt they have failed!!!’ He went on to clearly affirm that this was clearly the work of providence.77 Archibald Alison ascribed no mean role for Britain in the downfall of Napoleon: ‘to this country, the Providence of God has given the final blow, which has broken the fetters of the world’. Referring to Napoleon’s 1814 abdication, James Smith found ‘incontrovertible evidence of this special interposition of divine providence in our behalf ’ in the fact ‘that the success of the arms of our countrymen and allies has in so short a space been carried out to this most astonishing, and altogether unexpected event’.78 God was also active in Britain’s religious causes, a confirmation of providential blessings not limited to military and political events. William Corbin noted ‘in this Generation, God hath not been wanting to give us extraordinary and signal Instances of that Care which he hath still for his Church amongst us’. The London Presbyterian Obadiah Hughes remarked upon the numerous times throughout ‘English history… how amazingly divine providence has interposed for our salvation… more especially, since we became a protestant nation’. William Talbot affirmed ‘’Tis certain this Church and Nation have been for some time preserved… God has plainly appeared for us as he did of old for his People whom he brought out of Ægypt with a mighty hand’.79 For Nathaniel Hough, lecturer of Kensington in London, it was the Church of England that his text described: ‘We are the happy People drawn in this Psalm [144:15] to the very Life, and upon whom this Description comes down more fully and forcibly, than upon any Community of Mankind’ because nowhere was God ‘more purely worshipp’d, more justly honour’d, nor… more practically obey’d, then in this Church of his, and Country of ours’. Similarly, Alexander Jephson, rector of Ramden Bellhouse in Essex, applied Isaiah 43: 3–4 to Protestants, ‘especially we of this Nation’, because God had often ‘defeated the attempts of our implacable Enemies, and brought the Mischiefs they designed us upon themselves’.80 Preachers summed up the kingdom’s providential standing in a number of ways. Britain was ‘this Favourite Island of Heaven… miraculously preserv’d’, ‘a People 77

78 79

80

Thomas Masters, A Sermon… November 22. 1709 (London, 1710), p. 12; Robert Walker, ‘Sermon XVIII…. Nov. 29. 1759’, in Sermons on Practical Subjects, Volume I (London, 1783; third edition), p. 406; William Goode, Mercies in Judgment: A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1797), p. 14. Thomas Masters is identified as a Congregational minister in John Waddington, Surrey Congregational History (London, 1866), p. 105, https://books. google.ca/books?id=uQFeAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r &cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 23 February 2015). Alison, A Discourse… Jan. 18, 1816, p. 8; Smith, Evidences… 13th January 1814, p. 23. Corbin, Grateful Acknowledgment… 22d of September 1695, pp. 3, 4; Obadiah Hughes, Peace Attended… A Sermon… April xxv…. [1749] (London, 1749), p. 8; William Talbot, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 23. Nathaniel Hough, Successes… A Sermon… Sept. 7. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 4 (emphasis in the original); Alexander Jephson, A Sermon… 20th Day of January (London, 1715), p. 3.

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highly favoured by Providence’, God’s ‘Favourite, his darling Nation’.81 At the outset of the eighteenth century the nation was ‘a People… [under] the peculiar and visible Care of the Divine Providence’, and by the end of the century it was confirmed, through ‘God’s peculiar care over us, that Great Britain has been gloriously distinguished as the Island of God!’82 Another method of differentiation was through comparisons to other countries, which left little doubt regarding how Britain fared providentially. In a sermon celebrating one of Marlborough’s military victories, White Kennett declared God ‘hath dealt with us, as he hath not dealt with any other Nation, and made our Arms the Praise and Glory of the Earth’, and on that same occasion Thomas Knaggs asserted ‘No Nation in the World has such Cause of Thanksgiving as we; For where is that Kingdom that has received so many Mercies, so many Wonderful and Amazing Successes?’83 In 1797, George Pretyman told his royal and parliamentary audience that, in the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires throughout history, ‘there never was a period when the hand of God was more apparent than in the age in which we live; nor was the gracious interposition of Providence ever more manifest than in the present situation of this kingdom, when compared with that of the neighbouring nations’. Eight years later, in Ireland the bishop of Meath, Thomas O’Beirne, asked his audience ‘What people had ever greater cause to be thankful?… What greater deliverances did any people ever receive at his hands?’ Echoing this sentiment, George Burges, curate of Leverington in Cambridgeshire, told his audience ‘as a nation, we seem to have been favored with a more peculiar share of the divine protection. While other Kingdoms of the earth have been convulsed around us, we have remained immoveable.’84

Providence and the British Israel Comparisons to other nations led to a further, more powerful and compelling, type. In 1746 James Moody, a Presbyterian minister from Newry in Ireland, announced ‘No nation… since the Jewish Government ceased, has had such deliverances and remarkable Interpositions of divine Providence in the Favour, as we in these Lands have been blessed with.’ Likewise, at the moment of William III and Mary II’s accession to the throne, Thomas Watts, the vicar of Orpington in Kent, particularly specified ‘no Nation under the Cope of Heaven, besides the Jewish, can yield more,

81

82 83 84

Richard Welton, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 14; Norman, A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746, p. 21; Joseph Jacob, The Works of God… a Sermon… 12th of the 9th Month, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 41. John Whittel, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… June the 27th, 1706 (London, 1706), p. 19; John de Veil, National Blessings… A Sermon… November, 29th, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 17. Kennett, Glory to God… 22d. of Nov. 1709, p. 7: Thomas Knaggs, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 7. Pretyman, A Sermon… December 19th, 1797, p. 8; Thomas O’Beirne, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Dublin, 1805), pp. 23–4; George Burges, A Discourse… December 5, 1805 (Wisbech, 1806), p. 7.



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or such signal and remarkable Instances of an extraordinary Providence’.85 In 1798 John Buckner asserted that ‘If there ever were a nation, since the government of Judea ceased to be a theocracy, that had reason to believe a superintending Providence… surely it is Great Britain.’ Though Lewis Atterbury perceived the unique circumstance of God’s direct government over Israel, he nonetheless declared ‘if we compare the blessings we enjoy… we shall find, that those who come nearest to it are the Inhabitants of these happy Islands.’ Richard Welton more forcefully affirmed ‘we have found by a most Blessed Experience, such signal Effects of the Protection and Providence of Almighty God, as not only the Israelites, but as any other People under Heaven could ever pretend to’.86 The implications of this type of comparison were unique and compelling. Speculating on Britain’s political mission in the mid-eighteenth century, William Warburton, rector of Brant Broughton in Lincolnshire and later bishop of Gloucester, said ‘’Tis possible we may be chosen by Providence, in these latter Ages to preserve the Memory of Civil Liberty amongst the degenerate Sons of Men; as the House of Israel was formerly, to keep alive True Religion amidst Universal Apostacy.’ In 1696 Walter Neale, rector of Shandon in Ireland, suggested the military significance of ‘our Victories be[ing] continued, our Success stable and permanent, and the Dread of us, as of the Israelites of old (having the same insuperable Conducter and Ally) shall fall upon the Nations round us’.87 As shown in the preceding chapter, the choice and application of biblical texts for themes of the thanksgiving-day sermons often encouraged very direct, even analogous, associations between the situation of Britain and that of Israel in the Old Testament. Not limited to their opening scriptural passages, sermons developed these kinds of providential parallels more expansively. The degree of such usages varied, running the gamut from simple examples of shared circumstances to complete substitution of Britain as God’s new chosen people and nation. A number of scholars have noted the use of ‘Israelite’ parallels in British religious language and culture during the early modern period and into the eighteenth century, applications of Old Testament analogies that ranged from examples and resemblances, to perceptions of Britain as ‘a unique second Israel for which God had fought before and would fight in the future’.88 This had more than just a rhetorical weight, as 85

86 87 88

James Moody, A Sermon… October the Ninth, 1746 (Belfast, 1746), pp. 3–4; Thomas Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th [1689] (London, 1689), p. 18. Moody is identified as a Presbyterian minister in Neal Garnham, The Militia in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: In Defence of the Protestant Interest (Woodbridge, 2012), p. 57. John Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 8–9; Atterbury, A Sermon… August the 23d, 1705, p. 20; Welton, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697, p. 4. William Warburton, A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving [1746] (London, 1746), pp. 28–9; Walter Neale, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 19–20. Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden, 2005), pp. 86–121, quotation on p. 87. For further discussion and interpretation of the use of the ‘Israelite’ concept and Britons as a chosen people, see for example, Colley, Britons, pp. 30–3; Tony Claydon, William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge, 1996), p. 127; Tony Claydon and Ian McBride, ‘The Trials of the Chosen Peoples: Recent

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audiences in the long eighteenth century possessed a knowledge of biblical circumstances and were ‘receptive… to the biblical dimension of contemporary events’.89 Many preachers saw contemporary British circumstances mirroring those of the Jews in the Old Testament. In 1691 Simon Patrick told his audience that the ‘Jewish Nation [is] being represented to us, by St. Paul, as our Types and Examples; and their History being written… For our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.’ Noting that the Israelites ‘had seen many strange things, such as no Age had produced… so many proofs of an extraordinary Providence over them’, Patrick went on to state ‘we… are a People also saved by the Lord’, and his sermon would recount ‘a few things that our eyes likewise have beheld’.90 Similarly, in 1706 Joseph Stennett (the elder), Baptist minister at Pinners’ Hall in London, declared that the ‘present Condition of England does in many Instances resemble the antient State of Israel, that while I have been discoursing the Privileges of the one, I am sure you could not forget the Happiness of the other’. There was no subtlety in Stennett’s interpretation of this comparison: ‘The Indulgence of Heaven Towards us, in defeating the secret Plots and open Attempts of our Enemies, in protecting our Country from design’d Invasions, and the best of our Kings from the Sword abroad… all shew how much we have been the Objects of God’s peculiar Favor.’91 George Townsend prefaced the printed version of his 1789 thanksgiving sermon with a preview of his synopsis ‘of the great things God hath done, not only for his ancient Israel, or, his Church in general, but for Britain in particular’. In the sermon itself, Townsend referred to Britain as ‘this highly favoured island’, noting the Israelites had been called to ‘consider the great things God had done for them as a nation’ and asking ‘Is there not such a call to Britain? Hath not God a claim upon us?’92 Beyond identification with the general course of the history of ancient Israel, preachers viewed specific situations as comparable. There was special significance in

89

90

91 92

Interpretations of Protestantism and National Identity in Britain and Ireland’, in Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 10–11; Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 203–18; Michael Mcgiffert, ‘God’s Controversy with Jacobean England’, The American Historical Review, 88:5 (1983), 1151–7, 1162–6; Mary Morrissey ‘Elect Nations and Prophetic Preaching: Types and Examples in the Paul’s Cross Jeremiad’, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature, and History 1600–1750, ed. Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (Manchester, 2000), pp. 45–52. Robert Kent Donovan, ‘Evangelical Civic Humanism in Glasgow: The American War Sermons of William Thom’, in The Glasgow Enlightenment, ed. Andrew Hook and Richard B. Sher (East Linton, 1995), pp. 234–5. See also Kevin Killeen, ‘Veiled Speech: Preaching, Politics and Scriptural Typology’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), pp. 388, 391, 396, 401. Simon Patrick, A Sermon… 26th of Novemb. [1691] (London, 1691), pp. 1, 2, 4 (italics in the original: the first italicised passage signifies the quotation of 1 Corinthians 10: 11; the second is for emphasis). Stennett, A Sermon… 27th of June 1706, p. 21. George Townsend, The King’s Recovery… in Two Discourses… April the 23d 1789 (Canterbury, 1789), pp. iii–iv, 8–9.



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military endeavours. In 1763 John Smith drew the parallel by pointing out that, just as the Israelites’ enemies were ‘various, numerous, unjust, and perfidious, envious and malicious’, so were Britain’s. According to Joseph Stennett, the victory at Blenheim had ‘no parallel in the present Age, and… few Examples in History that can equal it, excepting those Miraculous Instances among the Israelites in the time of the Judges’. For John Wilder two years later, the ‘Application to our selves of God’s Dealing with the Jews is plain and evident… it has been God’s good Pleasure to prosper our Forces by Land and Sea, and to let us Triumph Gloriously over our Enemies.’93 Resemblance was also found in biblical enemies. Jumping over and between chronological and theological divides, Griffith Williams, vicar of Great Totham in Essex, described the Israelites as ‘the only people of God, and the only Protestants in the world’ during their time, who opposed their ‘Heathen’ enemies the Moabites, ‘as the true Christians do now against the idolatry of Papists, and Heathens, and… of Arians also’. Deuel Pead, curate of St James Clerkenwell in London, likened the ‘Philistines and Edomites’ to ‘bloody-minded Papists’ of his own time.94 The locating of enemies in biblical exemplars was matched by linking British monarchs with their own biblical types. In the context of the political disputes over succession and legitimacy of William III’s rule, John Strype, vicar of Low Leyton in Essex, asked pointedly ‘Is he an Usurper, whom God brought to the Crown?… was not David advanced by his peculiar Appointment, and wonderful Providence preserved, to sit on the Throne of Israel?’ Elsewhere, Strype referred to ‘our King David’ and criticised contemporary attempts to disturb the ‘Peace and Quiet… under David’s Goverment’. Christopher Johnson gave his audience a similar message regarding their loyalty, advising them to ‘copy out to our selves the Men of Judah’s Fidelity unto their Royal David, and cleave unto our King’.95 In addition to frequent use of David, some preachers equated William with Josiah, Hezekiah, and Moses.96 When Anne came to the throne, the leader and prophet Deborah provided not just an historical but also a gendered match for many preachers. For example, John Evans labelled the queen ‘Our English Deborah’, and for Luke Milbourne, Anne, like Deborah, was ‘the Mother of our Israel’.97 Yet, gender did not limit all comparators in Anne’s reign. The dissenter Giles Dent proclaimed ‘how much the Character of David belongs to that Princess, who by the good Providence of God now reigns 93

94 95 96

97

John Smith, The Circle Blessing… a Thanksgiving-Sermon… May 5, 1763 (Northampton, n.d.; second edition), p. 17; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704 (London, 1704), pp. 27–8; Wilder, A Sermon… 27th of June, 1706, pp. 26–7. Griffith Williams, The Triumph… A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 6; Deuel Pead, The Protestant King… a Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 4. John Strype, David and Saul. A Sermon [1696] (London, 1696), pp. 7, 14, 10; Christopher Johnson, A Sermon… December the 2d. 1697 (London, 1698), p. 25. For Josiah and Hezekiah, see Flavell, Mount Pisgah. A Sermon… February xiiii, 1688/9, pp. 37, 46. For Moses, see Anonymous, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 22; Johnson, A Sermon… December the 2d. 1697, pp. 9, 15, 25; Nathaniel Harding, The Peoples Part… A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 23. John Evans, A Sermon… Septemb. 7th. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 15; Luke Milbourne, Great Brittains Acclamation… a Sermon… September VII. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 24.

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over this United People’. William Pearson, a canon of York cathedral, compared the queen to Hezekiah, and William Perse, curate of Malton in Yorkshire, likened her to Moses.98 These kinds of close monarchical analogies continued in the Georgian period. Though the frequency of thanksgivings was far less during George I’s reign than under William or Anne, those thanksgiving-day sermons continued to compare circumstances of current and biblical rulers. The ubiquitous monarchical analogy with David was used and it served the purpose of shoring up George I’s Hanoverian claim, as it had for William III’s claim after 1689. William Hawtayne proclaimed that George I was ‘now made King over us by the same Divine Providence, and much the same manner as David was over Israel’. Referring to Saul’s death and the challenges to David’s succession, Hawtayne criticised ‘the groundless Claim of Hereditary, Indefeasible, Unalienable Right, advanced in Opposition to the Appointment of God himself ’, and argued George I ‘has just the same Title to ours, which David had to the Crown of Israel’. The dissenter Thomas Simmons noted that David was anointed by God and chosen by his people, relating this to ‘our happy Case this day; We have a King whom we have as much Ground to believe, is the Choice of God, as ever [a] King was… and yet he is the Choice of the People too’.99 Other monarchical comparisons were used in George II’s and George III’s reigns. In 1746 John Pennington, rector of All Saints in Huntingdon, compared ‘the happy state of the Kingdom of Judah in the Reign of Jehoshaphat’ to ‘that of our own Kingdom, in the Reign of His Present Majesty… whatever Jehoshaphat did, for the good of his people, is equally done for us by the Prince upon the Throne’. In the same year, Henry Piers, vicar of Bexley in Kent, suggested that George II had been blessed like Joshua, Gideon, and David.100 In George III’s reign preachers found several apt parallels. The king was compared to the Israelite kings Hezekiah, Solomon, and David.101 Though John Camplin, vicar of St Nicholas and St Leonard in Bristol, cautioned that ‘the difference of time and place, of religion, laws and government’ did not allow an ‘exact parallel’, he went on to declare a ‘striking likeness’ between the Hezekiah and George III, having elsewhere in his sermon made very direct comparisons.102 Giles Dent, A Thanksgiving Sermon… First Day of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 11; Pearson, A Sermon… Septemb. VII. 1704, p. 19; William Perse, A Sermon… June 27th. 1706 (York, n.d.), pp. 25, 29. 99 William Hawtayne, A Sermon… Twentieth of January, 1714 [1715] (London, 1714), pp. 2, 5, 12; Thomas Simmons, The King’s Safety… A Sermon… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 10. 100 John Pennington, Judah’s Deliverance… A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), p. 10; Henry Piers, Religion and Liberty… A Sermon… 9th of October, MDCCXLVI (Bristol, n.d.), p. 12. 101 See for example, John Pattenson, A Sermon… Twenty-Third of April, 1789 (Halifax, 1789), p. 7; Cottingham, A Commemoration… April 23d, 1789, p. 20; Richard Formby, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1789 (Bath, 1789), pp. 1–3; Abraham Jobson, The Conduct… a Thanksgiving Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Cambridge, 1798), p. 3; Porteus, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789, pp. 6, 17–18. 102 John Camplin, The Royal Recovery: a Sermon… 23d Of April 1789 (London, n.d.), pp. 11, 3, 12, 14, quotation on p. 11. 98



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Internal divisions and unrest also matched biblical circumstances. The early Jacobite movement paralleled the claim of Saul’s son Ishbosheth, ‘who had no more Right to the Crown of Israel than the pretended Prince of Wales hath to ours, God having excluded him by electing David’, and the French, who disturbed ‘the Peace of our Israel’, were compared to ‘those uncircumcised Philistines, that the Friends of Saul had stirred up against us… ready to Invade our Country, and by Force and Violence to intrude upon us a King’.103 Two decades later, a thanksgiving sermon entitled The Rebellion of Sheba associated revolt against David in 2 Samuel 20 with the 1715 rebellion against George I. In this, supporters of James Francis Edward Stuart were the ‘disaffected Israelites… [who] abandon’d their rightful Monarch, and put themselves under the Conduct of a Rebel-General to depose him’. However, ‘the Men of Judah, train’d up in more substantial Principles of Loyalty, adher’d to their King, and resolve’d to defend his Throne against all Pretenders whatever’.104 Samuel Billingsly repeated the reference to the dispute over the throne after Saul’s death, proposing ‘change but the Names of Persons and Places, and it is in a great measure of our own very Story’, with ‘our most Gracious Sovereign King George instead of King David’ and ‘our present Pretender… change him for Ishbosheth… the Banks of the River Tay… in stead of the Pool of Gibeon’.105 Applying the story of King Zedekiah’s alliance with Egypt and his revolt against Babylon, the Exeter Presbyterian minister John Withers asserted that the ‘Jewish and British Rebels resemble one another in their Expectations of foreign Aid’, and their support of the Stuart claim to the throne in the face of the Hanoverian succession ‘had the same Plea to make of Fighting in Defence of hereditary Right; and against a foreign Prince’.106 Israelite analogies continued to be used into the period of the Napoleonic wars. A number of sermons compared Nelson’s victory at the Nile to the biblical deliverance from Egypt. Abraham Jobson, vicar of Wymeswold in Leicestershire, described how, ‘comparatively near the spot’ where the Jews were led out of Egypt, ‘Admiral Nelson, like another Moses, lifted his one hand to Heaven, while his fleet nobly fought, and, as Israel, prevailed’.107 Such comparisons were used for other battles. In 1805 John Clowes recounted the story of the Egyptians pursuing the Israelites and then asked his audience if, just as then, ‘the Lord fought for Israel… shall not we be convinced by our preservation, that the Lord hath fought for us?’ Clowes reiterated this query a decade later, noting that the ‘children of Israel, in the days of Moses, saw themselves delivered from the hands of their enemies the Egyptians… And have not we of late

103 Pead,

The Protestant King… April 16. 1696, p. 4; Strype, David and Saul [1696], p. 14. The account of Ishbosheth is found in 2 Samuel 2-4. 104 Anonymous, The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (Exeter, 1716), p. 4. 105 Samuel Billingsly, A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 14, 16–17. The details here are in reference to 2 Samuel 2: 13–17. 106 John Withers, The Perjury… a Sermon… June the 7th. 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 9, 10. For the story of Zedekiah, see 2 Kings 25: 1–7, Jeremiah 37–39, and Ezekiel 17: 15–21. 107 Jobson, The Conduct… November 29, 1798, pp. 6–7. See also James Stillingfleet, National Gratitude… a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Worcester, 1798), pp. 28–32; William M’Kechnie, Nelson’s Victory… A Discourse [1798] (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 6, 8, 12.

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witnessed the same Mighty Hand and stretched out Arm extended over us? Have we not seen all the elements of nature employed in our protection?’ Jeremiah Collins marked the last thanksgiving of the period by similarly noting that Britons had been ‘blessed with the same freedom’ from God’s judgements ‘as the children of Israel enjoyed amid the plagues of the land of Egypt’.108 It was not only the circumstances of Britain and ancient Israel that corresponded but, more importantly, the divine solicitude each of these nations received. The implications of these parallels were extremely significant, and they were often repeated in thanksgiving sermons. Even when not arguing for an exact equivalent, the resemblance made for powerful assertions. After the defeat of the first Jacobite rebellion Benjamin Carter, rector of Wilford in Nottinghamshire, chose ‘not to offer at a Parallel between us and the Israelites’, though he did intend ‘to shew, That God has dealt very graciously with this Nation’ by saving ‘us, as He did the Israelites of Old… by amazing, and miraculous Interpositions of his Providence’. During the Seven Years’ War Peter Goddard, rector of Fornham All Saints in Suffolk, allowed that the people of Britain could not ‘boast of the same miraculous Interposition, and of the same extraordinary Providence’ as the Israelites, ‘yet certainly, next unto them, never was there any nation that has been more signally saved by the Lord, than we have been’.109 The same year, William Warburton concluded ‘that the same gracious Providence would be now no less watchful, for the preservation of the British nation, than it was of old, for the Jewish’, and in 1814 Edward Owen, curate of Mortlake in Surrey, was still suggesting that Britain had as many, if not more, blessings to be grateful for as the Old Testament enumerated for Israel.110 Many ministers had less hesitation, making even more direct comparisons. In 1715 Thomas Harrison, then the Baptist minister to the Little Wild Street meeting in London, asked ‘May not the same God be call’d the God of Great Britain in a sense very distinguishing, tho not so peculiar, as he was the God of Israel?’ While the Jewish state was different in having received its political, civil, and judicial structures directly from God, Harrison maintained there was no other nation than Britain ‘on whose behalf he has more wonderfully appear’d for whom he has more frequently wrought out great Salvation’.111 In the aftermath of the second Jacobite rebellion, Joseph Stennett declared the ‘God of Israel is our God also, and ever since he planted his tabernacle among us, he has distinguished us by his special favour and protection, 108 John

Clowes, A Sermon… 5th of December [1805] (Manchester, 1805), pp. 20; Clowes, A Sermon… 13th of January, 1814, p. 11; Collins, A Sermon… 18th of Jan. 1816, pp. 15–16. 109 Benjamin Carter, The Happiness… A Sermon… June the 7th 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 4–5, 15–16; Peter Goddard, A Sermon Preached November 29, 1759 (Bury St Edmunds, 1760), p. 11. 110 William Warburton, ‘Sermon IX…. November 29, MDCCLIX’, in Sermons and Discourses, Volume III (London, 1766), p. 194; Edward Owen, A Sermon… 13th of January 1814 (London, 1814), p. 5. 111 Thomas Harrison, A Sermon Preach’d the 20th of January 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 13. Harrison would later recant his Baptist beliefs, and he became the vicar of Ratcliffe on the Wreake, Leicestershire in the early 1730s: David L. Wykes, ‘Harrison, Thomas (1693–1745)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/12450 (accessed 15 August 2015).



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as he did Judah and Israel of old’. Daniel Williams cited Jeremiah 51: 5 in advising it was ‘befitting us to Rejoice in all eminent Discoveries of the Hand of God, fighting our Battels; for this is a Sign that Israel hath not been foresaken’. The opening lines of Samuel Clarke’s 1709 sermon to the House of Commons made it perfectly clear: ‘There is no Nation under Heaven, since the Times of God’s governing the Jews by an immediate Theocracy, that has seen more and clearer instances of the interposition of Providence on their behalf, or has had greater Blessings and Means of publick Prosperity… than we of this Nation have had.’112 William Henry reminded his Irish audience of ‘the extraordinary Protection which God has vouchsafed his People in these happy British Islands, and the surprising Deliverances’, and Henry announced ‘we should find them as many, and remarkable as those He afforded his antient People of Israel’. In 1797 John Newton enquired of his London congregation ‘can we read of the history of Israel, without remarking how strongly it resembles our own? Have we not been equally distinguished from the nations around us, by spiritual and temporal blessings, and by our gross misimprovement of them?’113 Underlying all of these comparisons, likenesses, and parallels was a demonstration that Britain was treated like God’s chosen nation. At the very least, the examples of God’s providential favouring of Britain resembled the direct blessings and interventions that Israel had received; however, many took this similarity, and the analogies, even further. In a sermon to the king and queen in 1693, John Sharp proclaimed that the British Isles ‘now at this day (God’s ancient people the Jews being for their Infidelity long ago rejected) are the principal Seat of his Church and Kingdom’, and in 1759 Alexander Gerard, professor of Divinity at Marischal College, quoted Deuteronomy 4: 7 and 2 Samuel 7: 23 (‘For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them…’; ‘And what nation in the earth is like they people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself…’) and told his Aberdeen audience ‘God’s address to the people of Israel… is equally applicable to us’. By 1798, according to one anonymous sermon, its opposition to the advance of revolutionary France made Britain ‘what God promised to make his ancient people, “high above all nations which he hath made in praise, in name, and in honour”’.114 Such declarations, directly referencing the Israelites and biblical passages that pronounced the status of God’s chosen people, clearly positioned Britain and Britons in a particular, special, and lofty circumstance in the divine order of peoples and nations. The idea of Britain in this favoured place was often represented by the use of ‘Israel’ when speaking of the nation.115 The application of this device demonstrates

112 Joseph

Stennett, The Lord Was There… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 23; Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 24; Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709, p. 3. 113 Henry, The Triumphs… November the 29th, 1759, p. 6; Newton, Motives to Humiliation… December 19, 1797, p. 6 (emphasis in the original). 114 Sharp, A Sermon… 12th of November, 1693, pp. 22–3; Alexander Gerard, National Blessings… A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (Aberdeen, 1759), pp. 25–6; Anon., England’s Causes… November 1798, p. 12 (the biblical quotation is of Deuteronomy 26: 19). 115 Linda Colley has noted ‘innumerable’ examples equating of Israel and Britain in the eighteenth century: Colley, Britons, pp. 30–1.

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more than simply a rhetorical turn of phrase by preachers. For example, in the early eighteenth century the dissenter Thomas Foster maintained that his verse (Psalm 3: 8 – ‘Salvation belongeth unto the Lord: thy blessing is upon thy people.’) could ‘be apply’d as properly to the present State of our English Israel, as any People whatsoever’, and he declared ‘our English Israel may challenge all the World besides, to produce either more or greater Instances of God’s Providence, and Goodness vouchsafed to any Nation than she hath had’. More succinctly, the Presbyterian minister Timothy Cruso asked ‘What hath God wrought, and how hath he defeated every Divination against the English Israel?’116 Numerous references to British ‘Israel’ were made in thanksgiving-day sermons, and preachers also used Sion, Jerusalem, and even Canaan to refer to the nation. Thomas Hall saw the suppression of the second Jacobite rebellion as God delivering ‘his British Israel from the Confusion and Trouble’, and fellow Congregational minister John Richardson described the events of the international wars of the mid-century as evidencing the ‘great things Providence was pleased… to perform in behalf of his British and Protestant Israel’. Likewise, the Baptist minister Thomas Craner confirmed biblical mention of the Israelites’ promised land could, ‘with propriety, be applied to the British isles, which as another Canaan, are the glory of the whole earth, and the envy of all nations in the world’.117 Recounting the many blessings the nation had received, George Townsend reminded his 1789 audience to ‘Be thankful, O ye British Israel, for the great display of providential and spiritual mercies’, and a decade later Thomas Taylor asked of Psalm 147: 20 (‘He hath not dealt so with any nation…’) and the providential benefits given to Israel ‘May not all this be applied to our nation’?118 The Union of England and Scotland also illustrates how the Israelite parallel was applied to Britain’s situation in the eighteenth century. Of the twenty-two sermons from this 1 May 1707 thanksgiving day used in this study, seven applied Ezekiel 37: 22 (‘And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel…’) as their text. In addition to a biblical historical significance, this passage had prophetic implications, suggesting the Union had would have impact beyond political and economic effects. Richard Allen, vicar of Henfield in Sussex, acknowledged ‘this Divine Prophecy speaks of a more compleat and excellent Union than has ever been yet made between any Kingdoms’ but ‘the so long desir’d Union of England and Scotland… bears no small degree of Analogy to it’.119 Even the 1707 sermons that did not apply the text from Ezekiel still used the analogy of the unification of Judah and Israel. The dissenting minister John Bates declared ‘We are all this very Day become one Body under one Government, from 116 Thomas

Foster, A Sermon… January 20. 1714 (London, 1715), pp. 5, 10; Timothy Cruso, The Mighty Wonders… a Sermon… January 31, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 19. 117 Thomas Hall, Christ’s Rule… A Sermon Preached October 9. 1746 (London, 1746), p. 20; John Richardson, The Sovereign Goodness… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 1–2; Thomas Craner, National Peace… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 2. 118 Townsend, The King’s Recovery… April the 23d 1789, p. 67; Thomas Taylor, Britannia’s Mercies… Two Discourses… November 29, 1798 (Leeds, 1799), p. 6. 119 Richard Allen, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 6.



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Dan to Beersheba, from the Orcades to the South Channel.’ Nicholas Brady noted that Israel and Judah ‘were never in such height of Glory and Reputation, as when United under the Government of David and Solomon, as they were Thorns in the sides of one another, and expos’d to the Insults of their several Enemies, when they were divided’, and he compared this to ‘England and Scotland when unhappily separated, and such may we hope to see them now they are intirely become one’.120 Though some preachers acknowledged the differences in specific details between the biblical circumstances and those of the 1707 Union, the repeated comparison to the unification of Israel spoke to the implied providential significance of the uniting of Scotland and England as a single political entity. The Israelite analogy also extended to political and religious institutions. The language describing succession at times referred to Old Testament structures of governance, in an effort to add further legitimacy to the claimants. Thus, in speaking of William III’s right to the throne, J.E. Edzard, minister to the German Lutheran Congregation in Trinity Lane in London, spoke of Parliament as ‘the States of the Realm, and the Heads of the Tribes of the English Israel, [who] by the consent of the whole Nation… have proclaimed him their King, and confirmed the Crown upon him’. The author of The Rebellion of Sheba (1716) also discussed George I’s succession in the context of a biblical example, observing that David’s rulership was not confirmed ‘until the Elders chose him, and he made a Covenant with them before the Lord… or, to speak in the Language of our Country, until he was chosen by Parliament, and solemnly took the Coronation Oath’.121 During Anne’s reign, Lewis Atterbury characterised the government of Israel during Saul’s reign as ‘the best Species of Government… a limited Monarchy’, with God holding legislative authority and Saul, with his subordinates, having executive and administrative powers. George Hooper added weight to his sermon at St Paul’s before both houses of Parliament by describing them gathered as ‘the Tribes of our Israel, the Princes and Elders of the People, by the Direction of their Sovereign who sits on the Throne of Judgment, victorious as David, and peaceful as Solomon’. In the same venue, in 1789, before George III and Parliament, Beilby Porteus compared that ceremony to Solomon’s dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8), where, ‘in the presence of his whole kingdom, [he] prostrated himself before that magnificent edifice… [and] poured out the devout emotions of his soul’.122 This kind of correspondence allowed William Abdy to refer to the Church of England as ‘Jerusalem… wherein the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered according to the ordinance of Christ’. Abdy went on to assert that references to Jerusalem as a civil and ecclesiastical polity justified state protection of the church and the alliance between them.123 120 John

Bates, Two (United)… A Thanksgiving Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), p. 4; Nicholas Brady, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 6. 121 J.E. Edzard, The Finger of God… A Sermon… 16th of April [1696] (London, 1696), p. 19; Anon, The Rebellion of Sheba… June the 7th, 1716, p. 9. 122 Lewis Atterbury, A Sermon… August the 23d, 1705 (London, 1705), pp. 1–2; George Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713. (London, 1713), p. 4; Porteus, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789, pp. 17–18. 123 William Abdy, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, n.d.), pp. 9, 10.

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In 1697 Christopher Johnson described the providential achievements for Great Britain and Ireland as ‘the Palladium of our Safety’; over a century later, reflecting upon the Battle of Trafalgar, Thomas O’Beirne described such great providential events as ‘the footsteps of God… in all the revolutions that change the face of this world’.124 Though in 1702 Richard Chapman, the vicar of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, would observe that he lived ‘in such an Age, as is not very forward to take notice of any Remarkable Instance of the Divine Providence’,125 the evidence found in thanksgiving sermons from 1689 to 1816 belie such a conclusion. As Natalie Mears has much more recently noted, ‘providential politics’ were a prominent element in special worship services ‘[f ]rom King Aethelred to Queen Victoria’ and ‘providence continued to be recognised as a factor of causation into the nineteenth century’.126 Belief in the ongoing actions of providence throughout the long eighteenth century reveals the confidence that God still acted upon and within the world. This superintendence of the affairs of people and governments, armies and empires, was the underlying principle of thanksgiving celebrations, and it was the foundation of most of the thanksgiving-day sermons. General assurance of divine control over important events provided a reassurance of God’s continued watchfulness. However, thanksgiving-day preachers also demonstrate that there was a more specific object of, and a sharper focus to, God’s attention: it was Britain itself that was the ‘darling’ of providence, and the successes of the period proved that providential care. Whether it was in simple comparisons to the circumstances of others, the idea of a favoured nation, or a conviction that Britons had replaced Israel as God’s chosen people, the sermons make it clear that Britain was the centre of providential activity and results. This certainty permeated British attitudes towards the range of the country’s activities throughout the eighteenth century, and it is connected to many of the themes discussed within the thanksgiving sermons. British politics, military activities, commercial interests and enterprises, imperial intent, religious institutions, and perspectives towards other peoples all presumed some attitude of the exceptional elements of Britain and its people. These elements were prominent throughout the thanksgiving sermons of the long eighteenth century, a ready and constant reminder of the special providential status of the nation.

124 Johnson,

A Sermon… December the 2d. 1697, p. 10; O’Beirne, A Sermon… December 5, 1805, p. 13. 125 Richard Chapman, The Providence of God… a Sermon… Decemb. the 3d. 1702 (London, 1703), pp. 5–6. 126 Mears, ‘Public Worship’, p. 25.

4 Political theory and principles ‘Should what is here published be thought too political for the pulpit, let it be recollected, that scripture politics very well agree with sound doctrine; and, it is presumed, nothing contrary to sound doctrine has here been admitted.’1 This justification is found on the opening page of the preface to the published version of John Martin’s sermon from the thanksgiving day in November 1798. Martin was the Baptist minister to the Grafton Street meeting in Piccadilly in London, and his discussion of political ideas and themes was not unusual. Topics of a political nature, and with political implications, were regularly delivered from the pulpit,2 and this is certainly confirmed in the thanksgiving-day sermons from 1689 to 1816. On these occasions, intricately entwined with current circumstances, preachers perceived consideration of a variety of political topics as being within their purview,

1 2

John Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798 (London, 1799), p. 3. A number of scholars have examined the presence of political ideas within sermons during the long eighteenth century. See for example, Jennifer Farooq, Preaching in Eighteenth-Century London (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 216–56; Jennifer Farooq, ‘The Politicising Influence of Print: The Responses of Hearers and Readers to the Sermons of Gilbert Burnet and Henry Sacheverell’, in Readers, Audiences and Coteries in Early Modern England, ed. Geoff Baker and Ann McGruer (Newcastle, 2006), pp. 28–46; Tony Claydon, ‘The Sermon, the “Public Sphere” and the Political Culture of Late Seventeenth-Century England’, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature and History 1600–1750, ed. Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (Manchester, 2000), pp. 208–34; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘The Political Sermon in an Age of Party Strife, 1700–1720: Contributions to the Conflict’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon, ed. Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan (Oxford, 2011), pp. 495–513; Robert Hole, ‘English Sermons and Tracts as Media of Debate on the French Revolution 1789–99’, in The French Revolution and British Popular Politics, ed. Mark Philp (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 18–37; Robert Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order in England 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1989); Gerd Mischler, ‘English Political Sermons 1714–1742: A Case Study in the Theory of the “Divine Right of Governors” and the Ideology of Order’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 24:1 (2001), 33–61; Newton E. Key, ‘The Political Culture and Political Rhetoric of County Feasts and Feast Sermons, 1654–1714’, Journal of British Studies, 33:3 (1994), 223–56; Robert Kent Donovan, ‘Evangelical Civic Humanism in Glasgow: The American War Sermons of William Thom’, in The Glasgow Enlightenment, ed. Andrew Hook and Richard B. Sher (East Linton, 1995), pp. 227–45; James E. Bradley ‘The Anglican Pulpit, the Social Order, and the Resurgence of Toryism during the American Revolution’, Albion, 21:3 (1989), 361–88.

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and they invited people to consider these events as junctures where political contexts and results were important elements of the day’s significance. Sermons connected religious themes to political ideologies, as well as to current political debates. This chapter will examine how preachers presented British political principles, while the next chapter will explore their commentary upon political happenings and arguments of the day.

Thanksgiving and political philosophies The range of political ideas that thanksgiving-day preachers considered was wide, stretching from the very foundations of human society to commentary on current political thought. Ministers explained this as a proper and important element of their religious responsibilities, and of their acknowledgements of the benefits that Britain had, and would continue to, receive. Far from being contrary to thanksgiving messages, political topics were essential to understanding the implications and effects of divine support for human society in general, and for Britain in particular. Some preachers, like John Barr, the rector of Owmby in Lincolnshire, felt it necessary to ‘go back to the Institution of political Society’. Barr’s 1746 sermon included a lesson in Lockean ideas regarding the state of nature and the establishment of government, noting that equality in creation meant ‘no one can have any Dominion over another’ until ‘a number of Men have freely consented to quit their natural State of Freedom and Independence by constituting some one or more to have Government of them… [and] agree on some Form under which they are to live’. He described how, from this initial compact, ‘private Property will be more effectually secur’d, and the publick Interest render’d more sacred and inviolable’.3 In the late eighteenth century Benjamin Dawson preferred to stress the divine origins of human constitutions. Dawson opened his sermon entitled The Benefits of Civil Government, a Ground of Praise to God (1789) by declaring ‘Government is the institution of God. He has laid the foundation of it in the frame and constitution of our nature, and wrought the materials of all civil policy into our very composition and make.’ He argued that humans could not exist in a state of nature, arguing instead that it was ‘the Providence of Nature’ which supplied humanity ‘those springs and principles… [showing] how to form, and also how to conduct the Machine of Government’. The various types of government found in the world reflected the variety in God’s creation; some kinds are ‘vastly preferable to others’ in their main task, ‘which is, the punishment of evil-doers, and the protection of them that do well’. However, according to Dawson, even ‘the worst establishments – the most absolute and despotic empires – are much better than no government at all’.4 These kinds of discussions of the bases of political society and government occurred in thanksgiving sermons throughout the period, with ministers from varying 3 4

John Barr, A Sermon… Ninth of October [1746] (Lincoln, n.d.), pp. 4, 5–6. Benjamin Dawson, The Benefits… A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (Ipswich, 1789), pp. 2–3, 5–7.



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religious stances exposing a wide range of political opinion and principles. In the midst of the Revolution of 1688–1689, the Anglican vicar Thomas Watts described government as ‘Jure Divino, that is, of Divine Right, and instituted by God himself for the benefit of Mankind’, and Watts used biblical citations to support his position. In 1714 Nathaniel Harding, a Congregational minister in Plymouth, agreed on this divine origin of political society: ‘Kingly Power is a Trust so important… there is no managing it so as to answer the true End without the special Influence from God… What less than Almighty Power guided by Infinite Wisdom, Goodness and Justice, can make Civil Government steady and effectual.’5 In 1696 the Church of Ireland rector Walter Neale stressed the social necessity of government, asserting that ‘Without any Government at all, Men would be but a Society… of Wolves and Bears: Every ones Sword would be at his Neighbours Throat… and Strength and Fraud would be the only standard of Justice.’ In his 1716 sermon at Whitehall, royal chaplain Lewis Atterbury noted the worldly nature of political power, with all governments being originally absolute but eventually degenerating into tyrannies. This then made it necessary ‘to enter into Compacts and Agreements… to distinguish between the Prerogative of the Prince, and the Liberties of the People; and to set Bounds to the Power of such Governors, who made their ungodly wills the Law, and perverted all manner of Justice to serve their Ambitious Designs’.6 Ideas from emerging political principles were very apparent. By the mid-1690s Henry Day, vicar of Hunstanton in Norfolk, was basing his ideas on government on Locke’s relatively new political philosophy, maintaining no person could be moved their natural state of freedom and equality ‘but by his own consent… for the better securing to himself his Temporal interests’. In 1709 the London Presbyterian minister Samuel Harris justified the principle of the protection of property as ‘Eminently belong[ing] to God’, without which ‘His Government wou’d soon fall, or be thrown into the utmost Confusions’, though Harris concluded with a more Hobbesian-tinged thought on ‘How uninhabitable a Place wou’d this World be, if Property lay open to the Rapine and Violence of ev’ry Man, who is stronger than our selves.’7 In 1715 fellow dissenter Simon Browne described humanity as having a ‘natural inclination to Society, with the Prospect of greater Security to Mens Persons and Possessions’. In the aftermath of the second Jacobite rebellion Arthur Sykes, a prebendary of Winchester, denied that ‘a Right to Dominion, or Sovereignty over a People’ was ‘founded on the same thing, as a Right to Property’. Using Locke’s political ideas, Sykes explained that the right to property ‘arises from Labour and Industry either of ourselves or of others’, while political sovereignty ‘arises from the Consent or Compact’ of the people.8 5 6 7 8

Thomas Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th…. [1689] (London, 1689), p. 12; Nathaniel Harding, The Peoples Part… A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 13. Walter Neale, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 9–10; Lewis Atterbury, A Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 20–1. Henry Day, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… April the 16th. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 10 (see also pp. 16, 21); Samuel Harris, A Blow… Or, a Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 12. Simon Browne, A Noble King… A Sermon Preach’d… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 3; Arthur Sykes, A Sermon… 9th Day of October, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 13.

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It is evident that preachers were well-versed in the political philosophies of the age. It is also apparent that they did not always agree with the views presented in such works. Not surprisingly, the Tory churchman William Law, who was the curate of Haslingfield in Cambridgeshire and would be ejected as a non-juror early in George I’s reign, in 1713 denounced the Lockean premise that ‘Princes have all their Authority from the People’ and that ‘they may be resisted and depos’d upon occasion’.9 Thomas Hobbes’s view of the state of nature particularly raised hackles for several preachers in the 1690s. Christopher Wyvill refused to ‘admit of that Principle… That the state of Nature is a state of War… For Man by Original Creation was made a sociable Creature, and all Mankind by nature are inclin’d to Peace, Unity and Concord, and mutual Love and Kindness one with another’. The Presbyterian minister John Howe prefaced his sermon by pointing out his disagreement with ‘an Authority, which hath signifi’d much in our Age; as to represent the Natural State of Man, as a State of War’, and Howe’s sermon characterised this opinion as displaying ‘a Monstrous Degeneracy in the Intellectual World’. Howe argued instead that ‘the Nature of Man… in his Primitive State did stand in a Temperament of Reason and Love’. Simon Paget exclaimed ‘How unnatural a State of War is to sociable Creatures’, countering those ‘who would fain reduce a State of Nature into a State of War’. Paget concluded that ‘the Voice of Nature’ cries ‘against the alarms of War’.10 For George Hooper in 1713, new political theories made humans ‘Wild and Savage, and originally in a State of War’, rather than seeing ‘Sociableness… [as] one of the Properties of Human nature’. To Thomas Wright, dissenting minister to Lewin’s Mead Chapel in Bristol in 1763, Hobbes was ‘That minute Philosopher, who… viewed our Species… when their hearts are depraved by malignant Passions, and their Understandings blinded by the Example of the World, and the Maxims of crafty Politicians’ rather than ‘as they come out of the hand of a righteous and good Creator’. In the later eighteenth century, Andrew Burnaby would still criticise Hobbes as one of the ‘wild philosophers’ who did not recognise that ‘avarice, and pride, and ambition, are… unnatural passions’.11

The British constitution As these examples demonstrate, certain fundamental convictions about the ideals and functions of government emerge in the sermons. In 1697 Benjamin Jenks praised ‘our Easy Government firm on the ancient Basis of its Limited monarchy’, and in 1784 the dissenting minister William Bennet declared ‘Our dearest rights, 9 10

11

William Law, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), p. 26. Christopher Wyvill, A Sermon… 22d of September, 1695 (London, 1695), p. 4 (emphasis in the original); John Howe, A Sermon… Decemb. 2. 1697 (London, 1698), Epistle Dedicatory (no. pag.), p. 4; Simon Paget, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1698), p. 5 (emphasis in the original). George Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), p. 21; Thomas Wright, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, n.d.), p. 4; Andrew Burnaby, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 7.



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as Englishmen, are preserved inviolate… Our Liberty and property… are guarded and secured… We are blest with the auspices of a government the most mild and lenient, the most liberal and humane, that ever adorned the British annals.’12 Yet, even though a growing acceptance of a constitutional monarchy limited by the rights of the governed is apparent, there was also the recognition that proper government needed to be appropriately positioned between extremes. In the early eighteenth century, John Potter, the bishop of Oxford, referred to the nation’s ‘happy Constitution, which… gives the Prince all the Power necessary… to the maintenance of his Authority… [while] it secures to the Subject all the freedom, which is in any way consistent with the ends of Government’. In 1746 George Harvest noted ‘We live in a State, in which no Man is permitted to be his own Judge in Matters of Property; or his own Avenger in Matter of Injustice… nor is there, in the other Extreme, any absolute Subjection of Right and Property to the mere Will and arbitrary Determination of our Governors’. Two decades later, Gideon Castelfranc described the British constitution as ‘nicely ballanc’d betwixt the equally dangerous extremes of absolute dominion, and popular licentiousness’.13 Such comments were more than political pronouncements: they also conveyed a sense of the nation’s special status. As with ideas of other providential blessings, British political ideals and structures were a further confirmation of the nation’s distinct place in the world. In 1746 George Benson proclaimed ‘Our wise laws, and most excellent, civil constitution, our generous plan of liberty, and the secure possession of our lives and properties, have rendered us the admiration and envy of the surrounding nations.’ On the same occasion, according to John Bradford, vicar of Pinhoe in Devon, liberty and property were ‘by the signal Favours of Providence… the peculiar Blessings of this Isle’, which were ‘lost and unknown to most of our Neighbours’.14 Such assessments were common in the sermons. The nation had ‘the best Government and Laws in the World’, ‘the most valuable Rights and Priviledges’, an ‘unrivalled Constitution’, and one that was ‘so richly worth all the Blood and Treasure by which it has been defended from Age to Age’.15 Nicholas Nichols pronounced ‘our Civil Government, the best… that ever was in the World – the Protection and Execution of our Liberties and Laws drawn from the Wisdom and Experience of all Ages and Nations, and from our own Consent’. For Charles Cowper, rector of Oswaldkirk in Yorkshire and a prebendary of York Cathedral, the 12 13

14

15

Benjamin Jenks, A Sermon… December 2. 1697 (London, 1697), p. 2; William Bennet, The Divine Conduct Reviewed, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 30. John Potter, A Sermon… First Day of August, 1715 (London, 1715), pp. 10–11; George Harvest, ‘Protestant and Jewish Blessings Compared. A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746’, in A Collection of Sermons (London, 1754), pp. 156–7; Gideon Castelfranc, A Sermon… Second of September, 1763 (Kingston, Jamaica, 1763), p. 17. George Benson, ‘Sermon XVII…. Oct. 9, 1746’, in Sermons on the Following Subjects… (London, 1748), p. 421; John Bradford, A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, n.d.), p. 13. William Talbot, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 24; Robert Drummond, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 20; John Overton, England’s Glory… A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (York, n.d.), p. 7; Hugh Farmer, The Duty of Thanksgiving… a Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746), pp. 7–8.

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effectiveness of a government was measured by its ability to secure ‘Freedom and Security, the Prosperity and Happiness, of those who live under it’, and in these things ‘our happy Constitution is calculated to do this, above any Mode of Government in the world’.16 Tributes to the political system readily turned to assertions of its place as an essential aspect of the nation and Britain’s special status. Prior to the Union of 1707, Nicholas Brady considered the pursuit of ‘a course of Government advantageous to his [God’s] People’, and found ‘the English Reputation’ begins to ‘dazle the Eyes of Foreign Beholders’. Brady described liberty and property as ‘those two great priviledges which jointly make up the Birthright of an English-man; and happily distinguish him from most other Subjects’.17 In 1709 Thomas Freke similarly praised the ‘Form of Government, on its present Establishment, that as above all others is most agreeable to and English Genius’, and by the mid-century John Norman declared it ‘the Happiness of Britons to live under the best of Governments,… secure in our Properties, and in Possession of every Blessing belonging to us as a Free and Protestant People’.18 In 1805 Thomas Simpson found evidence of God’s anger from the preceding two decades subsiding in the ‘almost unanimous spirit of attachment to their excellent Constitution which he has put into the hearts of Britons’.19 At the end of the period Archibald Alison grandiosely announced that Britain ‘now stands foremost in the ranks of human kind… it is her Constitution which they are everywhere attempting to imitate, and her Laws which they are everywhere struggling to adopt’. Alison claimed that rulers from other countries ‘come… in a moral pilgrimage to her shrine, to inhale the patriot inspiration, with which they may return to be the legislators of their people, and the benefactors of the world’.20 The nation’s unique ideals and principles were absorbed into the character of British political institutions. In 1798 John Buckner described a constitutional ‘fabrick… founded on the principles of equity and freedom… the admiration and envy of other nations. Under this fabrick we live, neither subjected to regal despotism, nor aristocratic tyranny, nor democratic turbulence.’ Almost a hundred years before, Ralph Lambert, who would become the bishop of Meath in Ireland, portrayed ‘that well temper’d Government, where the Soveraign cannot harm, nor incroach on the Subject without their own Concurrence’ as being ‘known and envy’d thro’ the whole World’.21 Such conclusions were echoed in other sermons: the governing structures of Britain were ‘Equally remote from the despotism of monarchy,

16 17 18

19 20 21

Nicholas Nichols, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (Hull, n.d.), p. 26; Charles Cowper, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (York, 1763), p. 5. Nicholas Brady, A Sermon… 26th of November, 1691 (London, 1692), p. 17. Thomas Freke, Prayers and Thanksgivings… a Sermon… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. 10; John Norman, A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), pp. 6–7. Thomas Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Stroud, n.d.), p. 17. Archibald Alison, A Discourse… Jan. 18, 1816 (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 17–18 (emphasis in the original). John Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 14; Ralph Lambert, A Sermon, Preach’d Nov. the 12th. 1702 (London, 1703), p. 9.



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and the turbulence and licentiousness of democracy, the different orders of state are so balanced… as reciprocally to check alternate encroachments; and most effectually to provide for the privileges, security, and liberties, of the whole community’; this was ‘the happy combination of Regal Power and Popular Liberty in our excellent Constitution, which retains the advantages, excluding as much as possible the inconveniences of each’.22 Despite concern about ‘democratic’ influences, there was still the recognition that individuals mattered in this political system. Making it clear in 1784 that he was ‘no republican’, George Walker still did not hesitate to assert that ‘Kings are no Gods of my adoration; they weight not a feather in my scale against the public good; I do think the democratic or popular part of the constitution, to be the essence, the soul of the whole.’ In 1706 Richard Lucas affirmed ‘every Man’s particular Good is included in the Welfare of the whole, every Man’s private Interest in the Success of the Publick’.23 Edmund Butcher, a Unitarian minister in Devon, told his audience in 1802 to recognise their own political impact: though none of them were ‘likely to enter the cabinets of our rulers… it does not follow that we have absolutely nothing to do… The public voice is made up of individual suffrages; the opinion of scarcely anyone is utterly without influence.’ Likewise in the same year, John Evans defined the nation as ‘communities upon a large scale – made up of a number of individuals, upon whose temper and disposition the character of the community depends. The individual, therefore, in his public capacity, possesses no small importance in society.’24 Ideas on the source, place, and duties of monarchs were another significant element of the political discussions within the sermons. Some preachers stressed the divine origins and characteristics of monarchical government. In a 1691 sermon, originally preached at Whitehall, Gilbert Burnet pronounced the ‘chief glory of Prince… is That they are God’s Deputies and Vicegerents here on earth… and by consequence… they ought to resemble him’. Burnet went on to describe the ‘true picture’ of God, and by extension a monarch, as ‘a Prince, that loves his people… renders them safe by his Protection, and happy by his Justice… careful of his Laws… severe… in punishing offences against others,… yet is gentle to offences against himself ’. Citing Psalm 82: 6 (‘I have said, Ye are gods…’), in 1693 Samuel Clerke stated that monarchs ruled ‘in God’s stead… invested with his Power and Authority, his Vicegerents, his Representatives, his chief Ministers’. In 1814 John Walsh could still present monarchy as ‘an image of Divine Supremacy… a copy of God’s government of the universe’.25 However, the concept of divinely ordained

22 23

24 25

Lawrence Blakeney, A Sermon, For the 13th January, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 9; John Sturges, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, n.d.), p. 16. George Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), pp. 40–1; Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon IX… A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 27. 1706’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 188. Edmund Butcher, The Only Security… A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Exeter, 1802), pp. 11–12; John Evans, A Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 19 (emphasis in the original). Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 26th of Novemb. 1691 (London, 1691), pp. 2, 5; Samuel

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kingship was being tempered with ideas of limited monarchy, consent, election, and the people’s well-being. The Revolution of 1688–1689 and the Hanoverian succession prompted consideration of the place of subjects’ sanction of their rulers. Vincent Alsop supported William III as a monarch by ‘our own deliberate consent and free choice… the Election of the People gives the clearest Jus Divinum, both to the kind and form of government, and the person that must support and administer it’. Discussing the issue of allegiance, Henry Day declared that both ‘the People’ and Parliament had affirmed William as the rightful king, and he labelled anyone who denied it ‘an utter Enemy to the Government’.26 With similar issues being raised after 1714, Samuel Billingsly confirmed George I had ‘the universal Consent of the Nations to call him to the Throne’ and this was the ‘Voice of the People,… allowed sometimes to be looked upon as the Voice of God’. The dissenter John Tomlyns agreed that George I had been ‘advanced over us by the Consent of the People, so by a special and mighty Hand of God’. In the context of the recent attempt to overthrow George I, the author of The Rebellion of Sheba (1716) argued that the ‘Kings of this Nation, from the Beginning, deriv’d their Crowns from the People’ and ‘the Original of Magistracy in General, and all the various Forms of Government, which have obtain’d in the World, deriv’d their Settlement from no other Fountain than the Choice of the People’.27 From these claims came assertions of the need for monarchs to consider, and to govern to achieve, the welfare of their people. Applying the text of his 1763 sermon (Romans 13: 4 – ‘For he [the ruler] is the minister of God to thee for good’) Charles Cowper extrapolated that ‘In these words we have the Kingly Office, and… all civil Authority and Power, conveyed to us under the idea of their being a common benefit to mankind.’ Cowper explained that ‘every Mode of Government… [should] answer the true end and purpose of all power; which is to protect and preserve, not to oppress and destroy’. In 1715 Thomas Simmons limited the divine endorsement of monarchical government, maintaining that only where ‘there are the Qualifications of Government, and Princes consult the Good of their People (as is our happy Case having such a Prince), such reign by God, and are the Lord’s Anointed’. Simmons concluded that evil monarchs do not reign as God’s ‘ministers’.28 William Fisher similarly found that only when ‘Governors answer the end of their Institution, which is to promote the Peace and Happiness of their Subjects, they are the ministers of God, and his Vicegerents upon Earth’, but when this purpose was not being fulfilled, such a ruler becomes ‘an Usurper of Power… and an Invader of the Rights

26 27

28

Clerke, A Sermon… Eleventh of November [1693] (London, 1693), p. 7; John Walsh, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (Dublin, 1814), p. 13. Vincent Alsop, Duty and Interest… a Sermon… Sept. 8. 1695 (London, 1695), p. 25; Day, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… April the 16th. 1696, pp. 11–12. Samuel Billingsly, A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 14; John Tomlyns, Mercy’s Memorial. A Sermon… January 20; 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 8; Anonymous, The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (Exeter, 1716), pp. 9–10. Cowper, A Sermon… May 5, 1763, 3, p. 10; Thomas Simmons, The King’s Safety… A Sermon… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 15.



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of Mankind’. Fortunately, according to John Bradford in 1763, ‘the Glory of a King, at the Expence of the Happiness of his Subjects, is to Britons quite unintelligible’.29 Connected to the issue of the public good was a consideration of the characteristics and duties of good monarchs. While preachers did not necessarily elaborate upon the minutiae of a ruler’s tasks, they did discuss their responsibilities more generally. In a 1690 sermon for town officials of Newcastle upon Tyne, George Tullie, subdean of York cathedral, described the duties of princes as ‘arduous, their Province highly difficult… The grand Vessel of the Publick-weal, which these Pilotes steer, is subject to be split upon ten thousand Rocks; and lyable to many a tempestuous Storm… raised both within, and from without the Vessel.’ In 1696 William Talbot equated the monarch to a ‘good shepherd’ who ‘considers and endeavours to answer the End of the Institution of Government, the Good of Mankind, that is join’d with his Subjects in the same common Interests, both Civil and Religious,… In short, that is a just Guardian of their Civil Liberties, and a zealous Defender of their Faith and Religion’.30 Among a long list of the characteristics of a ‘noble’ prince, in 1715 Simon Browne included piety, prudence, wisdom, and rationality. More effusively, Samuel Clerke declared that without monarchs ‘whatever is Sacred would be usurped, abused, destroyed; but also there would be no such thing as Liberty and Property in this, or any other Kingdom’, and he concluded ‘What the Soul is to the Body, such is the King to the Kingdom, the Principle of Life, the Spring of Motion, the Vital Fountain of all Power and Activity’.31 In complement to the attributes and duties of effective rulers, subjects’ attitudes and responsibilities towards them were also explained. Using the proverb of a blind man carrying a lame man with good eyesight for the mutual benefit of both, in 1695 Vincent Alsop applied its lesson to government: ‘The people have strength, but they want conduct; our governours have conduct, but they want the peoples strength: Be it agreed, that we lend the King all our power, and that he govern us with his wisdom and skill.’ In 1715 Thomas Blennerhaysett underlined the need for ‘a Generous Emulation, between Prince, and People, who shall most Promote their Mutual Interests, within the Limits Prescrib’d to Each’. Though hedging his theoretical bets, John Blackburn advised his 1749 audience that, ‘Since the Government of Nations is in the Hands of Rulers, and they have a Right to govern (whether it be primarily founded in the Ordination of God, or in private agreement among Men) we certainly ought to be grateful unto them for every Attempt, which they make, to secure or promote, our Happiness.’32

29 30 31 32

William Fisher, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 6, 7; Bradford, A Sermon… October 9, 1746, p. 14. George Tullie, A Sermon Preached October, the 19, 1690 (York, 1691), p. 17; Talbot, A Sermon… April 16. 1696, p. 7. Browne, A Noble King… January 20, 1714/15, pp. 6–14; Clerke, A Sermon… Eleventh of November [1693], pp. 9–10. Alsop, Duty and Interest… Sept. 8. 1695, p. 22; Thomas Blennerhaysett, Plus Quam Speravimus: or; The Happy Surprize. A Sermon… January the 20th, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 10; John Blackburn, Reflections on Government… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (London, 1749), p. 24.

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The boundaries between the monarch’s authority and the people’s entitlements that did exist in Britain were also considered and praised. In 1763 Charles Cowper hailed the British constitution ‘wherein the Prerogative of the King and the Rights of his People are so well adjusted by the Laws of the Community, that… the legal Power of the King can never be oppressive to his People,… and the King… is equally guarded by the same Laws from Licentiousness and the Madness of the People, the Laws being the Umpire unto which both must submit for their mutual security’. A decade and a half earlier, John Dupont, the vicar of Aysgarth in Yorkshire, described for his audience a government where the ‘Prince has a Prerogative essential and peculiar to himself, the Peer has his Privilege, whilst the Commoner’s Vote give him an equal Influence in Publick Determinations and Counsels’ – in all of this, a ‘just Equilibrium of Power is the Bulwark and Support of our Independency and Freedom’.33 Among ‘the Mercies of God’ Richard Lucas listed in his 1709 sermon was a government in which the ‘Prerogatives of the Crown are great enough to make the Prince not only easy, but glorious; and the Rights and Liberties of the People are large enough to make ’em happy’. In 1789 George Townsend emphasised the need for ‘constitutional equilibrium’ but assured his audience that ‘the boundaries of Prince and People, are now happily adjusted’. The author of Loyalty to King George (1716) also portrayed Britain’s constitution as finely tuned between the powers of the king and the rights of the people, ‘so counterpoised between these two, that if you take away from the Prerogative of the Monarch, you add too much weight to Popular freedom, or if you enlarge it, you lighten Liberty and advance towards Tyranny and Oppression’.34 The idea of balance within the institutions of British government was important. Expounding on the three ‘legitimate’ forms of government in a 1759 sermon in Bristol, William Warburton advised his audience that, on its own, monarchy, aristocracy, or popular government each was ‘but the same Tyranny in different shape’, where ‘Sovereignty resides in a part only of the Community, which subjects the rest to despotic rule’. Instead, Warburton found in British parliamentary system a ‘true and lasting Liberty… from the skilful combination of the three Forms with one another, where each of the Orders… hath its due share of the Sovereign Power, and no more’. This was the form with which it had ‘pleased Divine Providence to bless this Island; the honoured Repository of sacred Freedom’. Nathaniel Harding made similar observations in 1715, asserting that British government had ‘the Advantages of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy tempered in one, without the Inconveniencies of either of them’. Harding affirmed parliament’s role in guarding citizens’ rights and ruling with their consent, along with the privileges of ‘Electing

33

34

Cowper, A Sermon… May 5, 1763, pp. 11–12; John Dupont, ‘The Blessings… A Sermon… April 25. Mdccxlix’, in The Loyal Miscellany. Consisting of Several Sermons, and Other Tracts (London, 1751), pp. 12–13. Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons…, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 218; George Townsend, The King’s Recovery… in Two Discourses… April the 23d 1789 (Canterbury, 1789), p. 53; Anonymous, Loyalty to King George. A Sermon… June the 7th. 1716 (Dublin, n.d.), p. 7.



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our Representatives, and being tried by our Peers’.35 On the occasion of George III’s recovery from illness, Thomas Leighton, vicar of Ludham in Norfolk, admired how ‘happily are the various forms of government mingled, so artfully is the legislature tempered and blended with executive power, so nicely the three estates of the nation balanced, and so fortunately their clashing prerogatives and privileges reconciled and adjusted’. In his 1746 sermon, Christopher Mays, curate of St Peter’s and St Giles’ in Cambridge, applauded the ‘harmony between the King, the Nobility, and the Representatives of the People, which makes the counsels and resolutions of the State to be depended on’.36 Such considerations led ministers to describe the benefits of Britain’s parliamentary government. Highlighting the setting, and the congregation, for his 1689 sermon to the House of Commons, Gilbert Burnet asked ‘Who can look on this great Assembly, in which we see a true Representative of England brought together,… without raising in himself all the just Expectations of every thing that is Great or Good?’ Later in the sermon, Burnet provided a catalogue of potential political threats, including monarchy misusing prerogative powers and the corruption of existing law, and pointedly assigned responsibility for their prevention to his parliamentary audience by declaring ‘all this is incumbent on you, that so hereafter there may be no breaking in upon us’. In similar circumstances the next year, the royal chaplain Charles Hickman reminded the Commons of their place ‘in a nearer station to the Throne’ and their role to ‘consult and labour to support it’.37 Other preachers spoke more generally about parliament’s constitutional place. In 1706 Charles Lamb, curate of Enfield in Middlesex, extolled ‘that Harmony of affection, that agreement of inclination, that unanimity and zeal for the Publick Welfare, which attends, and is the shining Ornament of our two Houses of Parliament’. On the cusp of the 1688–1689 constitutional crisis being resolved, George Halley described the benefits of the constitution, where ‘the legislative Power is so lodg’d that nothing can be Enacted without the King and Parliament’ and where ‘Parliaments by their Fabian Counsels, do temper and moderate the quick motion of Sovereign Power’. It was Parliament’s power ‘to provide for the Good of the Common-Weal’ that Arthur Sykes underscored in 1746, a ‘Supream Power’ which ‘binds all equally’ and whose actions could not be controlled or dispensed by the monarch.38 This celebration of the British political institutions again led to assertions of the unique and lofty status they held within the world, and their central place in

35

36 37

38

William Warburton, ‘Sermon IX…. November 29, MDCCLIX’, in Sermons and Discourses, Volume III (London, 1766), pp. 192–3; Harding, The Peoples Part… A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5, pp. 22–3. Thomas Leighton, Thanksgiving for the King’s Recovery, 1789 (n.p., n.d.), p. 9; Christopher Mays, A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), p. 22. Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of January, 1688 [1689] (London, 1689), pp. 3, 16–17 (the italicised phrase is a reference to Psalm 144: 14, which is the verse preceding Burnet’s chosen text); Charles Hickman, A Sermon… 19th of October, 1690 (London, 1690), p. 25. Charles Lamb, England Happy… A Sermon… December the 31st, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 15; George Halley, A Sermon… Fourteenth of February, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 20; Sykes, A Sermon… 9th Day of October, 1746, p. 11.

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defining the nation’s character. John Pennington compared the circumstances of mid-eighteenth-century Britain to that of Israel and Judah, where ‘the blessings of true Religion, and true Liberty, which they enjoyed under their King, We enjoy under Ours’. For Nathaniel Hough in 1704, it was the legal system, too, that equated the nation with the ‘happy’ people of Psalm 144: 15, where God’s laws were ‘publickly and reputably owned, wrought into the very Body of our common Laws, back’d and seconded by our Civil Constitution,… [so] that Church and State, the Cross and the Scepter seem to be made one’.39 Simon Patrick described William of Orange’s intervention as having preserved ‘the best Laws in the World’, and in the mid-eighteenth century John Bradford characterised any attempt to subvert either God’s laws or those that protected liberty and property as going against ‘the Sentiments of Britons’.40 For Thomas Blennerhaysett political happiness was ‘No where So Conspicuous, or So Fully Enjoy’d, as in Great Britain’ in 1715, where the law delivered ‘a Fixed Boundary, between the Princes Authority, and the Peoples Obedience’ and this provided for ‘the Genius of all True Britons, to Love Monarchy, when Duely Regulated and Legally Exerted’. In a discussion of the essence of the ‘character of Britons’, in 1784 George Walker called parliament ‘the great Palladium of England… our glorious distinction from every nation on earth’.41

Liberty Preachers’ discussions of political ideas characterised liberty as an integral element of British government and of the nation’s political identity. The value of freedom was developing as an important theme within British sermons as a whole during the eighteenth century,42 and in thanksgiving-day sermons it emerged as a significant cause for celebration. Samuel Clarke reminded his audience of the imperative of ‘making it our chief Care to use that Liberty which we so justly boast of, and which we have thought worth the defending almost with infinite Blood and Treasure, so as not to abuse it with Licentiousness and Wantonness’. The victory in the second Jacobite rebellion was, for Henry Piers, reason to declare ‘if Liberty be a Blessing – if the Redemption of our Liberty from French Tyranny and Slavery… the Redemption of our Religion from Popish Superstition and damnable Error… be great Subjects 39

40 41 42

John Pennington, Judah’s Deliverance… A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), pp. 10–11; Nathaniel Hough, Successes… A Sermon… Sept. 7. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 5. Simon Patrick, A Sermon… Jan. XXXI. 1688 [1689] (London, 1689), p. 27; Bradford, A Sermon… October 9, 1746, p. 14. Blennerhaysett, The Happy Surprize… January the 20th, 1714/15, p. 11; Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784, p. 40. Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden, 2005), pp. 251–2; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘Patriotism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century English and Prussian War Sermons’, in War Sermons, ed. Gilles Teulié and Laurence Lux-Sterritt (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009), pp. 121, 122; Bradley ‘Anglican Pulpit’, pp. 374–5; Donovan, ‘Evangelical Civic Humanism’, p. 235.



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of Praise and Thanksgiving, let us give Thanks’. James Clarke viewed the military successes of the late eighteenth century beyond a British perspective, not merely concerning ‘the interests of a single nation; but on which the happiness and the Liberties of Europe appeared to depend’.43 In these discussions, it was necessary to describe what liberty was and what it was not. Sermons often included a recounting of the characteristics of liberty and its place within a proper society. In 1749 the Belfast Presbyterian minister Gilbert Kennedy asserted that ‘Love of Liberty is a Principle implanted and as deeply rooted in Human Nature as the Love of Life;… All Men are born to it, and hold this Privilege by the same Grant and Tenure they do their Lives.’ Forty years earlier John Adams, rector of St Alban Wood Street in London and a royal chaplain, defined liberty as ‘the Peaceful Enjoyments of our Civil Rights, secure from any Usurpations or Encroachments whatsoever, under the Protection of those Laws and Privileges which cost our Ancestors so much Blood’, noting the historical legacy of liberty in Britain. In 1816 Henry Knapp told his auditors ‘Genuine human liberty is of a social kind: – in desiring to secure its own freedom of speech and action, it feels a sacred regard for the order, peace, and harmony of the community at large.’44 In the 1740s, for Christopher Mays, liberty infused humanity ‘with generosity, with courage, with magnanimity, and many virtues, which are not to be found in abject Slaves’, while for William Warburton the ‘Excellency of Civil Liberty consists in its Power for emancipating the Mind as well as Body; and making the whole Man dependent on himself alone’.45 In 1689 Gilbert Burnet neatly summarised the issue: ‘Liberty and Justice are so naturally desired by all Men, and the Happiness of them is so sensibly felt, that any further Discourse for setting them off, is as little needful… as it is to set forth the Advantages that a man who sees and hears, has of those who are deaf and blind.’46 Part of the desire to define proper liberty was concern over the result of misinterpreting freedom and what that would lead to. Before the Lords in 1709, Charles Trimnell, recently elected as bishop of Norwich, explained the danger of defining liberty as a complete lack of restraint, because it led to unjust claims to authority ‘under pretence of Restraining Liberty from growing Licentious, to set up a Boundless one in all that have any Authority, at the Expence of the just Freedom of those that have none’. Similarly, before the House of Commons in the same year, Samuel Clarke described how ‘on the one hand, the Abuse of Power in Governors’ leads to ‘putting People upon recovering the Liberties they had lost; so, on the other hand, Licentiousness or Abuse of Liberty in the People, tends always to such Confusions,

43

44

45 46

Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710 (London, 1710), p. 15; Henry Piers, Religion and Liberty… A Sermon… 9th of October, MDCCXLVI (Bristol, n.d.), pp. 8–9; James Clarke, ‘A Sermon… December 19, 1797’, in Naval Sermons (London, 1798), p. 211. Gilbert Kennedy, The Great Blessing… A Sermon… April 25th, 1749 (Belfast, 1749), p. 15; John Adams, A Sermon… Novemb. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 5; Henry Knapp, The Origin… a Sermon… January 18, 1816 (London, 1816), pp. 10–11. Mays, A Sermon… October 9. 1746, p. 22; William Warburton, A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving… [1746] (London, 1746), p. 21. Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of January, 1688 [1689], p. 9.

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as terminate usually in Arbitrary Power again’.47 William Vincent, rector of All Hallows the Great in London, preached before the House of Commons in 1802, clearly with the previous revolutionary decade and a half in mind: Vincent hoped that the ‘rational liberty’ established in the late seventeenth century ‘may never be sacrificed to the refinement of theory, or polluted by the licentiousness of democracy’. Three years later, John Blakeway praised his country’s liberty and freedom of the press, which were not ‘wanton exuberance of savage license… [nor] free with headlong and unbridled rage to awe and subdue its magistrates and legislators, to bind its kings in chains, and its nobles in links of iron’. Instead, this British freedom operated ‘within the bounds of duty and respect, to pass its judgment on public measures, and to bring its statesmen before the impartial tribunal of public opinion’.48 The early eighteenth-century concerns of licentiousness and unrestrained freedom leading to a justification of arbitrary power gave way, by the early nineteenth century, to fears about a revolutionary liberty that could, in its own right, bring the structures of government and society crashing down. Preachers’ perceptions of what proper liberty was, and its manifestation in the nation’s ideals and institutions, caused them to place contemporary Britain at the pinnacle of freedom. In the early eighteenth century, the Jacobite threat prompted the royal chaplain Thomas Sherlock to remember the recent past, when the country lived under threat from ‘the Dregs of Popery and Arbitrary Power’, a reminder necessary ‘to make us in earnest to preserve the Blessing of Liberty and pure Religion, which they have bequeathed us’. In 1759 Edward Hitchin, Congregational minister to the meeting in White Row in Spitalfields in London, called for reflection upon religious freedoms dissenters currently enjoyed, and concluded ‘when we consider how often this privilege has been invaded, how often denied (according to the true account our British annals give), we have great occasion to be thankful for our civil and spiritual liberties’. In 1707 the Presbyterian minister Christopher Taylor pronounced liberty ‘That sacred Plant (which flourishes no where as in our British Soil)… fenc’d and hedg’d about with most inviolable Laws and Constitutions’ that was, by the early eighteenth century, ‘cultivated by a greater Number of wise, faithful, watchful, valiant Patriots than ever’.49 Britain also was cast in the role of guardian of political freedom, which was threatened from a variety of dangers. In the wars against Louis XIV in the early 1700s, Richard Lucas believed it was ‘the Peace and Liberty of Europe, and our own, that we contend for… against those who have been train’d up in destructive Principles… and think their own Liberty and Greatness consists in nothing but oppressing and enslaving others’. Joseph Stennett (the elder) traced the principle of freedom to the 47 48

49

Charles Trimnell, A Sermon… Feb. 17. 1708 [1709] (London, 1709), p. 6; Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 23. William Vincent, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 31; John Blakeway, National Benefits… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), pp. 12–13 (italics in the original indicate a quotation from Psalm 149: 8). Thomas Sherlock, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 14; Edward Hitchin, A Sermon… 29 November 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 15; Christopher Taylor, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… First Day of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 15.



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beginning of the Old Testament, describing Abraham, who, as the ‘first Assertor of the common Liberty, and Scourge of Arbitrary Princes’, had acted to ensure ‘the Restitution of the common Rights of Mankind’. Stennett then compared the military actions of Anne’s reign to this same cause, for ‘the intire Restoration of the violated Rights of Protestants, as well as the common Liberty of Europe’. For John Evans, the war against France was a just one because it was being fought in ‘Defence of Men’s undoubted Rights and Properties, and the Common Liberties of Europe against Tyranny and Oppression’.50 As the defender of liberty, Britain showed the way to the rest of the world, and this message continued across the long eighteenth century. In 1746 John Allen noted that ‘Great Britain is not only the Dwelling-place of sweet Liberty, but the Nurse and Tutor of it for the Advantage of Europe.’ In the midst of the turmoil in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century, John Brewster, the vicar of Stockton on Tees in Durham, noted how ‘British liberty’ and ‘British law’ had withstood the pressures that had engulfed the Continent.51 Such views once more inevitably led to comment on British liberty’s exceptional nature. William Lane praised Britons’ civil and religious liberties, pronouncing them ‘Advantages we have many Years enjoyed beyond most other Nations upon Earth’. More profusely, John Jefferson told his London audience ‘We live in a land where the groans of slavery are never heard; we breath[e] an air which bears not to our ears the miserable sound of arbitrary chains, but comes loaded almost in every breeze with some joyful, though, perhaps, rude offering at the shrine of liberty and contented ease.’52 Juxtaposing the difference between British freedoms and continental tyranny almost a century earlier, Charles Nicholetts proclaimed ‘that the meanest Plow-man in England, but knows so much the difference, between English Liberty, and the slavery of the poor Vassals in France’. Likewise, in 1802 Thomas Belsham announced liberty as ‘the birthright of Englishmen,… in Britain the life and honour of the meanest individual do not lie at the mercy of the administration of the day’.53 Variations on these messages were repeated throughout the period. Britain was ‘blest with the Enjoyment of the greatest Liberty, and in consequence with the greatest Happiness of any Nation upon Earth’, and ‘if we look round us, from the nearest to the remotest Continent, we shall no where find a[nother] Society founded on the true Principles of Civil Liberty’. Britons ‘alone of all the Kingdoms of Europe have retain’d our Liberty’.54 William Tremenheere celebrated the nation’s ‘policy that

50

51 52 53

54

Lucas, ‘Sermon IX… A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 27. 1706’, p. 185; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… February 17. 1708/9 (London, 1709), pp. 3, 19; John Evans, The Being and Benefits… a Sermon Preached on Septemb. 7…. [1704] (London, 1704), p. 19. John Allen, Rejoice With Trembling. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 9; John Brewster, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Stockton, 1802), pp. 12–13. William Lane, A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 28; John Jefferson, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 13. Charles Nicholetts, The Cabinet of Hell Unlocked… a Sermon… April 16th 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 19–20; Thomas Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 14. Sykes, A Sermon… 9th Day of October, 1746, 10; Warburton, ‘Sermon IX…. November

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has for ages been the admiration and envy of the world. Here the principles of civil and religious liberty are understood and admitted in their full extent; the laws enacted in part by the people themselves, open to every one, without distinction.’ In a similar vein, Thomas Curteis, the rector of Wrotham in Kent, affirmed that ‘this Church and Kingdom… have been the Chief Bulwark both of the Reformation and the Liberties of Europe’.55

Misgovernment Thanksgiving sermons also distinguished British institutions and principles by commenting on other political systems and ideas. The effects of these other political structures were manifold. In 1709 Samuel Baker, preacher in the diocese of Winchester, characterised Britons’ enemies as attempting to ‘deprive them of the happy Government under which they live… and set up a Tyrannick Dominion over ’em, that is known as Obedience and Subjection to its Arbitrary Command’. This would lead to the ‘Over-throw of a happy Constitution… taking off the Liberty and Property of the Subject; and make all depend upon the Despotick Principles of the Governour they shall raise up’. John Allen warned in 1746 that ‘under despotic Government you have nothing that you can call your own; but at the royal Pleasure you may be deprived of your Children, your Estates, and every Fruit of your Industry’.56 Thomas Watts spent several pages of his 1689 sermon describing the characteristics of ‘Arbitrary Power, absolute Monarchy, or Tyranny’, which made ‘the Peoples Properties, the Laws, Oaths, Compacts… dead Letters, and altogether vain and needless, superfluous and absurd’, and Watts concluded that such rule ‘is absolutely contrary both to Nature and Revelation, and to the very Being and Constitution of our English Government’. Fortunately, according to the bishop of London, William Howley in 1816, despotic government, ‘which presumes its own strength, which makes its passions or interests the measure of right, and tramples on the claims of justice and mercy, is of brief and precarious duration, and sooner or later will sink in its turn beneath the indignation of avenging Heaven’.57 Corrupt political systems and rulers could also influence, and be influenced by, the characteristics of a country and its citizens. Charles Hickman described how ‘a Nation no sooner grows vicious and corrupted in their Morals, but their politicks also come to nought, their Counsels are all defeated, and Vertues and Courage both come and go together: ’Tis this very thing that has occasion’d the fall of all the Empires of the World.’ A ruler’s qualities were so influential that, according to

55 56 57

29, MDCCLIX’, p. 191; Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, p. 222. William Tremenheere, A Sermon… Twenty-Third of April, 1789 (Exeter, n.d.), p. 9; Thomas Curteis, Religious Princes… A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 26. Samuel Baker, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 1709 (London 1710), pp. 2, 6; Allen, Rejoice With Trembling… October 9, 1746, p. 8. Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th [1689], pp. 13–51 [sic; vere 15]; William Howley, A Sermon… January 18, 1816 (London, 1816), p. 5.



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Charles Bean, they were imprinted upon their subjects: ‘If they are arbitrary and tyrannical, their Inferiors will in turn devour, and oppress each other: If Lewdness and Debauchery… begin in a Court, the Infection spreads to the remotest corners of a Nation.’ For Thomas Watts, the effect of superstition and depravity was to ‘corrupt the Government… delude an Emperour, or a King… [breaking] through all the ties of Nature, Religion, and civil Rule’.58 In several of his sermons, Gilbert Burnet discussed the influence of the characters of princes. Ambitious rulers were ‘a Curse… to Mankind, as well as… an inverting [of ] the Ends of Government’, and they ‘render their own People miserable’. Monarchs not well suited to rule revealed ‘the defects of those whose minds are not equal to their Fortunes’, and those who employ their power to ‘mischief and ruine’, becoming evil beings ‘who delight in Blood… and especially in the Blood of their own Subjects’.59 Critiques were also levelled at the political principles of contemporary regimes, especially those wielding absolute and arbitrary authority. Deuel Pead denounced the doctrines of the Catholic clergy, which made them averse to the English constitution and government because it ‘will not admit of Arbitrary Power, and none but Princes seduced to their Church have ever pretended to it’. Also condemning Catholic political ideas, John Allen defined ‘popery’ as ‘arbitrary Power over the Conscience’ and he labelled arbitrary political rule as ‘civil Popery’.60 Comment was also made on French government. John Piggott considered France in the context of a description of ‘Despotick and Arbitrary Power’ and noted how Louis XIV’s reign had seen ‘the Ashes of Protestants, demolished Temples, the Blood of their slaughtered Innocents… enough to make his name for ever to be condemn’d in History’. Thomas Comber believed that an overthrow of William III’s rule would have led English citizens to a fate similar to that suffered by French Protestants, resulting in ‘the forfeiture of our Estates and Liberties by Fines, Prisons and Banishment, and the loss finally of our Lives by the utmost Torments and most illegal Severeties’. Looking back upon history, in 1704 William Fleetwood asserted that when France had been ‘govern’d by its Kings and Parliaments… it was as quiet and inoffensive a Neighbour as any other. But when it lost its Liberties, and came entirely into the disposal of its Princes, it became just as troublesome and vexatious to its Neighbours, as the Humour of its Princes pleased to make it.’61 As will be shown in the following chapter, revolutionary events caused concern over France’s government and political principles to become even more acute at the end of the eighteenth and into the early nineteenth century.

58 59 60 61

Hickman, A Sermon… 19th of October, 1690, p. 14; Charles Bean, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 4; Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th [1689], p. 5. Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 4; Burnet, A Sermon… 26th of Novemb. 1691, pp. 3, 4. Deuel Pead, The Protestant King… a Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 29; Allen, Rejoice With Trembling… October 9, 1746, p. 10. John Piggott, ‘A Good King… A Sermon, Preach’d April 16. 1696’, in Eleven Sermons (London, 1714), p. 8; Thomas Comber, A Sermon… Second of December [1697] (London, 1697), p. 15; William Fleetwood, A Sermon… September the 7th [1704] (London, 1704), p. 9.

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Between 1689 and the middle of the eighteenth century, the prospect of rule by the excluded Stuart line also provided opportunity for adverse comparison. William Wilson, the rector of St Peter’s in Nottingham, viewed James II/VII’s reign as an effort to introduce slavery ‘to humble us, and a rampant Army to eat up our English Liberties’, a ‘violent invasion of your Rights’ in order ‘to give the Court a power to pack Parliaments at their pleasure, and to undoe us by a Law’. John Olliffe, rector of Almer in Dorset, agreed that English government had been on its way ‘to ruin… and many mortal Blows were given to the Legislative Power… and the particular Liberties of Persons’. Highlighting contentious political terminology, George Halley claimed that James had broken the promises he made when he came to the throne, and then, ‘Instead of Governing according to Law, such a Dispensing Power set a foot as laid all the Laws asleep, as would presently have laid in Ashes, too, the beautiful Fabrick of our excellent Religion, and incomparable Government.’62 Under James ‘our Laws, our Liberties, and Properties, were to be swallowed up by such a Power, as would know no Limits’, and had ‘we continued but a few years longer under that Government, in all probability we might have seen all our Religious and Civil Liberties torn from us’. ‘Prerogative (which is only a Power to preserve People on extraordinary Occasions) was made the great Engine of their Destruction’ and ‘Parliament, which should Redress our Grievances, was no longer allowed the Liberty of Voting’.63 Following from this, consideration of any potential success of Jacobite efforts in subsequent years caused predictions of similar devastation to established political structures. According to Richard Synge, the chaplain at Somerset House in London, ‘The Laws, which are the Fences of both Civil and Religious Rights… [would be] overwhelm’d… and the very Names of Liberty, and Property [would] be lost.’ To James Moody, the Pretender’s claims were ‘as contrary to the natural Rights of Mankind, as to our Constitution, and directly tend to establish an Absolute and uncontrouled Tyranny’ founded upon a fallacious ‘Right to govern these Nations without their Consent’. John Barr asserted it would have been not only ‘ecclesiastical Tyranny… imposed on us’ by the Stuart pretender, but also ‘the like despotick Power in civil Life; for one never exists but in the Company with the other’. ‘Our Parliaments would retain the Name without having the Power to answer the Ends of their Convention’ and ‘the Prince would ever use his dispensing Power (which he would look upon as undoubted Prerogative) as oft as Ambition led, or Inclination prompt’d him to it’.64

62

63

64

William Wilson, A Sermon… 14th of Febr. 1688/9 (London, 1689), pp. 24, 30; John Olliffe, England’s Call… a Sermon… February the 14th, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 3; Halley, A Sermon… Fourteenth of February, 1688/9, pp. 18–19 (emphasis in the original). Christopher Johnson, ‘The Living Lord… Sermon III… April the 16th. 1696’, in Three Sermons (London, 1696), p. 42; Anonymous, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 21; James Gardiner, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… December the 2d, 1697 (London, 1697), pp. 5, 6. Richard Synge, ‘A Sermon… On the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving’ [1716], in Loyalty To His Majesty King George (London, 1720), p. 86; James Moody, A Sermon…



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Obedience and rights of resistance As political ideas developed through the long eighteenth century, the shifting and disputed theoretical ground regarding the responsibilities of governors and the governed was debated within the thanksgiving-day sermons. This especially pertained to issues surrounding the requirement of obedience to civil authority and the political entitlements of a state’s citizens. The contested nature of these ideas is demonstrated by the divergent positions that preachers put forward. Some leaned toward the principle of the necessity of submission to temporal powers, while others favoured strong assertions of the people’s civil and constitutional rights limiting the powers of civil magistrates. Despite the growth of political philosophies which supported concepts of the consent of the governed, some ministers continued to argue resolutely for the obligation of obedience to civil powers and against any form of active political resistance. In the background to these expressions were perspectives on specific political circumstances. Thus, in 1689 just after the parliamentary Convention’s acknowledgement of William and Mary’s claim to the English throne, John Collinges declared ‘in all Civil things… Obedience to the higher Powers’ trumped a subject’s ‘own Opinion and Judgement’. Those ‘Higher Powers of States and Kingdoms are plainly Judges betwixt God and our practical Judgments… with Power to make Laws and determine things necessary, or not necessary,… for the better managery of their particular Governments’. Seven years later, Francis Gregory, the rector of Hambleden in Buckinghamshire, reaffirmed William’s rule by asserting ‘’tis not our Business to dispute his Title, but to acquiesce under his Government, to submit to his Laws,… and to obey his just Commands’. To the same purpose William Perse distinguished between those ordained to rule and those who were meant to obey, ‘by which subordination the Government of the World is preserved in that uniform Harmony wherein it continues… at this day’.65 The case for non-resistance resurfaced towards the end of Anne’s reign. In his sermon celebrating the peace (unpopular among Whigs) with France in 1713, William Law signalled the Tory ascendancy by aiming his sights at Locke’s ideas. Law suggested that criticism of government and rulers originated from harmful justifications of resistance, which caused people to ‘secretly deride the Name of Majesty’ and ‘keeps us in a base Temper, and ill-disposed towards our Governour’. With citizens ‘knowing they may Resist, they are always ready, and watching the occasion, and may truly be call’d a standing Army disciplin’d by Principle to awe the Prerogative’.66 However, Hanoverian succession and subsequent revolt in George I’s reign reframed the implications of non-resistance, which, as in William’s reign,

65

66

October the Ninth, 1746 (Belfast, 1746), p. 5; Barr, A Sermon… Ninth of October [1746], pp. 14–15. John Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 5; Francis Gregory, A Thanksgiving Sermon… [1696] (London, 1696), p. 10; William Perse, A Sermon… 16th Day of April, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 10. Law, A Sermon… July 7. 1713, pp. 26, 27, 30, 31.

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could be used to uphold claims that deviated substantially away from more direct lines of royal succession. Now Whigs’ justification of the right of resistance, which developed out of the circumstances of the 1680s, became ‘inconvenient’ after 1714, when they needed to defend the Hanoverian succession and their own hold on political power.67 Thus, Thomas Page, the rector of Wheatacre in Norfolk, used the thanksgiving celebrating the peaceful accession of George I to maintain that ‘God has ordained a Supremacy, and commanded Subjection to higher Powers, that all Politick and Civil Societies among Men might be preserved, and settled in Peace and good Order.’68 In the aftermath of the 1715 Jacobite uprising, many preachers further stressed the obligation of obedience. Citing divine authority, Thomas Curteis confirmed ‘all those Orders of Government, both Civil and Ecclesiastical, which are so highly necessary to secure a Common Happiness. Hence the King, or Supreme Magistrate, is very aptly syl’d a Political Father… and has the strongest claim imaginable to all that Honour, Submission and Obedience, enjoyned by the Fifth Commandment.’ Curteis went on to declare ‘There is scarce any part of Religion, or any Branch of Practice that tends to illustrate the Christian Life… with greater Clearness and Vehemence, than this general Duty of Submission to the Higher Powers’, quoting from Romans 13: 1–2 (‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers…’) to validate his point. On exactly the same line of argument, Thomas Pocock, the rector of Danbury in Essex and chaplain to the Royal Hospital in Greenwich, reiterated the obligation of subjects to obey, warning his audience that ‘to resist such lawful Authority, St. Paul… tells us, is damnation’.69 Making the first verse of the same biblical chapter his text, Lewis Atterbury used the whole of his 1716 sermon at Whitehall to reinforce the necessity of obedience. Though acknowledging the possibility that certain erroneous religious dictates could cause Christians to suspend their obedience, Atterbury cautioned that it was best to err on the side of obedience and peacefulness. He concluded with the recognition that ‘even the best Governments will have some Imperfections… But these must be born with, provided they do not strike at the Being of the Constitution; and may be remedied by milder and more safe Methods, than those of Rebellion, Civil War, and Resisting the Supreme Power; which are the worst Evils which can befal a Nation.’70 Assertions of the necessity of obedience continued to appear in the mid-eighteenth century and after. In the celebration at the end of the Seven Years’ War, the Anglican scholar John Parkhurst returned to Romans 13 to affirm subjects’ responsibilities, noting the ‘apostolical injunctions… of obedience and submission… are general, and oblige all Christians under whatever form of government they live’, concluding his sermon by quoting 1 Peter 2: 13–14, 17 (‘Submit yourselves to every ordinance 67

68 69 70

J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice During the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 47–8. See also Mischler, ‘English Political Sermons’, p. 34. Thomas Page, Supremacy Defended ... January the 20th, 1714 (London, 1715), pp. 23–4. Curteis, Religious Princes… A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716, pp. 6, 23; Thomas Pocock, A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 3. Atterbury, A Sermon… June 7. 1716, pp. 13–16, 31–2.



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of man…’). At the end of the century, the Congregational minister of the Glasgow Tabernacle, Greville Ewing, spent several pages recounting the passages of scripture calling for obedience to temporal authorities, and he maintained ‘that even a government comparatively bad, is better for society than none’. Ewing determined that a ‘Christian’s subjection must be Unresisting’ and argued that even when Christ’s life was threatened, resistance ‘was checked’. When civil commands contradicted God’s law, only ‘a refusal to obey, where there is no resistance’ was the most that would be allowed. In the shadow of the recent events in France over the previous decade, in 1802 William Vincent observed that the ‘holy right of insurrection goes as effectually to the subversion of a republick… because the necessity of insurrection is always determined by the judgment or the will of the insurgent’. Subjects who believed in this misguided principle would have the same right to challenge their government as ‘a leader of banditti… to complain of the law against robbery, as the conspirator to renounce the law of treason; and both… are equally entitled to the privilege of destroying any power that is set over them’. Instead, Vincent countered that the primary reason for government was ‘for the purpose of controuling individual will for the good of all’.71 Across exactly the same period and same events, other sermons supported positions emphasising the primacy of subjects’ political rights instead of the necessity of obedience. This demonstrates that these conflicting political theories could be held to support the same existing political circumstances, depending on the preacher’s perspective and emphasis. For example, while others had supported William and Mary’s rule by claiming the necessity of obedience to civil powers, in his 1689 thanksgiving sermon celebrating the kingdom’s deliverance, Thomas Watts also ridiculed the idea ‘that some are born to govern as they please; others to obey as Vassals, and yield up their Lives, and all at their Ruler’s Lust’. Watts asked rhetorically ‘Is there any such natural necessity imposed upon us?’ In 1696 William Wake countered any notion of obligatory obedience to civil authority by pointing to the absurdity of the idea ‘that a whole Kingdom may have a right to its Laws and Liberties, and yet have no right to defend them, tho’ they… be Broken in upon… and if not prevented, must end in total Dissolution of the Constitution’. Wake went on to emphasise the nature of England’s ‘Limited Monarchy’ and the constitution’s abhorrence of arbitrary and absolute rule.72 Echoing these sentiments in Anne’s reign, Josiah Woodward dismissed any claims to absolute monarchy, maintaining ‘the Prince is God’s Minister to Men for their Good: And therefore no Tyranny nor Oppression can shelter it self under the Plea of divine Right.’73

71

72 73

John Parkhurst, The People’s Duty… A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, n.d.), pp. 15, 16; Greville Ewing, The Duty of Christians… 29th November, 1798 (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 6–9, 13, 15 (among other passages, Ewing cites Romans 13: 1–8, 1 Timothy 2: 1–4, 1 Peter 2: 11–17, and Matthew 17: 24–27); Vincent, A Sermon… June 1, 1802, p. 24 (emphasis in the original). Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th [1689], p. 14; William Wake, A Sermon… April xvith. 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 9–10. Josiah Woodward, A Sermon… February 17th, 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 10.

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Again, the issues which arose after the Hanoverian succession instigated discussion of subjects’ rights. In a sermon entitled Of Honouring the King on the January 1715 thanksgiving for George I’s accession, Samuel Wright commented on the political implications of the fifth commandment, but also advised that ‘if rulers act illegally, beyond their Commissions, and unsuitably to their Characters, they justly forfeit Respect; and all proper Methods should be taken rather to Displace than to Honour them’. Though recognising the ‘Duty to submit to Lawfull Authority’, William Roby qualified this with the proviso ‘when Princes act arbitrarily… and invade the Subjects Rights… they cease to be the Ministers of God to us for Good’. In the same way, William Fisher acknowledged that rulers who promoted the welfare of their citizens were ‘not to be resisted by any pretence whatsoever’, but when they violated this political compact ‘resistance becomes necessary, and it is not to rebel against our Lawful Prince, but to oppose a Tyrant’.74 It was not only dissenting ministers who took up this position. In a shot at the Tories, Charles Bean blamed ‘the most turbulent Advocates for an Unlimited PassiveObedience’ as being the ‘Ringleaders’ of the 1715 Jacobite uprising. In his sermon on the thanksgiving after that rebellion, Richard Chapman noted ‘tho’ Monarchy and all Regal Authority are unquestionably the best Forms of Government… yet no King or Prince is from hence justify’d or allow’d to exercise a despotick, tyrannical, or destructive Power’; Chapman could not resist a parting blow: ‘as most of our modern Passives urge, and ’tis to be wish’d they were at present more passive’.75 After the 1745 rebellion John Gilbert, rector of Whippingham on the Isle of Wight, emphasised the responsibility of people using their own conscientious judgement in order not to violate God’s laws by obeying civil commands contrary to them. Though affirming that when ‘the publick good cannot be preserved… [or] laws… become destructive of that public weal,… necessity will… justify changing those laws’, Gilbert was careful to warn that any alterations to government needed to be done through lawful authority. Less cautiously, George Carr declared ‘Government is constituted solely for the Sake of the Governed’, asking ‘who does not see, that, in all Cases of Competition, the Right of the Prince ought to give Place to the publick Interests of the People’.76 Even the occasion of peace in 1749 saw thanksgiving preachers continue to consider the limits of obedience. Gilbert Kennedy delineated the right for authorities to use force to suppress rebellion, but also ‘the People, for restraining the Exorbitances of the Magistrate, and vindicating their Liberties against his tyrannical Usurpations’,

74

75

76

Samuel Wright, Of Honouring the King. A Sermon… Jan. 20. 1714/15 (London, 1715), pp. 13, 21, quotation on 14; William Roby, A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 18; Fisher, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June the 7th, 1716, pp. 6–7. Both Roby and Fisher are juxtaposing the bad prince against Roman 13: 4 (‘For he is the minister of God to thee for good.’). Charles Bean, The Folly and Wickedness… a Thanksgiving-Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 17–18; Richard Chapman, Good Kings… A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 6–7. John Gilbert, The Duty… a Sermon… Ninth Day of October… [1746] (Salisbury, 1746), pp. 6, 7, 12, 13; George Carr, A Sermon… June 26. 1746 (Edinburgh, 1746), p. 12.



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reasoning ‘it would be hard that civil Society should bring Men into worse Circumstances than they were in in a state of Nature, by depriving them of the Right of Self-Defence against such as invade their Rights’. Kennedy used the language of resistance theory to argue that a king who abuses his Power has ‘unking’d himself ’ and should be ‘considered a traitor to the Society; and… all manner of Obligation between Him and his subjects [are] entirely dissolved’, concluding that this principle was affirmed in the Revolution of 1688–1689. In his sermon at St Paul’s, Arnold King, chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London and rector of St Michael Cornhill in London, discussed the benefits of limited monarchy, including it being ‘a guard against tyranny’, a circumstance which resulted in a ‘breach of the conditions for our safety on the side of the crown’ and ‘a forfeiture to the right of allegiance’.77 The potential dangers of the cases for and against the necessity of submission to ruling powers caused some ministers to be more equivocal in their understanding and presentation of opinions on political obedience. In his 1716 sermon, Shadrach Garmston, the vicar of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire, used the Anglican thirtyseventh article of religion (on the power of civil magistrates), the first canon of 1603 (on royal supremacy), and the homilies on obedience and against rebellion as part of a lengthy section to prove the necessity of obedience to lawful civil authority. But, because of the Revolution of 1688–1689 and its consequences for the current reign, Garmston still had to acknowledge the propriety of ‘Cases extraordinary… When a whole Nation and People are about to be destroyed, ruined and enslaved… and the whole Body Politick… [did] rise up in its own Defence’, noting that the homilies did not anticipate such an occasion ‘because it was deemed… so horrid and unnatural that it would never happen’. In fact, earlier in his sermon, Garmston had conceded that when a ruler did ‘notoriously deviate from this universal Aim of Government [to rule for the good of the people]… on his Part the Grand Condition of all Government is broken, and his own particular Right to govern… forfeited’.78 Though Thomas Blennerhaysett reiterated the Pauline assertion that ‘the Powers that be, are Ordained of God’, he would go on to qualify that dictate by classifying tyrannical and arbitrary rulers as Gods’ Rods, or Scourges,… [which] may by Deprecated, Avoided, and Resisted, by the Same Methods, and with as Much Reason, as any other Temporal Evils whatsoever’.79 For John Blackburn, it was easiest to come down firmly in the middle. Blackburn’s 1749 sermon noted that both rulers and subjects had powers ‘for maintaining or altering their respective situations’, which included designs ‘for the Support or Destruction of that particular Government which subsists among them’. Yet he went on to declare such power was ‘extremely limited’ on either side, and he concluded ‘that the Design of Government is in a great measure frustrated, when Kings and Princes either neglect public Welfare, or indeavour to inslave their People’, but also

77 78 79

Kennedy, The Great Blessing… April 25th, 1749, pp. 8, 16; Arnold King, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, n.d.), pp. 13–14. Shadrach Garmston, Considerations of Present Use… a Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 14–18, quotations on 18, 7. Blennerhaysett, The Happy Surprize… January the 20th, 1714/15, pp. 8, 10.

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‘when Subjects refuse to give a proper Support to equitable Rulers; or withdraw their Allegiance from those, who… indeavour to support and defend them’.80 For Blackburn, then, both governors and governed had the ability to effect political change for better or for worse. His position demonstrates the complexities of the issues of political obedience in the long eighteenth century, and its presence as a point of contention and uncertainty. The events of the French Revolution would raise further concerns about obedience, political authority, and social order, which will be discussed in the following chapter. It is evident that thanksgiving sermons were vehicles that provided an opportunity for clergymen to present political ideas and arguments. Such comments and considerations were not limited to the specifics of the commemoration at hand, but instead ranged from political theory, to constitutional principles, to the institutions and ideals of British government. Preachers demonstrated a range of opinions on these subjects, with some supporting new political philosophies and doctrines, and others rejecting them for more traditional positions on obedience and the nature of monarchical authority. It is also apparent that the same occasions and political circumstances could inspire differing political messages and emphases, depending on context and a minister’s perspective and outlook. While the debate over ideological political stances is not surprising in itself, the amount and depth of such discussions in the context of national thanksgivings during the long eighteenth century is noteworthy. It also shows clearly that such occasions were not simply events where consensus was upheld and difference ignored. In all of this divergence, however, it is clear that thanksgivings were perceived as perfectly suited to discuss the foundations and nature of British politics and government, and preachers reminded their audiences of these issues. As the next chapter will show, they were also events when discussion of politics went beyond the theoretical realm to explore and comment on the specifics of the political affairs of the day.

80

Blackburn, Reflections on Government… April 25. 1749, pp. 6, 8, 10, 12.

5 ‘This Carping Age’ – the politics of unity and discord In the preface to his thanksgiving-day sermon in 1695, William Corbin suggested the hostile reception his sermon might meet, stating he had no ambition to appear in print ‘especially in this Carping Age’. Almost a century later, Thomas Scott declared that his sermon scrupulously avoided insulting ‘the political principles of any man’, and he hoped ‘no moderate man of any party will be offended’.1 These two statements demonstrate that ministers were attuned to the politics and controversies of the day, and that they saw the necessity of steering clear of such subjects. Many sermons through this period repeated the idea that the pulpit was a place where current political controversy should be avoided. This position was affirmed by royal proclamation in the early eighteenth century. Though particularly directed at limiting discussion of anti-Trinitarian views, the 1714 Directions… For the Preserving of Unity in the Church also stipulated ‘That none of the Clergy in their Sermons… presume to intermeddle in any Affairs of State or Government, or the Constitution of the Realm.’ The proclamation did go on to make an exception for ‘Special Feasts and Fasts’, but limited this allowance to going ‘no further than the Occasion of such Days shall strictly require’.2 Yet these pronouncements against politicised sermonising are themselves compelling evidence that the pulpit was a place where contemporary political issues received comment, support, and criticism. Remarking on government affairs and actions was not only ubiquitous in society at large, but common in the pulpit as well. In 1798 John Gardiner, vicar of Shirley in Derbyshire, acknowledged accusations that clergy were turning ‘this sacred place into a political theatre’, but he demurred, arguing it was not ‘meddling with politicks, or exceeding our sphere as gospel ministers, to derive inferences from passing events,… to instruct our hearers as citizens or subjects’. Indeed, some preachers saw thanksgiving days as particularly appropriate occasions for such engagement. Responding to the attention his sermons had received for their perceived ‘Reflections and Flurts at the Government’,

1

2

William Corbin, EΥΧAΡIΣTIA: Or, a Grateful Acknowledgment… a Sermon… 22d of September 1695 (London, 1695), sig. A4r; Thomas Scott, A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached July 29, 1784 (Northampton, n.d.), p. 4. Directions to Our Archbishops, and Bishops, For the Preserving of Unity in the Church, and the Purity of the Christian Faith, Concerning the Holy trinity; and Also for Preserving the Peace and Quiet of the State (London, 1714), p. 5.

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in 1696 Abdiel Borfet defended himself with the justification that ‘all of ’em [were] on Publick Fasts or Thanksgiving Days: For on other Days my Sermons are 1000 miles out of this Kenn’. In 1797 Samuel Clapham encouraged his congregation to ask questions regarding the merits of the current regime and its ministers, suggesting that such an enquiry ‘might, with equal propriety, be recommended by almost every preacher to his congregation, on this day assembled with the same pious intention as ourselves’.3 Clapham’s intent was to bolster support for the government, and he clearly saw such political messages as fair game. As the preceding chapter demonstrated, despite protestations to the contrary, thanksgiving-day preachers readily ventured into the realm of political thought. However, such forays were not limited to considerations of theories and ideals: opinions on government policy, officials, and ministries created political division and discontent in eighteenth-century British society, and certainly thanksgiving-day sermons reflected the prominence of such debate, with many clergymen also weighing in on contemporary public debates, arguments, and concerns. The topics included the importance and benefits of unity within society, the dangers of dispute, criticisms of the government, party distinctions and rivalries, differences over application of political principles, and apprehensions surrounding social and political unrest. In all of this, it becomes apparent that discussion, deliberation, and contention over current issues were prominent aspects of thanksgiving-day sermons and their messages.

The importance of unity National cohesion was viewed as a general virtue that bolstered the ideal of a healthy state, and calls for unity featured widely in thanksgiving-day sermons. This is not surprising, as thanksgiving days were meant to tie the country together as a community in celebration and gratitude. They were occasions, according to Josiah Hort in 1706, ‘when God has visibly appear’d in Favour of whole Nations and Societies’, who in turn ‘should return him Thanks in Collected Bodies’ where there ‘is a greater Solemnity in Publick and United Praise’. Thomas Rutledge saw the thanksgiving in 1805 as an event when ‘the grand Disposer of all events settled and quieted those alarming internal commotions… and blessed us with a general union and concord amongst ourselves’. For John Mackqueen it was a time to ‘admire, acknowledge and adore the divine Hand in a singular manner furthering all our Successes, for which end we and all other Congregations in the Nation are this Day assembled’.4 As such, thanksgiving days were meant to close national ranks and cause people to put aside their disputes. Reminding his Dublin audience in 1705 of ‘the divisions 3

4

John Gardiner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Bath, 1798), pp. 24, 25; Abiel Borfet, The Minister of Richmond’s Sermon… [1696] (London, 1696), p. 9; Samuel Clapham, A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (Leeds, n.d.), p. 10. Josiah Hort, A Sermon… 31st of December 1706 (London, 1707), p. 7; Thomas Rutledge, God the Defence… A Thanksgiving Sermon… 5th of December 1805 (London, 1806), pp. 20–1; John Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon’ [1708], in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), p. 65.



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amongst ourselves, and the necessity of Uniting against our Enemies’, Francis Higgins observed ‘how highly necessary a hearty Union amongst our selves is’. William Fleetwood predicted that the military successes of 1708 had silenced ‘Murmurs’ within the nation, ‘drowned in the triumphant Noise, and Joy of Victory; and many Discontents, and ill Affections, [are] quieted by our Success’. The dissenter George Lambert proclaimed that it was God who brought unity in the midst of the political turmoil accompanying George III’s illness, silencing ‘the tumults of the people… [and saying] to the tempestuated state of Britain – peace, Be still’; as a result, ‘the winds of opposition died away in silence, the waves of contending parties ceased to break against each other; the divine calm spread over all the nation’.5 The silencing of contention and dissatisfaction fit nicely with thanksgiving expectations, as well as giving preachers a chance to condemn disagreement. In the weeks preceding the culmination of the Revolution of 1688–1689, John Tillotson hoped that England would not ‘forfeit the fruits of this Deliverance… by Breaches and Divisions amongst our selves’. At the turn of the nineteenth century, James Stillingfleet, rector of Knightwick and Doddenham in Worcestershire, told his audience to appreciate the benefits of the latest victory, and ‘Instead of murmuring and repining,… be sensible of the peculiar blessings we enjoy in this happy Island, in our Constitution in Church and State’. In 1709 Richard Chapman asserted the need ‘Not to provoke, injure, defraud, or oppress one another; but in all our mutual Dealings and Transactions, to carry as it were a Court of Chancery in our own Breasts, and to do according to Equity.’6 The celebrations were an opportunity to accentuate unity in success and in the face of various threats. John Doughty praised the unanimity of defence and loyalty in response to the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, and he declared ‘a Nation so considerable as this, and seemingly so much at Unity in itself, is not so easily overpowered’. According to White Kennett, victories solidified alliances, made people happy and united, and ‘drive away that Strife and Sedition, which live and move upon the Misfortunes of the Publick’.7 Unity was especially necessary in the workings of government. Using the analogy of physical well-being in his 1689 sermon, John Collinges described how the ‘Health of the Body Natural depends on the Unity of the Humours: and the Health of the Body Politick equally depends upon the Union of the Members of it’. Agreement in Parliament was also vital. In 1789 John Cottingham was thankful ‘for that happy unanimity in the grand council of our nation, that now all fear and difference subsides’, and for Michael Pope in 1716

5

6

7

Francis Higgins, A Sermon… 28th of August [1705] (Dublin, 1705), pp. 5–6; William Fleetwood, A Sermon… August the 19th. 1708 (London, 1708), p. 11; George Lambert, Britain’s King… a Sermon… April 23, 1789 (Hull, 1789), pp. 20–1 (emphasis in the original). John Tillotson, A Sermon… 31th of January, 1688…. [1689] (London, 1689), pp. 33–4; James Stillingfleet, National Gratitude… a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Worcester, 1798), p. 35; Richard Chapman, Publick Peace… a Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 5. John Doughty, A Dependance… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 11n*; White Kennett, Glory to God… A Sermon… 22d. of Nov. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 13.

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the ‘Happy Union of the Two Houses of Parliament’ was ‘a great Security’.8 Likewise, William Marston commented upon the ‘unanimity and Agreement in the great Council of the Nation assembled in Parliament’. Joseph Stennett saw military success enabled by providence’s ‘inclining the Parliament to that Union and Moderation, so frequently recommended by her Majesty, which dispos’d ’em to an unanimous and early Application to the publick Business’.9 Accord with the monarch was also highlighted as a crucial element of national success. This is especially apparent in the first two decades of the eighteenth century, when political disputes at times seemed set to tear the kingdom apart. John Wilder, a fellow of Pembroke College in Oxford, praised God for making Queen Anne and parliament ‘be of one Mind, and of one Heart… [having] set a-part all private Jarrs, and impertinent Quarrels within themselves, and solely applied themselves to those things which the Necessity of the publick Welfare did require’. Similarly, Daniel Williams counted as a blessing ‘the mutual Confidence between Her Majesty and Parliament, with the Harmony among themselves, in pursuit of the common Good’.10 John Jenings asserted that George I was called to Britain ‘by the Voice of God, and the Voice of the People, Whiggs as well as Torys’, and John Withers noted that the king’s title to the throne was ‘settled on Him by the concurring Votes of Lords and Commons… The Protestant Succession in the illustrious House of Hanover, is a Point in which all Parties, all Factions amongst us, have at least pretended to center and unite’. Withers’s snide qualification aside, William Fleetwood proclaimed ‘A King and Parliament agreeing, are not soon Vanquished.’11 The importance of the nation uniting together was particularly emphasised in the face of immediate enemies. These threats could be internal or external. In 1689 Samuel Peck, the curate of Poplar Chapel in Stepney, warned that those seeking to weaken the nation ‘Love to fish in troubled Waters; and gain ground by divisions’. In response to the discovery of an assassination plot against William III, William Perse affirmed that ‘if all our Divisions and Difference were composed among us; then should all our Enemies, either Abroad or at Home, be discouraged to make any more attempts against us; then should our Religion flourish, and the Prosperity of the Nation be firmly establish’d among us!’12 Crisis events like the 1745 Jacobite rebellion heightened awareness for the need for internal unity. In response to the ‘Apprehension of Danger’, Thomas Bradbury recounted how ‘all Ranks and Degrees, all Denominations and Parties were knit together as one Man, the same diffusive 8

9 10 11

12

John Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 11; John Cottingham, A Commemoration… a Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 33; Michael Pope, The Merciful Discovery… A Thanksgiving Sermon [1716] (Bristol, 1716), pp. 201–21. William Marston, A Sermon… Seventeenth Day of February, 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 15; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… 27th of June 1706 (London, 1706), p. 27. John Wilder, A Sermon… 27th of June, 1706 (Oxford, 1706), p. 15; Daniel Williams, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 18. John Jenings, K. George’s Victory… A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 18; John Withers, The Perjury… a Sermon… June the 7th. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 12; William Fleetwood, A Sermon… June 7, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 6. Samuel Peck, Jericho’s Downfal; In a Sermon Preached on Jan. 31. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 23; William Perse, A Sermon… 16th Day of April, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 29.



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Spirit run through the Nation’. Samuel Kerrich, the vicar of Dersingham and rector of Wolferton in Norfolk, maintained the French supporters of the Pretender ‘knew full well, that while we in Britain are united among ourselves, their Schemes for enslaving their Neighbours cannot easily take effect’.13 The Presbyterian minister John Milner observed how a ‘Publick Enemy and Scourge will many times remove the prejudices of Parties, and unite men… who were a little before estranged to one another.’ Fellow dissenter John Norman echoed the sentiment, celebrating ‘that Protestants of every Denomination should so heartily unite in Opposition to the Enemies of our King and Country’.14 Foreign enemies and warfare persisted, which also caused preachers to emphasise the efficacy of a united domestic front. Robert Gilbert, the Congregational minister to Castle Hill Church in Northamptonshire, commented on the unity ‘in approving the measures taken for humbling the common enemy’ during the Seven Years’ War, with ‘loyalty and affection to the best of princes… [having] evidently become the temper of the nation’. Peter Goddard acknowledged the ‘universal… Zeal which now prevails for advancing the public Service in opposition to the common Enemy’.15 In the midst of the French Revolutionary wars John Black expressed his belief that any internal divisions would disappear under the threat of foreign invasion, and, more forcefully, Thomas Tayler assured his London audience that ‘the very threats of our enemies… as well as their insidious attempts to sow and cherish the seeds of dissention among us… have served to unite us more firmly together’.16 Sermons on the occasion of the union of England and Scotland were ones in which the theme of national unity played an obvious and prominent role. Using the scriptural parallel of unification between Israel and Judah, Richard Allen predicted the results of 1707 as being ‘Wealth and Prosperity, the Peace and Tranquillity, together with the Strength and security of both Kingdoms’, and Allen hoped his sermon would ‘evince we have considerable grounds to look for the like excellent Fruits from the Union… between so long divided Branches of Great Britain’. Christopher Taylor saw the purpose of the union as bringing the countries to ‘be one Body under

13

14

15

16

Thomas Bradbury, ‘[Sermon I]’, in Joy in Heaven… In Two Sermons on the Thanksgiving-Day October 9, 1746 (London, 1747), p. 17; Samuel Kerrich, A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), p. 15. John Milner, National Gratitude… A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 7; John Norman, A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 13. John Milner is identified as a Presbyterian minister in Jennifer Farooq, Preaching in Eighteenth-Century London (Woodbridge, 2013), p. 165. Robert Gilbert, Britain Revived… A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 25; Peter Goddard, A Sermon Preached November 29, 1759 (Bury St Edmunds, 1760), p. 18. Robert Gilbert is identified as a Congregational minister in The Congregational Magazine, Volume 13, April 1830, p. 170, https://books.google.ca/books?id=b_UDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA224&dq=The+%22Congregational+magazine%22+1830+volume+13&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY5OmF2YrZAhVE-GMKHXDsBlcQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=The%20%22Congregational%20magazine%22%201830%20volume%20 13&f=false (accessed 25 February 2015). John Black, ‘A Sermon,… 19th. December, 1797…’, in Political Calumny Refuted (Ipswich, n.d.), pp. 18–19; Thomas Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 11.

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one Head, one Sheepfold under one Shepherd’, and he welcomed the ‘conjoined strength of these Two Brave, Vertuous, and free nations… to defend and establish them Both, and to convey them safe down to Posterity’. Deuel Pead agreed that the union was ‘for the mutual good of both Nations’ because ‘Weak things conjoin’d become stronger.’17 Praise was not only focused upon the creation of a new state, but also on the newfound security that would result from that unity. Commenting on the traditional animosities between the two kingdoms, Robert Davidson, rector of Hayes in Kent, reminded his audience that before the Union ‘whenever the English were engag’d in War Abroad… their Enemys were wont to engage the Scots to give a Diversion’, but Davidson now celebrated that ‘They are for ever secur’d from dividing again; and no enemy shall be able to come up in upon them from abroad.’ More pithily, the London Presbyterian minister Joshua Oldfield hoped that that ‘Back-Door of Destruction is now Shut’.18 In a similar vein, Francis Hutchinson, preacher for St James’s parish in Bury St Edmunds, asked rhetorically of those opposed to the Union ‘Is not France an Enemy big enough… but we must keep another Corner open for Hostile Actions… ?’ John Bates assured those who ‘have Pray’d for the Peace of Jerusalem’ that ‘the French and Popish Factions [are] intirely depriv’d of one Handle to afflict us, which they have found to our Cost a successful one many a time, I mean the Divisions of these Two Nations’.19 Hugh Todd, vicar of Penrith and canon of Carlisle in Cumbria, related his and his parishioners’ own particular perspective, ‘who live upon the Edging and Limits of both Kingdoms, and upon that Account, lie most exposed to all the Dangers of a Dis-union; and who have always felt the sad and calamitous Effects of it’. Todd recounted how, in the past, when England had been preoccupied with war elsewhere, its enemies had ‘prevail’d with our Neighbours to admit Foreign Forces into their Kingdom, and by their Assistance to invade these remote Provinces, thereby… to draw us off from our Attempts and Designs’.20 Beyond the thanksgiving for Union, the ideal of national unity was found in response to various thanksgiving occasions. This not only expressed a desire for peace and political calm, but also demonstrated wider aspirations and ideas of what the nation was and could become. Nicholas Brady hoped that unity, ‘the blessed effect of Peace and Quietness,… will once again be found within our Israel… This Universal Medicine will close all the Breaches, heal our Sores, and compose our Differences’, and Richard Lucas called for his audience to ‘Pray for the Peace of our Jerusalem; that God would extinguish our Discontents and Dissatisfactions,… and

17

18

19 20

Richard Allen, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 9; Christopher Taylor, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… First Day of May, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 11, 14–15; Deuel Pead, The Honour… a Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 12, 15. Robert Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a. A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 13, 3; Joshua Oldfield, Israel and Judah… A Sermon Preach’d May the First, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 9. Francis Hutchinson, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 7; John Bates, Two (United)… A Thanksgiving Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 6–7. Hugh Todd, A Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 6–7, 18.



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send forth a Spirit of Unity, Concord, Gentleness and Moderation amongst us.’21 In the middle of the eighteenth century, George Harvest echoed those sentiments, beseeching his audience to ‘make Our Jerusalem a City that is at Unity in itself ’. The bishop of Worcester, Isaac Maddox, implored that ‘every upright British Heart must agree in the most essential Principles… [and] unite in the firmest Bonds of Friendly Union. Let not any little accidental Difference of Apprehension… break this beautiful and beneficial Chain of mutual Benevolence and Concord; or weaken the public Strength by dividing it.’22 In Yorkshire Charles Cowper declared that ‘every disinterested and true Lover of his Country will ever prefer the Good of the Whole to the Prejudices and disappointed Ambition of Individuals, and will with Unanimity concur in the generous Principles of true Patriotism’. Samuel Lowthion lectured against political disagreement, advising citizens to seek ‘no other appellation than that of Britons; as a body politic, the grateful and unanimous subjects of George the Third’.23

The dangers of disunity Though ministers devoted much time to preaching the advantages of unity, they also recognised the presence and impact of disagreement and dispute within their society. Admonitions about internal division conveyed a sense of disquiet over threats of disorder so close at hand. John Evans recognised that the September 1704 thanksgiving celebrations came while ‘we had too many unhappy Contentions at home… in the midst of our unseemly Quarrels’, and ten years later fellow Presbyterian Henry Sanders hoped God would take away ‘the sinful divisions and Animosities, by which our Nation has been so grievously torn and greatly endangered’.24 To describe the threat this posed, Thomas Freke used a common device, comparing a properly functioning human body to the effect of ‘jarring Discord… through the abounding of peccant Humours’, which would cause the person to ‘suffer and be in danger… It is so in the Politick, whose interest and Honour is secur’d… by a studious avoiding of Schism in the Body.’ Comparing divisions to disturbances in weather, Richard Willis feared ‘when once these Winds are rais’d, no body can tell… how strong they will grow; and… may in time come to overturn Houses and Churches too’. Willis saw such political dissension tending ‘to corrupt the Manners of Men,… to fill Men

21

22

23

24

Nicholas Brady, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… Decemb the 2d, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 9; Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XII… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 7. 1710’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), pp. 242–3. George Harvest, ‘Protestant and Jewish Blessings Compared. A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746’, in A Collection of Sermons (London, 1754), p. 165; Isaac Maddox, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746; second edition), p. 31. Charles Cowper, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (York, 1763), p. 18; Samuel Lowthion, The Blessings… A Sermon (Thursday, May 5, 1763) (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1763), p. 28 (emphasis in the original). John Evans, A Sermon… Septemb. 7th. 1704 (London, 1704). p. 11; Henry Sanders, Religious and Loyal Thankfulness. A Sermon… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), pp. 19–20.

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full of Pique and Malice, Anger and Resentment against one another; to raise Lyes, and Calumny, and Slander, and by degrees to take away all Sense of Charity and Justice too… And when things are come so far as this… Men are apt to lose all Sense of publick Good.’25 The imagery portraying these threatening possibilities could be even more frightening. John Collinges pronounced that ‘Discords nourish none but Birds of Prey, that can digest the Blood and Flesh of others… There is no Pleasure in a litigious snarling Society.’ William Goldwin used similarly fierce animal imagery to warn that, with ‘the severe scourge of home-bred disturbance…, gnawing like two Vipers, on its Bowels within, the Body Politick would soon dwindle into weakness’.26 Preachers feared the potential of political disputes and animosity to deeply rend the national fabric. In the midst of the Hanoverian succession William Hawtayne suggested the possibility for internal contention to fatally weaken the kingdom, arguing it was political ‘Clamours and Advice’ regarding the possibility of the Pretender’s succession that made Anne ‘uneasy and insecure even on her Throne’ and led to her ‘sudden Death’. The next year, Edmund Gibson, the bishop of Lincoln, told the House of Lords ‘we seem to be improving every Day, not only new Badges and Ensigns of Sedition, but even in new Arts and Methods of Slander’.27 After the 1745 rebellion, John Allen worried that political divisions ‘had alienated our Hearts from one another, and so inflamed the Minds of some, that in their Fury they were ready to join with any Faction that would give them a Project of shewing their Resentment, and crushing their Enemies’. Looking back on the political wrangling around the incapacitated George III, Peter Cunningham, the curate of Bolton by Bowland in Yorkshire and soon to be rector of Derwent in Derbyshire, declared ‘Our Jerusalem was no longer a city that is at unity in itself, but we were troubled on every side. The evil spirit of discord began to shed her plagues over the land.’28 Some preachers warned that danger could come from the mere expression of dissatisfaction, often labelled ‘murmuring’. Jacob Jefferson, a fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford and curate of Milton Chapel in Milford in Hampshire, cautioned his mid-century audience that ‘for the faults of individuals the community might suffer… discontent and murmuring, especially if they become general, might provoke God to take back what he had bestowed’. In 1709 Thomas Knaggs considered it a ‘monstrous Ingratitude… to murmur and repine our Deliverances, to grumble and look soure upon our Victories’. To Hugh Farmer in 1746 ‘our injurious Reviling of the Protestant Government under which we live, was one considerable Cause of our late Calamities, as those ungrateful Murmurings provoked the divine Displeasure, and encouraged the Enemy in their Designs against us’.29 25 26 27 28 29

Thomas Freke, Union… a Sermon… May the First, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 10; Richard Willis, The Way… A Sermon… 20th of January, 1714 [1715] (London, 1715), p. 12. Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9, 13; William Goldwin, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 31st of Decemb. 1706 (London, 1707), p. 9. William Hawtayne, A Sermon… Twentieth of January, 1714 [1715] (London, 1714), p. 16; Edmund Gibson, The Deliverances… A Sermon… June 7, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 20. John Allen, Rejoice with Trembling. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 22; Peter Cunningham, A Sermon… 23d of April, 1789 (Sheffield, 1789), p. 8. Jacob Jefferson, The Blessing… A Sermon… May 5. M.DCC.LXIII (Oxford, 1763), p. 18;



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Lessons from the past were recounted to demonstrate the extremes of such disgruntlement. Deriding the fickleness and inconstancy that could be found in ‘ingrateful Murmurings and Discontents… the ill designs of some, working upon the tenderness and scruples of others, under the specious pretences of Conscience and Loyalty’, in January 1689 John Tillotson pointed back to a similar ‘sowre humour… fermenting in the Body of the Nation, both upon account of Religion and Civil Interests, for a long time before things broke out into a Civil War’ in the mid-seventeenth century. Using suggestive terminology from that time, Francis Higgins hinted the same elements were present in the early eighteenth century, with the possibility of ‘the Old Cause Reviving, the Old Game in the same and like Hands; the Old Shuffling and Cutting, and Packing and Palming’, and he warned ‘’twill be our Faults as well as our Sorrow, if we let them go on with the Cheat, and sweep the Stakes’.30 While damaging enough in itself, internal division was the more dangerous because its effects exposed weaknesses, allowing enemies from outside of Britain to take advantage. Using the analogy of the ‘British oak’ to speak of the state, in 1805 Thomas Simpson found a ‘vast multitude of expert enemies, whose swords have felled many an ancient tree on the Continent’. This peril to Britain came from the ‘storm of internal faction [which] has lately howled so horribly, that the great boughs and branches of the tree have beat with great violence one against another’, and the nation was only saved by ‘a large and noble band of patriot volunteers… [who] swore to defend their boasted and long-envied Constitution’. Prior to the late eighteenth century, the perceived threat often was associated with Catholicism. George Halley maintained ‘Papists are very sensible that nothing consolidates or fortifies a nation more than Unity; and therefore it hath been their constant Practice to foment Divisions, to enkindle Jealousies, set us at Variance one with another.’ The Baptist minister Joseph Stennett (the elder) agreed that divisions within Britain ‘weakned the Protestant Interest both at Home and Abroad,… since nothing is more apparent than that intestine Quarrels might give opportunity to some foreign Power to introduce Slavery and Popery to the whole Island’.31 By the early eighteenth century, France was being more explicitly branded as the beneficiary of such policy. Samuel Wright stated that the ‘Possibility of a French Faction prevailing… among us, should make us join Hand and Heart for our own Security…. the Miseries that have been spread over this Nation by a French Interest’s growing in it will certainly be afraid of all those Tumults and Dissensions that may give Occasion to such Oppressors to break in upon us’. William Hawtayne simply proclaimed ‘it is France and the Friends of France, that do raise

30 31

Thomas Knaggs, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 12; Hugh Farmer, The Duty of Thanksgiving… a Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 19. Tillotson, A Sermon… 31th of January, 1688 [1689], pp. 36, 23; Higgins, A Sermon… 28th of August [1705], p. 10. Thomas Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Stroud, n.d.), pp. 17–18; George Halley, A Sermon… Fourteenth of February, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 30; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 14.

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these present Divisions amongst us’.32 The identification of this French threat internally was consistent throughout the century, and in the 1790s, new characteristics of this enemy and its policies were apparent. William Mavor observed the sowing of ‘dissension between the rulers and the ruled, the government and its subjects, has been the too successful policy of our adversaries’, and in an aside he criticised ‘the gross impolicy of dividing this nation into favourers and opponents of the French Revolution’, concluding ‘Call a man an “incorrigible Jacobin,” and you certainly make him so’.33

Monarchs, government, and discontent Beyond remarking upon unity and division generally, preachers also turned their attention to the actions of and response to the government of the nation. One focal point of such political commentary was the monarch. Of course, it was to be expected that these sermons heaped praise upon the king or queen. However, there were statements that do indicate views on particular rulers were not unanimous. Thus, even in defence of the monarch, sermons could give indications of unease and dispute over the government of the realm. Already in 1689 Timothy Cruso used the analogy of Moses to chastise critics of William III and to praise his nascent rule. Cruso pronounced it ‘a shame to the Israelites… that they were so often quarrelling with God, and chiding Moses, when they were under the best Conduct and Government in the World’. In 1695 fellow Presbyterian Vincent Alsop described those who ‘divided the interest of the Prince from that of his People; or… taught the People to set up an interest distinct and separate from that of their Prince’ as ‘the common Plagues of a nation’, and he condemned as ‘utterly inexcusable’ those who ‘are murmuring at them upon any little trip, or wry step that they make or take’.34 Hinting at continued challenges to William’s claim to the throne, Benjamin Jenks noted that ‘the biggest of our enemies abroad have publickly Owned him for King of this Realm, whom the little Bigots at Home have all this while stood out against’. Offering an alternative viewpoint, Abiel Borfet saw the overenthusiasm of William’s supporters as the problem. Borfet suggested some of king’s supporters needed ‘a Bridle, rather than a Spur’, and he asserted that ‘the most dangerous Poison to His Majesty’s Life, are the Intemperate draughts of His Subjects, though never more used than in drinking his Health’.35 Richard Lee, master of Highgate School in London, mentioned ‘Whispers against the present auspicious Government of Great Caesar… [and] the canting of sad Times’, and he 32 33 34

35

Samuel Wright, ‘A Sermon… November 7th, 1710’, in The Love of One Another (London, 1710), p. 32; Hawtayne, A Sermon… Twentieth of January, 1714 [1715], p. 18. William Mavor, The Duty… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Oxford, 1798), pp. 20, 21n. Timothy Cruso, The Mighty Wonders… a Sermon… January 31, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 22; Vincent Alsop, Duty and Interest… a Sermon… Sept. 8. 1695 (London, 1695), pp. 6, 16. Benjamin Jenks, A Sermon… December 2. 1697 (London, 1697), p. 2; Borfet, The Minister of Richmond’s Sermon [1696], pp. 7, 8–9.



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called for ‘our Magistrates… to suppress and hinder the printing of Libels, and all such Books, and Pamphlets, as tend to no other end, but to amuse the People, to diswade them from admiring and adoring the best of Princes, to rail at the present Government’. James Gardiner, the rector of St Michael’s Crooked Lane in London, contended that ‘the very disaffected Party of the Nation… if they look round about, could not name any One King now reigning in Christendom whom they would have to rule over them than Himself under whose Government at present they are so uneasy’.36 While not immediately entering into debate over William’s political abilities and policies, such remarks do underscore the existence of such commentary, and do suggest where these preachers stood on their monarch’s abilities and rule. Comment upon William III’s reign continued into the next one. In 1704 Edward Fowler, bishop of Gloucester, praised the departed king for delivering England ‘from Popery and French Slavery’, and showed his Whig colours by condemning those who had ‘blackned’ the king's memory, ‘most shameless Men, whom I can scarce think of with Patience… because those I mean are not only English Men, but professed Protestants, and Protestants of the highest Denomination’. Even in the early years of George I’s reign White Kennett placed reviling the memory and reputation of William and his supporters among his list of characteristics of England’s enemies. On the Tory side, John Mackqueen celebrated Anne’s rule by suggestively observing how ‘the Misfortunes’ of William’s rule were ‘remedied by the better management of Affairs under another Sovereign Authority’, and he denounced excessive praise of past reigns, and excessive criticism of current ones, as ‘the common Chat of some little Men that would fain seem great; of Coffee-house Sparks that would be mistaken for Wits’.37 For Anne herself, there is similar evidence in sermons about critiques of her reign. Concerned about negative portrayals of dissenting attitudes towards the queen, the Congregational minister George Mills, from Guestwick in Norfolk, called for his audience to ‘heartily express esteem for her Royal person, and most eligible government… and convince the World, that it is an unjust, and malicious Aspersion cast upon us and our principles, to represent us at any time as Malecontents, and Disaffected to the Monarchy’. Before being ejected from his living as a nonjuror early in the next reign, William Law asserted ‘That every good Christian and Loyal Subject must have care of examining too nicely the Affairs of his Prince’. Law assessed those ‘assaulting’ Anne’s government in the political battles late in her reign as ‘the worst of Subjects’ because ‘to speak Evil of Princes, and weaken their Authority… [is] destructive to the Ends of Government, and the Peace of Society’. In his own praise of Anne and her government, Benjamin Loveling criticised those who did not fully support strong episcopal government of the Church of England, as well as those who wrote ‘Prophane and Factious Books and Papers that strike at the very Root

36 37

Richard Lee, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 2d. of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 11; James Gardiner, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… December the 2d, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 3. Edward Fowler, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704 (London, n.d.), p. 11; White Kennett, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 19–20; Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon’ [1708], pp. 66, 69.

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both of Christianity and Government… and infect the nation with vile Principles’.38 Again, such defences and support, now for Anne, revealed a level of concern over the existence of prominent and vocal political opposition. As had happened for William, response to Anne’s rule spilled over, and was more freely unleashed, in the subsequent one. In the first thanksgiving of George I’s reign, Thomas Foster intimated that Anne had been deluded by an evil spirit, causing her to ‘Discard Her old Ministry; who were true Protestants, and Men of as great Abilities as ever England bred’ and instead replace them with ‘a nest of Vipers, a mongrel Set of half-faced Protestants and State Malignants’. Continuing his analogy, Foster claimed that ‘the Poyson of these Infectious Creatures did not only affect the Queen, and make the head sick; but disorder’d the Body also’ by attempting to bring in arbitrary government. More provocatively, William Roby declared that providence had intervened to remove Anne from the throne ‘before her enemies, and those of the Protestant Succession, could bring about their Designs’. Even twenty-five years later, Obadiah Hughes similar characterised Anne’s death as the ‘hand of God’ interceding to disrupt ‘all the schemes of her ministry in favour of an abjured pretender… and hereby salvation came to our Israel’.39 One sermon from early in George I’s reign indicated that opposition to the new ruler, and the new dynasty, was already present only months after he had taken the throne. In January 1715 Joseph Acres, vicar of Blewberry in Berkshire, mentioned some ‘Sons of Belial who despise the King, and shew rather a Rage than a Zeal for our Church’.40 The small number of thanksgiving days in the reigns of George I and II limits the evidence of further comment on these kings’ rules. However, the long reign that followed demonstrated that assessment of a monarch’s abilities and government did not disappear in the later eighteenth century. Preaching on the first thanksgiving day under George III, Patrick Delany, dean of Down in Ireland, felt compelled to label those who attacked the virtues of rulers as ‘venders of calumny… and despisers of government’. Delany noted that the best characteristics of a prince could be turned to the worst by those who were determined to criticise ‘steadiness… as obstinacy;… his indispensible duty to recommend œconomy… [as] a nation over-run with debt’.41 Celebration of George III’s recovery from debilitating illness in the middle of his reign gave ample opportunity to discuss the attributes of the monarch and his rule. Among the multitude of congratulatory descriptions were some that again alluded to a lack of unanimity of opinion. In Bristol, John Camplin praised the king’s virtues by asserting that ‘Neither the tongue of faction, nor the pen of sedition can justly charge him with any incroachments on the constitutional rights of 38

39

40 41

George Mills, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (Norwich, 1707), pp. 28–9; William Law, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), pp. 2, 20, 36; Benjamin Loveling, Peace… A Sermon… Seventh of July, 1713 (Oxford, 1713), pp. 19–20. Thomas Foster, A Sermon… January 20. 1714 (London, 1715), pp. 14, 15; William Roby, A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 12; Obadiah Hughes, Peace Attended… A Sermon… April xxv [1749] (London, 1749), p. 10. Joseph Acres, Glad Tidings… A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 20. Patrick Delany, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 6.



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his subjects, nor with the least act of violence and oppression in the execution of his royal authority.’ More equivocally, William Tremenheere told his congregation in Cornwall that it was not useful to speculate ‘Whether the nation would be happier or not, under a new monarch’, therefore ‘let us be therewith content, and rejoice, that by the recovery of our present gracious Sovereign… the blessings we enjoy under him continue unendangered’.42 After the king’s return to better health, indications of concerns about the reign continued. Amid the tensions of the drawn-out conflict with Napoleon, Samuel Barker decried opposition politicians, ‘the self-styled Patrons of Liberty’, for ‘reviling their own exemplary Monarch, and as inconsistently bestowing the most fulsome adulation, upon a relentless and imperious Despot’.43 Though commenting directly on a monarch, even after their death, was constrained by some sense of due respect and deference, preachers were less inhibited in speaking out on government ministers and their actions. Thanksgiving-day sermons provided an opportunity for analysis of national governance and policies, and many took the chance to share opinions on those issues. Some preachers appeared more than willing to voice blunt judgements on the way the country was being run. Less than a year into George I’s reign, Simon Browne was charitable towards the former queen, though his conclusion on the ministry under her was less so: ‘the wisest Rulers are not always aware of the Artifices of those, who with fair and Plausible Pretences of Love to the Public, are only colouring their own selfish Designs, and sacrificing their Sovereign’s Honour, and the Happiness of their Country, to their Lusts, Ambitions, or Interests’. The anonymous author of The Rebellion of Sheba (1716) insinuated hypocrisy on the part of Tories in their arguments ‘that to change the Ministry should be the unalienable Right of Queen Anne, and the inexpiable Crime of King George! A laudable Instance of the Sovereignty in the former, and a Ground sufficient to justify a Rebellion against the latter!’44 As with assessments of monarchs, comments on the failings of particular governments continued punctuating thanksgiving sermons throughout the eighteenth century. Upon George I’s arrival in England, Thomas Blennerhaysett hoped for ‘Great Tenderness’ to be used in regard to those who had been involved ‘in the Late Ill Management’ of the government, though he was later more pointed, noting how the ‘Glories’ of Anne’s reign were later ‘Eclipsed and Obscur’d, by the Worst Servants, that ever a Prince Employ’d, and a People So long Endured’. Blennerhaysett characterised Anne’s discharge of her ministry in 1710 as the ‘Dissolution of that True British Parliament… Dismissing a Set of Wise, Honest, and Faithful Ministers’.45 John Bowden, a Presbyterian minister from Frome in Somerset, counted on 42 43 44

45

John Camplin, The Royal Recovery: a Sermon… 23d Of April 1789 (London, n.d.), p. 6; William Tremenheere, A Sermon… Twenty-Third of April, 1789 (Exeter, n.d.), p. 7. Samuel Barker, ‘The Manifold Mercies… A Sermon… 13th Day of January, 1814’, in Two Sermons &c. .(n.p., n.d.), pp. 35–6. Simon Browne, A Noble King… A Sermon Preach’d… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 26; Anonymous, The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (Exeter, 1716), p. 12. Thomas Blennerhaysett, Plus Quam Speravimus: or; The Happy Surprize. A Sermon… January the 20th, 1714/15 (London, 1715), pp. 2, 11, 19.

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his audience to share not only his knowledge but also his opinion of the latter years of Anne’s reign by assuming ‘You are not ignorant of what repeated Attempts there have been to rob us of these invaluable Blessings, to destroy the Protestant Succession, and all our Religious and Civil Liberties and Properties, and reduce us to Popery and Slavery.’ William Fleetwood recounted how, in the last ‘three or four years of the late Queen,… a new Sett of Men were employ’d in the Ministry, some of the greatest of which are now actually in the Service of the Pretender, and others vehemently suspected to have been in the same Interest’.46 Concerns about government continued in thanksgiving sermons into the middle of the eighteenth century. Though celebrating the military gains made in 1759, James Fortescue, curate of St Swithun’s in Merton in Oxfordshire, criticised the ‘weak heads and faint Hearts’ of the ministry in power at the start of the Seven Years’ War, which had brought ‘the Public Weal into imminent Danger’. At the end of the conflict Gideon Castelfranc addressed the issue of governmental misconduct with his Jamaican audience. Warning of the need to temper the awareness of governmental errors with adherence to the law and duty to the monarch, Castelfranc characterised the ‘discovery of any real misconduct or guilt of those in power’ as ‘an act of true patriotism… [whose] remedy will redound to the honour of the King and the interest of his People’.47 The crisis around George III’s incapacity also caused much unease over ministerial and government actions, and his recovery in 1789 allowed a vehicle for its expression. James Bowden noted the atmosphere of ‘national animosity’ over the proposed solution of appointing a regent, which he claimed ‘would have been satisfactory to very few, and perhaps big with calamity to the community at large’. Thomas Leighton described how the nation’s interests had been ‘wrecked in the conflict of violent and ambitious factions,… the struggles of the different branches of the legislature for undue and exorbitant authority’, and how ‘it required all the firmness and vigor of a spirited and upright ministry to preserve the prerogatives of royalty and the rights of the senate from daring and unconstitutional encroachment’. Comparison was even made back to Queen Anne’s reign, a time when, George Townsend claimed, ‘her counsellors, the British ministry, were making rapid strides to overturn the rights of some Britons, and impose upon all a Popish Pretender’.48 Beyond opinions regarding the political disagreements of the day, some accusations made even more specific and damning condemnations of the actions of government and ministers. Early in George I’s reign an anonymous author called the previous ministry ‘corrupt’ and others, like Thomas Bradbury, made similar denunciations, accusing Anne’s advisors of ‘making themselves rich with the Sale and 46 47 48

John Bowden, A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 19; Fleetwood, A Sermon… June 7, 1716, pp. 25–6. James Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Exeter, 1760), p. 12; Gideon Castelfranc, A Sermon… Second of September, 1763 (Kingston, Jamaica, 1763), p. 16. James Bowden, The King’s Recovery… a Sermon… April 23, M.DCC.LXXXIX (London, 1789), p. 14; Thomas Leighton, Thanksgiving for the King’s Recovery, 1789 (n.p., n.d.), p. 13; George Townsend, The King’s Recovery… in Two Discourses… April the 23d 1789 (Canterbury, 1789), p. 55.



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Spoils of their Country’.49 Such allegations even reached to the colonies, where, in 1760, Mather Byles obscurely referred to a government minister who had embezzled public money, violated the constitution, corresponded with enemies, and accepted bribes from foreign leaders. At the end of the war with the American colonies, George Walker developed a similar theme. Dedicating the work to William Pitt the younger, Walker warned the new prime minister to not follow ‘the dull hackneyed road of government… a long progress of corruption, prodigality, and rapine’ and he declared ‘the nation is sick of all mysterious crooked politics’. In 1797 William Huntington reminded his audience of politicians’ oaths of loyalty to the king, and suggested that many civil and military officials were guilty of perjury.50 The advice given from the pulpit could even go further, providing guidance on whom to support in parliamentary elections. Luke Milbourne, announced that he was printing his 1713 sermon to celebrate the recent fall from grace of the Whigs, and advised his readers to use ‘your Wisdom not to put into Power into such Hands again, when you chuse Persons to represent you in another Parliament’. In a similar vein, Thomas Swift, rector of Puttenham in Surrey (and cousin to the famous author of Gulliver’s Travels), used the analogy of ancient Israel to instruct his audience to ‘act like the true Lovers of their Country in sending into the Sanhedrin such as should be the most proper Instruments of the publick Good’.51 At the outset of George I’s reign, Thomas Blennerhaysett asked that the issue of government ‘be Left to the Wisdome, and Justice of the Nation, in the Ensuing Parliament’, though the opening page of his sermon had applauded the election of ‘two very Honest, and very Honourable [Whig] Patriots’. In 1784 George Walker encouraged his congregation to expect proper conduct out of their representatives, for ‘Ministers are of that pliant stuff, that they will be what you please to have them… fearing and respecting you, their vices will bow to the national expectation’. Describing a virtuous parliament as ‘security for a virtuous administration’, Walker emphasised the utmost importance of ‘integrity in the choice of those who represent us all’, tying this responsibility to patriotism.52 49

50

51

52

Anon., The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716, p. 6; Thomas Bradbury, Justice and Property… In Two Sermons Jan. the 20th (Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving) [1715] (London, 1715), p. 22. Mather Byles, A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760 (New-London, CT, 1760), p. 8; George Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), pp. v, vi; William Huntington, A Watchword… A Sermon… Dec. 19. 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 46–9. Luke Milbourne, Peace… a Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713), Epistle Dedicatory, (no. pag.); Thomas Swift, Noah’s Dove…. a Sermon… 7th of November, 1710 (London, n.d.), p. 15. Blennerhaysett, The Happy Surprize… January the 20th, 1714/15, pp. 2, 1; Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784, pp. 41, 43, 40. Regarding Blennerhaysett’s comment, the two members elected for the county of Sussex in 1715 were James Butler and Spencer Compton: The History of Parliament, ‘Constituencies’ database, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/constituencies/sussex (accessed 5 August 2016); Romney R. Sedgwick, ‘Butler, James (c.1680–1741), of Warminghurst Park Sussex’, The History of Parliament, ‘Members’ database, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/17151754/member/butler-james-1680-1741 (accessed 5 August 2016); Romney R. Sedgwick, ‘Compton, Hon. Spencer (?1674-1743), of Compton Place, Eastbourne, Suss.’, The

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Though some thanksgiving-day sermons show that frank criticism of government and ministries were fair game on these occasions, others denounced those preachers who offered such appraisals. This demonstrates that a variety of viewpoints could be presented on any given commemoration, depending on the events being celebrated, the particular national circumstances, and who was in the pulpit. It also shows how such national celebrations did not simply wash over the existence of disagreements and dispute. Nathaniel Goodwin recognised ‘Among ourselves too many… are unthankful and uneasy, cursing at the Government… No favourable Construction can, or ought to be put upon such ungrateful Murmurings’. According to William Perse, people should not only refrain from speaking ill of their governors, but they should not even think ill of them. William Hawtayne insisted that lay people ‘are… by no means, Judges of Ministers of State; and therefore shou’d not take upon us to judge or speak concerning them. Their Actions must be notoriously bad before they can fall under our Censure, or even Notice.’53 Claiming that French Protestants refused to hear ill spoken of the French king, the Congregational minister Simon Reader tried to shame his audience, asking ‘What then must be the Guilt of Britons, who are so much more highly favoured, if they eagerly receive every Slander… and indulge themselves in scurrilous Invectives against the best of Governments!’54 Like ‘murmuring’ within society as a whole, division over political issues was seen as a source of danger. Preaching to the House of Commons in 1709, Francis Hare, canon residentiary of St Paul’s Cathedral, claimed ‘ruining the Reputation of the Ministry in the end terminates in the Prince… and therefore those Filthy Dreamers, who despise Dominion, and speak Evil of dignities, deserve the Hatred and Scorn of all Good Men’. In 1716 Lewis Atterbury maintained that people’s talk should err on the side of obedience and peacefulness, and he ridiculed subjects who believed they were not being disloyal ‘when the Poison of Asps is under their Lips, and they are continually venting their virulent and seditious Speeches’.55 In part, the concern about internal division was again that it so weakened government that it might collapse and bring chaos to the nation. Claiming that ‘no Age ever produc’d such a Spawn of impudent blasphemous Libels as this of ours has done’, Richard Lucas expressed amazement ‘that so little or no Care has been taken either to suppress or punish them… and ’tis strange to me that all Power should not be sensible that what tends to the undermining of Virtue, must finally undermine and blow up Government’. According to John Bowden, those who raised concerns about the circumstances of church and state ‘are in themselves the greatest Enemies to both, by endeavouring to breed Distraction…, to spoil Commerce, to exasperate Peoples

53

54 55

History of Parliament, ‘Members’ database, http://wwwhistoryofparliamentonline.org/ volume/1715-1754/member/compton-hon-spencer-1674-1743 (accessed 5 August 2016). Nathaniel Goodwin, God’s Care… a Sermon… January the 20th 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 17; Perse, A Sermon… 16th Day of April, 1696, pp. 8–9; Hawtayne, A Sermon… Twentieth of January, 1714 [1715], p. 15. Simon Reader, Thanksgiving and Prayer… A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763 (London, n.d.), p. 18. Francis Hare, A Sermon… Feb. 17. 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 30; Lewis Atterbury, A Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 16.



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Spirits against one another, and create endless Jealousies and Disquietudes in their Minds’.56 Thanksgiving-day sermons also contained expressions of support for government and ministers. Samuel Clarke encouraged people to ‘contribute our utmost, each in our proper Stations, to support a Government so happily establish’d; and to make the executive part of it as easy, and as little burdensome as possible, in the Hands wherein it is lodg’d’. Underlining the function of government in the divine plan, in 1759 Richard Brewster called for the need to ‘pay Tribute of Honour to those inferior Agents under Providence… They who preside in the Cabinet.’57 More specific praise of particular ministries also punctuated the sermons. In 1702, for example, both Edward Clarke and Benjamin Loveling praised the government of the time as ‘great Men at the Helm’ and ‘Men of the best character’ (though, interestingly, both felt it necessary to refute rumours that some ministers were in the pay of France).58 Later in Anne’s reign, Richard Lucas also stressed the value of ‘a wise Council’ and ‘a unanimous Parliament’ as God’s ‘Instruments’, and he called for his audience to ‘pray for the present Ministry’.59 Thomas Knaggs noted that, among others, it was to ‘Ministers of State now at the helm, to their Prudent Conduct and Management of Affairs, that we stand indebted’, and he too called for prayers for them as a means to show gratitude. According to Nicholas Brady ‘Wise Representatives, and a zealous able Ministry’ contributed greatly to the achievements of Anne’s reign.60 Individual politicians were singled out for praise as well. Two in particular were the most frequent examples, perhaps due to their involvement in the effective oversight during difficult political periods. In 1759, the Congregational minister Richard Winter explained, ‘our Affairs abroad were in a shattered State… But a Change in the Ministry has been one grand Source… of an happy Alteration in our public Measures.’ Winter quoted Proverbs 28: 2 (‘but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged’) and proclaimed ‘By the close Application of such a Man to public Business, the Welfare of a People is greatly promoted’. The person Winter was referring to was William Pitt the elder. Other preachers echoed this sentiment. In 1759 George Stone, the archbishop of Armagh, praised Pitt’s government over the previous two years, not finding ‘a Time in the annals of our own, nor of any other Country, when the Counsels of a Kingdom have been directed by a clearer Spirit of Wisdom,… more eminent Skill, nor executed

56

57 58 59 60

Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 226; Bowden, A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5, p. 21. Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 21; Richard Brewster, A Sermon… 29th Day of November [1759] (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1759), p. 23. Edward Clarke, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, 1703), p. 26; Benjamin Loveling, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, n.d.), p. 22. Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… November 22. 1709’, pp. 228–9; Lucas, ‘Sermon XII… November 7. 1710’, p. 243. Knaggs, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709, pp. 12–13; Nicholas Brady, A Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713), p. 11.

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with more determined Bravery’.61 Mather Byles described Pitt as ‘one of the most unspotted Characters in the Nation; – a Minister… whose honest Heart knows no Disguise’. According to William Stead, Pitt was ‘a citizen who incontestably stands first in that small list of patriots, whom Providence…. sends into the world to save a state… [who] arose and put himself at the head of a dispairing people’. James Fortescue declared that it should not be thought strange ‘that God should design in his secret Councils to save the Church and State of England… by the hands and through the extraordinary Abilities of this Great Commoner’.62 William Pitt the younger, who followed in his father’s political footsteps, was also mentioned frequently in later sermons. William Hunter, rector of St Ann’s Limehouse in London, effusively portrayed the younger Pitt in 1784 as Joseph, ‘like the young Israelite, into the land of Egypt, a guardian friend, and deliverer. And if virtue… be the truest wisdom, and honesty the best policy… we may conclude, that now, as in days of old, the young statesman will be still a favourite of Heaven… in whom, as heretofore, we may repose our most implicit, our happiest confidence.’ Under Pitt’s administration, according to Abraham Jobson, ‘the Nation had arrived at a height indeed of Prosperity. He was… the Instrument, under God, of raising Britain to such splendour’.63 George Walker dedicated the printed version of his sermon to Pitt, and in 1789 George Lambert described Pitt as ‘the favourite of the people’.64 Even after his death in 1806, preachers still paid tribute to Pitt. In 1814 an anonymous sermon lamented the loss of ‘that ever memorable and much regretted, departed Statesman’, and John Overton, rector of St Crux and of St Margaret in York, recalled with praise ‘our unrivalled Statesman’. Samuel Barker described Pitt as an ‘excellent’ man, who had been instrumental in helping Britain avoid ‘calamity’.65

The ‘Leaven of Party’ The political opinions found in the thanksgiving sermons must, in part, be placed in the context of the development of political parties during the long eighteenth century. Thanksgiving preachers did not necessarily announce any party affinities in the pulpit or the press, but it is apparent that they were clearly aware of the political battle lines. Often remarks in the sermons were disapproving towards the

61 62 63

64 65

Richard Winter, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 26–7; George Stone, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (London, 1760), p. 17. Byles, A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760, p. 15; William Stead, A Sermon… 5th of May, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 5; Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759, pp. 16–17. William Hunter, A Sermon… 29th of July, 1784 (Worcester, n.d.), p. 19; Abraham Jobson, The Divine Government… a Thanksgiving Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Cambridge, 1797), p. 12. Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784, p. iii; Lambert, Britain’s King… April 23, 1789, p. 26. Anonymous, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814… (Mansfield, n.d.), p. 14; John Overton, England’s Glory… A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (York, n.d.), p. 21; Barker, ‘The Manifold Mercies… A Sermon… 13th Day of January, 1814…’, pp. 34–5.



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party divisions that were evident within society, but at times some preachers came down on one side or the other. Though it is the first decades of the period that are commonly seen as the time of the ‘rage of party’, concern over party politics occurred and continued in thanksgiving-day sermons throughout the eighteenth century. Awareness of political factionalism was already apparent in 1689. Timothy Cruso implored ‘Let us not be seduced to weaken the Protestant Interest… by unnecessary and uncharitable separations from our holy Brethren… that every differing Party in the midst of us may agree as well as the distinct Tribes of the Jewish Commonwealth, or as the various Members of one Natural Body.’ Thomas Watts worried that the precarious foundations of the Revolution might possibly be destabilised by the ‘Rabble’, which could be influenced equally and unduly ‘by Men of Anti-monarchical and Anti-episcopal Principles, or rather by the desperate Popish and high Tory Faction’. John Olliffe recalled recent fierce political divisions of the early 1680s, and hoped ‘that all will grow wiser after all that long dear-bought Experience… and that neither Party will think so hardly of one another for the time to come… that we may live together in Unity’.66 Such cautions, however, were not heeded, and in the context of the peace treaty with France in 1697 Richard Lee continued to fret ‘If by falling into several Parties, we set open the Flood-gates to a Deluge of Misery and Confusion, it may be said of us, We did not understand the things that made for our Peace, but betray’d and ruin’d one another.’67 In Anne’s reign, political disputes between Whigs and Tories around influence over the queen and control of the government intensified, as did the apprehension over their impact. In 1706 Richard Lucas questioned if those who ‘labour to divide us one against another, and to make and keep up Parties and Factions’ could truly love their country, and three years later Lucas repeated a similar message by observing ‘’Tis very apparent from our Divisions and Parties, that we are not so solicitous to save and defend the Kingdom, as we are who shall be uppermost in it’. In his sermon before the mayor and aldermen of Exeter, Benjamin Lacy called for God to ‘Discountenance Faction and Party-Interest’.68 Such concerns about the negative effects of party divisions continued through the reign. Charles Taylor wondered how the newly united kingdom of Britain could be ‘Great or Powerful, Just or Happy… if those who administer it, must cherish a Party and oppress and destroy the rest, meerly for some supposed Errour in Opinion, when they are as observant of the Laws, and Constitutions, as any of their Fellow-Subjects can be?’ In a sermon preached at St Paul’s to the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, John Adams railed against ‘Rancor, Malice, and Detraction!… Subdivisions of Parties! what odious Terms of Distinction, invented by the Cunning, and applied by the 66

67 68

Cruso, The Mighty Wonders… January 31, 1688/9, pp. 20–1; Thomas Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th…. [1689] (London, 1689), p. 25; John Olliffe, England’s Call… a Sermon… February the 14th, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 11. Lee, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 2d. of December, 1697, p. 18. Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon IX… A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 27. 1706’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 182; Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… November 22. 1709’, p. 226; Benjamin Lacy, A Sermon… 31th of December… [1706] (Exeter, 1707), p. 20.

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Ignorant or Malicious, are toss’d about like Firebrands among us!’ Thomas Swift again turned to a biblical comparison, seeing politicians crying out ‘I am a Pharisee, or I am a Sadducee,… and each lays aside the Merits of the Cause, to range himself under his proper Banner.’69 The contentions had grown so divisive by the last years of Anne’s reign that James Gardiner felt the need to concentrate on promoting political peace in his 1713 thanksgiving sermon, with is revealing subtitle How a Man Should Behave Himself… with Respect to High and Low-Church, Whig and Tory. Gardiner asserted that: the Factions and Parties which prevail amongst us are an evidence too notorious to be withstood… kept up by ill-designing in Men to serve their Ends, and the Dissention is risen to a most unnatural Height, inflamed by those wicked Distinctions of High and Low-Church, Whig and Tory, which are of such an uncertain Signification, that one knows not what to make of them.

Gardiner saw political divisions entering into religion as well, with ‘our present Bishops… unfortunately divided too, as Parties go… Episcopacy is wounded through the Sides… because the Men and their Sentiments are by the one or the other of the Parties disliked.’ He continued ‘let them but bear the name of either Whig or Tory, High or Low, ’tis probable there are some (if not a great many) in their Parish of the other Party, who will despise their Persons, disregard their Sermons, and be prejudiced against the Reproofs or good Advice they give them, meerly upon this Account’.70 For Gardiner, party politics were a threat not only to the government but had infiltrated and endangered the Anglican Church too. The fall of the Tory ministry and the resurgence of the Whigs after George I’s succession ensured that the party battles continued. Early on, however, Samuel Wright celebrated the prospect of a better course for the nation, and ‘All that Time, and Money, and Vigour, that is consumed in Party Squabbles, would then be employed to better Purposes: and instead of ruining one another, Men would then be promoting each others Welfare and Prosperity.’ In turn, Elisha Smith, lecturer of Wisbech in the Cambridgeshire fens, diagnosed ‘Party-Rage… to be in the Body Politick, as ill Humours and Diseases in its Blood; which must be purged out, before the soundness of Health and firmness of Strength can return’. Smith denounced ‘the furious Zeal of Party-Distractions’ which, through the ‘Leaven of Party’, turned the ‘Laws of Charity, Society, and Affinity of Blood… into Sowerness, Disaffection, and ill Offices one towards another’. Richard Willis cautioned the new king on how the struggle between parties ‘has often a dangerous Influence upon the Publick Counsels… apt to make them variable and uncertain, according as the several Parties

69

70

Taylor, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… First Day of May, 1707, p. 10; John Adams, A Sermon… Novemb. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 8; Swift, Noah’s Dove…. a Sermon… 7th of November, 1710, p. 18. James Gardiner, The Duty of Peace… A Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713), pp. 5, 19.



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prevail… such a nation can hardly have any fast Friends, or well-concerted Alliances, because it cannot be depended on’.71 The thanksgiving for the defeat of the first Jacobite rebellion was also framed in the context of party discord. Royal chaplain Thomas Sherlock chastised the House of Commons, declaring that ‘Were there but half the Zeal to serve the Publick, which Men daily express for the Interest of their several Parties, there would be but little Encouragement for a Second Attempt to disturb our Peace.’ In order to fully consolidate the victory against the uprising, Simon Browne asked for ‘the Spirit of Madness and Faction’ to be quelled, and he was troubled that the ‘Spirit of Party so far prevails, that neither the Voice of Reason, nor the Commands of Religion, can have any authority… Men venture into Oaths, leap all the Bounds of Civility, break thro all the Ties of Friendship, Neighbourhood, and Relation, to serve their Party, be it right or wrong.’ In 1723, Samuel Wright would still express dismay because ‘so various and zealous are our Squabbles in Politicks; so many Piques and Revenges, and Party-Designs are now on foot’.72 The absence of thanksgiving days in the first half of George II’s reign provides a long gap, from the mid-1720s to the mid-1740s, but the issue of party disputes returned when the thanksgiving-day sermons started again. In the context of victory over another Jacobite rebellion, Arthur Sykes placed blame on ‘such as by Faction, and Party, and Pique, and Resentment… paved the way for all the Evils that we felt, (almost to the Destruction of the whole)’. The Oxford scholar George Fothergill remembered ‘Long have the People of This Nation been very unhappily divided by Party-Distinctions and Names of Reproach; which too often fatally hinder Men from being of one Mind in an House, and separate those whom both Duty and Interest call upon to be chief Friends.’ Henry Piers appealed to God ‘to heal all our Political Divisions, and Party Quarrels; that there be no Emulations, no contentions among Englishmen and Protestants’.73 Celebrating the peace implemented by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1749 Thomas Secker, rector of St James Westminster and later the archbishop of Canterbury, complained ‘Are we not… in our political Capacacities… lamentably alike… attentive chiefly, if not only, to selfish or Party Considerations, varnished over with transparent Pretences of Public Good.’ George Fothergill chimed in on this occasion too, seeking unity ‘to asswage that virulent Spirit of Party which hath diffused itself thro’ all Ranks and Degrees of Men’. Nathaniel Ball ordered his audience to ‘lay aside those narrow, selfish Notions of Party,

71

72

73

Samuel Wright, Of Honouring the King. A Sermon… Jan. 20. 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 20; Elisha Smith, ‘The Olive Branch… January 20, 1714/15’, in Two Sermons (London, 1715), p. 8; Willis, The Way… 20th of January, 1714 [1715], p. 13. Thomas Sherlock, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 24; Simon Browne, Joy and Trembling. A Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 27; Samuel Wright, Our Present Health… A Sermon… April 25, 1723 (London, 1723), p. 17. Arthur Sykes, A Sermon… 9th Day of October, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 27; George Fothergill, The Duty of Giving Thanks… A Sermon… October 9th. 1746 (Oxford, 1747), p. 26; Henry Piers, Religion and Liberty… A Sermon… 9th of October, MDCCXLVI (Bristol, n.d.), p. 21.

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which leads us oftentimes to hate and persecute those who differ from us’.74 Interestingly, a decade later, several preachers would celebrate the years at the end of George II’s reign as ‘a Time when all Party Rage subsides’, with ‘no party making head against party’ and ‘the old Distinctions of Tory and Whig, High Church and Low,… much out of Date, and next to being bury’d in Oblivion’.75 It seems, however, that this decline of the importance of party distinctions did not last. Already by 1763 a number of preachers would return to concerns over party divisions within society. Though hinting at a decrease of political factionalism in the preceding years, Samuel Lowthion noted its reappearance, asking ‘Who can hear, without concern, party-names, which were almost buried in oblivion, conjured up, and played off with so much malignity and virulence?’ George Davis bemoaned ‘too long hath this land been distracted by the party distinctions and civil discord of her sons, which hath at times raged with so much fury as to shake the whole frame of government to its foundations’, and he looked forward to a time when ‘this stain be wiped off from the name of Briton, and the wretched narrow spirit of Party give place to a diffusive spirit of national Unity and real Patriotism’.76 With echoes of the conspiracy rhetoric from a century earlier, John Richardson prefaced the printed version of his sermon by labelling his era as ‘time of Party-distractions… A vile disposition, this, secretly fomented, in all probability, by Jesuits in disguise and other disaffected persons, the Tools of Faction and Patrons of Anarchy.’ For Jacob Jefferson the effects of ‘faction and party spirit’ were dire: ‘the hands of government are thereby necessarily weakened… every expedient for the publick good loses it’s force and effect… and the best schemes… for strengthening the constitution and removing disorders… are, by artful misrepresentations and obstructions purposefully raised, rendered abortive’. Gideon Castelfranc agreed ‘the little resentments of party’ were endangering ‘the safest situation, the most extensive commerce, the wisest laws, the best of Kings, and the establishment of a divine Religion’.77 The political wrangling over how to proceed with government during George III’s infirmity was also expressed as a consequence of party interests. George Townsend asserted that ‘parties were heated’ during these debates, and George Lambert affirmed ‘the spirit of parties ran very high… The thirst of power, on the one hand, and the desire to limit and restrain it, on the other, like two contending elements

74

75

76 77

Thomas Secker, ‘Sermon IX. (Preached April 25, 1749)’, in Nine Sermons (London, 1771; second edition), p. 222; Thomas Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Oxford, 1749), p. 28; Nathaniel Ball, The Evil Effects of War… a Sermon… 25th of April, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 23. Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759, p. 17; Edward Hitchin, A Sermon… 29 November 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 19; Thomas Foxcroft, Grateful Reflexions… A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, 1760), p. 24. Lowthion, The Blessings… (Thursday, May 5, 1763), p. 24; George Davis, A Sermon… Fifth of May, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 15–16, 17–18. John Richardson, The Sovereign Goodness… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), p. iii; Jefferson, The Blessing… May 5. M.DCC.LXIII, pp. 26–7; Castelfranc, A Sermon… Second of September, 1763, p. 14.



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aimed at the destruction of each other.’78 The king’s recovery provided some abatement of these political contentions. James Bowden expressed relief that it spared the nation from ‘the malevolent censures of party’, and Thomas Leighton acknowledged the nation’s constant love and reverence for the king ‘Amidst all the cabals of party and the malevolence of faction.’79 John Milner gave some unique advice to his congregation regarding such party disputes. Milner, a Roman Catholic preacher in Winchester and later Birmingham, told his congregation that it is not ‘either advisable, or even lawful for Catholics ever to declare themselves of any of those great political parties, which in endless succession follow each other in this free country’.80 Though most of the sermons avoided or were critical of zealous party alignment, there were a few preachers who displayed their political colours. This is especially apparent in thanksgiving-day sermons from the last years of Anne’s reign and the first few of George I’s. This heightening of political factionalism was, in part, associated with a sermon Henry Sacheverell, chaplain of St Saviour’s in Southwark, preached at St Paul’s on 5 November 1709, marking the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Sacheverell’s sermon, in its defence of the theory of non-resistance, aggravated party disputes by challenging fundamental Whig political principles.81 The intensifying of political animosities was already apparent several weeks later, when Samuel Wright’s thanksgiving-day sermon described those complaining against the current ministry as ‘Malecontents’ motivated only by ‘the Reproach and Disgrace of the Dissatisfy’d Parties’. Wright’s conclusion – that he would not have taken notice of this discontent ‘if the Cathedral of this City… had not lately rung with the Clamours of one of this number’ – clearly identified this as a criticism of the high church and Tory platform represented in Sacheverell’s sermon. Richard Chapman’s sermon for the same 22 November 1709 thanksgiving day also took aim at Sacheverell in its title (Publick Peace Ascertain’d; with Some Cursory Reflections upon Dr, Sacheverel’s Two Late Sermons). In the sermon itself, Chapman called Sacheverell’s ideas ‘scandalous ill-natur’d Reflections’ which caused ‘some furious disaffected Zealots’ to criticise the government. Chapman accused Sacheverell and his supporters of trying to do what ‘the Jesuits fail’d in ; namely, a second time to blow up the Constitution both in Church and State’.82 On the other side of the political divide, there is at least a measure of support apparent in Richard Lucas’s sermon from the November 1709 thanksgiving, when 78 79 80 81

82

Townsend, The King’s Recovery… April the 23d 1789, p. 62; Lambert, Britain’s King… April 23, 1789, p. 20. Bowden, The King’s Recovery… April 23, M.DCC.LXXXIX, p. 16; Leighton, Thanksgiving for the King’s Recovery, 1789, p. 13. John Milner, A Sermon… April 23. 1789 (London, n.d.), p. 29. Sacheverell’s sermon was entitled The Perils of False Brethren, Both in Church, and State. Set Forth in a Sermon… on the 5th of November 1709 (London, 1709). It is estimated that there were at least 100,000 copies of this sermon sold, demonstrating an extremely wide demand and circulation for the time: W.A. Speck, ‘Sacheverell, Henry (bap. 1674, d. 1724)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/24440 (accessed 2 May 2016). Samuel Wright, A Sermon… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. 27; Chapman, Publick Peace… Nov. 22. 1709, pp. 6, 16.

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he asked his audience ‘Is it possible that a Christian should be ignorant that they are bound to obey Authority in all Things lawful?’ Lucas also went on to affirm, though more gently than Sacheverell, a critique of religious dissent by denying ‘that causeless Separations’ were acceptable when ‘a Church be duly constituted in a Nation’. In 1713 George Hooper condemned perpetual calls for ‘Changes of Government’ (which, it bears noting, was now a Tory one) and ‘eternal Repetitions of Revolution’, and he questioned ‘Why, instead of the Rules of Submission, and Obedience,… are Cases ready put, of the Lawfulness of the Resistance [and the] Duty of Rebellion?’83 Though William Law’s sermon on that same occasion at first seemed to condemn party alignments with equanimity, he demonstrated his proTory stance by denouncing political theories that justified resistance to authority, and that interpreted rulers as deriving their authority from their subjects. Thus, his description of ‘Men who have got a set of Passions to indulge… trained up by the force of Principle and the instinct of Party, to reject every thing that’s Good, question everything that’s Sacred’, and of souls ‘destroy’d by seditious Schemes’, must be understood in the context of his overall criticism of the Whig position.84 If Samuel Wright’s Whig political sympathies had been slightly veiled in his 1709 sermon, he made his position more apparent by 1715 under the new king. Aiming at those who would not accept the Hanoverian succession, Wright argued that falling back on the defence of conscience to withhold loyalty to the monarch was ‘all the Cant of a Party, to cover and carry on some Designs they are unwilling to own; and ’tis a way of talking which they are ready to give up, whenever those Designs miscarry’. Disparaging those who suggested the Whigs wished to return to the political confusion of the mid-seventeenth century, Thomas Simmons dubbed such claims ‘the noise of a clamorous and seditious Party’. Simmons scoffed at Tory cries in defence of the Church because he viewed them coming from ‘the very Men from whom their Church is most in danger… And equally absurd is their Cry, No Forty-one, when these are the Men whom… were hastning on the Miseries of those dreadful Days.’85 Other preachers described the Tories as ‘the abandon’d Party, who have always made Plots and Conspiracies their Study’, ‘a Broken and Ruin’d Party, that is Resolv’d to Die Fighting’, and as those whose ‘Party-Words’ of ‘Right and Religion’ were used for inciting ‘shallow Heads, and uniting a Multitude’.86 More provocatively, the anonymous author of The Rebellion of Sheba (1716) spoke of the ‘Temptation to a Tory Rebellion’ and critiqued challenges to the legitimacy of George I’s succession as ‘the Language of the Tories in Coffee-Houses and Publick Walks’ and ‘the Shiboleths, or rather Cant of their Party’ which promoted and 83 84 85 86

Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, p. 228; George Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), p. 21. Law, A Sermon… July 7. 1713, pp. 26–31, 12, 13, 14. Ideas of passive obedience and subjects’ rights as political theories were also discussed in the last section of Chapter 4. Wright, Of Honouring the King… Jan. 20. 1714/15, pp. 12–13; Thomas Simmons, The King’s Safety… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 13. Foster, A Sermon… January 20. 1714, p. 28; Blennerhaysett, The Happy Surprize… January the 20th, 1714/15, p. 1; Edward Chandler, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 20.



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provoked rebellion. In contrast to Tory resentment, this author declared that Whigs and dissenters were ‘train’d up in more Substantial Principles of Loyalty, and fired with a just Concern for the Laws and Religion of their Country’.87 In the pulpit, the enmity between the parties was often associated directly with the disputed political theories that divided them. As Thomas Sherlock noted, the ‘Principles upon which the Legality of the present Establishment are maintained, are… improperly made a Part of the present Quarrel which divides the Nation.’ Pointing to the historical underpinnings of these contentions in 1649, 1660, and 1689, Elisha Smith alleged the ‘30th of January and Restoration, have given very just occasion for so many to assert the Rights of the Crown; the Revolution, that of the Liberties of the Subject. The People have seen, and confess the Sin and Error of Extreams in one Monument; the Prince in the other.’88 Such associations had already begun in William III’s reign. In 1695 Vincent Alsop equally denounced the ‘wretched tools, that are always whispering in the ears of Princes, that the People’s Privileges and Franchises will undermine and blow up the Royal Prerogative; and then fly-blowing the Peoples Heads, that Prerogatives will eat up the Peoples Liberties and Properties’.89 However, again it was the period from the middle of Anne’s reign to the early years of George I’s that disputes over key political principles came to the forefront in a number of thanksgiving sermons. Whig positions from the thanksgiving pulpit came in a flood as George I took the throne. Two political principles in particular punctuated these sermons: the denial of absolute hereditary right to succession; and the defence of political resistance theory. Claims of ‘indefeasible hereditary right’ supported the Stuart, and challenged the Hanoverian, claim to the throne, and assertions of passive obedience were opposed to Whig political ideals. Edward Chandler accused Tories who supported ‘indefeazible Hereditary Right’ of wanting to ‘have a Popish King to reign over them’. One preacher saw these as the basis of Tory disingenuous self-interest, where ‘By an Indefeasible Right… they mean an uninterrupted Possession of all Places of Profit and Trust… And by Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance, a License to mob, to plunder, to ravage, and enrich themselves with the Spoils of the Nation.’ White Kennett deemed passive obedience ‘only serviceable to a Tyrant and Oppressor’ and he deemed absolute hereditary right a ‘crafty Device’.90 Again and again in 1715 and 1716 ministers hammered home these challenges to Tory positions and reinforced affirmations of Whig ideals. Thomas Pocock claimed the ‘celebrated Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance lie clouded and conceal’d; and the zealous Maintainers of them, have wiped off their Tears, and cleared their Eyesight, that they may see the better to direct their Arms against their lawful [Hanoverian] Sovereign’. 87 88 89

90

Anon., The Rebellion of Sheba… June the 7th, 1716, pp. 6, 11, 12, 15–16. Sherlock, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716, p. 19; Smith, ‘The Olive Branch… January 20, 1714/15’, p. 10. Alsop, Duty and Interest… Sept. 8. 1695, p. 21. ‘Fly-blowing’ means to taint or corrupt secretly: ‘fly-blow, v.’, Oxford English Dictionary Online (Oxford, 2000), www.oed.com/ view/Entry/72275?redirectedFrom=fly-blowing (accessed 2 May 2016). Chandler, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716, p. 15; Anon., The Rebellion of Sheba… June the 7th, 1716, p. 12; Kennett, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… 7th of June, 1716, pp. 20, 21.

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The anonymous author of a thanksgiving sermon entitled Loyalty to King George (1716) accused Tories of hypocrisy for having ‘taught Unlimited and Passive Obedience to the Crown’ and yet opposing George I’s claim: ‘Such Ingratitude has no Parallel, unless we seek it among the Stupid Israelites of Old to their God, and his immediate Vicegerent.’ William Hawtayne used David’s claim to the throne of Israel after Saul as proof that claims to unalienable hereditary right were ‘groundless’.91 The 1745 Jacobite rebellion stirred up this concern again. In Ireland, James Moody asserted that the ‘Doctrine of an absolute and indefeasible Right, is absurd and pernicious, and more than once it threatened the Extirpation of British Liberty.’ In a 1749 sermon to the Lord Mayor of London, Arnold King returned to David’s claim on the throne of Israel as an argument against ‘an absolute, indefeasible hereditary Right’.92 But even at the end of the century, the argument for passive obedience and non-resistance still had its defender in a sermon by the Congregational minister Greville Ewing, including the argument, found in Sacheverell’s 1709 sermon, that the Revolution of 1688–1689 had legitimacy only because the instruments who carried it out were raised by God.93 Ewing’s return to this traditional endorsement of civil authority was clearly inspired by the changing political and social circumstances of the late eighteenth century.

Revolutionary discord If the rage of party marked a major concern about disunity in society in the beginning and the middle of the long eighteenth century, it was anxiety over revolution and social disorder that dominated the political concerns in the last three decades of the long eighteenth century. The French Revolution caused great unease in Britain by introducing political concepts which threatened to fundamentally alter British political and social structures. Worry over this was certainly demonstrated in the thanksgiving sermons at the turn of the nineteenth century. These were interspersed with comments upon the situation in France, the results of the Revolution, and the potential impacts these could have on Britain in the 1790s and the early nineteenth century. Though France had been Britain’s principal rival throughout the eighteenth century, the political issues raised after 1789 were different than those that had existed before. This was evident in preachers’ discussions of the origins of the French Revolution as a means to show what had gone wrong. Some placed the blame on unbelief and ‘infidelity’ (a theme that will be explored in Chapter 9). Others saw direct political causes. Thomas Belsham speculated ‘Had a temperate and prudent reform been 91

92 93

Thomas Pocock, A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 5; Anonymous, Loyalty to King George. A Sermon… June the 7th. 1716 (Dublin, n.d.), p. 14; Hawtayne, A Sermon… Twentieth of January, 1714 [1715], p. 5. James Moody, A Sermon… October the Ninth, 1746 (Belfast, 1746), p. 12; Arnold King, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 9. Greville Ewing, The Duty of Christians… 29th November, 1798 (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 29–35.



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suffered to be introduced at the proper season into the constitution of the government, and into the administration of public affairs’ of France, ‘those revolutionary horrors would have been prevented which have desolated the country and appalled the world’. Looking back from 1814, John Hodgson explained how a ‘malady of licentiousness had so deeply infected the morals and literature of France… that the people… suddenly became intoxicated with certain wild and impracticable notions concerning civil liberty, grew impatient under the restraint of their government, and burst out into riots and misrule’. In Canada, John Strachan asserted that the political ‘experiments made in America and France’ were attempts ‘to constitute governments productive of virtue and happiness only’, and Strachan pronounced these to have ‘completely failed’ by 1814.94 Sermons detailed the events of the Revolution in vivid terms. William Agutter described what had gone wrong: the ‘King of France was flattered with the most obsequious respect, while his throne was undermined. They bowed before his mild sceptre who were preparing for him insult and imprisonment – The seats of the nobles were burnt – the churches were profaned’, and finally ‘the basest of the people in civil commotions’ came to power. The ‘first movers were astonished… when they found themselves circumvented by the treachery which they had taught’. In Ireland William Knox noted how the Revolution was promoted as an effort to bring about ‘the downfal of what was thought an odious tyranny, and the promulgation of the most virtuous and attractive sentiments by the sanguinary hypocrites who overthrew it’.95 John Hodgson recounted the reign of terror, which saw ‘persons of both sexes, who were capriciously accused and wantonly condemned…. The guillotine wrought its work of decolation night and day. The streets were deluged with blood… and every thing that bore the stamp of constituted authority [was] levelled with the dust.’ Not limited to France, John Blakeway told how ‘Soon did that gigantic event swallow up all the constitutions within its vortex, and annihilate all the little freedom that was left in Europe.’ Preaching in 1799, Joseph-Octave Plessis, the Catholic curé of Notre Dame in Québec, described the Revolution spreading ‘like a torrent… it has flooded all the neighbouring countries… [which] have become one after another the theatre of a terrible war declared against so called despots, but in reality carried 94

95

Thomas Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 17; John Hodgson, A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1814), p. 9; John Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June… [1814] (Montréal, 1814), p. 29. Preaching his sermon in York (present-day Toronto), Strachan would have been particularly sensitive to what he calls ‘the most base and wretched’ American policy: the previous year, during the War of 1812, American forces had defeated the British at the Battle of York, looting and setting parts of the town on fire. William Agutter, Deliverance… A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 6–7; William Knox, A Sermon,… 29th of November, 1798 (Dublin, 1798), p. 24. It is important to note that 1797 saw the first general thanksgiving in Britain since the 1789 thanksgiving that had occurred just prior to the outset of the French Revolution. For a discussion of responses to the French Revolution in a broader sermon context in the decade after its beginning, see Robert Hole, ‘English Sermons and Tracts as Media of Debate on the French Revolution 1789–99’, in The French Revolution and British Popular Politics, ed. Mark Philp (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 18–37.

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out by the most cruel and hateful tyrants’. Plessis added that these atrocities had been perpetrated against Louis XVI, ‘the most religious, the most gentle of Kings’.96 Such a declaration, on the benignity of French monarchy, demonstrated just how much the Revolution had changed British perspectives. The results in France also became cautionary tales against the revolutionary impulse. As John Booth noted, ‘Events have fully justified the measures which this country hath taken with respect to savage France.’ The impact was so well know that Thomas O’Beirne found it ‘superfluous to detail the progress of that portentous revolution that has spread desolation and havoc through the human race’, leading to ‘the tyrannical usurpers of France’ carrying war ‘into the bosom of this country… of which we had hitherto, felt only the distant effects’.97 Even on the occasion of a peace treaty with France in 1802, John Clarke reminded his audience of France’s aggressive policies, which showed ‘that she wished not only to cause a revolution at home, but to produce the same in the surrounding countries’. In an interesting historical analogy, Alexander Fleming compared France to Rome, and Britain – France’s ‘superior in trade, and navigation, and her rival in military glory’ – to Carthage. Were France successful in defeating Britain, Fleming predicted ‘The glory of Britain would set, and her sons be reduced to their primitive state… It is the situation to which Carthage was reduced by her ambitious competitor; and to something not short of this, you are to look forward, if French principles, supported by French troops, are ever to be allowed to get a footing amongst you.’98 By the late 1790s and early 1800s, the Revolution raised the potential for unrest and heightened the need for messages warning of the threats to the British social and political order. Harry Davis asserted that the Revolution had caused ‘an unusual ferment… in the minds of men, by wild and extravagant theories with regard to government, and the rights of subjects’. John Robinson, rector of Cricksea in Essex, decried the ‘unprincipled, the profligate, the dissipated… [who] are found to be the first disturbers of social order… They… inlist themselves under the banner of sedition; and while they are loud with the cry of liberty in their mouths, tyranny and oppression usurp the entire dominion of their hearts.’99 William Williams described the revolutionary threat in sweeping terms, ‘not against one, but all government; it tended to subvert every altar, to crush every throne; to confound all rule; level all distinctions; and with the cry of freedom and equality, to menace the law by force, and surrender property to plunder’. For James Stillingfleet the revolutionary

96

97

98 99

Hodgson, A Sermon… July 7, 1814, p. 10; John Blakeway, National Benefits… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), p. 14; Joseph-Octave Plessis, (trans. Henry Joly de Lotbinière), Thanksgiving Sermon… January 10th. 1799 (Québec, 1906; translation and reprint of the 1799 original), p. 16. John Booth, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (Huddersfield, n.d.), p. 21; Thomas O’Beirne, A Sermon… 16th January, 1798 (Dublin, 1798; second edition), pp. 8, 11. John Clarke, A Sermon… First of June, 1802 (Woodbridge, n.d.), p. 8; Alexander Fleming, The Duty of Considering… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (Glasgow, 1798), p. 20. Harry Davis, A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Banbury, n.d.), p. 8; John Robinson, A Thanksgiving Sermon... 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 13.



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‘conspiracy’ intended ‘to dissolve the ties of Civil Society, and to break through the bands of social connection’.100 Preachers responded to concerns over revolutionary influences by confirming existing civil structures. William Agutter justified the need for different ranks within society as assuring ‘the comfort, the security and protection of the whole’, and John Strachan declared ‘that no great and decided amelioration of the lower classes of society can be reasonably expected: much improved they certainly may be; but that foolish perfectability with which they have been deluded, can never be realized’. Thomas Belsham declared it was ‘for the happiness of the many to be governed by the few’.101 More cynically, Joseph-Octave Plessis described the effects of ‘Instantaneous Revolution’ as allowing the ‘middle classes [to] arise against the highest in order to more effectually oppress the lowest’. In what sounded strikingly like an endorsement of the ancien régime, John Buckner affirmed ‘inequality’ as part of the ‘unalterable nature of society… some to be poor, while others are rich; some to be high, and others low; some to rule, and others to obey’, concluding that this ‘calls for the labour and industry of the lower orders of the state, it impels the higher ranks, in return, to make provision for their misfortunes and their wants’.102 Some preachers were particularly concerned about the impact of revolutionary ideas on and within the lower orders. Thomas Dikes explained that the ‘lower classes of society especially are not bound to their duty by the laws of honour and the ties of character and reputation, which have influence with men of superior fortune and education; and if the industrious part of the community… are given up to unrestrained dissoluteness of manners, we have nothing to look for but universal anarchy and confusion’. Alex Black alluded to the political and social upheaval a century and a half before, suggesting that again ‘A levelling spirit has gone forth’. Revolutionary and radical strategy, Samuel Clapham told his Yorkshire congregation, intended to ‘render the lower class of men impatient to bear, and eager to exchange their condition’. Clapham thanked God that this had not yet been successful in Britain.103 It was not simply fear of a destabilised social order that inspired preachers’ comments on potential political upheaval. A further concern was the spread of a variety of new ideas. As Tufton Scott, chaplain to the Prince of Wales, characterised it, ‘the minds of men are ardent in the pursuit of speculative knowledge; and the passions and affections agitated by the continual influx of new, strange, and contradictory systems’.104 One thing preachers identified was a laxness in regard to

100 William

Williams, The Removal… A Thanksgiving Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (High Wycombe, 1802), p. 13 (emphasis in the original); Stillingfleet, National Gratitude… Nov. 29, 1798, p. 25. 101 Agutter, Deliverance… December 19th, 1797, p. 4; Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814], p. 29; Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… June 1, 1802, p. 19. 102 Plessis, Thanksgiving Sermon… January 10th. 1799, p. 15; John Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 15–16. 103 Thomas Dikes, The Effects… A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (Hull, 1798), p. 7; Alex Black, National Blessings… a Sermon… November 29. 1798 (Edinburgh, 1798), p. 10; Clapham, A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797, p. 20. 104 Tufton Scott, A sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 14.

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the underlying principles of British society. Numerous sermons mention ‘infidelity’ in one form or another, which generally meant a loss of religious values, and others pointed to a decline in morals.105 Thomas O’Beirne denounced ‘the fatal effects of infidelity and anarchy, diffusing their poison through the hands of foreign agents and domestic incendiaries, leagued together in the same impious cause’. John Bethune, the rector of Augusta and Elizabeth Town in Upper Canada, identified prosperity, ease, and affluence as the problems, by which ‘rank weeds had been nourished… and no doubt contributed to place her [Britain] in a perilous situation’.106 Samuel Pearce proclaimed ‘How debauched in general are our youth! How luxurious the opulent! And with what rapid strides does infidelity advance, whilst she receives a flattering welcome from all classes of Britons, from the courtier to the inhabitant of the cottage!’ In broad terms, William Agutter bemoaned the challenges to traditions in society, ‘the antient land marks are overthrown – the barriers between virtue and vice are swept away or confounded – the obligation of the marriage vow treated as imposture – the best principles of parental affection counter-worked’.107 The prospect of radical ideas coming into Britain also drew the sermons’ fire. Thomas Rennell noted that ‘for a short period’ at least, the French Revolution and its principles had some ‘proselytes’ in Britain. At the outset of the Revolution, according to William Knox, its ideals ‘were received in Great Britain with an almost general and enthusiastic approbation. Admiration was quickly followed by a desire of imitation.’108 Adam Gordon noted how, in England, ‘French converts’ accepted ‘profane and levelling doctrines… risking their all, – life, property, and dearest ties, to the rage of opposition’. John Whitehouse referred to the events in France acting like ‘a contagious disease, on those who joined to the wildest ambition those undefined theories of liberty, which they had collected from the romantic schemes of republicans and levellers’. William Huntington complained that ‘almost every house has got a politician in it, or an enchanter, or a charmer; and this tool of Satan is the snare and curse of the whole family’.109 Several preachers singled out one author in particular as a source of revolutionary and radical ideas. Thomas Paine, whose writings and activities had supported the American Revolutionary War against Britain, was the source of this enmity. John Dawson, a dissenter preaching in Sheffield, called Paine one of the ‘Contemptible scribblers… who… may affect to discard all obligation to the discriminating goodness of God.’ William Huntington mentioned the author a number of times

105 For

a full discussion of ‘infidelity’ in the context of France in the 1790s and the early nineteenth century, see Chapter 9. 106 O’Beirne, A Sermon… 16th January, 1798, p. 10; John Bethune, A Sermon… 18th Day of June, 1816 (Montréal, 1816), p. 13. 107 Samuel Pearce, Motives to Gratitude: a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Birmingham, n.d.), p. 22; Agutter, Deliverance… December 19th, 1797, p. 6. 108 Thomas Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 11; Knox, A Sermon,… 29th of November, 1798, p. 24. 109 Adam Gordon, Due Sense… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 7; John Whitehouse, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Doncaster, 1802), pp. 7–8; Huntington, A Watchword… A Sermon… Dec. 19. 1797, p. 63.



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in his sermon. He asserted that the devil was working ‘by the instrumentality of Tom Paine’, gathering ‘carnal professors and hypocrites… by Tom Paine’s books’, and ‘Women, too, young an old, are breathing out slaughter against the ruling powers. Tom Paine and Satan have stuffed their heads full of politics.’ John Newton suggested that Paine brought ‘infidelity… more into view’.110 The sermons identified a number of political ideas and movements that were being used, or misused, by those with revolutionary inclinations. Not surprisingly, preachers directly connected the newfound, and erroneous, currency of such ideas to France. William Mavor recounted how, in the early stages of the Revolution, ‘the vague ideas of liberty and equality, and of the rights of man, were substituted for legitimate government, and social order’. Jacob Mountain attacked ‘the specious names of Fraternity, Equality, and Liberty’, which ‘let loose all the plagues of tyranny and oppression, of assassination and plunder, of debauchery and atheism’.111 John de Veil, the vicar of Aldenham in Hertfordshire, compared the proper liberty in Britain to ‘that Bloody Phantom… of a neighbouring nation… that Unnatural Freedom, which makes the cruelty of death its sport,… seizes property, renders asunder every tender connection that binds man to man… May Britons never taste the fruits of Republican Licentiousness’. Adam Gordon concurred, distinguishing ‘a false notion of liberty… since it is evident by the fascinating words Fraternity, Equality, and Citizenship, the deluded admirers of French reform, have been plundered of their property’.112 One prominent symbol was roundly disparaged. John Booth criticised support for French attempts to spread their revolutionary ideals to other nations, ‘to plant in their countries, the pestiferous tree of bondage and despotism, by a misnomer, called the tree of liberty, more baneful than the deadly poison tree of Java’. Using the same imagery, James Stillingfleet ridiculed the ‘opening the flood-gates of licentiousness under the shew of planting the Tree of Liberty, while in fact they introduced anarchy, confusion, plundering, murders and massacres, together with every species of brutality and immorality’. John de Veil juxtaposed the image with another, decrying the French boast ‘to plant the Tree of Anarchy, Carnage and Rapine (miscalled liberty) in the very heart of our Metropolis; and her tri-coloured flag to erect triumphantly over the British standard on the Tower of our London’.113 The application of the concept of ‘liberty’ in association with radical activity was also condemned. Henry Knapp saw the two essential errors committed by the French 110 John

Dawson, England’s Greatness… a Sermon… Dec. 5, 1805 (Sheffield, 1805), p. 15; Huntington, A Watchword… Dec. 19. 1797, pp. 58–9, 76; John Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 15. 111 William Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon… July 7, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance (London, 1814), pp. 36–7; Jacob Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799 (Québec, 1799), pp. 29–30. All emphases are in the originals. 112 John de Veil, National Blessings… A Sermon… November, 29th, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 13–14; Gordon, Due Sense… 19th of December, 1797, p. 8n. All emphases are in the originals. 113 Booth, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798, p. 12; Stillingfleet, National Gratitude… Nov. 29, 1798, p. 19; de Veil, National Blessings… November, 29th, 1798, p. 18 (emphasis in the original).

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people as ‘the fatal opinions they entertained of human nature and of liberty… Nature was to be their God… They would not believe in their fallen and depraved state.’ Knapp continued: ‘The notions which they entertained concerning liberty, were erected on a foundation equally unstable. – They considered it only in the abstract: but abstract liberty is not liberty at all: it is egotism and licentiousness.’114 John Blakeway reminded his audience how quickly the hopes of liberty had faded, ‘and of all the evils entailed on the human race by the French revolution, the most deplorable is, the distance at which it has set all hopes of the return of rational freedom, and the discredit in which it has involved the rights of mankind’. John Black contrasted Britain, as ‘the cradle of liberty’, with France, where the French version has ‘shone, with broken and irregular radiance, equally glaring and terrific, through clouds of blood’.115 Robert Hall asserted that Britain had ‘preferred the blessings of order to a phantom liberty’, while William Mavor denounced the ‘chimera of an abstract liberty and equality’. According to William Knox, the revolutionary application of ‘liberty of the citizen… whilst it professes to elevate, and refine our nature, degrades and corrupts it’.116 Perverting the concept of liberty was directly connected with a number of unwelcome political and social ideas. William Wilton, the rector of Upper Swell in Gloucestershire, declared that ‘Under the name of liberty, we should be the most abject of slaves… to republican despotism, and the insolence of the triumphant mob.’ For George Skeeles, God had punished the revolutionaries by turning liberty into slavery and ‘the rebellious rage of republicanism… [into] the sternest despotism’.117 William Huntington suggested that now ‘Some dream of a universal republic, as some former kings of France did of universal empire’, an allusion to accusations made against Louis XIV one hundred years before. John Stillingfleet celebrated the fact ‘that we live not under the precarious and uncertain liberty of a Republic’. Thomas Rennell believed that ‘Men of sharp wits and beggared fortunes’ realised early ‘that under the thin disguise of liberty and fraternity, such confusion would ensue, as might probably lead to their real and favourite project… a repatriation of property in every nation in Europe’.118 The threat of such political upheaval was substantial and deep-rooted for some preachers. William Goode told his audience that it did not come from ‘the scum arising from the violent effervescence of revolution’ but, instead, it was a conspiracy ‘originating from settled principles of action’ that came from ‘secret organisations’. According to John Whitehouse, ‘Associations of a dangerous tendency had

114 Henry

Knapp, The Origin… a Sermon… January 18, 1816 (London, 1816), p. 10. National Benefits… December 5, 1805, p. 14; Black, ‘A Sermon,… 19th. December, 1797’, p. 20. 116 Robert Hall, Reflections… A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1825; sixth edition), p. 31; Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon… July 7, 1814’, p. 38; Knox, A Sermon,… 29th of November, 1798, p. 17. 117 William Wilton, Victory… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Eversham, 1798), p. 9; Skeeles, The Recent Events… July 7, 1814, pp. 7–8. 118 Huntington, A Watchword… Dec. 19. 1797, p. 66; Stillingfleet, National Gratitude… Nov. 29, 1798, p. 35; Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798, p. 7 (emphasis in the original). 115 Blakeway,



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been formed in the heart of the kingdom.’119 Christopher Hodgson, the rector of Marholm in Northamptonshire, pointed to ‘Cosmo-politicism’ as a movement associated with Freemasonry, which he said circulated at ‘secret Meetings, both at home and abroad, whose ultimate object is to overturn all the Religions and Governments of Europe’. William Mavor blamed ‘ambitious and artful demagogues’ who were ‘cajoling the people with plans of political reform, which they well know to be impracticable or absurd, in the present state of society’.120 Rather more frank and less conspiracy-minded, John Strachan looked back from 1814 to suggest that during the previous thirty years government had learned much, by having the flaws of their constitutions revealed, the necessity for reforms exposed, and the need to alleviate the suffering of the poor shown. Strachan went further, assigning ‘A large portion of the blame for bringing so many evils on the world’ on members of the higher social ranks, ‘who… indulged in a licentiousness of manners which undermined the pillars of society’. The attraction of democratic principles in England ‘owed much of their success… to the conduct of many of the nobility and gentry, who neglected the prudential restraints becoming their stations; degraded themselves by vice, and imitated the manners of the lowest vulgar’.121 While some acknowledged the failings of their country, other sermons attempted to reassure their audiences by affirming the best elements of British society. John Stonard challenged the idea that the poor would not resist a French invasion because of their lack of interest in their country, asking ‘Because they are poor, are they less Britons?’ Stonard countered that ‘the poor are as sensible as the rich of the various endearing ties and charities of life…. The poor then love their country and will defend it. They love their king, and will defend him too.’122 Samuel Clapham praised the relief Britain provided to lessen the suffering within society, because, for the ‘mechanic and the labourer in this country, when burthened with a large and helpless family, or when oppressed with sickness, or disabled by infirmity, no sooner solicit, than they obtain relief ’. John Buckner echoed Clapham’s assessment: ‘Where, but in this kingdom… shall we see such numerous places of reception for the relief of every species of human distress? A refuge for age and decrepitude; for indigence and disease; for bodily misfortune and intellectual infirmity; for helpless infancy and repentant vice[?]’ For Buckner, these circumstances offset ‘social distinctions,… softening down the apparently harder lots of human life’. Likewise, Thomas Tayler asked rhetorically ‘Where are the industrious poor more liberally supplied, by the hand of charity, in times of sickness and calamity, or furnished with better means of subsistence in seasons of health and vigour?’123 119 William

Goode, Mercies in Judgment: A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1797), p. 8; Whitehouse, A Sermon… June 1, 1802, p. 8. 120 Christopher Hodgson, A Sermon… 19th Day of December, 1797 (Peterborough, 1798), p. 20n.; William Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon. January 13, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance (London, 1814), p. 22. 121 Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814], pp. 25–6. 122 John Stonard, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Chertsey, 1806), p. 10. 123 Clapham, A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797, p. 21; Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798, p. 16; Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798, p. 7.

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The stability of the government and constitution was also held up as a sign of British success. William Abdy acknowledged ‘the Apostles of Sedition… among us’, but argued that their message would not spread as long as Britons continued to recognise ‘those wise laws, and… that holy religion, on which the British Constitution, in Church and State, is evidently founded’. ‘If revolution was the order of the day in foreign countries,’ John Brewster observed, ‘a composed and energetic government, under divine blessing, was the boast of our own’; if other kings were dethroned and imprisoned, ‘our excellent and religious King was supported on his, by the wisdom of his councils, and the virtuous resistance of a whole land of patriots’. William Vincent suggested ‘had our Neighbours on the Continent possessed the same moderation, they would not have been reduced to the necessity of renouncing every doctrine they had advanced, of retracing every step they had taken, and of disclaiming all the violences they had committed’.124 Despite such assurances, however, some preachers did mention civil unrest that had occurred. Contemplating the threat of a French invasion of Britain, Samuel Pearce explored what might have happened with his Birmingham congregation: ‘What tumult and disorder would it have excited among the lower orders of the people, many of whom, taking advantage of the general confusion, would have gone from house to house, plundering the peaceable inhabitants.’ Pearce suggested that this would have been worse than recent riots Birmingham had experienced. John Clayton also referred to the ‘unhappy riots in Birmingham’ in his sermon, using these as an example why the ‘Families of industrious mechanics and tradesmen, were not the places where discontent and disaffections should have been taught’.125 The Birmingham riots mentioned here are the ‘Church and King’ Riots (or the Priestley Riots) in July 1791, which began as a response against a celebration in support the French Revolution in Birmingham, but ended with the several days of mob attacks directed at dissenters.126 In 1797 Christopher Hodgson noted ‘a dangerous Conspiracy against our internal peace and welfare’ three and a half years before, likely referring to the Pop-Gun Plot to assassinate George III, saying it had been intended to introduce ‘that system of anarchy prevailing in France’.127 In 1814 the anonymous author of A Sermon, Preached to Two Country Congregations mentioned a ‘black cloud which hovered over our country about two years ago’, a reference to the Luddite movement in the Midlands, a series of attacks which saw over a hundred acts of vandalism on machines and factories from the winter of 1811 to the winter of

124 William

Abdy, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, n.d.), p. 16; John Brewster, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Stockton, 1802), p. 12 (emphasis in the original); William Vincent, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 27. 125 Pearce, Motives to Gratitude… Nov. 29, 1798, p. 21; John Clayton, The Great Mercies… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. vii. 126 R.B. Rose, ‘The Priestley Riots of 1791’, Past & Present, 18 (1960), 72–6. 127 Hodgson, A Sermon… 19th Day of December, 1797, p. 12. The Pop-Gun Plot was a purported conspiracy to assassinate George III using a poison dart shot by an air gun: Clive Elmsley, ‘The Pop-Gun Plot, 1794’, in Michael T. Davis (ed.), Radicalism and Revolution in Britain, 1775–1848: Essays in Honour of Malcolm I. Thomis (London, 2000), p. 56.



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1812. This was depicted as a ‘riot and insurrection… owing to the mischievous and wicked notions… disseminated by artful and designing men, amongst the lower order of our manufacturers and mechanics, for the purpose of opposing the measures of an anxious Government; of destroying social order, and of introducing a scene of general anarchy, rapine, and bloodshed’.128 More generally, Hugh Pearson, senior proctor at Oxford University, remarked on the pressures on the British economy caused by the Napoleonic wars, which created ‘distresses, murmurs, and even disorderly conduct of some of our manufacturers’. John Arundel also commented on this, noting that ‘our manufacturing towns, which were lately the seat of discord, riot, and want, now were a totally different aspect, and have become delightful scenes of subordination, industry, loyalty and prosperity’.129 Another site of upheaval and disorder was the military itself. Dissatisfaction over working conditions and pay saw several mutinies occur in the British navy in 1797, and thanksgiving sermons raised concerns about these events as well. William Goode described how ‘the very character of the British sailor was changed… our own sword had nearly been thrust into our own vitals – but the suppression was as sudden and unexpected as its rise’. According to Thomas Tayler, the mutinies were ‘the mischievous attempts of a few artful and designing men, to spread disorder and disaffection through our fleets and navy’ but they ‘were soon, and so completely frustrated’.130 Though comments in sermons on these activities were mostly made in general terms, several preachers did mention the mutiny at the Nore anchorage, and another referred to details of the mutiny on the Hermione.131 In addition to these references in the sermons, 250 sailors and marines were included in the 19 December 1797 thanksgiving-day royal procession to St Paul’s Cathedral to symbolise the return to discipline after the successful suppression of the mutinies.132 By far the most serious threat to social and political order came in 1798 with a rebellion in Ireland, which included a French invasion to aid in the revolt. The successful suppression of the rebellion led to the inclusion of Ireland within the union of the United Kingdom in 1801. While this event was not celebrated in the same way as the Union of 1707, the 1798 thanksgiving day was in part intended to mark that military success,133 and a number of thanksgiving preachers did mention 128 Anon.,

A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814, pp. 9, 10; Jeff Horn, ‘Machine-Breaking in England and France during the Age of Revolution’, Labour/Le Travail, 55 (2005), 146–7. 129 Hugh Pearson, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (Oxford, 1814), p. 18; John Arundel, National Mercies… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 11. 130 Goode, Mercies in Judgment… December 19, 1797, 12; Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798, p. 12. 131 Jobson, The Divine Government… a Thanksgiving Sermon… December 19, 1797, p. 13; Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon… December 19, 1797, 28; Huntington, A Watchword… A Sermon… Dec. 19. 1797, p. 54. 132 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992), pp. 215–16. 133 Philip Williamson, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor, and Natalie Mears (eds), National Prayers: Special Worship Since the Reformation, Volume 2: General Fasts, Thanksgivings, and Special Prayers in the British Isles, 1689–1870, Church of England Record Society 22 (Woodbridge, 2017), p. 671.

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the suppression of the rebellion in their 1798 sermons. Comment upon the Irish rebellion continued in subsequent years. In 1802 Henry Courtenay, the bishop of Exeter, recounted for the congregation of St George’s, Hanover Square in London how Ireland had been affected by ‘the encroaching spirit of anarchy and mischief…. In addition to a foreign war, we had the mortification to contend in that quarter with lawless and ferocious rebels.’ Three years later John Clowes reminded his audience of ‘the gathering storm ready to fall upon our heads, when merciless invaders from the enemy’s shore, and traitors in a Sister Kingdom were confederate… to seize and destroy all that was dear to us’.134 Thomas Rutledge spoke of the attempt to invade ‘our sister kingdom… to stir up the ignorant, deluded, and disaffected inhabitants, to murder, to rapine, anarchy, and the commission of every crime’. In Ireland itself, William Odell, preaching in Limerick Cathedral in 1805, blamed French efforts for the insurgency, ‘Promoting internal disturbance, and exciting a part of our deluded countrymen to turn their arms against their brethren and friends – poisoning their principles, and luring them to their ruin.’135 It is significant that, on occasions initiated to celebrate national achievements, thanksgiving-day preachers could spend so much effort educating their audiences on the political problems within British society. The calls for unity, concern over division, and fear of unrest within society extended throughout the period, from the overthrow of James II/VII through to the end of the Napoleonic wars. The sermons demonstrate what unity and stability meant to the nation, allowing it the assurance to safely turn to deal with the external threats and enemies, which was a chief concern throughout the long eighteenth century. They also reveal a constant apprehension over discord and, as a result, show the vulnerability that dispute and disagreement was perceived to cause. The ideas and language displayed in the discussion of unity and difference evidenced some of the underlying anxieties present in Britain and, in turn, also influenced the way external dangers were conceived and responded to. The introduction of revolutionary political thought and movements added further concerns in the last two and a half decades of the period. These were threats of disorder and disagreement of a different kind, and responses to them featured prominently in the political discussions in thanksgiving sermons from the late 1790s to 1816.

134 Henry

Courtenay, A Sermon… 1st of June 1802 (London, 1802), p. 4; John Clowes, A Sermon… 5th of December [1805] (Manchester, 1805), pp. 10–11. 135 Rutledge, God the Defence… 5th of December 1805, p. 22; William Odell, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Limerick, 1805), p. 8.

6 War The wars from the 1690s to the 1710s, from the 1740s to the 1780s, and from the 1790s to 1815 were significant influences upon Britain during the long eighteenth century, and thus had a key role in the ideas and messages of the thanksgiving-day sermons. Of the thanksgivings used in this study, a vast majority celebrated military successes of one kind or another, and the next largest grouping celebrated peace treaties: taken together, more than 80 per cent of these occasions were associated with the waging or termination of war. With such a prominent role in national celebrations, the topic of war and its results left a large imprint upon thanksgiving sermons and, in turn, upon the people who delivered, heard, and read them. Though preachers introduced and discussed a wide range of subjects in their sermons that were not directly associated with the topic that had immediately instigated the thanksgiving service they were participating in, most did, in some way, also address the particular events being observed. This meant that most thanksgiving sermons dealt with war, or its end, in some form or another. Historians have pointed to the impact of warfare throughout the long eighteenth century in shaping expanding British interests across the globe and creating a new focus of domestic and international political concerns, as well as influencing the development of British nationalism.1 Thanksgiving-day sermons reflected and fed these developing national discourses. The present chapter will examine a number of topics connected to war in the long eighteenth century in Britain. It will look at how war and warfare were discussed by thanksgiving preachers, including the results, commemoration, and justification of wars, and the celebration of those who fought them. In all of this, it will provide a sense of how largely considerations of the topic of war permeated the messages in thanksgiving-day sermons, as well as demonstrating its effects on ideas of Britain during this period.

1

See for example, Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992), pp. 3–4, 101–02, 286; Jeremy Black, ‘Exceptionalism, Structure and Contingency: Britain as a European State, 1688–1815’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 8:3 (1997), 12, 16; Keith Robbins, Great Britain: Identities, Institutions and the Idea of Britishness (London, 1998), p. 292; Pasi Ihalainen, ‘Patriotism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century English and Prussian War Sermons’, in War Sermons, ed. Gilles Teulié and Laurence Lux-Sterritt (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009), p. 107; Kathleen Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London, 2003), p. 38.

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The ‘fruits of British valour’: meanings of military success In 1702 Humphrey Prideaux declared that the military results of that year had shown that God ‘hereto hath given us greater Victories and Successes in this last Summers War, than all our Foreign Expeditions before these last hundred years past all put together’.2 Presiding over occasions that often celebrated military achievements, it is not surprising that thanksgiving-day preachers would accentuate the significance of the victories that they were called to commemorate. This occurred throughout the long eighteenth century. Already as the country began to emerge onto the European military stage in a new reign, John Tillotson saw the military success behind the 1692 thanksgiving day as the ‘greatest England ever had, and in the true consequences of it, perhaps the greatest that Europe ever had’. Not to be outdone, in response to the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 Samuel Bromesgrove asked ‘say, English-man, can thy Memory, or… any thing in History… keep pace with that signal, never to be forgotten, never to be lauded enough Victory…?’3 Considering the succession of victories under Anne, John Mackqueen decreed it ‘such a singularity as neither ancient nor modern History can par[a]llel’, and Francis Hare highlighted the heightened expectations, ‘that to win Battels and take Towns is become familiar to us; and as if we had a right to them, we look on it as a lost Campaign, in which there is nothing won’. Each successive victory would see further commentary upon its significance. By the early months of George I’s reign, even though the event being marked was not a military one, Jonathan Smedley, vicar of Ringcurran in Ireland, breathlessly proclaimed ‘Oh! Britain, how endless, how envy’d is the detail of thy Glories!… How have thy Fleets commanded the Ocean, thy Armies over-spread the Land?’4 Though the next several decades would see a period of prolonged peace, along with a lack of thanksgiving days, preachers would pick up in the middle of the century from where their predecessors left off. In the midst of the Seven Years’ War, Peter Goddard announced ‘never surely did a more glorious Year Pass over the Head of any English Monarch… for ever memorable in our Annals for the uninterrupted Train of Victories with which Heaven has blessed us both by Sea and Land, in every Quarter of the World’. Thomas Tayler deemed the victories of 1798 ‘the most seasonable, perhaps, and the most complete, of any that are recorded in… British history’.5 The anonymous author of England’s Causes for Thankfulness (1798) described them as ‘near a miracle’, asking ‘Where in the whole annals of history do we read of five successive naval victories in one war, equal in splendour and importance to those with which we have been favoured?’ In 1805, according to William Odell, the 2 3 4

5

Humphrey Prideaux, A Sermon… December the 3d, 1702 (Norwich, 1703), p. 15. John Tillotson, A Sermon… 27th of October… [1692] (London, 1692), p. 27; Samuel Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 21. John Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon’ [1708], in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), p. 70; Francis Hare, A Sermon… Feb. 17. 1708/9 (London, 1709), pp. 3–4; Jonathan Smedley, A Discourse… January 20…. [1715] (London, 1715), p. 23. Peter Goddard, A Sermon Preached November 29, 1759 (Bury St Edmunds, 1760), pp. 12–13; Thomas Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 12.



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Battle of Trafalgar now had brought the French ‘as signal a defeat as any that the British story, though fruitful in victories, can boast of ’.6 With such praise and hyperbole, every victory being more important than any previous one, thanksgiving-day congregations and readers were infused with assertions of the magnitude of British military successes throughout the long eighteenth century. In addition to simple declarations of the enormity of British victories, thanksgiving-day audiences were also told of the significance ascribed to particular military events they were celebrating. In this way, the importance of British European and global concerns were impressed upon the sermons’ audiences. For example, the Battle of Blenheim was presented by John Piggott as more significant because it was against ‘the Flower and Glory of France, the best disciplin’d Troops that Prince had’. Joseph Jacob found even greater consequence in the military successes of the next year, depicting the French as ‘one part or Joynt of the Antichristian Force’, and expecting a coming ‘overturning of All the Antichristian powers in the World’. By 1798 William Knox could liken Britain’s role against France to a famous military victory of the ancient past, where ‘Britain… alone and unassisted, has flung herself into the Thermopylae of Europe, and rescued her from the disgrace of French dominion and the thraldom of French alliance’.7 Beyond such grandiose statements, more practical implications of victories were considered. The War of the Spanish Succession had, according to Thomas Reynolds, ‘increas’d our chief Bulwark the Navy, rouz’d our Martial Genius, given us instruction and Experience in War, furnish’d us with many brave Commanders and renowned leaders, [and] promoted the Union’.8 The significance of the Seven Years’ War was also well noted. In Britain John Fortescue told of how the French navy ‘by frequent Captures, hath been more than half ruined, and their Trade, which supplied them with the Sinews of War, hath received a total Overthrow’. The North American colonies also recognised the importance of these military successes. In Boston Jonathan Mayhew saw ‘the trade of the enemy greatly distressed; and her maritime power much lessened:… the ports of Great Britain and her colonies filled with [captured] merchant-men of France, and her private ships of war, while the ports of the enemy were mostly blocked up’. Amos Adams reiterated the same observations, with British victories leading to the ‘Destruction of the French Trade and Commerce; the Capture of so many of their Capital Ships;… our evident Superiority at Sea;… These Advantages must be very distressing to a proud Nation, and humbling to the haughty Gaul… and teach us the Strength of Britain, when properly exerted under the Smiles of Providence.’9

6 7

8 9

Anonymous, England’s Causes… A Sermon… November 1798 (York, n.d.), p. 13; William Odell, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Limerick, 1805), p. 11. John Piggott, A Sermon Preach’d the 7th of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 31; Joseph Jacob, Desolations Decypher’d… a Sermon… 23d of the 6th Month, 1705 (London, 1705), p. 32; William Knox, A Sermon,… 29th of November, 1798 (Dublin, 1798), p. 3. Thomas Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), pp. 32–3. James Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Exeter, 1760), pp. 18–19; Jonathan

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Wars and victories were also assigned a significance for monarchs and their governments. John Evans mentioned how people were concerned when William III died, but this dissipated when Anne ‘so evidently manifested herself a Mother in our Israel, engaging with equal vigour for the Liberties of her People and of her Neighbours of Europe’. While the queen could not accompany her armed forces into battle as William had, Ralph Lambert saw ‘what her Sex, and condition render her Incapable of, as to Action, we see most happily supply’d, by a wise and Prudent choice of the Fittest Persons to succeed so Glorious a Commander’.10 Some saw Anne’s military accomplishments as even more noteworthy because she was a female monarch. Daniel Williams perceived victories over Louis XIV as an effort by God ‘to sully his Glory, to abase his Excellency, and bring down his high Locks’, the more poignant because they came at ‘a time when a Female sits upon our Throne’. William King affirmed ‘It ought above all to remain in our Minds, that this Victory is obtained under a government and Conduct of a Woman… as a reward for two of the greatest Virtues [that] can possess a Royal Heart: Great Devotion to God, and great Love to her People.’ Even after her death, the anonymous author of Loyalty to King George (1716) similarly recounted how Anne had ‘arose like Deborah, exerts as Noble Endowments as the Great Elizabeth, and proves more Victorious by her Hero Marlborough, than the Mighty William’.11 Most of George I’s reign and the first half of the next were without direct military endeavours. However, subsequent military prowess and results continued to be connected with monarchical effectiveness and greatness. During the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, John Pennington saw George II’s military commitment demonstrating that the king ‘did not scruple to hazard the life of his Son, for the sake of his People…. What surer proof of the union of His Interest with Ours, than exposing his Son to defend our lives and properties…? Let this instance of zeal for our common welfare, unite our hearts in the common cause of our King.’ Edward-Pickering Rich, rector of Bagendon in Gloucestershire, characterised the late 1750s as a ‘memorable æra of our Monarch’s reign… victories which future ages will scarcely believe’. Only three years into George III’s reign, Robert Richardson, rector of Wallington in Hertfordshire, delivered a thanksgiving-day sermon in The Hague that hailed how ‘rich & extensive have been the fruits of British valour, & every year of the war, even to the hour which closed it, has added fresh lustre to the crown, & opulence to the subject’.12

10 11

12

Mayhew, Two Discourses Delivered October the 25th, 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 4; Amos Adams, Songs of Victory… a Sermon… October 25, 1759 (Boston, MA, 1759), p. 21. John Evans, A Sermon… Septemb. 7th. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 6; Ralph Lambert, A Sermon, Preach’d Nov. the 12th. 1702 (London, 1703), pp. 5–6. Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 11; William King, A Sermon… 7th. of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 20; Anonymous, Loyalty to King George. A Sermon… June the 7th. 1716 (Dublin, n.d.), p. 10. John Pennington, Judah’s Deliverance… A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), pp. 16–17; Edward-Pickering Rich, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 6; Robert Richardson, A Discourse… 5th of May 1763 (The Hague, 1763), p. 19.

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Ultimately, the results of military victories were equated directly with the national distinction. As John King asserted, ‘the strength of this nation is great. – Its situation by sea and land is far superior to any former period – Our fleets are powerful and our forces numerous – and our people are united… with one heart and mind… against the common enemy.’ Robert Walker celebrated an unbroken string of victories by noting that ‘no defeat hath stained our national honour’, and Mather Byles found ‘British Thunder alarming the most distant Regions, and irresistible in all Quarters of the Earth’.13 Other preachers emphasised even more profound implications. James Stillingfleet compared the victory at the Nile in 1798 to God’s intervention on behalf of the Israelites in Egypt. Thomas Rennell went even further: that victory had come in ‘that very region famed from the most remote antiquity; visited by the Patriarchs; the long sojourn of God’s chosen people;… and above all, honoured by the infant presence of the saviour of the world;… even there… the prowess of the British Navy should perhaps have decided… the fate of the universe’.14

‘Masters at sea’: naval victories While military success, in general, had a significant impact on the development of British ideas about national purpose, policy, and accomplishments throughout the long eighteenth century, the thanksgiving-day sermons also demonstrate a growing emphasis on the importance of naval actions and victories as a specific element of British military triumph. The celebration of maritime superiority was a theme mentioned frequently by preachers. Turning his audience’s attention to the sea for the 1706 thanksgiving, Charles Lamb asserted ‘it gives us the pleasing representation of our undisturbed Sovereignty in those Waters’. By the middle of the century George Benson would describe the British navy as ‘masters at sea; the support of the distressed, but the terror of the tyrants and oppressors of mankind’. Philip Doddridge, a Congregational minister in Northampton, echoed this assessment three years later, calling the British ‘incontestably Masters of the Ocean’.15 Near the end of George II’s reign, Thomas Foxcroft recounted how the country had ‘the most powerful Navy, that gives Britain, if not the Sovereignty of the Seas, yet at least a Superiority, that its Enemies feel and own’. In 1797, George Pretyman told the Houses of Commons and Lords assembled for thanksgiving, that ‘Our

13

14

15

John King, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Ipswich, n.d.), p. 7; Robert Walker, ‘Sermon XVIII…. Nov. 29. 1759’, in Sermons on Practical Subjects, Volume I (London, 1783; third edition), p. 404; Mather Byles, A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760 (New-London, CT, 1760). p. 15. James Stillingfleet, National Gratitude… a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Worcester, 1798), pp. 28–32; Thomas Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 14 (emphasis in the original). Charles Lamb, England Happy… A Sermon… December the 31st, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 5; George Benson, ‘Sermon XVII…. Oct. 9, 1746’, in Sermons on the Following Subjects… (London, 1748), p. 420 (emphasis in the original); Philip Doddridge, Reflections… A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 15.

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naval strength, raised to a height unknown at any former period, not only exceeds that of every rival neighbour, but has compelled each in its turn to submit to our superiority.’ John Stonard thanked God for the victory at Trafalgar, which ‘has so exalted and confirmed our naval power, that even all the fleets of the confederate world would be inadequate and impotent to meet us on the bosom of our protecting seas’, and he proclaimed that the ‘ocean is open for our ships to penetrate with safety wherever its waters roll’.16 This accentuation of naval power connected to Britain’s circumstances as an island nation, but that implied much more than just a coincidence of geographical location. In addition to the waters surrounding Britain being its natural ‘Bulwark’, Charles Cowper recognised the importance of guarding them ‘by the Superiority of our Naval Force… wherein our Great Strength lies, is the most natural and effectual method we can take of repelling the Attacks, or chastising the Insolence, of a foreign Enemy’. Expanding these benefits outwards on a grander scale, James Clarke noted that ‘Great Britain, from its insular situation, requires the protection, which can alone be effectually afforded by maritime power…. while she defends her own shores, she at the same time secures the protection of her settlements in other quarters of the globe; and dispenses happiness unto those who are separated from her by immense Oceans; enjoying in far distant climes the blessings of British Freedom.’ Preaching in Bath in 1798, John Gardiner could ask rhetorically ‘If Britain, by her magnanimous exertions on the main, before shone with an unrivalled splendour; what must be the increase of this splendour now that the entire dominion of the seas is in a manner entrusted to her care?’ Gardiner later had his audience consider ‘What would become of the strength, pride, and consequence of this island, now the envy and admiration of the universe, if deprived of its impregnable bulwark, its maritime resource’.17 Preachers confirmed the connection between Britain’s geographical position, its navy, and its national purpose. In 1798 Abraham Rees described the ‘insular situation’ of the country, which ‘has led it to direct its peculiar attention to its marine and naval interest… which has contributed in a very high degree to its independence, security and prosperity’. Rees implied that this had become an essential part of the nation’s outlook and character, which enabled it to assert and maintain… the empire of the ocean. Its fleets, by means of the skill and valour of those who have been entrusted with the conduct and operation of them,… its principal defence… Its naval superiority has been the pride and boast of its inhabitants. Its wooden walls have become proverbial… A

16

17

Thomas Foxcroft, Grateful Reflexions… A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, 1760), p. 24; George Pretyman, A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 17; John Stonard, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Chertsey, 1806), pp. 11–12. Charles Cowper, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (York, 1763), p. 19–20; James Clarke, ‘A Sermon… December 19, 1797’, in Naval Sermons (London, 1798), pp. 215–16; John Gardiner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Bath, 1798), pp. 17, 29–30.



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very partial acquaintance with the history of our country will furnish sufficient evidence of the importance and utility of the British navy.18

Robert Davidson proclaimed the country’s advantageous position ‘to receive Appeals from Nations that are wrong’d or oppress’d by their Neighbours, and to see that the Ballance (at least) of Europe be kept. The Largeness of this our Island, and the Strength of its Shipping, do certainly put it into a Condition of giving a Check to any one that should go about to oppress Europe.’ William Farmerie asserted ‘We are fenced off from the sudden Inroads of our Neighbours by a large Sea and a Mighty Navy’, and Thomas Fothergill affirmed the ‘Country Providence hath allotted us, being so happily situated by Nature, so well fortified by Art, and so protected by our naval Power, … cannot easily become the Seat of War’.19 The series of victories in the late eighteenth century further confirmed the special status of British naval forces, as well as of the nation itself. Robert Bromley, rector of St Mildred Poultry in London, declared ‘Our navy, the national bulwark of our insular situation, has done more… by atchieving exploits in the destruction of their expeditions, which have surpassed all that naval history even of this country has recorded, and have afforded us the reasonable hope that by pushing our marine strength to its full vigour and extent we may effect yet the happy deliverance of Europe.’ Preaching to the House of Lords, John Buckner mentioned ‘the extraordinary successes of our arms, in seas, which wash the shores of foreign countries, as well as in those which girt our own… exploits [which] have raised her naval splendour to an unexampled height’.20 Thomas O’Beirne told the Irish Parliament that the king ‘sees the God of battles going forth with His fleets… on that element, on which the Angel of the divine presence has ever been most visible with us, to save us; In that fortress of nature, in which by the peculiar blessing of Heaven, the more immediate defence and protection of these realms are placed, He sees that the arm of the Lord hath not been shortened’. The royal chaplain and prebendary of Winchester Cathedral, John Garnett, deduced ‘From the nature of our insular situation, our unbounded commerce, and our colonial possession, the principal exertions of this country in every war must necessarily be made upon that element which is the source and origin of our opulence and power.’21 Even before those more famous naval victories, preachers were already making extensive pronouncements about the country’s naval traditions. In 1695 John Adams claimed an ‘Ancient Dominion over the Seas’, and William King credited Queen Elizabeth for having ‘enlarged our Naval Force, and displayed her Flags in the remotest 18 19

20 21

Abraham Rees, The Privileges… A Sermon… 29th of November 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 8–9. Robert Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a. A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 9–10; William Farmerie, The Ingratitude of Israel… A Sermon… Seventh of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 15; Thomas Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Oxford, 1749), pp. 10–11. Robert Bromley, A Sermon… 29th. Day of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 16; John Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 20. Thomas O’Beirne, A Sermon… 16th January, 1798 (Dublin, 1798; second edition), p. 6; John Garnett, A Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (Winchester, 1802), p. 8.

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Seas’. In his 1697 sermon, Richard Welton presented the significance of Britain’s maritime successes in broad and impressive terms, recounting ‘The Wonders of God which we have seen in the Deep… when our Invincible Armada rode in State on the Mediterranean… the same Waters where that Christian Israelite (St. Paul) suffer’d Shipwrack… Where the Proud Waves do swell to the height of Mountains, and yet our Tall Ships liv’d upon those Mountains,… to the Defiance and Terror of our Enemies, and the immortal Glory of our English Nation.’22 The expanse of naval military achievements ascribed a global perspective to British interests. Already in 1695 Christopher Wyvill celebrated ‘our Navy… [having] Victoriously danced on the British Ocean, stopping upon the Avenues of the Enemies Ports and Havens… [and] triumphantly, at this Day, in the Mediterranean, putting thereby a check to all their Pride and Glory’, and by 1759 Jonathan Mayhew would boast that the country’s fleets were ‘triumphant in every sea where the British flag made its appearance’.23 According to William Henry ‘we have the most powerful Fleets in the Universe, at once to guard us from Enemies, and to waft home the Riches of the whole Earth into our Harbours’. As Gilbert Wakefield expressed it in 1784, ‘This little Spot of Land has sent it’s Arms into every Corner of the Globe, and dispersed it’s Ships through every Ocean under Heaven.’24 Naval achievements were presented as an essential aspect of British accomplishments during the long eighteenth century, and preachers conveyed to their audiences that important element of national success. In 1805 Thomas Stevenson assessed the terrible cost that would come to the country without its victorious fleet: Destitute of its naval defence and superiority, the extensive trade and commerce of our country must have perished; its laws and liberties, its independence, its constitution and religion would have been trampled under foot by the insolence of a triumphant and licentious foe,… capable of every excess and every outrage… The rich would be reduced to a level with the poor, and the poor would be unfeelingly stripped of every comfort which they at present enjoy.

Though choosing to view it from a more positive perspective, in 1797 Martin Benson, the rector of Mertsham in Surrey, articulated the same sentiments, arguing that Britain’s existence depended ‘on the decided superiority of our naval armaments… Thence we have derived all, that as a nation is dear and valuable to us; thither we must look for its contiuance. It has raised and placed us high in the scale of nations; it has crowned us with prosperity; it is the harbinger of hope; the herald of future safety.’ The next year John de Veil expressed Britain’s position after victories over the navies of France, Spain, and the Netherlands in terms that are still familiar today: ‘it were scarcely to be expected they would again attempt any enterprize of importance 22

23 24

John Adams, A Sermon… September 8, 1695 (London, 1695), p. 22; King, A Sermon… 7th. of September, 1704, p. 21; Richard Welton, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1697), pp. 4–5. Christopher Wyvill, A Sermon… 22d of September, 1695 (London, 1695), p. 15; Mayhew, Two Discourses Delivered October the 25th, 1759, p. 4. William Henry, The Triumphs… A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Dublin, 1759), pp. 27–8; Gilbert Wakefield, A Sermon… July 29th 1784 (London, 1784), pp. 15–16.



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upon that element which hails Britannia for her monarch, and, under God, the unrivalled ruler of the waves!’ De Veil later concluded that these victories had ‘opened the eyes of all the political states in the world to the sovereignty of the British Navy’.25 Sermons also linked the accomplishments of the British navy to the special attributes of those who served in it. Preaching in Québec in 1799, but clearly alluding to Britain proper, Jacob Mountain lauded ‘our Navy – the natural bulwark of our Country – what is there that can be put in competition with its force! the consummate skill and heroism of our Commanders, and the dauntless and irresistible bravery of our Seamen, are beyond all precedent, and all praise!’ William Goode found in recent victories ‘the antient wisdom and valour of the British navy was again displayed, and he [God]… still directed us by the same skill, still supported in our sailors the same spirit of courage and intrepidity’.26 Hailing ‘our Navy… the admiration of the World’ in 1798, Thomas Middleton asserted it had, ‘by the daring genius of its Commanders, and the heroism of the Seamen, eclipsed the ancient splendour of its own illustrious name’. Even more profusely, a year earlier James Clarke laid out the characteristics of the country’s sailors. Clarke told his audience ‘If there is one profession, that labours, more abundantly than the rest, to protect the happiness and welfare of this country, it is the arduous and noble profession of a British seaman.’ He described how, ‘Often, amid the darkness of the wintry night… they cheerfully encounter those hardships, which the genuine modesty of The Naval Character never blazons in the face of day.’ Clarke proclaimed the ‘courage of British Seamen has never been doubted by their own Country, and has always been dreaded by their Enemies. The Nation reposes upon it for security in the hour of alarm.’27 Ultimately, the navy came to represent the characteristics of the country as a whole. George Fothergill declared ‘the Successes We have been blessed with at Sea will deserve our particular Remembrance,… For here indeed the British Strength appeared to great Advantage, and proved abundantly an over-match for all the combined force our Enemies could send against it.’ Similarly, Andrew Hatt, preaching to the Lord Mayor and other officials of London in 1805, saw in the success at Trafalgar ‘the uncontested dominion of the sea, the exaltation of our national character, and the most splendid victory that ever adorned the annals of any nation’.28

25

26 27 28

Thomas Stevenson, A Sermon… December 5 1805 (Blackburn, 1805), pp. 9–10; Martin Benson, A Sermon… For the Late Victory [1797] (London, 1797), pp. 20–1; John de Veil, National Blessings… A Sermon… November, 29th, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 18, 22 (emphasis in the original). Jacob Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799 (Québec, 1799), p. 28; William Goode, Mercies in Judgment: A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1797), p. 13. Thomas Middleton, The Blessing… a Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (Norwich, 1798), p. 10; Clarke, ‘A Sermon… December 19, 1797’, pp. 212, 215. Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… April 25. 1749, p. 25 (emphasis in the original); Andrew Hatt, A Sermon… Fifth of December, 1805 (London, 1805), p. 16.

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Battles and heroes In addition to the significance of the results of war and the nature of British military success, thanksgiving-day preachers also informed their audiences about the battles that were fought and those who were prominent in them. Whether by simply mentioning the name of particular battles, by giving some fuller summary of the stages of the conflict, or by regaling their audiences with the achievements of those ‘Famous for their Virtue, or eminent for some notable Exploits’,29 people were reminded again and again of the campaigns that contributed to the compilation of military triumphs. Together the battles and those who led British forces to victory were celebrated, accounting for the development of a sense of British glory on the battlefield, and confirming the importance of these military men and activities. The lengthy intervals of intense warfare, along with accompanying thanksgiving celebrations during those periods, saw the names of battles and campaigns memorialised in titles and within the sermons themselves: the siege of Namur (1695), battles of Vigo Bay (1702), Hochstet (1703), Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenard (1708), Malplaquet (or Blaregnies, 1709), and the Siege of Lille (1708) came in the early years of the period; the battles of Québec (1759), Minden (1759), and at forts Louisbourg (1758), Duquesne (aka Pitt, 1758), Frontenac (1758), Niagara (1759), and Ticonderoga (1759) in the mid-century; and the battles of the Nile (1798), Trafalgar (1805), and Waterloo (1815) in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Some preachers even included detailed accounts of battles.30 Along with celebrating recent campaigns, preachers also reminded their audiences of famous successes of the past, and placed the current battles within a catalogue of great British military achievements. Naval victories were compared to the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada, and land battles were likened to the battles of Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt.31 Even more powerful than the references to battles was the praise of heroism born out of these military successes. In 1706 Gilbert Burnet epitomised this celebration

29 30

31

Anonymous, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 7. See for example, John Evans, The Being and Benefits… a Sermon Preached on Septemb. 7 [1704] (London, 1704), pp. 14–16; George Conway, A Sermon… February the 17th 1708/9 (London, 1709), pp. 11–13; George Conway, A Sermon… November the 22d, 1709 (London, 1709), pp. 10–12; James Welton, A Sermon… Nov. 29. 1759 (Norwich, n.d.), p. 7; Adams, Songs of Victory… October 25, 1759, pp. 24–5; John Mellen, A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), pp. 18–26; Samuel Woodward, A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), pp. 16–20. See for example, Samuel Barton, A Sermon… Octob. 27th 1692 (London, 1692), p. 27; Richard Chapman, The Providence of God… a Sermon… Decemb. the 3d. 1702 (London, 1703), pp. 7, 10; Jonathan Trelawny, A Sermon… Nov. 12. 1702 (London, 1702), p. 13; Francis Higgins, A Sermon… 28th of August [1705] (Dublin, 1705), p. 15; John Wilder, A Sermon… 27th of June, 1706 (Oxford, 1706), p. 21; John Adams, A Sermon… Novemb. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 9; Alexander Jephson, A Sermon… 20th Day of January [1715] (London, 1715), p. 15; Thomas Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Stroud, n.d.), pp. 6, 19; John Blakeway, National Benefits… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), pp. 8–9; John Arundel, National Mercies… A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 24.



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of martial accomplishment by admiring that ‘the Honour of the Nation is spread so far, and carried so high, that the Name of an Englishman gives both Joy and Terror’. In the same year, William Perse proclaimed that the great events and deeds of people should be recorded to provide ‘Instruction and Information’ to allow people to emulate valiant actions, and for the recompense of those who had performed them.32 The successes of the long eighteenth century led to some thanksgiving preachers expressing their high opinions of the general military character and ability of British military men. As Edward Sandercock, a Congregational minister in York, observed in 1763, ‘Our Generals, our Admirals, subordinate officers, private men, on both elements of sea and land, have acted with so brave, so bold, so truly British a spirit.’ In 1798 John Sturges singled out ‘our gallant Officers and Men’, and applauded ‘that spirit, which pervades the Nation… calling forth her Sons of all ranks from their [ha]bitual and pacific professions and employments,… we should treat with peculiar gratitude those gallant Defenders of our Country, who endure the hardships and brave the dangers of War in her Fleets and Armies’. Commemorating the Battle of Trafalgar, Lancaster Adkin, himself from Great Yarmouth and preaching at St Andrew’s in Norwich, thought it most pertinent to praise ‘those men who go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters… [who] have fought and have prevailed’.33 From commanders to common soldiers and sailors, the sermons lauded the attributes of British forces. During the campaigns of the early eighteenth century, preachers celebrated ‘a noble Train of Gallant Officers, and a grave well disciplin’d Army’, a ‘General, and Troops, who have bravely retriev’d the Ancient Glory of the English Name, and whose Glorious Atchievements might have been envied by the Greatest Heroes of past Ages’, men ‘Impatient to be put off, (no Lion is more animated at the sight of his Prey, than our Country-men… are to grapple with the Enemy upon first appearance)… resolved like Heroes to conquer them, or die like Men.’34 Along with valuing God, the queen, and Parliament, in 1709 Richard Lucas advised his audience to include the ‘General whose Courage and Conduct have render’d him so considerable in the Eyes of all Europe as well as ours… [and] all under him, even to the meanest common Soldier’. In 1704 Alexander Jephson pithily asserted that the English were ‘the best Soldiers in the World’. In his sermon that same year, Edward Fowler attempted to transport his audience to the battlefield by describing the capacities needed to lead men in battle, where ‘Wise Conduct… is every whit as necessary as Courage. So the great Presence of Mind that Victorious Commanders of Armies… shew, we cannot imagine… in the midst of the noise of Drums, Trumpets, and Musquets, the roaring of Cannons, the dreadful cries of 32 33

34

Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… xxviith Day of June MDCCVI (London, 1706), p. 1; William Perse, A Sermon… June 27th. 1706 (York, n.d.), pp. 14–16. Edward Sandercock, A Sermon Preach’d May the 5th, 1763 (York, 1763), p. 11; John Sturges, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, n.d.), pp. 14, 19–20; Lancaster Adkin, The True Dependence… a Sermon… Dec. 5th. 1805 (Cambridge, 1806), pp. 10–11. Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of December,1706 (London, 1707), p. 15; Evans, The Being and Benefits… Septemb. 7 [1704], p. 20; John Mackqueen, ‘A Sermon… 7th of September, 1704’, in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), p. 31.

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the mortally, or cruelly wounded Soldiers fallen to the Earth;… the Fields being spread with dead Carcasses round about them’.35 Perhaps due to the long period of peace in the 1720s and 1730s, Thomas Secker celebrated that ‘Our Soldiery have recovered their ancient Courage and Character’ in 1746. The disastrous results of the first years of the Seven Years’ War had been reversed, according to Thomas Scott, by ‘restoring and establishing Harmony in our Counsels, and… awakening and diffusing a Martial Spirit in our Fleets and Armies’. By 1814 Hugh Pearson could confidently proclaim of the British army and navy, that ‘Every quarter of the world has witnessed their matchless genius, their heroic valour, their unrivalled successes.’36 In addition to the praise of the British military as a whole, thanksgiving-day sermons were full of tributes for victorious British military leaders and their triumphs on the battlefield. Their names punctuated the sermons, celebrating themes of national greatness, and making them symbols for the nation. After the second Jacobite rebellion, Prince William, the duke of Cumberland, the youngest son of George II, was hailed for his military prowess in putting down the uprising, and especially for his role in the victory at the Battle of Culloden. Cumberland was styled ‘that Heroic Youth, whose princely qualities yield increase of lustre even to his royal and valiant race’, ‘the Rescuer and Preserver of our Civil Rights,… the Christian Hero of the present age’, and ‘the Royal Hero, whose Courage, Conduct, and military Virtues it would be criminal on this joyful Occasion to pass by unregarded’.37 According to Samuel Kerrich, Cumberland’s actions demonstrated ‘the innate Bravery of the Protestant Branch of our ancient Royal Family’, and he was a hero who ‘seems to have all the Heat of Courage of his Great Uncle Rupert (who stands in History, as one of the bravest Princes in Europe,… the Terror of the Rebels in the Reign of Charles I.) tempered with a cooler Conduct’. Others were even more expansive in their tributes. William Wood called Cumberland ‘our Joshua… whose very Name carries in it some Resemblance to that of Israel’s Deliverer,… The Word Joshua signifies as Saviour: And William is a Saxon Name, signifying Much Defence’ and, in fulfilment of this destiny, the prince had become ‘the Glorious Deliverer… chosen, and, by the special Designation of Heaven, made Commander and Leader of the Army of our Israel’.38 A large number of the 1746 thanksgiving sermons made some mention of Cumberland’s military achievements.

35

36

37

38

Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), pp. 228–9; Alexander Jephson, A Sermon… 7th Day of September, 1704 (London, 1705), p. 11; Edward Fowler, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704 (London, n.d.), pp. 5–6. Thomas Secker, ‘Sermon VII. (Preached October 9, 1746)’, in Nine Sermons (London, 1771; second edition), p. 154; Thomas Scott, The Reasonableness… A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (Ipswich, n.d.), p. 13; Hugh Pearson, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (Oxford, 1814), p. 28. Thomas Hutchinson, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 21; John Gilbert, The Duty… a Sermon… Ninth Day of October [1746] (Salisbury, 1746), p. 22; Edward Yardley, ‘A Sermon… Ninth Day of October 1746’, in Two Sermons (London, 1746), p. 45. Samuel Kerrich, A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), ‘Preface’ (no pag.);



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During the Seven Years’ War, General James Wolfe’s victory and death on field at the Battle of Québec (aka Plains of Abraham) in 1759 captured preachers’ imaginations.39 In thanksgiving-day sermons this commander became ‘Immortal WOLFE! untimely, but gloriously fallen!’; ‘So young, so brave, so great a hero dead, That Greece, nor Rome could e’er produce his Like’, whose soul ‘having shaked off these Raggs of Mortality, darts forward to the Regions of Life, there to Mingle with Angels, and the Spirits of the Just’.40 Placing him ‘Among the distinguished heroes of Fame’, Nathaniel Ball called for ‘us [to] pay our Tribute of Praise to thy sacred Memory, O Wolf! who didst bravely fall in the Field of Honor, and placidly resign thy precious Life, when thou heardst the Victory proclaimed which thy Magnanimity had shown the Way to’. John Kiddell painted an even more vivid picture of Wolf ’s actions for his audience: ‘When we see him bleeding with wounds; yet continuing with a steady intrepidity to lead on his troops against the common enemy: When we see him just expiring, yet rejoicing in death at the signal service, which he had done his country: What heart does not feel the warmest affection and gratitude to his memory?’41 Though certainly fulsome, the accolades given to the duke of Cumberland and General Wolfe paled in comparison to those given to two other military heroes who became household names. The string of great military successes in the early eighteenth century elevated the profile of the man who commanded over many of them, John Churchill, duke of Marlborough. Samuel Bromesgrove justified dedicating the printed version of his 1704 sermon to Marlborough because ‘our English Annals can transmit nothing to Posterity so illustriously Memorable, as are the Glorious Atchievements of your Conquests… and every true English Heart will be striving to pay that most expressive Gratitude which is due to a Conquering General’. On that same occasion Nicholas Brady declared the victory at Blenheim would ‘transmit the name Churchill in the most Glorious Characters of Fame and Immortality; the Force of whose Merit… has reconciled in himself what seldom meet in one Person, the Favour of his Prince, and the Affection of the People’. Richard Norris predicted ‘What a Figure it will make in History, when Posterity comes to learn that the Remains of the Roman Empire was sav’d from Ruine, by an English General, at the head of an English Army, and that by a March equal in most respects to the fam’d one of the Greeks under their Captain Xenophon.’42

39

40

41 42

William Wood, Britain’s Joshua. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1746), pp. 6, 10. For a fuller discussion of the development of Wolfe’s heroic stature, see Nicholas Rogers, ‘Brave Wolfe: the Making of a Hero’, in A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity, and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840, ed. Kathleen Wilson (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 239–59. Mayhew, Two Discourses Delivered October the 25th, 1759, p. 59 (emphasis in the original); Rich, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759, p. 7; Henry, Triumphs… A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759, pp. 20–1. Nathaniel Ball, The Divine Goodness… a Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 21–2; John Kiddell, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1760), p. 30. Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704, sig. A1r, a2r; Nicholas Brady, ‘A Sermon… Sept. 7th. 1704’, in Fifteen Sermons (London, 1706), p. 435; Richard Norris,

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Such glowing praise advanced Marlborough’s fame and the nation’s recognition of him. Thomas Knaggs urged ‘Go on, Great Conqueror! To secure the Repose and Quiet of Europe, Whose Glorious Actions fill the whole Earth, and whose Military Vertues are the Admiration of the Age.’ Marlborough had ‘so miraculously… been preserv’d, in the midst of the greatest and hottest Dangers,’ that John Wilder proclaimed him ‘the peculiar Favourite of Heaven’, and went on to note how ‘each Bullet has its Commission sealed by Providence, and dare not, cannot hurt him, over whom God has given his Angels a peculiar Charge’.43 In his attributes and military successes, Marlborough was compared to Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Barak, Joash, and David, with one preacher even suggesting that he would be an agent of apocalyptic fulfilment.44 Nine general thanksgivings commemorating English victories from 1702 to 1710 certainly helped in this project of creating a military hero, as sermon after sermon recounted Marlborough’s role and importance. Just as the first decade of the eighteenth century saw the emergence of a British military hero against France, so too did the turn of the nineteenth century mark the advent of another. Horatio Nelson’s reputation, like Marlborough’s before him, was associated with an impressive string of victories. His meteoric rise to prominence began with his defeat of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798,45 and, in the commemoration of that victory, preachers described Nelson’s achievements in glowing terms. The significance of the location of the victory, off the coast of Egypt, was not lost on several ministers, who compared it to the deliverance of the Israelites from that country, and Nelson was likened to Moses for his acknowledgement of God’s role in the results of the battle.46 At St Paul’s Cathedral Thomas Bowen effusively told the Lord Mayor and aldermen of ‘the Intrepid Man… Prodigal of his life, if he might save his Country, he had infused his own ardour into the breasts of his gallant seamen: they felt the impulse, and caught the spirit of his energetic mind, and, though he had fallen… God guarded his precious life, that he might

43 44

45

46

A Sermon Preach’d on September 7. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 22. Norris’s reference is to the Greek commander Xenophon, who successfully led Cyrus’s army back to safety (401–399 BC) after Cyrus’s failed attempt to take the Persian throne: N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard (eds), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford, 1970; second edition), pp. 308, 1141–2. Thomas Knaggs, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 10; Wilder, A Sermon… 27th of June, 1706, pp. 8, 9. Thomas Knaggs, A Sermon… August the 19th. 1708 (London, 1708), p. 2; Perse, A Sermon… June 27th. 1706, pp. 2, 21, 25; Edmund Gibson, The Deliverances… A Sermon… June 7, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 14; John Whittel, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… June the 27th, 1706 (London, 1706), pp. 9, 23; Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704, p. 8; Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon’ [1708], p. 73; William Lloyd, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 20; Jacob, Desolations Decypher’d… 23d of the 6th Month, 1705, p. 7; John Spademan, Deborah’s Triumph… A Sermon… June 27th, 1706 (London, n.d.), p. 16. For a fuller discussion of the influence of the Battle of the Nile on the development of Nelson’s heroic stature, see Marianne Czisnik, ‘Nelson and the Nile: the Creation of Admiral Nelson’s Public Image’, The Mariner’s Mirror, 88:1 (2002), 41–60. Abraham Jobson, The Conduct… a Thanksgiving Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Cambridge, 1798), pp. 6–7; William Abdy, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, n.d.), pp. 14–15.

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exhibit to surrounding nations the bright example of a Heroe and a Christian.’ John Buckner told the House of Lords that ‘Of all the victories, which grace our maritime annals… the immediate subject of this day’s solemnity seems to challenge our most unbounded admiration: a victory, unexcelled, if we regard its beneficial consequences; scarcely equalled, if we weigh its daring heroism, and consummate skill.’47 Nelson’s successes corresponded to, and augmented, Britain’s position as the world’s pre-eminent naval power, carrying, as one preacher put it, ‘Britain’s sweeping flag to all parts of Neptune’s watery dominions’.48 The pinnacle of Nelson’s achievements came with the crucial British naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Thomas Simpson announced that Trafalgar had been achieved by ‘the terror’ of Nelson’s name; he had ‘saved our West Indian colonies’ and had ‘made the united fleets of France and Spain sculk through the ocean… He was himself a fleet!’ To Lancaster Adkin and his audience, the day’s praise was ‘for our Nelson, for our Norfolk Hero’. Nelson’s fame was further enhanced by his death in that battle, the ultimate sacrifice. Nicholas Bull, vicar of Saffron Walden in Essex, proclaimed that Nelson had ‘died for his country – for his friends; “greater love hath no man than this;” [John 15: 13] – may his name be remembered with gratitude and honour.’49 John Blakeway pronounced Nelson: A hero indeed fitted to swell the illustrious catalogue of British worthies, and to associate with the victors of Cressy and Agincourt, of Blenheim, of Quebec, and of Alexandria. Like our brave Wolfe… he fell, nobly for himself, in the moment of conquest…. His spirit yet survives in many an English breast, and many a future warrior will be roused to deeds of high renown in defence of Britain, by the remembrance and example of Nelson.50

Other sermons gushed with similar memorials to the fallen admiral: The generous hearts of his veteran companions in arms melt in anguish, and his honoured remains are embalmed by the tears of heroes…. His epitaph is engraved on every breast;… Fame hangs her laurelled honours in such profusion around his urn,… and Reflection almost refuses to consecrate the tears which Virtue sheds upon his too early tomb.51 In the death of her dear, lamented Hero, England hath lost the heart and soul of her great empire…. It has plucked the brightest jewel from the crown of a beloved Sovereign… It has rendered our national rejoicings an insult to our national feelings.52 47 48 49

50 51 52

Thomas Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 18 (emphasis in the original); Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798, p. 20. John Booth, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (Huddersfield, n.d.), p. 21. Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805, p. 13; Adkin, The True Dependence… Dec. 5th. 1805, p. 23 (emphasis in the original); Nicholas Bull, A Thanksgiving Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, n.d.), p. 16. Blakeway, National Benefits… A Sermon… December 5, 1805, pp. 11–12. Odell, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805, p. 13. George Burges, A Discourse… December 5, 1805 (Wisbech, 1806), p. 18.

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let us not tarnish the glory of Lord Nelson’s victory, nor lessen the obligations to our God, for this his signal mercy to us, by unavailing repining at any part of this his gracious, his wonderful dispensation. Celebrate our hero’s memory; erect ten thousand statues, monuments, and trophies to his fame; for he has deserved them all; he has been the instrument of God to save his king and country, and his heart accorded with it. Instruct your children to venerate his name, and let every village echo forth his praise.53

Mention of Nelson, including some in a similar vein as those above, can be found in almost every sermon from the 1805 thanksgiving. Even in 1814 Thomas Lancaster would still turn his audience’s attention back to ‘the greatest naval Hero, that ever adorned this, or any other country’ and his annihilation of ‘the maritime power of the enemy, in the ever memorable, and ever lamented battle of Trafalgar’.54 The prevalence of such tributes caused some preachers to be more restrained in their responses to Nelson’s death. David Brichan cautioned that Nelson had become ‘the idol of his nation’, and Brichan asked ‘Did we not place that reliance on his exertions, which was due only to the God he acknowledged?’ After reprinting a long quotation in tribute to Nelson, Richard Warner, curate of St James’s in Bath, contended ‘when… the hero and his atchievements are thus described, we should be inclined to smile at the bombast, did not our respect for the public character of that commander, and our admiration for his signal services to his country, make us regret that their eulogy had not been recorded in language of more taste, simplicity, and truth’.55 Despite this concern over the level and tone of the adulation, the tributes to Nelson were a culmination of over a century of thanksgivings for military victories where praise for British commanders and commemoration of their martial exploits were ubiquitous.

Just war The important place of warfare in national celebrations and the development of the idea of British military greatness in the long eighteenth century were premised on the idea that the wars being fought were legitimate and justified. The state saw the conflicts that occurred during this period as a valid means to pursue and advance its interests, and the nation would have to support these efforts in order for them to succeed. As Henry Knapp put it in 1816, ‘War is at all times a pursuit of a barbarous and disgusting nature… which requires, in order to overcome, nothing less than that strong and cherished impulse, – the love of our country; – the firm resolve to resist injustice, and defeat the views of our enemies.’ Providing assurance in 1706, the royal chaplain George Stanhope declared ‘The Principle we act upon, [is] Christian 53 54 55

Adkin, The True Dependence… Dec. 5th. 1805, pp. 19–20. Thomas Lancaster, The Great Things… A Sermon… 13th of January 1814 (London, 1814), p. 17. David Brichan, A Sermon… Fifth of December, 1805 (London, 1806), p. 15; Richard Warner, National Blessings… a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Bath, 1806), p. ix.



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and commendable’, and he provided a list of grand and righteous motives for the current war, which included ‘To adjust such a Balance of Power, as may prevent ourselves and our Allies becoming a Prey to an insatiable Devourer; To establish Security of Commerce, and mutual good Understanding between adjacent Countries; And to assure the Quiet and Safety of the whole Western World.’ Celebrating the victory at Blenheim, Luke Milbourne explained that when rulers ‘Undertake a Lawful War, all their Subjects… will Obey and assist them Heartily… especially in those which are carry’d on to Rescue their Native Countries, of those of their Allies from the Yoke of Foreigners.’56 Though after the fact of particular battles, the thanksgiving sermons demonstrate the significance of constructing and maintaining of national support in a particular conflict, and for the policies of military advancement in the long term. In doing this, preachers discussed the reasons behind the nation’s conflicts, and presented arguments that used the idea of ‘just war’ to validate them. The reasons put forward included the need to defeat improper doctrines and actions of other countries, to protect proper principles maintained within British society, and to defend the country, along with the belief in divine endorsement of the British cause. The idea that British warfare was motivated by the unjust and dangerous policies of other nations was a prominent one. The conviction that other nations, and especially France, threatened all of Europe was key to understanding the motivations for British warfare throughout the long eighteenth century. In 1706 Gilbert Burnet pronounced ‘War in general is contrary to the Spirit and the Design of the Christian Religion; yet the Magistrate would bear the Sword in vain, if he might not punish what is done abroad, against Treaties, against the Laws of Nations, and the Rights of his Neighbours and Allies.’ Burnet even argued that punishment of crimes against nations was of greater consequence than enforcing domestic laws. That same year Richard Lucas declared ‘We do not make War for Empire, or for Glory, but for the just and necessary Defense of our Rights and Laws, our Fortunes and Lives, against the boundless Vanity, the restless, insatiable, and bloody Ambition of the French Monarch.’ Christopher Wyvill explained in 1695 that it was lawful for Christians ‘to make use of the Sword, against the disturbers of our Peace, and the hinderers of our Quiet’.57 A century later Martin Benson asserted ‘If all the world were truly Christian, the sword might sleep for ever: for in that case provocations and offence would not exist. But that is not the case.’ In 1799 John Martin portrayed the enemy’s motive as ‘a war against every thing for which we could wish to live in Great Britain’.58

56

57

58

Henry Knapp, The Origin… a Sermon… January 18, 1816 (London, 1816), p. 7; George Stanhope, A Sermon… Twenty Seventh Day of June MDCCVI (London, n.d.), p. 8; Luke Milbourne, Great Brittains Acclamation… a Sermon… September VII. 1704 (London, 1704), pp. 9–10. Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706, p. 7; Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon IX… A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 27. 1706’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 185; Wyvill, A Sermon… 22d of September, 1695, p. 7. Benson, A Sermon… For the Late Victory [1797], p. 10; John Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798 (London, 1799), p. 27.

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Thanksgiving preachers suggested that the misconduct of other nations justified warfare against them, particularly for the violation of their citizens’ rights. Basing his argument on an Old Testament foundation, in 1709 Joseph Stennett described Abraham as acting to ensure ‘the Restitution of the common Rights of Mankind’, and Stennett argued that the war in his own day similarly sought ‘a Restoration of the violated Rights of Protestants, as well as of the common Liberty of Europe’. That same year Samuel Harris suggested that ‘the Invasion of Property may be too big an Evil, for the Law of Nations to deal with: In that Case, Help must be sought from the Sword’. The proper reason for celebrating victory in 1710, according to Samuel Clarke, was ‘in being inabled to rescue the oppress’d Liberties of Nations; to restore the common Rights of Human Nature; and to secure that Freedom of Religion, in the denying of which consists the very essence of Antichristian Iniquity’.59 In 1759 Amos Adams called violation of rights ‘wicked’ and concluded that ‘Nations have no more Liberty to covet one anothers just Rights and Possessions than private Persons.’ At the close of the eighteenth century, William M’Kechnie agreed, advising that war was ‘laudable’ if it was pursued to ‘curb the power, the pride, and the ambition of an all-grasping enemy’, and Thomas Rennell asserted war was ‘most strictly justifiable and legitimate, in the eyes of God and Man’ when directed at ‘unprovoked aggression’.60 Direct or thinly veiled references to French government and policies are apparent in the preachers’ just war arguments. On the thanksgiving for the victory at Blenheim in 1704, William Fleetwood was clearly commenting on Louis XIV’s reign when he pronounced it ‘one of the saddest Effects of Arbitrary Power, that it makes War cheap, and resolves it easily into the determination of every Passion, a weak or wicked Prince may be subject to’. Thomas Reynolds opened his 1709 sermon by declaring the present conflict a ‘just War, in which we have been so long engag’d against a potent and cruel Enemy’. That same year John Adams anticipated the total defeat of France, ‘That Torrent of Popery and Arbitrary Power, which had over-run great Part[s] of the World, and threaten’d all the rest.’61 At the turn of the nineteenth century, France was still the target of many preachers, though the nature of its transgressions had changed. Jacob Mountain looked forward to triumph over France, which would be accompanied by the ‘discrediting, abashing, and banishing from among men, that spurious, and pernicious Philosophy, which has deprived them at once of the benefits of Divine Instruction, and human Experience; and

59

60

61

Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… February 17. 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 19 (Stennett is referring to the context of Genesis 14: 18–24, which was Abram’s refusal to take the goods and property recovered from his enemies when this was offered to him by the king of Sodom); Samuel Harris, A Blow… Or, a Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 13; Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710 (London, 1710), p. 26. Adams, Songs of Victory… October 25, 1759, p. 12; William M’Kechnie, Nelson’s Victory… A Discourse… [1798] (Edinburgh, 1799), p. 27; Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798, p. 10. William Fleetwood, A Sermon… September the 7th…. [1704] (London, 1704), p. 6; Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709, p. 1.



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delivered them over to the darkness of scepticism’.62 In 1814 Thomas Hewett, the curate of Chesham in Buckinghamshire, listed ‘the slaughter of kings, princes, and priests; the exile of… nobles,… the subversion of the true religion and sound law… [and] the unjust force and shameless treachery resorted to by the military despot, who raised his empire on the wrecks of the revolution’ all as proof that the war had a ‘just cause’. Reminding his audience of the reasons ‘Great Britain first unsheathed the sword, and entered the high task assigned her’, John Overton tied the past to the present, announcing how ‘the disgusting and baleful mummery of Popery, and the delusions of a flattering but false Philosophy’ had made the people of France ‘a Nation of Infidels… [who] adopted principles utterly subversive of the peace and order of all civil society’.63 The complement to vindicating the battles against injustice and impropriety by other nations was the perception that war could be fought to uphold principles that Britain and Britons held dear. Throughout the period, war was presented as being fought for ‘the safety of our Government, our Church, our Laws and Liberties’, ‘the last Struggle for the Two things, which alone are valuable in human Life; Liberty and Religion’, for the preservation of Britain itself, its ‘liberty, religion, and laws’.64 In 1749 Nathaniel Ball viewed war properly coming ‘when commenced upon Principles of Honesty and Self-Defence, with a Desire only to secure undoubted Rights and Liberties’. A decade later William Henry claimed that ‘the Spirit that animates the British Measures and Armies… delights in Candour, Truth, Honesty, manly Courage and Humanity. Britons fight only to defend and preserve; conquer their Enemies to render them more happy. Their Successes… render them good Angels even to their Adversaries.’65 Preaching to the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and city officials of London in 1814, William Tooke declared ‘if the cause of true religion and true liberty… be a good cause, our’s is so…. if the vindication of the common liberties of mankind against tyranny and oppression be a good cause, then our’s is so’. In 1798 William Jackson described the war against France as ‘not for the common ends, for which war is undertaken… but for the preservation itself of all those interests which are dearest to man, and all those rights which are essential… to the very existence of a free and independent nation’.66 Evidence in some sermons shows that support for the various wars of the period was not universal. Not surprisingly, on the thanksgiving day commemorating the end of the unsuccessful war with the American colonies, Newcome Cappe, a

62 63 64

65 66

Adams, A Sermon… Novemb. 22. 1709, p. 2; Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799, p. 29. Thomas Hewett, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], in Two Sermons (London, 1816), pp. 14–15; John Overton, England’s Glory… A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (York, n.d.), p. 7. Thomas Comber, A Sermon… Second of December [1697] (London, 1697), p. 26; Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710, p. 23; John Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814] (Montréal, 1814), p. 12. Nathaniel Ball, The Evil Effects of War… a Sermon… 25th of April, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 7; Henry, The Triumphs… November the 29th, 1759, p. 13. William Tooke, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 25; William Jackson, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Oxford, 1798), p. 4.

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Unitarian minister from the dissenting chapel at St Saviourgate in York, not only noted that ‘In the opinion of many good men the war was unjust’, but also that many others ‘deemed it to be impolitic’. In 1797 John Black, the curate of Butley in Suffolk, acknowledged that ‘We have been, we still are… a divided people. Many disapproved of the war [with revolutionary France] on its commencement, as an unjust interference with another nation, who… had a right to choose their own form of government, and regulate their own affairs.’67 Also recognising this lack of unanimity the next year, John Martin attempted to counter opinions claiming that all war is unlawful and that the present one was unjust. More forcefully, in 1805 Samuel Horsley turned to seventeenth-century language to decry ‘the despicable cant of puritans about the unlawfulness of war’.68 John Booth’s 1798 recognition that there were those who compared British forces ‘to bands of robbers, led forth by men of blood to pillage, and spread devastation amongst mankind’, caused him to vehemently deny that claim, contending instead ‘those warlike phalanxes are Britain’s free born sons, ranged in ranks of war, for the preservation of their birth-right;… they belong to a sea-girt isle… the protectress of virtue, the vindicatrix of injured innocence, and the guardian of genuine freedom and rational liberty’.69 Another justification for British wars was that they were defensive in nature. There was general agreement that defensive wars were justifiable. Though Thomas Langdon told his 1814 audience that wars had a harmful effect on Christianity, he made it clear he did not think ‘all wars are criminal’ and added that defensive wars are necessary. John Evans was more exuberant that same year, declaring ‘War can be justified on the principle of self-defence alone… Every triumph gained is only a step towards the end for which hostility was commenced – security.’70 In 1797 William Mavor warned against an ‘Aggressive war’ but contended ‘Self-defence is the first law of nature; and every law of unperverted Nature, under the limitations which religion and soceity have established, becomes a sacred duty.’ Caleb Colton spent four pages of his 1805 sermon distinguishing between a war of aggression and a war of defence.71 Sermons presented the idea of defence either as a securing of territory and people, or as protecting British values and ways of life. In 1706 Gilbert Burnet applauded the idea of war for protection: ‘How glorious is the Defence! when it is undertaken with a pure regard to Justice, and to the preserving a due Ballance; without any pretence to Conquest,… [or] for refunding a vast Treasure, laid out in the Defence of helpless

67

68 69 70

71

Newcome Cappe, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of July, MDCCLXXXIV (York, 1784), pp. 13–14; John Black, ‘A Sermon,… 19th. December, 1797’, in Political Calumny Refuted (Ipswich, n.d.), p. 17. Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798, pp. 14, 22; Samuel Horsley, The Watchers… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, 1806), p. 25. Booth, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798, p. 10. Thomas Langdon, God Maketh Wars to Cease. A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Leeds, n.d.), pp. 13–15; John Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 19 (emphasis in the original). William Mavor, The Duty… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Oxford, 1798), p. 23; Caleb Colton, A Sermon… December 5th 1805 (Tiverton, 1805), pp. 5–8.



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Neighbours, far above what they can repay.’ Two years later Thomas Knaggs agreed that the war ‘we have so long engag’d in is just and necessary, a Defensive War, to preserve our Selves out of the Hands of the Common Enemy’. The position in the middle of the century was the same, according to Robert Richardson, who asserted ‘the British administration never sought for conquest; defense was the just & steady aim both of it’s councils & it’s arms’.72 At the end of the period, the example of French aggression was employed to make the same point. Even on the occasion of peace with Napoleonic France, the dissenter John Clarke listed a number of examples of the enemy’s belligerence, using these ‘to shew the necessity of that war of defence, in which we have well succeeded’. In 1805 William Goode argued ‘We are at war because we cannot be at peace – A boundless ambition, determined… to sway the sceptre of the world… was watching our prosperity…. The avowed design of the enemy has been… our destruction: while… the real object of our exertions has been… preservation.’ More succinctly, in 1798 Samuel Pearce synopsized the purpose of the war as ‘the salvation of Britain from an invading power’.73 Belief that the ideals of Britain were under threat from France was another theme present throughout the period. Of the wars of the early eighteenth century, Daniel Williams proclaimed ‘the Cause on our part is the Defence of our just Rights, and those of our Allies against his [Louis XIV’s] Attempts… and the securing of Europe from that Slavery and Ruin’. John Evans affirmed ‘If the Defence of Men’s undoubted Rights and Properties, and the Common Liberties of Europe against Tyranny and Oppression, be a just Cause; then Ours is evidently so.’74 It was not only dissenters who made this case. Preaching before Oxford University in 1708, Henry Stephens stated that the current war was being fought so that ‘we may defend our Liberties from slavery, our worship from Idolatry’, adding also the more immediate concern that ‘no vain Pretender may dream of shaking the Throne, or disturb and endanger the Protestant Succession’. Charles Trimnell echoed this opinion on the war, explaining it as ‘the Defence of our Sovereign, against a Foreign Pretender to the Crown; the Defence of our Liberties against Arbitrary and Unlimited Power; and the Defence of our Religion against a Gross and a Cruel Superstition’.75 Variations on these themes were being repeated in the sermons at the turn of the nineteenth century. John Sturges, chancellor of the Winchester diocese, justified the war against France because the ‘objects of their present hostility are, our Political Existence as a nation; our excellent form of government… the whole order of our Civil Society; and our Religion’. John Whitehouse explained the ‘aim of the

72 73

74 75

Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706, p. 7; Knaggs, A Sermon… August the 19th. 1708, p. 6; Robert Richardson, A Discourse… 5th of May 1763, p. 20. John Clarke, A Sermon… First of June, 1802 (Woodbridge, n.d.), p. 9; William Goode, The God of Salvation, a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, 1805), p. 9; Samuel Pearce, Motives to Gratitude: a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Birmingham, n.d.), p. 20. Emphases in the originals. Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702, p. 6; Evans, The Being and Benefits… Septemb. 7 [1704], p. 19. Henry Stephens, A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708 (Oxford, 1708), p. 10; Charles Trimnell, A Sermon… Feb. 17. 1708 [1709] (London, 1709), p. 3.

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adversary was aggrandisement, increase of territory, and the erection of a new form of government upon the ruin of all others’ and he countered ‘With us, the object in view was the preservation of our present constitution, of our laws and liberties, on one side, it was a war of dominion and conquest; on the other, of security and defence.’ For William Odell, the conflict against Napoleon was ‘a just and necessary war… a war which involves… the liberties of Europe… and our best and dearest interests in particular… He has not only made different attempts to invade us, but has, by the worst of means, endeavoured to achieve our destruction.’76 Acceptance of the providential nature of warfare and battle also informed arguments regarding just war. Thanksgiving-day sermons show a powerful conviction in divine intervention on Britain’s behalf throughout the long eighteenth century, and this perception of God’s endorsement and support justified the causes that Britain fought for. The victory at the Battle of Blenheim showed John Dubourdieu ‘That God is pleased at last to Justifie the Conduct of his Providence’, and, to Thomas Reynolds, subsequent victories showed ‘God favour’d a righteous Cause’.77 In Massachusetts in 1763, East Apthorp maintained the results of the Seven Years’ War ‘have been so overruled by a propitious Providence, as to effect the great ends of God’s moral government’. Amos Adams concurred, seeing ‘Prosperity in a Just War is a great Blessing of Providence’. According to Thomas Bowen in 1798, for actions in battle to succeed, ‘it is necessary that the cause… be such as may interest the Providence of God. Impious, brutal force may succeed for a while, but cannot ultimately prevail.’78 This view suggested that battle was both trial and judgement. ‘War is to Kingdoms, what Lawsuits are to particular Societies and Families’, ‘an Appeal to God to give… a Decision of such Controversys between Princes and States, as cannot be otherwise determin’d for want of sufficient Arbiters on Earth’, and ‘the events of war are conducted and over-ruled by a higher hand than the arm of flesh’.79 In 1759 James Johnson told the House of Lords ‘War itself is an acknowledgement of the power of God; as it is an appeal to him for a decision of the rights of nations… His hand directs the events of battles, and the revolutions of empires.’ Based on this theory, victory confirmed the righteousness of both the cause and the triumphant nation. Thomas Bradbury assured his audience in 1710 that ‘we may look upon the late Victories in Spain and Flanders, as an Evidence that God yet goes forth with our Armies, and will be the residue of his People as in the former Years’.80 As Thomas

76 77 78

79 80

Sturges, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798, p. 12; John Whitehouse, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Doncaster, 1802), p. 5; Odell, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805, pp. 7–8. John Dubourdieu, A Sermon… 7th Day of September… [1704] (London, 1704), p. 4; Reynolds, The Wisdom… November 22d, 1709, p. 34. East Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times. A Sermon… XI August, MDCCLXIII (Boston, MA, 1763), p. 20; Adams, Songs of Victory… October 25, 1759, p. 8; Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798, p. 11. Benjamin Loveling, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, n.d.), p. 8; Stennett, A Sermon… February 17. 1708/9, p. 17; Walker, ‘Sermon XVIII…. Nov. 29. 1759’, p. 417. James Johnson, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), p. 6; Thomas Bradbury, A Sermon… Novemb. 7. 1710 (London, 1710), p. 9 (the reference is to Isaiah 28: 5).



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Bowen asserted in 1798, ‘there never existed a more illustrious example of the efficacy of courage in a good cause, than the compleat success, with which divine Providence has crowned the arms of our Sovereign, upon the distant shores of Egypt’. That same year the rector of Little Plumstead in Norfolk, William Leigh, in turn, noted ‘of the destruction and capture of the French fleet by Admiral Lord Nelson, it may be justly maintained, that under all circumstances of the case, it hath the appearance of a peculiar interposition of Providence’.81 There were a few preachers, however, who pointed out that God could use battles to achieve a different result and message. In 1704, after the victory at Blenheim, Edward Fowler announced: Victory is far from being secured to the Righteous Cause… none have ever been more famous for their Conquests, than the very worst of Men… But is it possible that their Victories should be from God’s right-hand too…?… I answer, that it is not only possible that God should do these Things, but it is certain he doth them;… And those who have the Righteous Cause must lay the whole Blame in Themselves, when ever God sideth with their Enemies; for he does it… when their Lives are as bad, as their Cause is good.

For Thomas Simpson, Nelson’s death at Trafalgar was not ‘any proof of God’s wrath against the brave Admiral himself ’, but it was ‘a proof of his anger against the nation that has lost him’.82 Ideas about war and commentary upon British military successes were a prominent and prevalent element of thanksgiving-day sermons in the long eighteenth century. The discussion of British warfare ranged from notification and remarks on specific battles, to the assessment of the significance of particular victories; from the characteristics of national forces and the actions of heroic military figures, to a justification of the causes being fought for. In all of this, war was presented as a significant means of weighing and demonstrating British aptitude, success, and character from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The battles of the period had an important role in the way that ideas about the nation, its purpose, and its achievements were portrayed. In this way, thanksgiving preachers assured their audiences that warfare and victories were intimately linked with the righteousness of Britain and of its principles.

81 82

Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798, p. 16; William Leigh, A Sermon… November 29th, 1798 (Bath, 1799), p. 18. Fowler, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704, p. 8; Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805, p. 14.

7 Costs of war and consequences of peace While the celebration of military success was the predominant response to war in the thanksgiving-day sermons, this was not the only attitude represented, with some preachers pointing to its adverse impacts. Summarising the effects of the recent conflict in Ireland, in 1695 John Travers reminded his congregation at St Andrew’s in Dublin of ‘the Ruins, and Devastations, the Wrongs and Oppressions, the Rapine and Violence, the Poverty and Complaining, the Blood and Slaughter that attended it’. Travers concluded ‘It stampt much the same impression upon our Land, that the Army of Locusts and Caterpillars did upon that of the late Jews; it found it like a Garden of Eden, but left it a desolate Wilderness.’ At the end of the eighteenth century, Richard Hardy told his University of Cambridge audience that war was ‘one of the calamities… inflicted by the angry Deity upon a sinful Nation’ and asserted that war was ‘a national calamity [that] originates in national crime’. Hardy was incredulous ‘that a Nation then should be so blind to it’s own sins, as even to applaud itself under the idea of it’s being engaged in a just War’. In the midst of celebrations of Trafalgar, Richard Warner accused preachers, publishers, and the government of promoting this ‘unhappy war’, noting that ‘Our press has for years teemed with fast and thanksgiving sermons, chiefly made up of bitter invectives against our foes; or of abuse by implication, in irritating comparisons between our own worth and their abominations.’1 Though those who directly criticised British involvement in and celebration of warfare were a small minority, there were many other thanksgiving-day preachers who did mention the costs of war. This recognition included acknowledgement of the effects of war on the soldiers and sailors who were doing the actual fighting, as well as on those left behind and on those who returned from war, the societal results of war, the costs of funding warfare, and the economic impact of war. In addition to sermons that hailed victories, those that acknowledged or even criticised the costs of war contributed to the ongoing impression that military actions made on British society during the long eighteenth century.

1

John Travers, A Sermon… 8th Day of October, 1695 (Dublin, n.d.), p. 3; Richard Hardy, A Sermon… Dec.19, 1797 (Cambridge, 1798), pp. 8, 9–10; Richard Warner, National Blessings… a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Bath, 1806), p. vii.



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Blood and death: the human costs to the nation Many preachers reminded their audiences of the benefits that accrued from the British Isles not being the site of direct warfare. In these reminders, people were given a clear sense of the damage war caused. Thus, when Simon Paget, rector of Truro in Cornwall, recognised that Britain was not ‘in the midst of war’ in 1697, he expounded on the fact that ‘We have no Streams of Blood running down our Streets, nor Flames of Fire clasping about our Houses, nor our Husbands, our Wives, our Children either famished or slain.’ At St George the Martyr in Southwark at the end of the next century, William Mann similarly noted ‘while the earth has been drenched in blood… we have lived in peace at home. No ruffian bands have plundered our houses; nor have our wives and daughters been violated in our presence – There has been no massacre among our priests; nor have our altars been stained with blood.’ Preaching to the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London in 1759, James Townley, rector of St Benet Gracechurch with St Leonard Eastcheap, expressed his thankfulness that ‘While other Nations have suffered by Scarcity, while their Land has been drenched with Blood, and their Fields have languished and mourned… our Folds have been full of Sheep; our Vallies have stood so thick with Corn, that they have laughed and sung.’2 Four years later George Davis also described how war ‘ravages all before it, defaces the beauties of nature, depopulates whole countries, and spreads ruin and desolation on every side’, and in 1814 Henry Manning listed the details of wars, effects on a country, including ‘the cessation of employment; the diminution of its population; the destruction of its buildings;… the altered manners, and mournful solemnity, of its inhabitants… The visage of Nature is defaced; the labours and the sports are equally gone; – the inhabitants are no more!’3 Throughout the period, preachers used such descriptions of the effects of war elsewhere to remind Britons of the blessings of its absence at home. Sermons also pointed to the contributions of those who were fighting British battles abroad. Unlike the commemorations of heroism, these messages focussed on the less glorious consequences of warfare. When John Black acknowledged the debates and divisions that war was causing at home in 1797, he was still quick to invoke a ‘support the troops’ message by asserting ‘there can be but one opinion as to the conduct of our fleets and armies:…. they have deserved our highest praise, and sincerest gratitude’. Though commenting on government forces who fought in the Jacobite rebellion, the recognition given in the anonymous Gratitude to God (1746) could be applied to the soldier’s lot more generally: ‘Great Part of these Men cheerfully engaged in his Majesty’s Service to defend the Lives, Liberties, and Properties of their rich Fellow-Subjects, who liv’d in ease and Plenty, whilst they endured the Fatigues of a Winter-Campaign, and the Miseries of Cold, Hunger, and Midnight

2

3

Simon Paget, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1698), p. 18; William Mann, A Sermon… November 29th, 1798 (London, n.d.), pp. 8–9; James Townley, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), p. 18. George Davis, A Sermon… Fifth of May, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 12; Henry Manning, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], in Three Sermons (Thetford, 1814), pp. 13–14.

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Watchings.’4 On the occasion of peace in the early nineteenth century, Robert Hall also reflected on soldiers’ experiences, observing that ‘a very small portion of a military life is spent in actual combat’, and instead ‘More are consumed by the rust of inactivity than by the edge of the sword; confined to a scanty or unwholesome diet, exposed to sickly climates, harassed with tiresome marches and perpetual alarms; their life is a continual scene of hardships and dangers.’ In 1709 Thomas Reynolds declared ‘Our Soldiers are grown weary of the Tediousness and infinite Fatigues of War. They long to go home, that they may reap the Fruits of Peace they are purchasing at the Price of their Blood.’5 Not surprisingly, preachers often reminded their audiences of the cost in lives that British wars exacted. At the termination of one war, in 1713, George Hooper delineated the British contribution that had been made ‘in the Cause of the Continent’, which included having ‘fought so many glorious Battles, and bestowed so many thousands of lives, and Millions of Mony upon it’. On another thanksgiving for a peace treaty, in 1802 John Williams, the vicar of Wellsbourn in Warwickshire, left the issue of the financial burdens ‘to the Statesmen’, limiting his attention, ‘with devout contrition and awakened sensibility, to the horrid guilt of blood’.6 In 1695 Christopher Wyvill expressed the need to ‘pay a just deference, and an honourable respect to the memory of those worthy Persons whom the hand of the Enemy hath unfortunately slain in this War’. For a more immediate sense of the impact, on the last page of the printed version of his 1760 sermon John Mellen listed individually the men lost from his Massachusetts parish since 1755.7 After a period of two decades of war, in 1814 Thomas Langdon found cause to exclaim ‘What rivers of human blood have been shed! What numbers of our fellow men, in the prime of life, have, in the course of each succeeding campaign, fallen victims to the devouring sword, and been hurried headlong into eternity!’ For Thomas Jervis, even final victory over Napoleon was ‘too dearly purchased… What rivers of blood have flowed to glut the greedy and voracious ambition of the great ones of the earth.’8 Some were more measured in their assessment of the human costs of warfare. In 1760 Samuel Woodward conceded ‘It’s true, the War has cost us the Lives of many brave Men of Importance in the Commonwealth, which in a single View is Matter of Grief ’, but he went on to claim ‘our Losses, considering our Atchievements, have still been inconsiderable… Your Friends have died in a glorious Cause, 4

5

6 7 8

John Black, ‘A Sermon,… 19th. December, 1797’, in Political Calumny Refuted (Ipswich, n.d.), p. 15; Anonymous, Gratitude to God… A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (London, 1746), pp. 8–9. Robert Hall, Reflections… A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1825; sixth edition), pp. 12–13; Thomas Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. 44. George Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), p. 12; John Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), pp. 7–8. Christopher Wyvill, A Sermon… 22d of September, 1695 (London, 1695), p. 13; John Mellen, A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), p. [47]. Thomas Langdon, God Maketh Wars to Cease. A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Leeds, n.d.), p. 6; Thomas Jervis, God the Author… A Sermon… January 18, MDCCCXVI (London, 1816), p. 14.



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and your other Children live to inherit the happy Fruits of their Services.’ In 1698 John Howe described the paradox of war, ‘that… to Cut Off and Destroy by multitudes so Precious Things as Humane Lives, is Tragical and Horrid, not to do it is so much Worse!’ Discussing lives lost in battle in the early years of war with revolutionary France, Thomas Bowen conveyed comparable sentiments, asserting ‘their fall requires not consolation. The debt which they owed to Nature, they have paid to their Country. They died contending for all that is valuable to man; they died in a solemn act of duty, and they have not died in vain.’9 Loathe to take such a view at that time, instead Samuel Pearce criticised those who took any joy in the destruction of lives, even of their enemies, declaring the person ‘who can take pleasure at the destruction of his fellow man, is a cannibal at heart; and for him New Zealand is a more fit habitation than civilized Europe’. Likewise, in 1814 John Evans wondered at the ‘propensity to exult in victory at the destruction of a large portion of the human species’.10 Emphasis on war’s effects elsewhere did not mean that sermons neglected to discuss the direct results war did have on the nation. Those distant circumstances were brought home more fully by the impact within Britain of the loss of life and injuries suffered abroad. In 1704 William King argued for better treatment of soldiers, asserting they should not be ‘sent to Beg or suffer’d to Starve when the War was over;… we ought… not leave a Man Maim’d and Lamed in the service of his Country to common Charity, nor the Children of the Slain to be Vagabonds. We owe them a better return.’ Samuel Henshall, rector of St Mary Stratford Bow in London, repeated those same sentiments a century later, asking ‘Shall wounded suffering Mariners, our Proveditors and Defenders… [and] the infant Offspring, or bemoaning Widows, of our gallant Officers and Seamen, cry in vain for Help in Britain? – God forbid!’11 David Brichan clearly accounted Trafalgar ‘no bloodless victory’, observing that ‘many sleep in death’s cold embrace, upon whose exertions, the aged parent, the fond partner, the now helpless, perhaps infant, family depended for subsistence. Many a hardy seaman who has fought the battles of his country, has received wounds which throw him for support upon the generosity of the public.’ Nicely summing up these feelings, in 1798 William M’Kechnie confessed that his ‘heart bleeds even when the news of a victory are announced… when I consider the dreadful concomitants of it, --- the dire calamities that usually follow in the train of Mars, the execrable parent of victory’.12 The losses suffered by families of the slain were often mentioned. In marking a peace treaty in 1697, William Gallaway, a chaplain in the army, applauded the fact 9

10 11 12

Samuel Woodward, A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), pp. 29–30; John Howe, A Sermon… Decemb. 2. 1697 (London, 1698), p. 6; Thomas Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 20. Samuel Pearce, Motives to Gratitude: a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Birmingham, n.d.), pp. 18–19; John Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 18. William King, A Sermon… 7th. of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 25; Samuel Henshall, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (London, 1805), p. 8. David Brichan, A Sermon… Fifth of December, 1805 (London, 1806), p. 27; William M’Kechnie, Nelson’s Victory… A Discourse [1798] (Edinburgh, 1799), p. 14.

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that ‘There shall be no more Weeping Mothers, nor Distress’d Orphans, the Effects of Cruel and Deadly War.’ In the midst of the next war, a decade later Thomas Knaggs regretted that ‘the boundless Ambition of the Common Enemy shou’d occasion so many poor Orphans and Widows, and bring so many Men to Death’. Though commenting that the country had avoided harm from having battles fought on British soil, in 1802 John Garnett recognised the effect of war ‘has been and must continue to be severely felt by all descriptions of our fellow-subjects; and there are few families who have not to lament the loss of some of their dearest members, or most valuable connections’.13 Thomas Comber had a more unique way of assessing an ongoing domestic cost in 1697, asserting ‘in War our Sons are slain with the Sword,… and consequently our Daughters are not given in Marriage. The Women who are said, to build their Husbands Houses… and might increase Families, are carelessly thrown by Times of War, to the great decrease of the succeeding Generation.’ Appropriate to his role as chaplain to the Asylum for Female Orphans in London, William Agutter prefaced his 1797 sermon by noting that the ‘children of soldiers and sailors who have fallen in the present war are admitted at an earlier age than others’ to his institution. Near the end of his sermon a year later, Thomas Rennell reminded his audience of the responsibilities they had to the parents, widows, and orphans of those who were killed in the recent battles.14 John Blakeway worried that the national mourning for Nelson distracted from ‘the sorrow of many a private family for sons and brothers, as dear to them, and equally brave no doubt, though not so distinguished’. At the end of the eighteenth century Thomas Tayler emphasised that the costs of war were borne by ‘all classes of people… and many persons and families have suffered grievously under the loss of their dearest earthly connections and friends’, and William Nesfield suspected ‘scarcely is there a family in this kingdom which has not to lament the loss of some relation, who has fallen an untimely victim of the wasteful ravages of destructive war’.15 Awareness of the loss of life and the effects on those left behind led to calls for charity for casualties of war and for the families of those killed in battle. Such appeals were especially prevalent at the end of the eighteenth and into the early nineteenth century, and sermons in those years made repeated requests for charitable giving for soldiers, sailors, and the families they left behind. In 1798 John King mentioned ‘the numerous subscriptions during the war, for the relatives of those who have fallen in their country’s cause… the public spirit shews itself in numerous classes by voluntary

13

14

15

William Gallaway, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… Dec. IId. 1697 (London, 1697), p. 20; Thomas Knaggs, A Sermon… August the 19th. 1708 (London, 1708), p. 11; John Garnett, A Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (Winchester, 1802), p. 5. Thomas Comber, A Sermon… Second of December… [1697] (London, 1697), p. 4; William Agutter, Deliverance… A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 17n.; Thomas Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 19–20. John Blakeway, National Benefits… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), p. 12; Thomas Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 16; William Nesfield, ‘[Sermon I]’, in Two Sermons… the First on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1797 (Durham, n.d.), p. 6.



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contributions of the most liberal kind’. Making use of Nelson’s heroic status after the Battle of Trafalgar, Samuel Smalpage, vicar of Whitkirk in Yorkshire, called for contributions for those who had been wounded, widowed, and orphaned, declaring the country ‘expected something from them, more than it expects from you; and it was not disappointed: let it not be disappointed in what it expects from you’, paraphrasing Nelson’s signal to the fleet before the battle (‘England expects every man to do his duty’). In his sermon, Hugh Pearson described the establishment of the Patriotic Fund in the early nineteenth century ‘for the purpose of relieving our brave seamen and soldiers who have been disabled, and the families of those who have fallen in this great conflict’, and he urged his congregation to consider contributing it.16 In addition to general calls for charity, some more specific requests were made. In 1814 several preachers called for charitable giving to relieve the distress of those affected by war in German territory; another appealed for contributions to the ‘Naval and Military Bible Society’, which distributed ‘gratuitously, or at reduced prices, Bibles and Testaments among the Sailors of our Fleets and the Soldiers of our Armies’, noting that the organisation had received 15,000 requests that could not be granted because of a lack of funds.17 In their printed sermons some preachers reported on collections taken during the service. Hugh Worthington included an enthusiastic note that the contribution from his Salters’ Hall service in London on 5 December 1805 ‘exceeded eighty-one pounds’, and, from an earlier period, James Fortescue’s sermon during the Seven Years’ War mentioned a collection of clothing for French prisoners.18 Even the sermons themselves became instruments for raising money, with profits from printed versions being directed to charity, including specific donations to the Patriotic Fund and relief for the victims of the Battle of Leipzig (1813).19

16

17

18

19

John King, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Ipswich, n.d.), pp. 9–10; Samuel Smalpage, The Duty… a Sermon… December 5th, 1805 (Leeds, 1805), p. 20 and n.; Hugh Pearson, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (Oxford, 1814), pp. 29–30. The Patriotic Fund continues to exist as Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund: see ‘Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund’, www.lloyds.com/lloyds/ corporate-responsibility/charity/patriotic-fund (accessed 25 May 2016). John Clowes, ‘Sermon I’, in Two Sermons… The First… 7th of July, 1814 (Manchester, n.d.), ‘Prayer’ (no pag.) n.; Edward Vaughan, The Lesson… A Sermon… July 7 [1814] (Oxford, 1814), pp. 34–7; Edward Owen, A Sermon… 13th of January 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 18–19 and 18n. Hugh Worthington, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, n.d.), p. 27 (emphasis in the original); James Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Exeter, 1760), p. 29 and n. See for example, Christopher Hodgson, A Sermon… 19th Day of December, 1797 (Peterborough, 1798), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.); Thomas Grinfield, The Union… a Discourse… November 29, 1798 (Bristol, n.d.), half-title page; Tufton Scott, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), title page; George Burges, A Discourse… December 5, 1805 (Wisbech, 1806), p. 30; William Odell, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Limerick, 1805), title page; Pearson, A Sermon… January 13, 1814, pp. vii–viii; George Bates, Causes For… National Thanksgiving. A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.).

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The calls for charity also revealed underlying concerns about the social costs of war. There was special concentration on the impact that the hardships of war had on those at the lowest levels of society. An anonymous preacher noted that the negative economic impact of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion had had on ‘Many of the WorkingMen, a valuable Part of this Nation… [who] liv’d partly upon Credit, for want of Employment, and were obliged to leave their Families to publick Mercy’ and join the military, which ‘has occasion’d a great Calamity among the labouring Part of this Kingdom, and reduced many Families to a very low Ebb’. Richard Richmond commented on the same effect caused by the Seven Years’ War, seeing ‘the wealth of a nation in a great degree depends on… the number of it’s labourers and artificers: But of these the country was drain’d to recruit our exhausted armies.’20 Thomas Scott described how war with the American colonies had brought the nation low, especially leaving ‘its poor without employment, and burthened with taxes, left to the fatal necessity of starving, begging, or stealing’. In the first decade of the eighteenth century, John Adams lamented how costs of the conflict with France had worsened the plight ‘of many Sober and Industrious Families, that grow low in the World, only through want of Trade, Business, or [through] Dishonesty. If it be a Sin to extort from the Wealthy… what must it be to draw Excessive Sums from the Poor Honest Debtor, and Crush him and Imprison him when he can give no more?’21 In the early nineteenth century, Robert Hall saw war’s effects leading to an ‘augmentation of the price of the necessities of life, [which, though] inconvenient to all classes, falls with particular weight on the labouring poor’ who, because they had no savings to fall back on, ‘must carry their industry to market every day, and therefore cannot wait for that advance of price which gradually attaches to every other article. Of all people the poor are on this account the greatest sufferers by war.’ Richard Winter remembered, at the outset of the Seven Years’ War, ‘what a general Complaint there was among the Poor of the Land for want of Bread; so that the country was filled with Riots and Insurrections, upon the Apprehension of an artificial Famine’. Twenty-five years later, at the end of a much less successful war, fellow dissenter William Bennet told how war had particularly affected the ‘industrious poor’ because of a shortage of employment and because the cost of food staples were steadily increasing.22 Preachers were not just concerned about the impact of war on the labouring classes, but also on those above them on the social scale. Arguing that the rich would avoid paying the financial costs of war and the poor could not pay them, in 1784 William Keate, the rector of Piddle-Hinton in Dorset, contended that these would fall largely on ‘the middle class, the most useful, the most willing, and the most burdened part of the community’, which would lead them to ‘shrink from 20 21 22

Anon., Gratitude to God… October 9. 1746, pp. 8, 9; Richard Richmond, ‘A Sermon… May 5th, 1763’, in Sermons and Discourses (London, 1764), p. 170. Thomas Scott, A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached July 29, 1784 (Northampton, n.d.), p. 9; John Adams, A Sermon… Novemb. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 8. Hall, Reflections… June 1, 1802, p. 15; Richard Winter, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), p. 22; William Bennet, The Divine Conduct Reviewed, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 17.



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their oppressions, and seek for protection in other countries, where honest industry may be better encouraged, and patient merit more liberally rewarded’. In the final years of the eighteenth century, John Newton worried that the ‘decline of some manufactures, the increased taxes, the advanced price of most of the necessaries of life’ were not only being felt by ‘the industrious poor’, but also ‘by many families in the middling and lower classes of society’. Likewise, in 1763 William Stead, rector of Reigate in Surrey, blamed wartime stock market profiteering for new taxation, which in turn would see ‘the industrious Tradesmen, the Yeomanry, and the lower Gentry, the Nerves and Sinews of the state,… distressed and impoverished,… and the very vitals of the people squeezed out, to furnish the stakes in a gaming-house’.23 In addition to its impact on the social structure of the country, war also threatened the foundations of national character. In the mid-eighteenth century, George Davis contended that ‘War in itself is necessarily productive of license and disorder, and marks its way with no less havock in the moral, than in the natural world.’ Other preachers agreed. In 1814 John Strachan asserted that war ‘diverted the people from social duties… and corrupted their moral habits. The battles, sufferings, and privations, usually experienced in military service, harden the heart; and change the character not only of the people, but of the state itself.’ Perceiving ‘our credit has diminished; our character for upright integrity admits suspicion… our conduct has of late been such to forfeit those blessings of prosperity we have long enjoyed’, William Nesfield devoted the whole of his 1797 sermon to considering ‘the moral part of our conduct as a nation’.24 In several pages of his printed sermon at the end of the wars with Napoleonic France, Thomas Jervis reflected on ‘the moral effects of a state of war’ and ‘the consequences that must result from it to the manners of the people, and especially of the rising generation’. Jervis believed ‘Too many who are trained to the art of war, are early initiated in vice’, and in ‘the lower classes of society, the melancholy and mischievous effects of war are, if possible, still more deplorable… evinced in the frauds, thefts, robberies, burglaries, and felonies, in the suicides and murders, with the horrid accounts of which our journals are daily teeming’. Jervis concluded with the dire assessment that ‘A war of more than twenty years duration, in its moral influence on society, must have produced innumerable and incalculable mischiefs. And, as to the civil and political state of our country, these baleful consequences will be felt for a century to come.’25 The moral impact of war on society led to further harm to the nation. Sermons on occasions of peace treaties at the end of the seventeenth and the middle of the eighteenth centuries described how war endangered important British principles. Among the ‘Calamities of War’ Francis Gregory listed ‘Laws are Interrupted’, and, for Robert Drummond, war brought ‘the imminent danger continually hanging 23

24 25

William Keate, A Sermon… July 29th. 1784 (Bath, 1784), p. 24; John Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 29; William Stead, A Sermon… 5th of May, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 15–16. Davis, A Sermon… Fifth of May, 1763, p. 10; John Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814] (Montréal, 1814), p. 31; Nesfield, ‘[Sermon I, 1797]’, p. 5. Jervis, God the Author… A Sermon… January 18, MDCCCXVI, pp. 22, 23, 24 (emphasis in the original).

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over our Commerce, our Laws, our Liberties and our Religion’.26 During wartime, according to Nicholas Brady, ‘Liberty, the most precious Jewel of our Lives, is exposed to the Arbitrary Power of the Conqueror; and Property in time of War is nothing but a Name, since the longest Sword is the measure of Justice.’ Robert Wright characterised the War of the Austrian Succession as ‘a War that threatened us with Ruin and Desolation – with the Loss, not only of our Trade and Commerce, but, which is infinitely more valuable, of our Liberty and Religion, for the Enemies we had to deal with, would gladly have made a Prey of both’.27

Financial costs: taxes, debt, and commerce Though much was made of the need for the nation to support military causes, preachers often discussed the greatest impact war had on the home front: raising the financial means to fight. The significant role taxes played in the British home population’s experience of warfare was demonstrated by John Dawson, who in 1805 commented ‘The most that we, as a nation, know of war is through the medium of our newspapers, and the increase of taxes and expences which it brings upon us.’28 The wars of the long eighteenth century raised annual taxation and national debt in Britain to unprecedented levels. By the mid-1690s annual taxation was 150 per cent more than the pre-1689 levies and the annual deficit went from £250,000 to almost £5 million; after the Seven Years’ War the interest on the national debt accounted for about 60 per cent of the government’s annual budget, by the end of the American Revolutionary War this had increased to 66 percent, and the wars with France in the 1790s and early 1800s cost a total of over £1.6 billion.29 The impact these costs had was evident in thanksgiving-day sermons throughout the period. The sermons often recognised the serious and weighty financial imposition British wars placed on citizens. Though they largely displayed support for the taxation necessary to supply the wars being fought, concern and criticism about taxes can be inferred from the preachers’ reinforcement of the need to pay them. For example, in 1749 the Church of Scotland minister John Bisset suggested ‘If others complain of the national expence and debt contracted by an unsuccessful war, we have reason of thanksgiving, that in the kindness of providence, a stop is at present… to that expence, and a door is opened for the flourishing of trade and commerce, as in former times of peace.’ At the beginning of George I’s reign,

26

27 28 29

Francis Gregory, Oμιλια Ειρηνικη. Or, a Thanksgiving Sermon… The Second Day of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 13; Robert Drummond, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 6. Nicholas Brady, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… Decemb the 2d, 1697 (London, 1697), pp. 4–5; Robert Wright, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 5. John Dawson, England’s Greatness… a Sermon… Dec. 5, 1805 (Sheffield, 1805), p. 35. Tony Claydon, William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge, 1996), p. 13; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992), pp. 135–6, 150; Murray G.H. Pittock, Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685–1789 (New York, 1997), pp. 69–70, 73, 149.



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Richard Chapman recognised ‘’Tis True, we find additional Taxes, as well as Forces, (and those not without much Clamour and Evil-speaking:)… And, I dare say, all unprejudic’d Persons… will now own the utmost Necessity for both.’ Though John Martin noted in 1798 ‘Some are ready to tell us, that their wants are many, that their trade is diminished, and their taxes increased’, he urged ‘the burdened to recollect, that whatever promotes the general good of their country, must, if they are patient, peaceable, frugal, and industrious, issue in their favour’.30 As these comments show, preachers’ emphasis on the need to financially support the cause included admission of others’ criticisms of those policies. The message to pay taxes and fund the war was repeated often in thanksgiving-day pulpits. Some preachers, like the Congregational ministers George Mills in 1706 and Greville Ewing in 1798, turned to biblical justification (‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’) to encourage their audiences to submit to taxation readily, while in 1789 the Roman Catholic priest John Milner cited the legal authority William Blackstone to remind his congregation of their obligations.31 Others couched their messages in impassioned delineations of the necessity of money for war and the benefits received from the cause. William Perse stressed the need to prepare for war by accumulating material supplies, men, and ‘Money, the chiefest and strongest sinew of War’. In florid terms John Mackqueen described how the ‘Money of this Nation… comes from a living Spring, a great Stock of Wealth in the Body of the Kingdom, which issues streams as from a perpetual running Fountain, which refresh the adjacent Ground, and renew themselves in their Current, to the happy Succour of our Forces, and the Support of the Government.’ Mackqueen pointed to ‘a deep Fund within our selves, which is the Bulwark of the Nation, the Ligament of its Peace, and the Support of the War’, and he viewed the ‘Power of Commanders, the Policy of Statesmen, the exhorting Harrangues of Generals’ as ‘weak Movements to make soldiers march, brave Men fight, or even Canons batter strong Walls; for without Money you cannot set them to work’.32 To William Goldwin ‘a Nation, when compell’d, in defence of its Religion, Liberty and Trade, to have recourse to Arms, opens all its Veins of Blood and Treasure to pursue efforts against encroaching Power’, and he concluded that the ‘Prosperity of the State depends upon that of its Wars’. John Hough recounted the blessings of peace, liberty of conscience and 30

31

32

John Bisset, A Sermon… Twenty-Fifth Day of April, 1749,… (Aberdeen, 1749), p. 20; Richard Chapman, Good Kings… A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 10–11; John Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798 (London, 1799), pp. 29–30. Bisset is identified as a Church of Scotland minister in Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, Volume VI (Edinburgh, 1926), pp. 2–3, https://archive.org/details/fastiecclesiu06scotuoft (accessed 28 February 2015). George Mills, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (Norwich, 1707), p. 28; Greville Ewing, The Duty of Christians… 29th November, 1798 (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 24–5 (versions of this biblical passage can be found at Matthew 22: 21; Mark 12: 17; and Luke 20: 25); John Milner, A Sermon… April 23. 1789 (London, n.d.), p. 31 and n. William Perse, A Sermon… June 27th. 1706 (York, n.d.), p. 6; John Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon’ [1708], in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), pp. 98, 100.

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thought, and freedom from tyranny, which he asserted ‘have been preserv’d at a vast expence of Blood and Treasure’, but concluded ‘they have not been too deeply purchas’d’. It was the protection of ‘Distant possessions, an extensive commerce, and a wide range of coast’ that William Agutter pointed to, asking ‘Shall we not make some sacrifices to save our country, our religion, and our property? The burden of taxes must be borne by the great bulk of the people.’33 Many advised that the proper mindset and spirit of paying taxes was essential to proper thanksgiving for what was gained. At the end of the eighteenth century, John Sturges declared that everyone should ‘submit with chearfulness to the burthens, which the public necessities impose on us; and consider, that the War by which we are occasioned, is not… with us a matter of choice; that it threatens us with the loss of all our property, to prevent which we should in common prudence be ready to sacrifice a part’. At the outset of that century, Henry Stephens similarly reminded his audience ‘Tribute is due, that is just Tribute, which is necessary to keep off an insidious, formidable Enemy; and which is not extorted by violence from us, but is the generous Donation of a Loyall People.’34 William Mavor advised ‘Whatever burdens the necessities of the state impose upon us, and great and unexampled they undoubtedly are, let us bear them without reluctance, to the best of our abilities’ because ‘To keep the horrors of war from our borders is the sole aim of government; to gain us permanent security is the object to which all its exertions are directed.’ Paying taxes was ‘as little as we can do, who sit at home and enjoy the great Blessing of Peace’ according to Christopher Wyvill in 1695, ‘whilst… our Fellow Subjects, are hazarding their Lives abroad in fighting for us: and surely we may be very well pleased and contented, if by parting with our Money, we can keep the War at a distance from us’.35 Preachers emphasised submitting to taxation ‘patiently and thankfully’, with ‘Readiness and Dispatch’, ‘readily and liberally’, ‘freely and generously’, among other similar attitudes and sentiments.36 Despite this encouragement, and likely provoking it, concerns about the response to taxation and the financial burden of war were apparent. Though noting that the nation had not been exposed to the ‘immediate Fury’ of war’, in 1749 John Francis, curate at St Peter’s Mancroft in Norwich, observed ‘yet how have we thought the Taxes and Burthens it has occasioned, almost insupportable; how have they filled many of us with Murmur and Discontent, disregarding the Good we enjoyed’. In 1716 Edmund Gibson compared Britons to the Israelites ‘murmuring 33

34 35 36

William Goldwin, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 31st of Decemb. 1706 (London, 1707), p. 8; John Hough, A Sermon… 22d of November, 1709 (London, 1709), p. 5; Agutter, Deliverance… December 19th, 1797, p. 16. John Sturges, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, n.d.), pp. 18–19 (emphasis in the original); Henry Stephens, A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708 (Oxford, 1708), p. 14. William Mavor, The Duty… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Oxford, 1798), pp. 17–18; Wyvill, A Sermon… 22d of September, 1695, pp. 12–13. See for example, Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 229; William Marston, A Sermon… Seventeenth Day of February, 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 15; Reynolds, The Wisdom… November 22d, 1709, p. 43; Benjamin Lacy, A Sermon… 31th of December… [1706] (Exeter, 1707), pp. 18–19.



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and complaining’ against Moses ‘to magnify the Peace and Plenty of former Reigns, and to charge our Deliverer with involving us in a national Poverty and a hazardous War’.37 Others played on more patriotic sentiments. In 1797 Samuel Clapham asked ‘Shall we be so base to our country, shall we be so injurious to our families, as to be unwilling to contribute our money for the preservation of one, and the happiness of the other? Shall we be so unworthy of the name of Britons…? If you love your country, if you love your families, cease to murmur, cease to repine.’ Exhorting his audience to ‘chearfully pay our Share in Taxes laid on us for Support of King George’s Government, and not grumble at such well employed, and absolutely necessary Expence’ in 1746, William Wood then called for them to ‘think honourably of all true Britons… of all religious sects and Denominations, who have… made their Hands and their Purses, as well as their Tongues, subservient to the good Inclinations of their Hearts’.38 Acknowledgement of the reluctance to contribute, along with the recommendation to do so, were expressed in a variety of ways. In his sermon to ‘A Country Congregation’, Adam Gordon warned ‘As ignorant, and uneducated men, you may be seduced to believe these supplies are raised for the king’s sole use…. But in this case, the fund is a common fund, levied and employed for the public good… to prevent our ancient and implaccable foes, from plundering us of all, and ejecting us from the very scale of empire.’ Gordon concluded ‘It would be worse than death to every real Briton, to become the slave of France, and every means must be exerted to counteract so dire an evil.’ A hundred years earlier Nicholas Brady likened ‘those contributions which we bore with such uneasiness’ to ‘Physical Potions to a Distemper’d Body, however wholsom they were, yet were still unpalatable’.39 In celebrating the victory at Blenheim, John Mackqueen told people not to ‘murmur or repine at any necessary Charges they are put to for the necessary Supply or support of Government;… what our Governors enjoin us to pay, and we chearfully bestow, is like those Clouds exhaled from the Earth by the Sun, which are return’d in plentiful Showers to fertilize the Ground’. Interestingly, five years later, Mackqueen was not so optimistic about the taxation associated with an ongoing war, admitting that at times ‘our Hearts faint, we shrink under the Continuance of this bloody and expensive War, which is like to drain these Kingdoms of Men and Money: And I believe if we speak sincerely, it is ebbing, tho’ not low Water with us.’ Mackqueen mustered enough resolve to advise ‘as fond as we are of Freedom from the Charges and Incumbrances which attend the War, yet we must not… entrench on the Privileges of Heaven, but wait his Leisure, at whose disposing are times and Seasons of War and Peace’.40 37

38 39 40

John Francis, ‘Sermon II…. April the 25th, 1749’, in Sermons Preached on Several Occasions, Volume I (London, 1773), p. 48; Edmund Gibson, The Deliverances… A Sermon… June 7, 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 12–13. Samuel Clapham, A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (Leeds, n.d.), p. 15; William Wood, Britain’s Joshua. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1746), pp. 20, 23. Adam Gordon, Due Sense… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 17; Brady, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… Decemb the 2d, 1697, p. 8. John Mackqueen, ‘A Sermon… 7th of September, 1704’, in British Valour… Some

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Another approach preachers used throughout the long eighteenth century was to compare the situation in Britain with the plight of other countries. Alexander Gerard celebrated that ‘We have exhausted the treasures of our enemies, and broken their power; but our riches are not diminished, our force is not weakened.’ Charles Lamb praised the ‘cheerfulness and dispatch [with which] Supplies are first given, and the raised’ in Britain, ‘while other Potentates are dilatory and tedious, and at last oblig’d to wring them from the unwilling hands of an Impoverish’d People’. The Welsh rector of Llanbister in Radnorshire, David Lloyd, prefaced the printed version of his sermon by stating his purpose to contrast the advantages and privileges of Britain with nations on the continent in order ‘to conciliate our minds, and reconcile us to those Burdens, which, at the present crisis of affairs, Administration finds it necessary to impose’. Later in his sermon, Lloyd deemed ‘our burdens light compared to theirs’, and he thought ‘it “a reasonable service,” to give a part of our property to the state, to secure the whole’.41 In a note to his sermon, George Thomas contended that in Britain ‘there are but very few taxes of which the laborious class of the community can reasonably complain’ but ‘In other countries, besides a pole tax, which still exists in several northern states of Europe, almost every other species of food is taxed and in Holland was subject to high excise duties.’ Gilbert Burnet declared ‘Plenty at home made us easy under all the Charge of War… while our Neighbours… were much pressed… under those vast Impositions that lay on them’.42 The role that parliament and the monarch played in approving and legitimising levies was another argument in favour of taxation for war. In 1746 William Warburton noted that in ‘A free State, the public Subsidies are the Act of the Legislature, and so, of Course, the voluntary Contribution of the People.’ Earlier in the century William Elstob reminded his audience of the importance of proper financial policy to provide ‘those Sinews of War, the ready Supplies of Mony and necessary Provision’, which was due to ‘the management of a well-order’d Treasury, a thing which England can now more than ever boast of ’.43 Much was made of the willingness and the unanimity of parliament in granting necessary supplies to fight. Simon Patrick told the House of Lords in 1691 that it was a ‘matter of Joy… that however some particular Persons may be ill affected, the Body of the People… by their Representatives, are unanimously disposed to grant his Majesty a Supply as large as his Desires’ for the continuance of the war. In 1709 Thomas Manningham proclaimed the ‘unanimous Resolves of our Parliament, make as loud a Report as our

41

42 43

Discourses (London, 1715), p. 53; John Mackqueen, ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon… 17th of February, 1708’ [1709], in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), pp. 140, 141. Alexander Gerard, National Blessings… A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (Aberdeen, 1759), pp. 7–8; Charles Lamb, England Happy… A Sermon… December the 31st, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 14; David Lloyd, England’s Privileges: A Thanksgiving Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Hereford, 1797), ‘Advertisement’ (no pag.), p. 11 (emphasis in the original). George Thomas, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (n.p., 1802), p. 34n.1; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1698), p. 10. William Warburton, A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving [1746] (London, 1746), p. 34; William Elstob, A Sermon Upon the Thanksgiving For the Victory… Near Hochstet [1704] (London, 1704), p. 18.



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Cannon… for they animate our whole Confederacy with a new Soul of additional Strength, continually circulating in larger and larger Supplies’. For Christopher Mays the harmony between the king, the Lords, and the Commons in the middle of the century ‘incites the whole body of the People, with their purses, their hands, and their hearts, to join in the common defence’.44 There was also stress upon the quality of wise parliamentary decision-making. ‘In every tax which is laid, and every burthen which is imposed on the country, how far… your welfare will be affected and your interest injured,’ Samuel Clapham assured his audience in 1797, ‘is always a subject of minute enquiry, and of serious discussion. The Legislature, with a sparing hand, and reluctant touch, enhances the price of those articles which are necessary to your support, and indispensible to your consumption.’ A hundred years before this Vincent Alsop gave thanks ‘that God has blessed the King with Wise Senators, who… have supported him with great indeed, but necessary Supplies’.45 The right of monarchs, along with their ability and good judgement in handling their finances, was used to ease resentment against taxation for warfare. Reinforcing William III’s position on the throne, Francis Gregory asserted that subjects had ‘to submit to his Laws, to furnish him with necessary Supplies,… and to obey his just Commands’. To describe William’s care with taxation, Gilbert Burnet hearkened back to the days of Queen Elizabeth, when ‘the Purses of the Subject were that happy Queen’s never-failing Treasure, who reckoned that their Money was never more their own, and never better placed, nor better imployed, than when it was in the Queen’s Hands’.46 Confirming this in Anne’s reign, Thomas Freke listed ‘Paying Tribute’ as one of a subject’s duties to the monarch, because ‘God has set them apart, as Ministers for the Common Good of the People, and therefore ’tis but Justice they should be maintain’d and supported by them, especially when the pressing Occasions of a Righteous War do require it’. Several preachers also noted that Anne had given royal revenue from crown lands to help supply the army and navy.47 In the first months of George I’s reign, Samuel Wright was already reminding his congregation in BlackFriars that the obligation ‘to Honour the King is faithfully and willingly to pay those Duties and Taxes which are legally fix’d, and legally demanded, for the Support of his Dignity and Government’. In the mid-century, William Henry told his audience in Urney in Ireland that there was no reason to doubt that George II would use ‘all frugal Care… in lessening Taxes, and reducing the publick Debt; that in case of our being again attacked, the Sinews of War may 44

45

46 47

Simon Patrick, A Sermon… 26th of Novemb…. [1691] (London, 1691), p. 24; Thomas Manningham, A Sermon… 17th of February [1709] (London, 1709), p. 11; Christopher Mays, A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), p. 22. Clapham, A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797, pp. 21–2; Vincent Alsop, Duty and Interest… a Sermon… Sept. 8. 1695 (London, 1695), p. 19. See also for example, Wyvill, A Sermon… 22d of September, 1695, p. 12; Warburton, A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving [1746], p. 32; Ball, The Evil Effects of War, pp. 19–20. Francis Gregory, A Thanksgiving Sermon [1696] (London, 1696), p. 10; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 19th Day of October, 1690 (London, 1690), pp. 24–5. Thomas Freke, Prayers and Thanksgivings… a Sermon… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), pp. [2], 20; Samuel Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 23; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… February 17. 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 20.

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not be wanting, nor the Nation become Bankrupt’.48 At the beginning of the next reign Charles Cowper affirmed that peace had been negotiated because the king was ‘truly sensible of the heavy Burthen and the dismal Ravages of a most expensive and destructive War’. Over thirty-five years into George III’s reign, Samuel Clapham felt the need to reassure his audience that ‘confidence is very justly due to his Majesty’s Ministers, and a cooperation with them… [is] an indispensible duty… of all by cheerfully contributing our several proportions towards the national interest and welfare’.49 While much effort was expended in endorsing the need for taxation because of British wars in the long eighteenth century, there were preachers who did give voice to complaints about taxation. Some sermons simply acknowledged the heavy weight of taxes, but others contained outright criticism of taxation policies. Only three years after William and Mary took the throne, Samuel Barton recognised the souring of the mood of thanksgiving because of ‘too many amongst us… feeling some present pressures… when… The Nation is exhausted and impoverish’d, drain’d of Men and Money. Trade decay’d, and Taxes at such a height, that the Country cannot pay ’em, and a War still going on, which we cannot see the end of.’ While Barton attempted to assuage such concerns by saying they should be compared to the misfortunes of other countries, his clear enumeration of sentiments in the country suggested he sympathised. Though Willam Bear, the vicar of Abbotsham in Devon, had the benefit of speaking after the next conflict had ended, in Anne’s reign, he did give voice to war weariness, affirming ‘we cannot but know (tho’ we are loath to remember) what a vast deal of Blood and Treasure hath been spilt and spent in this tedious, cruel and expensive War… how severely have some amongst us felt the Effects of it, and Poverty, like an armed Man, hath overtaken them!’ From the same vantage point, George Hooper used a medical analogy to recount how money had flowed out of the country like ‘transfused Blood’ running ‘so freely from the whole Body of the Kingdom, and by so many open’d Veins, that though the Patient might not yet be sensible of the Loss, the skilful had Reason to apprehend a fatal Deliquium’.50 British wars largely subsided through George I’s and the first part of George II’s reign, but complaints were renewed by the later 1740s. Hugh Farmer described the War of the Austrian Succession as evidence of divine displeasure with the nations, and maintained ‘If we prove grateful, he will be intreated to put an End to the expensive War in which we are engaged.’ Preaching to the Lord Mayor and aldermen

48

49 50

Samuel Wright, Of Honouring the King. A Sermon… Jan. 20. 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 13; William Henry, The Advantages… A Sermon… 25th Day of April 1749 (London, 1749), p. 34. Charles Cowper, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (York, 1763), pp. 13–14; Clapham, A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797, p. 14. Samuel Barton, A Sermon… Octob. 27th 1692 (London, 1692), p. 25; William Bear, The Blessing of Peace… a Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (Exeter, 1713), p. 13; Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713, p. 13. A ‘deliquium’ is a fainting spell or a failure of vital powers: ‘deliquium, n.1.’, OED Online (Oxford University Press, June 2016), www.oed.com/view/ Entry/49438?rskey=0JyqeR&result=1&isAdvanced=false (accessed 13 August 2016).



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of Oxford at the end of that war, Benjamin Kennicott found it unsurprising ‘that, in the course of so long a War, the Wealth even of this rich and mighty Nation should be found to fail… No wonder that Contrivances for raising Supplies were grown very difficult.’51 The peace following the Seven Years’ War brought similar appraisals. William Stead observed how the war had led to the accumulation of the national debt, the payment of which ‘leaned heavily on the best part of the subjects, the industrious, the commercial, and the landed’. Remarking that he did not know ‘what kind of security arises to Government from its being in debt’, Stead went on to characterise the country as ‘crouching under a debt which would have astonished our forefathers, and may be allowed to alarm us’.52 Richard Richmond lamented the amount of blood and treasure that had been spilled, and declared the charge incurred ‘unequall’d, and unheard of in former wars’, and he surmised that only a period of prolonged peace would prevent it ‘from being severely felt by generations yet unborn’. Simon Reader said the end of the war had averted ‘loading us with still more enormous Debt’, and Edward Sandercock simply proclaimed ‘War is impoverishing’, and went on to explain how, in order to pay off the debt (which he placed at £120 million) and its interest, either new taxes had to be levied or old ones increased.53 A concentrated condemnation of the money and taxes spent to fight a war came in the sermons to mark the end of the war with the American colonies. William Bennet exclaimed ‘What immense treasures have been expended in the prosecution of it! And how hath it brought upon us an accumulation of taxes, which is almost insupportable; so that invention is now in the rack in devising methods to answer the exigencies of state!’ George Pretyman told the House of Commons ‘This oppressed country already totters under the enormous weight of its public debt… These burdens… have been gradually increasing during the whole of this century; and… it is incontestably obvious that we cannot bear a perpetual increase of debt’, though Pretyman then softened this line of argument by suggesting that the nation’s resources were not yet entirely exhausted. George Walker labelled the war ‘a sad tale of ruined armies, humbled fleets, empire lost, sinking commerce, dissipated treasure, oppressive taxes, factious politics, with every symptom of national decline’, and he claimed ‘a national bankruptcy stares us in the face… the increasing weight of taxes sits heavy upon all, and wrings from many a one, the penny which he knows not how to spare’.54

51

52 53

54

Hugh Farmer, The Duty of Thanksgiving… a Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746), pp. 30–1; Benjamin Kennicott, The Duty… A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 15. Stead, A Sermon… 5th of May, 1763, p. 11. Richmond, ‘A Sermon… May 5th, 1763’, pp. 169–70; Simon Reader, Thanksgiving and Prayer… A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763 (London, n.d.), p. 13; Edward Sandercock, A Sermon Preach’d May the 5th, 1763 (York, 1763), p. 17. Bennet, The Divine Conduct Reviewed,… July 29, 1784, p. 13; George Pretyman, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), pp. 16–17, 18–19; George Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), pp. 24, 31.

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The two decades of war from the 1790s to the mid-1810s brought similar comment on the level of taxation needed to sustain them. In addition to regretting the duration of warfare and the already mounting loss of life by 1797, Abraham Jobson bemoaned ‘the Expences of the War. Taxes, year after year, have so multiplied upon us, that a considerable part of the Income of the more wealthy, must be appropriated to the Exigencies of the State. And none can fix a limit to the demands, which Parliament may yet impose.’ From the perspective of a brief interlude of peace in 1802, Henry Courtenay described British efforts as leading to ‘the blood and treasure of the nation unfortunately lavished away upon unsuccessful alliances’, and William Abdy noted ‘our nation hath severely suffered, and we cannot expect for a considerable time to be wholly eased of the burdens which so long, so arduous, and so unequal a contest, hath necessarily brought on us’.55 According to Thomas Belsham, the ‘miseries of war have been severely felt by this nation, in the enormous augmentation of the national debt, in the proportionate increase of oppressive taxes’, though, as others had before him, he tried to mitigate this gloom by comparing it to worse conditions in those countries that had been sites of actual fighting. When the end to this conflict came in 1816, Thomas Jervis remarked upon ‘the melancholy retrospect of a destructive, long, and expensive war, which has added millions to our now immense national burden’, and he concluded ‘the resources of this country… are not inexhaustible…. we have reason to believe that the sources of taxation are nearly exhausted’. Thomas Hewett acknowledged ‘that the burden of public debt is a load even upon our minds’, and Hewett charged the government with developing policy to pay that debt down ‘to remedy the evil’.56 A final cost of war described in the sermons was the disruption to commercial activities and the loss economic revenues. The recognition of these issues demonstrated Britain’s growing identity as a nation dependent on trade. In 1713 George Hooper told the House of Commons it was high time to remember we ‘are a Nation depending upon Commerce, and Merchant-like to consider in what End a long ceasing of Profit and vast Increase of Loss must Necessarily determine’. William Henry described the end of the War of the Austrian Succession as ‘a peculiar Blessing to a trading Nation… For to such a People, even the most successful War… must, if long continued, prove ruinous and fatal.’ Henry described how war ‘draws many useful Heads and Hands from Learning, Manufactures, and Commerce… This spreading of Idleness would soon cause Manufactures to dwindle. Trade, which depends on these, must necessarily decay, the national Riches abate, its Naval Power, its Vigour and Spirit die away.’57 At the end of the next war, Edward Sandercock echoed this opinion, declaring ‘When a trading nation is constrain’d to war… that 55

56

57

Abraham Jobson, The Divine Government… a Thanksgiving Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Cambridge, 1797), pp. 8–9; Henry Courtenay, A Sermon… 1st of June 1802 (London, 1802), p. 3; William Abdy, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, n.d.), p. 11. Thomas Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), pp. 7–8; Jervis, God the Author… January 18, MDCCCXVI, pp. 25–2; Thomas Hewett, ‘Sermon II’ [1816], in Two Sermons (London, 1816), p. 64. Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713, p. 9; Henry, The Advantages… 25th Day of April 1749, p. 19.



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war… will be a necessary evil… felt in proportion to the interruption which trade and commerce sustain; and the disadvantages… under which… manufactures are laid.’ In 1784, William Keate simply asked ‘what advantages can a nation that subsists by agriculture, and flourishes by commerce, propose to itself from war?’58 As had been the case with taxation, many sermons mentioned the deleterious effects of war on commerce. In 1702 Daniel Williams noted ‘the Obstruction to Trade… in these tedious Wars’, and a decade after this William Bear was still commenting on the ‘complainings have we heard in our Streets for the Decay of Trade’.59 In 1749 Thomas Fothergill described the influence war ‘has on Commerce in subjecting it to greater Hazards, Incumbrances, Interruptions and the like,… stopping up the very Chanels by which fresh Supplies of Wealth should be convery’d’. The title of Nathaniel Ball’s 1749 sermon, The Evil Effects of War, left no doubt about his focus: he observed that during war not only men’s lives but ‘their Fortunes lie deeply at Stake… The Stream of national Prosperity is stopt by the Stagnation of Trade. That vital Spring of Riches and worldly Comforts sickens and dies.’60 For John Smith in 1763, war had brought ‘the awful Stagnation… on Trade and Commerce… it shut up the Way of Intercourse between Nation and Nation, in the Importation and Exportation of Goods’. William Bennet noted ‘the Poverty and Loss of Trade which have prevailed throughout the kingdom’ during the American Revolutionary War, and he explained that war caused blockages to the ‘channels of trade and commerce, through which the labours of the British loom, and the various productions of our manufactories, were wont to be exported’.61 By the early nineteenth century, preachers recognised France’s determined policy aimed directly at British commerce. John Strachan described Europe as having ‘virtually become the French Empire, and its whole force was directed against the British Isles. The consequences were felt in the reduction of our commerce… ruin of many of our Manufactures, the failure of the merchants connected with the continent, and the disappearance of specie’. William Palmer, rector of Mixbury in Oxfordshire, mentioned that Napoleon had tried to ruin British ‘prosperity and undermine its resources by the destruction of trade…. he adopted that monstrous system which forbade all commerce to the subject world but at his own will’. Napoleon’s Continental System had, according to Hugh Pearson, partially succeeded by 1814, ‘and we felt it in the pressure upon our merchants’, though Pearson tried to

58 59 60

61

Sandercock, A Sermon Preach’d May the 5th, 1763, pp. 16–17; Keate, A Sermon… July 29th. 1784, p. 21. Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 20; Bear, The Blessing of Peace… July the 7th, 1713, p. 13. Thomas Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Oxford, 1749), p. 12; Nathaniel Ball, The Evil Effects of War… a Sermon… 25th of April, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 8. John Smith, The Circle Blessing… a Thanksgiving-Sermon… May 5, 1763 (Northampton, n.d.; second edition), p. 21; Bennet, The Divine Conduct Reviewed, A Sermon… July 29, 1784, p. 16.

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end more hopefully by observing that ‘within the last few months how has this threatening cloud dispersed, and our prospects of commercial prosperity revived and extended!’62 Some ministers also delineated the social effects of the diminishment of trade. Referring specifically to the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, Samuel Chandler said the nation had trained its youth for battle ‘Instead of the busy Arts of Trade and Commerce, and the peaceable Occupations of mercantile Life’, and Joseph Ward, the vicar of Prestbury in Cheshire, listed as one of the results of the rebellion ‘Commerce was obstructed, and, by that Means, Labour and Industry… were put to a Stand, and many Families reduced to Want and Misery.’63 In 1814 the Scottish minister James Smith expressed the immediate and local impact in his Paisley parish. He asked rhetorically ‘How many individuals – how many families, must have been deprived of the means of earning their daily bread?’ Smith then went on to affirm ‘You know it, my brethren; – for you of this town and neighbourhood in a peculiar manner experienced it; – you know what it is to have almost every port of the world… shut against our manufactures, – what misery it is calculated to produce; – what criminal conduct… it unhappily has a tendency in some cases to lead.’64

The benefits of peace After war itself, the conclusion of peace treaties was the most common reason for thanksgiving-day celebrations. Eight of the thanksgiving days in the period covered by this study (1697, 1713, 1749, 1763, 1784, 1802, July 1814, and 1816) marked the occasion of a formal establishment of peace between Britain and other countries. The preceding discussion of the costs of war already demonstrates how the ability to look back from the vantage point of the cessation of a conflict afforded a clear perspective to assess those effects. However, it is important to note that peace was also discussed in reference to its specific benefits and costs. Though, of course, many of the harmful effects of war dissipated when it was concluded, peace was not always welcomed. It had its own complications and difficulties. Preachers laid out the advantages of peace, as well as discussing how it answered some of the particular issues raised by war. The thanksgiving-day sermons also discussed concerns about peace and the peace settlements that occurred during the long eighteenth century. Many sermons eloquently and forcefully described the blessings of the end of war to their audiences. In 1697 Richard Lee called peace ‘the fairest Flower of a Prince’s Crown, the choicest blessing of a Nation;… It Brings Relief to the Poor, Bread to the Hungry, Cloaths to the Naked, Business to the Diligent and Industrious; it invigorates the Body Politick; it sets all of the Wheels and Engines of Trade, of Traffick,

62 63 64

Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June… [1814], pp. 15–16; William Palmer, A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Buckingham, 1814), pp. 12–13; Pearson, A Sermon… January 13, 1814, p. 18. Samuel Chandler, National Deliverances… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 22; Joseph Ward, A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1747), p. 7. James Smith, Evidences… A Sermon,… 13th January 1814 (Paisley, 1814), pp. 15–16.



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and Commerce, into a joyful movement.’ Nicholas Brady agreed, declaring ‘the Peace of a Nation, is the greatest and most valuable of all Temporal Blessings’.65 For William Bear, the peace of 1713 dispersed the ‘black and dismal Cloud of a Twenty Years War… and the blessed Sun-shine of a Joyful Peace begins to smile upon our Tabernacles: A Blessing more desirable in it self, than the greatest Successes of a Continued War’. Using the first part of Psalm 120: 7 (‘I am for peace’) as his text in 1802, John Evans opened his sermon with the brief rhetorical question ‘And who can be for war?’ In part due to events in the interim, twelve years later Evans would have to qualify his reassertion of this principle, asserting that ‘Peace, notwithstanding the almost never-ceasing continuance of war, is the suitable and most proper condition of mankind.’66 Other preachers agreed with the characterisation of peace as the normal or proper state of humanity. In 1749 Thomas Fothergill diagnosed peace as bearing ‘the same relation to the State that health does to the Body, which not only supplies Spirits and Vigour for uncommon Undertakings, but give us a Relish for all the ordinary Blessings of Life, and is what alone can render us capable of tasting them with sincere Pleasure’. Preaching to the Irish House of Commons over fifty years earlier, John Travers distinguished peace as the most valuable of worldly blessings ‘partly because it comprizes many excellencies in its self, and partly because tis the Parent that bears, or at least the Breast that gives Suck, to all other comforts and enjoyments, and so ’tis a kind of Epitome of good things’.67 For Samuel Lowthion, peace after the Seven Years’ War allowed ‘people leisure to examine into, and rectify, any thing which may be irregular or uneligible in their own constitution’. With Britain feeling the pain of prolonged warfare and debt in the early nineteenth century, William Abdy asserted that to not ‘pray for and seek the peace of such a land, but to be discontented and disaffected towards it, is not only highly sinful, but monstrous and unnatural’.68 The purpose of war was also to be found in peace. It allowed people to return to the benefits and calmness of normal life. With war over, Charles Trimnell proclaimed ‘Our possessions now may be called our own, a Wall of Defence is placed round them, and we may safely take our Pastime therein.’ Thomas Belsham celebrated peace as ‘a return of liberty; and a mild and conciliatory administration has again restored to Englishmen the blessings of a free constitution’.69 Though not yet reached in 1695, Vincent Alsop encouraged prayer until ‘this troublesome War shall terminate in a happy Peace; that so… we may lead a quiet and peaceable life

65 66

67 68 69

Richard Lee, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 2d. of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 6; Brady, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… Decemb the 2d, 1697, p. 4. Bear, The Blessing of Peace… July the 7th, 1713, p. 3; John Evans, A Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 7 (emphasis in the original); Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814, p. 12. Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… A Sermon… April 25. 1749, p. 6; Travers, A Sermon… 8th Day of October, 1695, p. 2. Samuel Lowthion, The Blessings… A Sermon (Thursday, May 5, 1763) (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1763), p. 13; Abdy, A Sermon… June 1, 1802, p. 13. Charles Trimnell, A Sermon… Second of December 1697 (London, 1697), p. 7; Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… June 1, 1802, p. 16.

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at home’. In 1816 the Church of Scotland minister Thomas Chalmers observed the ‘whole of Europe is now at rest from the tempest which convulsed it – and a solemn treaty with all its adjustments, and all its guarantees, promises a firm perpetuity to the repose of the world’.70 War’s true function was to re-establish peace. Even at its best, for Simon Paget war was only a shadow, ‘and all Luster, if she has any, like that which the Moon borrows, is derived from the Glories of a designed and succeeding Peace’. Thomas Rivers, a prebendary of Winchester cathedral, affirmed ‘Peace is the very thing we of this Nation profess to Fight for; not to increase our Glory, or extend our Power… but to secure a quiet Injoyment of what we already have, and have for many Ages contentedly and rightfully possest.’71 Declaring that the purpose of ‘Britannic Arms’ was to ‘repress tyranny and usurpation’, East Apthorp went on to say that any military successes would have been in vain ‘had they not been thus timely followed by an advantageous and honourable Peace’. Once more John Evans succinctly asserted ‘Victory can be pronounced valuable only when it leads to Peace.’72 Monarchs were also lauded for the peace that they brought, if even by their warfare. Benjamin Jenks said William III had ‘Convinced the World, that the War he wag’d was not for War’s sake; but to bring the Enemies at last to this Honourable Peace. And hereby he has given a Demonstration to all Men, of his Wise Conduct… to accomplish the thing which look’d so Improbable.’ John Howe contrasted William’s martial achievements to what he had accomplished in arriving at a peace, noting ‘our King is Renowned, not by throwing Death and Destruction every where round about him; but by spreading the Benefits included in Peace through the Neighbour-Nations’. Taking a slightly different perspective, Francis Gregory asserted the peace could not have been achieved ‘had not our King disabled France to continue the War’.73 In the next reign, William Bear described Anne as ‘endued with a Genius Superiour to other Conquerors; and… uncommon to her own Nation, She knows when ’tis Enough’. George Hooper quoted the ‘blessed are the peacemakers’ (Matthew 5: 9) passage from the Sermon on the Mount in telling how the queen had rescued the nation from ‘a Protracted War’. Nicholas Brady also cited this passage, reminding his audience that this had also been Anne’s greatgrandfather’s, James VI and I’s, motto.74 In 1814, Samuel Barker would praise the ‘Kings and States, discarding every prejudice, and every trifling and partial object,… united in a firm, manly, and… indissoluble compact to enforce that peace, which 70 71 72 73

74

Alsop, Duty and Interest… Sept. 8. 1695, p. 13; Thomas Chalmers, Thoughts… a Sermon… January 18, 1816 (Glasgow, 1816), p. 20. Paget, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697, p. 10; Thomas Rivers, A Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1710), p. 11. East Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times. A Sermon… XI August, MDCCLXIII… (Boston, MA, 1763), p. 10; Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814, p. 17. Benjamin Jenks, A Sermon… December 2. 1697 (London, 1697), p. 12; Howe, A Sermon… Decemb. 2. 1697, pp. 14–15; Gregory, Thanksgiving Sermon… The Second Day of December, 1697, p. 17. Bear, The Blessing of Peace… July the 7th, 1713, p. 4 (emphasis in the original); Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713, pp. 8–9; Nicholas Brady, A Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713), p. 11.



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evidently alone can be established, by destroying every power of doing future wrong, and subverting that impious and outrageous system’.75 Of course, like for war, God was the ultimate determiner of peace. In 1708 Henry Stephens chided the country because, by not having ‘made suitable returns for so signal Blessings, our National Repentance has been imperfect, our acknowledgements unsincere. And therefore God delays for a time… till we become more thro’ly sensible of,… and are better prepar’d for the inestimable Blessings of Peace.’ The next year Richard Chapman devoted his sermon to the duties necessary to please God, and to showing how these would cause God to bring Britain and its enemies to peace.76 Using a long initial section of his 1784 sermon to describe the context of his text (2 Chronicles 20: 30 – ‘So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet…’), William Backhouse explained how this showed ‘that God is the original disposer of all events, and, of course, the ultimate cause of The General Peace’. In 1697 Christopher Johnson portrayed peace coming ‘like Noah’s Dove, with an Olive-Leaf in her Mouth, betokening the Waters of Destruction to cease, or… as an Emblem of future Plenty, Wealth, and Honour’, brought about by ‘such Steps and Marks of Providence from on high, such a vein of Diligence and Dexterity here below’.77 From this perspective, some preachers presented peace as a dispensation given to a special nation. It was ‘through a most Blessed Providence’, according to Richard Welton, ‘this Favourite Island of Heaven… has been miraculously saved’. John Howe labelled the current blessing of peace ‘such as may be appropriate and peculiar to Gods own People’. Over a century later, William Tooke compared the coming of peace in 1814 to the delivery out of Babylon, ‘like the children of Israel, “when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream”’.78 In talking about peace, sermons also directly addressed the issues that arose in war, and how these were relieved by its conclusion. Some preachers used a general and broad sweep to portray the contrast with wartime concerns. Early in his 1697 sermon, Thomas Comber asserted ‘Peace will procure all sorts of Temporal Plenty and Prosperity’, and among these he included ‘none to be cut off but at natures period, and in her order too, the Children dropping pious Tears on their Parents Hearse, not (as in war) Parents surviving the doleful news of their Childrens untimely end’. In a similar vein, Nicholas Brady celebrated ‘Now may the tender and indulgent Mother, look with delight upon her hopeful Issue, without fearing to have him called from her… and exposed to the rough Encounter of a Bullet or a Sword’. Simon Reader saw peace in 1763 meaning ‘Parents have no longer Reason for the terrible Anxiety which many must have felt for their Children, Wives for their Husbands, and other 75 76 77 78

Samuel Barker, ‘The Manifold Mercies… A Sermon… 13th Day of January, 1814’, in Two Sermons &c.. (n.p., n.d.), pp. 33–4. Stephens, A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708, p. 2; Richard Chapman, Publick Peace… a Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 4. William Backhouse, God the Author… A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (Canterbury, n.d.), p. 8; Christopher Johnson, A Sermon… December the 2d. 1697 (London, 1698), pp. 3, 20. Richard Welton, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 14; Howe, A Sermon… Decemb. 2. 1697, p. 3; William Tooke, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 20. Tooke is quoting from Psalm 126: 1.

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Relatives for those that were dear to them, who were exposed to the most alarming Dangers’; Reader also noted there was ‘no longer need of any Violence to engage Persons in the Service of their Country’.79 In 1814 the Methodist minister Richard Watson listed the results of peace as the end of the effusion of human blood, the termination of the terrible effects war has on the human character, the victory of a ‘righteous cause’, and ‘the completion of a course of providential dispensations highly conducive to the instruction of the world’. Benjamin Jenks opened his 1697 sermon with the declaration ‘we are called to Rejoice in the News; After we have been Tir’d out with a tedious War, to be Eas’d at last: This is so Grateful and Pleasant to every one who has any Concern for his own, or his Country’s Welfare.’80 A number of preachers placed the characteristics of peace in sharp relief against the effects of war. On the thanksgiving to mark the end of the war with the American colonies, Newcome Cappe asked rhetorically ‘is it usual to pray, is it usual to give thanks for impoverished treasuries, for suspended arts, for interrupted commerce, for diminished population, for burning navies, for bleeding armies, for ruin’d towns and desolated plains?’ In answer, he concluded ‘Our supplications are for peace. It is peace and thanks that go together.’ In 1802 Robert Hall distinguished ‘the morality of peacetime’ from ‘the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is to do good; of the latter, to inflict injuries. The former commands us to succour the oppressed; the latter to overwhelm the defenceless. The former teaches men to love their enemies; the latter to make themselves terrible even to strangers.’81 Such distinctions caused some preachers to suggest that peace was a far more appropriate occasion for thanksgiving than those of wartime that had led up to it. Recalling that ‘in the late War… frequently have we appear’d in this Sacred Place… to evidence our due Gratitude for our repeated Triumphs’, Benjamin Loveling characterised the 1713 peace as an ‘occasion of our publick Joy and Thanksgiving… much more Considerable… call[ing] for much greater degrees of holy Exultation’. In his thanksgiving-day sermon for peace in 1814, John Evans could not help but express some melancholy upon calculating ‘that more than half (fifty-seven years) of the last century was passed in a state of hostility’.82 Thanksgiving-day sermons also described how the economic costs of war were alleviated by peace. These included the return to normal commercial practices and the reduction of taxes. In his description of the outcomes of peace, in 1697 Thomas Comber depicted the economic benefits throughout the nation: Now the Countrymen may sow quietly, and reap in abundance… The Citizens may traffick freely, and make frequent and large Returns;… we shall in a short

79 80 81 82

Comber, A Sermon… Second of December [1697], pp. 3, 5; Brady, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… Decemb the 2d, 1697, p. 8; Reader, Thanksgiving and Prayer… May the 5th, 1763, p. 11. Richard Watson, A Sermon… Seventh Day of July… [1814] (Leeds, 1814), pp. 5–10; Jenks, A Sermon… December 2. 1697, p. 1. Newcome Cappe, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of July, MDCCLXXXIV (York, 1784), p. 10; Hall, Reflections… June 1, 1802, p. 20. Benjamin Loveling, Peace… A Sermon… Seventh of July, 1713 (Oxford, 1713), p. 8; Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814, p. 32 (emphasis in the original).



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time possess all the desirable effects of Peace,… encrease of People, incouragement of Industry, reviving of Trade by Sea and Land, plenty of Fruits of the Earth, multiplying our Stocks on the ground, improving all sorts of Arts and Sciences, and in a word, Universal Prosperity, and a growing Wealth will be our Countries happy Lot.83

The anonymous author of a sermon for the thanksgiving day of 1763 noted that peace ‘not only secures to us our ancient rights; but, adds also, the acquisitions of extended commerce, and enlarged dominions to this realm’. In 1784 Edward Smallwell, the bishop of St David’s in Wales, concisely told the House of Lords that, ‘to a commercial people, peace is a blessing of most inestimable value’.84 Often the positive prospects for commerce and the respite from taxes were mentioned in the same breath. In 1713 Luke Milbourne reported how peace meant ‘the Merchant sails with Safety,… the Borderers of different Countries traffick as Friends with one another;… and all those Heavy Taxes which they have been squeez’d with, are taken off… Trade improves and Commerce flourishes.’ For Thomas Good, rector of Astley in Worcestershire, the peace brought ‘Ease from burdensome and grievous Taxes, the saving of Lives and Treasure, the Wealth and Prosperity that are the constant Consequences of a free and open Trade with all the World’.85 At the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, Nathaniel Ball advised that ‘Peace not only increases Trade, but makes Arts and Sciences flourish with it’, and it also meant ‘the Diminution of Taxes’. In 1763 Samuel Lowthion supposed that, with peace, ‘some methods will be devised to reduce the national debt… and free his Majesty’s subjects from some of those taxes which the exigencies of the times rendered necessary’. Though he criticised the celebration of peace ‘on any carnall account’, the dissenting minister Charles Nicholetts did notice in 1697 ‘how many look no farther then the present advantage of Trade, or easing of Taxes’.86 The economic effects would be felt throughout society. Thoughts of resumption of healthy trade and a lightened tax load after the Seven Years’ War caused John Smith to depict the ‘smiling Pleasures now sitting upon the Countenance of the industrious Tradesman, wherever he is’. According to William Stead on that same occasion, ‘one of the happy fruits of Peace’ would be to distract the ‘lower ranks’ from political concerns ‘and to restore them to a sober and diligent application to the duties of their respective professions’.87 Robert Hall emphasised that peace in 1802 had already brought about ‘a reduction of the price of bread’, with the cost 83 84 85

86

87

Comber, A Sermon… Second of December [1697], pp. 6, 7–8. Anonymous, ‘Sermon II… May 5, 1763’, in Sixteen Sermons (London, 1797), p. 25; Edward Smallwell, A Sermon… July 30, 1784 (Oxford, 1784), p. 4. Luke Milbourne, Peace… a Sermon… July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713), p. 7; Thomas Good, The Blessedness… A Sermon… July 7th, 1713 (Worcester, 1713; second edition), p. 10. Ball, The Evil Effects of War… 25th of April, 1749, pp. 18–19; Lowthion, The Blessings… May 5, 1763, p. 15; Charles Nicholetts, The Great Work… a Sermon… Decemb. 2d. 1697 (London 1698), p. 28. Smith, The Circle Blessing… May 5, 1763, p. 25; Stead, A Sermon… 5th of May, 1763, p. 20.

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of other staples soon to follow, which would mean ‘the circumstances of the poor and the labouring classes will be much improved, and that there will shortly be no complaining in our streets’. That year Thomas Belsham also remarked on ‘the great alteration which immediately took place in the price of bread, and other necessaries of life’, as well as the repeal ‘of a tax the most odious, the most oppressive, and the most degrading that was ever imposed upon a free country’.88 In Leeds in 1814, the Baptist minister Thomas Langdon saw peace as leading to the end of profane, drunken, and lewd behaviour by sailors and soldiers. Sixty-five years earlier for William Henry it caused ‘Mankind to increase and multiply, our Streets and Villages to swarm with innocent Children, who may in time be a Seed to serve God, and to maintain the Cause of Truth and Liberty’.89 In hindsight, it is apparent that peace did not always live up to the hopes and grandiose appraisals it was greeted with. Thomas Comber’s assessment of the 1697 peace having resulted in gaining ‘a mighty King for our new Ally’ did not last, as war would soon break out again with Louis XIV’s France (to be fair, it should be noted that Comber had also quoted Psalm 146:3, ‘Put not your trust in princes’, to qualify his statement). Among the benefits of peace John Clayton listed in 1802 was his misplaced ‘blessing’ of the ‘preservation of the life of Bonaparte in Syria, and from the perils of Egypt, bringing him safely to Europe… to arrange the treaties of peace’, a result that would cost tens of thousands of lives over the subsequent decade. And in July 1814 Thomas Belsham called the peace being celebrated ‘one of the wisest ever adopted’, though he would later note it would be ‘infatuation’ to think ‘this calm will be perpetual’.90 Belsham could hardly have known just how true his proviso was, with peace being shattered in a short nine months’ time.

Problems with peace While the gladness elicited by the respite from war is certainly not unexpected, more surprising is the evidence of the concerns about and criticisms of peace found in the sermons. Even with the powerful opinions that argued it was normal and natural to desire peace, it is clear that the end of war was not always universally accepted and appreciated. Evidence of the discontent and disagreement over peace settlements can be found in numerous thanksgiving-day sermons, where preachers acknowledged the existence of dissatisfaction in the public’s response and attempted to refute such criticism. In the printed version of his thanksgiving-day sermon to mark the 1713 peace, Luke Milbourne began the dedicatory epistle with the pronouncement ‘Having heard so many cry out for Peace,… Nothing can be more surprizing than 88 89 90

Hall, Reflections… June 1, 1802, p. 31; Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… June 1, 1802, p. 4. Langdon, God Maketh Wars to Cease… July 7th, 1814, pp. 11–12; Henry, The Advantages… 25th Day of April 1749, p. 13. Comber, A Sermon… Second of December [1697], p. 21; John Clayton, The Great Mercies… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 7; Thomas Belsham, The Prospect… a Thanksgiving Sermon… July 3, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 3, 7.



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to see so many dissatisfy’d with it’. The sermon placed this response in the political context of Whig disaffection, with Milbourne criticising ‘the spiteful Outcrys and malicious Calumnies’ against ‘a well-grounded Peace’ by ‘an Angry, because an Abdicated, Faction’.91 In the preface to his sermon on that occasion, Thomas Good discussed a rival minister who would not preach on that thanksgiving day, nor allow his curate to preach either, in order to avoid any criticism for perceived support of the peace. George Hooper recognised that ‘Satisfaction upon this Happy Change be not yet intirely Universal’, and he compared war to an abnormal growth on the body ‘so habituated in us… [which] may not be taken off, without some complaint of the Parts adjoining’. William Law mentioned some who ‘would have us fear as much the Blessings of Peace, as the Miseries of a Plague’, and he labelled such people ‘deluded Biggots’.92 Sermons celebrating the peace treaties of the mid-century similarly noted a lack of consensus regarding these agreements, and acknowledged the possibility of dispute over the issue. Preaching at St James, Westminster in 1749, Thomas Secker stated the intent to avoid a discussion of the terms of the treaty from the pulpit, and in his sermon to the Lord Mayor and aldermen of Oxford on that same day, Benjamin Kennicott, a fellow of Exeter College, called for people to not ‘view this Peace of Our Country with the distemper’d Eye of Party’. Both of these preachers realised the definite possibility of dispute over the issue. Joseph Stennett also questioned what basis there was for complaint in 1749, and he felt it necessary to answer this query by outlining that the government had agreed to terms that would ‘put an immediate stop to a vast effusion of human blood, and prevent and expence which our public circumstances would not easily bear’.93 It is apparent that discontent came again with the next treaty. In 1763 Jacob Jefferson expressed regret ‘that the restoration of publick tranquility has not been received with that universal joy and thankfulness, which… might have been expected’, and he worried that such ingratitude might provoke God to rescind the blessing that had been given. Despite ‘all the grumbling and disquietude of malecontents… with reference to the present treaty of Peace’, Thomas Craner looked upon it as ‘an honourable one’. Edward Sandercock told how the ‘manner, in which war is concluded; or the conditions, on which peace is restor’d… divide many… in the judgments they form’, and he insisted ‘Britons! ye are a happy people, if ye know your happiness. Be sensible of it, and be ye thankful.’94 Like Thomas Secker fourteen 91 92

93

94

Milbourne, Peace… July the 7th, 1713, Epistle Dedicatory (no pag), p. 1. Good, The Blessedness… July 7th, 1713, Preface (no pag.); Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713, pp. 14, 15; William Law, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), p. 15 (see also pp. 35–6). Thomas Secker, ‘Sermon IX. (Preached April 25, 1749)’, in Nine Sermons (London, 1771; second edition), p. 214; Kennicott, The Duty… April 25, 1749, p. 19; Stennett, A Sermon… April 25, 1749, pp. 31–2. Stennett gives his own explanation for the dissatisfaction with the treaty, noting that Britain had relinquished colonial territory in return for enemy withdrawal from places in Europe. Jacob Jefferson, The Blessing… A Sermon… May 5. M.DCC.LXIII (Oxford, 1763), pp. 18–19; Thomas Craner, National Peace… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 3; Sandercock, A Sermon Preach’d May the 5th, 1763, pp. 19, 20.

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years before, Richard Richmond sought to keep ‘clear of political disputes which are out of our province’ and surmised that ‘the peace for which we now give thanks, is upon the whole safe and beneficial’. George Davis also wanted to avoid ‘a particular discussion of the terms upon which the present Peace is concluded’, but he did urge people to accept the government’s decision. In his sermon at St Margaret’s, Westminster, Patrick Delany declared ‘Whether our peace be or be not such as it should be, is not the business of private individual to determine; ours is only to acquiesce in what the Ruler of the world, and the ruler of the realm, whose prerogative it is, have determined for us.’95 In the midst of war with Napoleonic France, William M’Kechnie observed how ‘even a modest wish for peace’ caused ‘some blind, zealous, or self-interested bigots’ to ‘cry out Friend of the People, – Democrat, – Jacobin! and endeavour to propagate through the neighbourhood that he is an enemy to the King and constitution’. Upon the peace settlement in 1802, William Abdy suggested that people had been talking a lot about the peace, ‘and very different are their opinions respecting the continuance of it, and its advantages to this country’, though Abdy himself declined ‘to consider the subject either in its commercial, or political light’.96 Thomas Belsham expressed his thankfulness that the king had ‘removed from his councils those violent men… who haughtily rejected overtures of peace, when proposed in terms most conciliatory’, and spent several pages arguing the merits of the agreement. In 1814 Belsham confirmed the customary disagreement regarding peace settlements by noting that general satisfaction was exceptional, ‘it having been too much the custom upon all occasions to reprobate terms of peace; and to reward those who have put a stop to the horrors and calamities of war, not with the gratitude and applause of their countrymen, but with calumny and disgrace’.97 Evidence of disapproval of peace settlements was also found in preachers’ direct criticisms of peace treaties. While it was difficult to justify such comments on the thanksgiving days for peace themselves, often these negative assessments appeared on subsequent occasions. Thus, on the 1706 thanksgiving for military victories during the year, Josiah Hort compared those who were now ‘very warm for a Peace’ to ‘a foolish Patient, who to save Charges for the present,’ will only have their sore treated superficially and later have it break out ‘into a worse wound than it was at first, and puts him to twice the Charge it would otherwise have done’. Referring to the Treaty of Ryswick with France in 1697, Hort recounted how ‘everyone cry’d to be eas’d of Taxes, and to have an end put to the War’, with the result being ‘The wound was only skinn’d over… it soon broke out again… and we pay Taxes to this time for carrying it on.’98 In 1709 Samuel Baker used the rhetorical device of William III returning from the dead to advise Anne and her ministers to be wary of 95 96 97 98

Richmond, ‘A Sermon… May 5th, 1763’, p. 173; Davis, A Sermon… Fifth of May, 1763, pp. 13–14; Patrick Delany, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, 1763), p. 9. M’Kechnie, Nelson’s Victory… A Discourse [1798], p. iv; Abdy, A Sermon… June 1, 1802, pp. 5–6. Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… June 1, 1802, pp. 3, 5–6; Belsham, The Prospect… July 3, 1814, pp. 5–6. Josiah Hort, A Sermon… 31st of December 1706 (London, 1707), pp. 15–16.



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negotiations with France. Surely with thoughts back to 1697, a decade later Gilbert Burnet ominously warned against ‘a false delusory Peace… in which any Confidence is put in a Faith so often and so impudently broken… such a Peace is certainly an Opiat, that may give a present Quiet, but that will have a terrible awakening, if it does not make us sleep The Sleep of Death’. Samuel Clarke also cautioned that ‘a false and deceitful Peace’ could be ‘more fatal, than the continuance even of the bloodiest and most expensive War’.99 A similar response came after the 1802 treaty with France. In hindsight from January 1814, Hugh Pearson asserted that the only peace in the prior twenty years had not had much promise of holding, and he used this experience to recommend now waiting ‘until a peace can be established on a secure and permanent basis’ with Napoleon. When peace came five months later, in June 1814 John Strachan told his Canadian congregation that ‘after the treaty of Amiens’ in 1802, Britain was left ‘in a condition which, on reflexion, mortified and grieved the warmest friends of peace’, having acquired nothing from the treaty and with France being allowed to keep all it had gained.100 By far the most contentious peace settlement of the long eighteenth century was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), negotiated near the end of Anne’s reign. The denunciations of this settlement came loudly in the next one. In no uncertain terms, Samuel Billingsly described this peace as ‘Inglorious, False, and Destructive’, leaving the country ‘naked and defenceless’. In celebrating the accession of George I, Alexander Jephson imaginatively described Anne having submitted to the advice of ‘Evil Counsel… to withdraw the Rod too soon… The Monsieur was upon his Knees a trembling, quaking, and begging Forgiveness… justly dreading the Severity of the subsequent Lashes: But such was the unlucky malignant Genius of some Court Sycophants, that they easily gained his Pardon.’ With equal vividness Michael Pope expressed a growing awareness of ‘the Guilt and Folly of those who violated the Faith of the Nation… Who put a shameful End to a Victorious War, to promote an Inglorious Peace; and when they had Sheathed the sword before a falling enemy, drew it again, and then thrust it into the Bowels of the Nation.’101 Preachers were quick to enumerate the disadvantages that the 1713 treaty produced. Richard Synge argued that, because the peace had seen ‘our Fleet… laid up and unrigg’d’ and ‘our army for the most part… disbanded’, the 1715 Jacobite rebellion had been able to proceed. Edward Chandler agreed with that assessment, asserting the ‘Nation was left defenseless by disbanding in a manner all the regular Forces, a little before the Queen’s Death; and so it continued unprovided for the opposing of so wide a Conspiracy’. The anonymous author of The Rebellion of Sheba (1716) blamed Anne’s Tory ministry, which ‘transacted a Separate Peace, and broke Samuel Baker, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 1709 (London 1710), p. 21; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 12 (emphasis in the original); Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710 (London, 1710), p. 24. 100 Pearson, A Sermon… January 13, 1814, pp. 9–10, 24–5; Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June… [1814], p. 11. 101 Samuel Billingsly, A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 19; Alexander Jephson, A Sermon… 20th Day of January (London, 1715), p. 7; Michael Pope, The Merciful Discovery… A Thanksgiving Sermon [1716] (Bristol, 1716), p. 22. 99

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in upon the Faith of National Treaties… Discarded the most celebrated General in the World, and drew a Veil on the Glories of his Triumphs… [and] surpriz’d the Confederates with a Suspension of Arms’.102 Also emphasising the loss of diplomatic credit to the nation because of negotiating a peace separately from their allies, William Fleetwood commented on ‘a very strange Change in the World’s Opinion of us; five or six Years ago, we were the Glory of all Nations, our Friendship and Alliance was courted by every one… We have been since their Scorn and Hissing, and Aversion; They despise us for our Inconstancy, and hate us for our Perfidy and Falshood.’ Among the faults of 1713, Thomas Blennerhaysett included ‘Discarding our Victorious General,… Abandoning our Allies, in the very Hour of Distress…. [and] Making a Separate Peace, contrary to the Publick Faith’.103 More than three decades later, preachers were still using the 1713 peace as a cautionary tale. In 1746 the anonymous author of Gratitude to God intimated that Anne had grown too close to the Old Pretender and the French in the last years of her reign, leading to Marlborough being banished ‘and a Peace concluded not much to the Honour of Britain’. Joseph Stennett proved the benefit of the 1748 Treaty of Aix la Chapelle inversely, arguing that ‘the same set of men who justified and applauded the scandalous treaty of Utrecht, have condemned this’. In recounting the continued comparisons between the 1713 and the 1748 peace, John Bissett reported how, for ‘the peace of Utrecht settled in the year 1713…. sundry ministers would not keep the day of thanksgiving’, and those who did ‘rather bewailed that peace in the terms and intent of it, rather than rejoiced in such an event’. Bissett concluded ‘in this [1748] peace, the best terms are made that an unsuccessful war could admit of, but the peace of Utrecht [in 1713] gave up with all the advantages we might have reaped from a successful war,… and no wonder that ministers grudged to keep a thanksgiving for a peace promotive of such an interest’.104 Even in 1759 Benjamin Wallin was using the early eighteenth-century peace treaty as a reference point for success in the Seven Years’ War, telling of the capture of Louisbourg and informing his audience ‘this grand Fort was originally ours, but resigned to the French at the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, which… “was most

102 Richard

Synge, ‘A Sermon… On the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving’ [1716], in Loyalty To His Majesty King George (London, 1720), p. 91; Edward Chandler, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 25; Anonymous, The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (Exeter, 1716), p. 12. 103 William Fleetwood, A Sermon… June 7, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 21; Thomas Blennerhaysett, Plus Quam Speravimus: or; The Happy Surprize. A Sermon… January the 20th, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 20. Fleetwood’s position on the peace was well entrenched: in January 1712 he was prevented from delivering a fast sermon to the House of Lords supporting the continuation of the war. Fleetwood published the sermon anyway and it went through several editions and reprintings: James Caudle, ‘Preaching in Parliament: Patronage, Publicity and Politics in Britain, 1701–60’, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature, and History 1600–1750, ed. Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough (Manchester, 2000), p. 245. 104 Anon., Gratitude to God… October 9. 1746, p. 19; Stennett, A Sermon… April 25, 1749, p. 14; John Bisset, A Sermon… Twenty-Fifth Day of April, 1749 (Aberdeen, 1749), pp. 20, 21.



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grievously lamented by all true hearted Britons”’. Wallin was actually quoting from Thomas Prince’s 1745 thanksgiving-day sermon in New England, in which Prince had also lamented the resulting growth in the ‘Multitude of French Inhabitants,… in the bordering Continent of Nova Scotia and Canada’ after the 1713 peace. In 1760 another Massachusetts minister, Thomas Foxcroft, commented on the peace in the last years of Anne’s reign, when ‘the Queen thro some unhappy weakness, was tempted to discard her old and best Servants; and a Change in her Ministry… produced an Alteration in the State of public Affairs… The Queen was betray’d into an inglorious Peace, when her Majesty’s Sword, in the almost resistless Hand of her brave General, had humbled the Pride of France.’105 In their more general criticisms or cautions regarding peace, a number of sermons also argued that enemies used peace to gain an advantage against Britain. In the midst of the War of the Spanish Succession, Edward Chandler maintained it ‘has been ancient French Policy, to end one War, with a view to beginning another’. A century later Geoffrey Hornby affirmed that ‘Our rulers have shown a cordial desire for peace, and did accomplish one, which, on our part, was strictly observed. But the restless ambition, and implacable revenge of the enemy, too soon closed it.’ Samuel Smalpage described war in 1805 coming ‘after… a very short interval of treacherous and delusive peace:… [used] only to gain time to attack us to more advantage, and if possible even to come upon us by surprise’.106 The elder Joseph Stennett explained that the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick had given Louis XIV a ‘respite’ that allowed him ‘a pretence to get Spain it self, and the greatest part of the Dominions belonging to that Monarchy,… Divers places in the Low Countries… fell at once into his hands; and the immense Riches of the West-Indian Mines became easy Prey to him’. Thomas Reynolds agreed that it had given ‘the faithless and crafty Enemy an Opportunity shortly after to break it with unspeakable Advantage to himself ’.107 At the end of the eighteenth century, John Martin contended that ‘the French have talked of peace only to delude the incautious’. By 1814 George Bates had become convinced ‘that our enemy had no further wish for peace, than that he might more successfully carry on the war. He may now again sue for peace, and make what he conceives to be large sacrifices to obtain it, but it is only because his interest teaches him to do so.’108

105 Benjamin

Wallin, The Joyful Sacrifice… A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1760), p. 20 and n.; Thomas Prince, Extraordinary Events… a Sermon… July 18, 1745 (London, 1746; reprint of Boston, MA edition), pp. 17–18; Thomas Foxcroft, Grateful Reflexions… A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, 1760), p. 21. 106 Edward Chandler, A Sermon… Twenty-Second Day of November [1709] (Worcester, 1710), p. 13; Geoffrey Hornby, A Sermon… December 5th, 1805 (Manchester, 1806), p. 12; Smalpage, The Duty… December 5th, 1805, p. 8. 107 Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704 (London, 1704), p. 25; Reynolds, The Wisdom… November 22d, 1709, p. 26 (see also p. 42). 108 Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798, p. 27; Bates, Causes For… National Thanksgiving… January 13, 1814, p. 9.

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The thanksgiving-day sermons of the long eighteenth century were predominantly occasioned by events of war. While the previous chapter demonstrated that the results of this warfare were celebrated and became an integral aspect of presenting Britain’s interests during this period, preachers also saw and commented upon the impact of the costs which these extended military endeavours had on the nation. Though the recognition of the negative effects of war did not necessarily diminish the joyous commemoration of victories, it did show an awareness of the other effects that war had on Britain from 1689 to 1816. It is also interesting to see that, in a period that dealt with so much ongoing warfare, peace could be greeted with both welcome and worry. In these assessments of the costs of war, along with the benefits and the perils of peace, the thanksgiving-day sermons become a key window into the many ways that war affected Britons and British society.

8 Commerce and Empire As the previous two chapters have demonstrated, British interests in the long eighteenth century were greatly influenced by warfare that was occurring in Europe and throughout the world. These wars impacted territorial and commercial concerns, considerations which were reflected in the thanksgiving-day sermons. Among the issues discussed were the effects of war (and peace) on trade and domestic industry, as well as the development of a more global outlook for Britons. The present chapter will explore how the sermons presented and discussed commercial and imperial interests. Though preachers’ passing mentions of such issues could not fully elaborate the complexities of the nation’s wide-ranging economic and expansionary policies, they do demonstrate that these matters were important considerations within which thanksgiving-day sermons framed their discussions of the purposes and implications of events, circumstances, and British actions.

The resilience of British trade When outlining the costs of war for Britain, many thanksgiving-day preachers commented on how it inhibited trade. However, their sermons also discussed the tenacity of British commerce during wartime, which was often expressed in terms of the strength of the British economy during difficult times, the comparison of British trade to that of its enemies, and the positive influences of military success. Despite apprehension over, and complaints about, possible negative commercial effects of war, the ability of the British economy to withstand and even thrive in such circumstances was also noted. Preachers considered these issues in the context of stability and providing assurance, constructing a picture of British commercial activity their audiences could find comfort and take confidence in. Preaching to Gray’s Inn in 1691, George Stanhope noted that, even during the current war, ‘we have seen safe… arrivals of rich Cargoes from abroad;… we are not reduced to the last shifts of Poverty and Exile,… but, while other Countries have been the Unhappy Scenes of Violence, Ours… continues calm and composed’. A decade later, Ralph Lambert called on his audience to ‘reflect on the vast plenty and abundance, that we enjoy, after the expence of a Ten Years War… An abundance, in which no other Nation can pretend to vie with us; no, not even our Allies of Holland, whose Riches make so mighty a Noise, and so

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great a Figure in the World.’1 During the same war, Nathaniel Hough acknowledged God’s blessings in ‘filling our Land with Plenty,… in blowing home the Riches of the World into our Harbours, in securing our Commerce’. Thomas Reynolds summarised those economic conditions in comparison with Britain’s enemies, ‘the very worst of our Circumstances are better than the best of theirs. Our Scarcity compar’d with theirs, may… be called Plenty: Our Poverty, Riches: Our Decay in Trade, a Fulness of Business: Our Want of Commerce, an abounding in all Manner of Traffick and Merchandize.’2 Throughout the long eighteenth century, preachers reminded their audiences of the strength and continued benefits of British commerce during wartime, providing an assurance that the nation was not suffering unduly. Due to the War of the Austrian Succession, Philip Doddridge found that ‘some particular Interests have been largely advanced, and many considerable Advantages for Commerce… gained’. In the midst of the next war, Benjamin Wallin listed ‘Immense Riches, the natural Consequence of extending our Commerce’, as one of the ‘Lights of our Land’, along with civil and religious liberty, and internal peace.3 A fellow dissenter, John Kiddell, remarked that ‘We have seen the national wealth mightily encreased… and a prosperous commerce perpetually pouring in fresh riches upon us’. After expressing the need for thankfulness for ‘our plenty’, Edward Hitchin asked rhetorically ‘Was it ever known that such commerce has been carried on in a time of war[?]’ By 1798 Thomas Tayler could declare ‘though some branches of home manufacture may have suffered, our commerce with foreign countries has been carried on to an extent which it had scarce ever reached… The reduction which had taken place in the price of provisions… the support of public credit… are blessings for which, in our perilous circumstances, we cannot be sufficiently thankful.’4 In the extended period of warfare that began in the mid-1790s, the strength of British commerce continued as a theme. Abraham Rees noticed that ‘Several of our manufactures are prosperous in a degree, that is not usual in a protracted war: and our foreign commerce has been, in various branches of it, singularly flourishing!’ Tufton Scott similarly realised ‘the flourishing state of our trade and commerce has added an accumulation of wealth to the Nation, and strengthened the sinews of war’. John Martin suggested that, among the benefits that come from war, ‘our trade is not only likely to be secured, but widely extended’.5 The frequent affirmations 1 2 3

4

5

George Stanhope, A Sermon… Novemb. the 26th. 1691 (London, 1692), p. 21; Ralph Lambert, A Sermon, Preach’d Nov. the 12th. 1702 (London, 1703), p. 6. Nathaniel Hough, Successes… A Sermon… Sept. 7. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 6; Thomas Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. 39. Philip Doddridge, Reflections… A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 15; Benjamin Wallin, The Joyful Sacrifice … A Sermon … November 29, 1759 (London, 1760), p. 15. John Kiddell, A Sermon … November 29, 1759 (London, 1760), p. 18; Edward Hitchin, A Sermon… 29 November 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 22; Thomas Tayler, A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 15. Abraham Rees, The Privileges… A Sermon… 29th of November 1798 (London, 1798), p. 26; Tufton Scott, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 11; John Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798 (London, 1799), p. 29.



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of resilient economic activity during wartime demonstrated the importance of this idea. It was also shown through comparisons to the trade of other countries. In an 1814 sermon at St Paul’s, before Parliament and the prince regent, the bishop of Chester, George Law, observed that while other countries ‘have been suffering from the destruction of their manufactures, or the annihilation of trade, all the commerce of the world has flowed into our ports’. Over a century before, Gilbert Burnet had similarly applauded the fact that ‘Our enemies have failed in their Undertakings, and most of ours have succeeded: Our Wealth and Trade has been preserved… We are now in Peace and Safety, in Plenty and Abundance.’6 In 1749 William Henry declared ‘Our Commerce is restored and secured upon its antient Foundation: Our Fleets every where victorious, have quite subdued and bore down the whole Naval Power of our late Enemies; and by reducing their Trade to the lowest Brink of Ruin, have sufficiently warned and taught them not to disturb us in that tender article any more.’ Though William Goode admitted that the nation felt the effects of war in Europe on trade, an aspect ‘most keen to sensibility in a commercial nation’, he advised his audience to ‘recollect, how little [they suffered] in comparison to all around us’.7 According to these preachers, not only was commerce not in danger due to war, but military achievements were a significant factor leading to the success of British commercial enterprise. Looking back over the victories of the preceding century, John Sturges recounted how ‘has Industry flourished, Commerce been extended, National Wealth and Power increased. From them have been derived… Public Prosperity and Private Comfort in a larger proportion than other nations hardly ever have enjoyed.’ During the Seven Years’ War, the dissenter Thomas Scott recognised victories meant ‘a very great extension of our Trade’.8 With thoughts on economic prospects, Abraham Jobson surmised that the 1798 victory at the Nile ‘probably, will open sources of commerce, and of immense wealth to this Country’. Thomas Simpson saw the results of the Battle of Trafalgar meaning ‘fresh vigour will be given to our trade; for it will no longer be in the power of the enemy to keep our manufactures from one half of the ports of Europe; and we would fain hope, that this advantage would be very sensibly felt in these happy and industrious vales’.9 Just as a special emphasis on naval attributes and activities became more and more associated with British military triumph in the eighteenth century, so too was commercial success connected with Britain’s growing maritime might and influence. The anonymous author of the thanksgiving-day Sermon Preach’d in a Country Church (1689) described the sea not only as ‘a mighty fence around us’ but also 6 7

8 9

George Law, A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 18; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 26th of Novemb. 1691 (London, 1691), p. 11. William Henry, The Advantages… A Sermon… 25th Day of April 1749 (London, 1749), p. 16; William Goode, Mercies in Judgment: A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1797), p. 18. John Sturges, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, n.d.), p. 16; Thomas Scott, The Reasonableness… A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (Ipswich, n.d.), p. 16. Abraham Jobson, The Conduct… a Thanksgiving Sermon… November 29, 1798 (Cambridge, 1798), p. 8; Thomas Simpson, A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Stroud, n.d.), p. 19.

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as ‘a means of conveyance to waft in all the good of the World upon us’. In the same vein, Gilbert Burnet affirmed ‘the Sea… gives us also a Passage to let in their Wealth among us… Our Seas and our Fleets are both our Fences and our Mines’.10 Richard Lucas echoed these sentiments in 1709, calling ‘the Sea that is about us… not only a Fence and a Security to us, but an Abyss of Treasure, ministring not only to our Safety, but to our Grandure too’. John Whittel, the rector of Foots Cray in Kent, exulted that ‘Our Ships of Trade compass the Earth, and make the Riches of both the Indies to meet in our streets.’11 At the outset of George I’s reign, Thomas Page celebrated the new king’s concern for the ‘Prosperity and Trade of the Nation’, which in turn ‘keeps up the Art of Navigation, and (according to the nature of our Situation) Shipping is our best Bulwark against our greatest Enemies’. Joseph Acres also welcomed the new reign as a chance for trade to be revived and ‘carry’d on to the uttermost Parts of the Earth… now Navigation is improv’d,… and may the Riches of the Indies flow upon us’.12 In the mid-eighteenth century, the emphasis on the importance of naval power continued to go hand in hand with the success of British shipping. The anonymous author of a sermon for the 1759 thanksgiving claimed the ‘vast Extent of Ocean… hath been, in a manner, our own. Scarce a Ship of the Enemy has there been, to molest our Trade, while their Trade hath almost wholly fallen a Prey to our naval Defenders.’ Charles Cowper reminded his audience that ‘our Maritime Strength does not only establish Peace within our Walls, but also brings Plenteousness within our Palaces’. Benjamin Wallin compared ‘the safe Arrival of our large Fleets of Merchants from every Part of the World, and the few Ships of War we have lost, with the great and notorious Destruction of the Enemies Shipping of every Kind’ and pronounced it ‘an amazing Scene of Propserity… to fill our Minds with Admiration and Praise!’13 Ultimately, such results signalled the best economic advantages for Britain. Preaching to the mayor and municipal corporation of Oxford in 1749, Benjamin Kennicott was pleased ‘to see the Flourishing of Trade and Commerce… when Ships can ride through the World safe and unmolested, and bring home into the bosom of their happy Owners the Produce of all Nations! And how greatly pleasing such a Prospect in this happy Isle in particular, whose Merchants are Princes, and whose Traffickers are the Honourable of the Earth!’ For Thomas Harris, rector of Gravesend in Kent, the results were wide-reaching because the ‘more Trade and Navigation flourishes, and the wider and farther it extends itself, the greater

10 11

12

13

Anonymous, A Sermon… February 14. 1688 [1689] (London, 1689), p. 20; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… Second of December, 1697 (London, 1698), p. 14. Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 217; John Whittel, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… June the 27th, 1706 (London, 1706), p. 27. Thomas Page, Supremacy Defended… a Sermon… January the 20th, 1714 (London, 1715), pp. 20–1; Joseph Acres, Glad Tidings… A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), pp. 23–4. Anonymous, A Sermon… 29th of November 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 15; Charles Cowper, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (York, 1763), p. 20; Wallin, The Joyful Sacrifice… November 29, 1759, p. 22.



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Number of Hands will be at home usefully and industriously employed, the less Number of Poor shall we be encumbr’d with, and the greater Number of able and experienced Sailors shall we have ready to man our Ships, to scour our Seas, and to defend our Country upon any Emergence’.14

Economic ideas and theory In addition to discussing of the benefits to trade from Britain’s military endeavours and maritime strength, some preachers provided information on specific economic institutions and issues. Some even entered into detailed economic discussions. Though the anonymous author of Gratitude to God (1746) described it as ‘somewhat inconsistent to enter into a Discourse concerning Trade’ in his sermon, he then spent several pages discussing how the 1745 rebellion led to a stagnation of economic activity, which caused many tradesmen to have to ‘break in upon their Capital Stock’, while others borrowed money ‘upon exorbitant Interest’ or pawned their valuables, and working people were forced to live on credit due to lack of employment.15 ‘Stockjobbers’, who traded in government annuities that were used to successfully finance the wars of the mid-eighteenth century,16 caught the particular attention of William Stead. He condemned stockjobbers as ‘the vilest race of vermin that ever preyed on a commonwealth… who, with the avidity of the wolves of the forest, have fallen on every new loan, as their proper prey’. Stead asserted that, ‘to the disgrace of the nation, we have seen Peers and Senators, Magistrates and Clergymen, ignomiously mixing with this obscene herd; and with foreign whores, foreign Jews, and foreign sharpers, in this dishonest scramble’. Stead wished for the government ‘to squeeze these upstart spunges, swelled with the spoils of their Country, [back] to the natural size of Citizens of their rank… [and] to turn the current supplies into such channels, as shall protect it from the impure handling of this wretched Crew of Harpies’.17 George Thomas gave his audience a lesson on proportions between population and territory, and its impact on national strength, Edward Sandercock described the effects of the demand for military recruits on the supply and price of labour, and John Strachan endorsed education in the subjects of political economy and taxation systems in order to end unfair and oppressive economic practices.18

14

15 16 17 18

Benjamin Kennicott, The Duty… A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 9 (the latter phrase is a reference to Isaiah 23: 8); Thomas Harris, The Blessings… A Sermon… 25th of April, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 12. Anonymous, Gratitude to God… A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (London, 1746), pp. 7–8. Ann M. Carlos and Larry Neal, ‘Amsterdam and London as Financial Centers in the Eighteenth Century’, Financial History Review, 18:1 (2011), pp. 31, 33, 36–7. William Stead, A Sermon… 5th of May, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 11–15, quotations on pp. 12, 13, 15. George Thomas, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (n.p., 1802), pp. 10–11; Edward Sandercock, A Sermon Preach’d May the 5th, 1763 (York, 1763), pp. 23–4 (see also pp. 36–7); John Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814] (Montréal, 1814), pp. 25–6.

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In his two thanksgiving-day sermons from 1814 and 1816, Thomas Hewett supplied information on public debt, revenue, and the treasury.19 An idea mentioned in a number of sermons was freedom of trade. Initially expressed as one of the benefits of the Union with Scotland,20 by the middle of the eighteenth century, thanksgiving-day preachers were discussing free commerce in an international context. In the preface to the printed version of his sermon to the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, Norman Mead lecturer of St Vedast, Foster Lane and chaplain to the Lord Mayor, hoped ‘that the Extensiveness’ of the city’s ‘Trade and commerce may be subject to no Restraints or Infringements’. Preaching in Ireland on the peace of 1748, William Henry spoke of the need to let go of old animosities, because ‘an open and amicable Intercourse is absolutely necessary to the carrying on of Commerce among trading Nations’.21 Celebrating the 1763 treaty, Thomas Wright told his Bristol congregation of ‘the Liberties of Trade granted to Great-Britain… such as were never given her by any former Peace’. Commemorating the end of the war with the American colonies, Joseph Cornish, Presbyterian minister from Colyton in Devon, declared the ‘body politic is now become so enlightened as to begin to see, that the less trade is restrained, the more it is likely to flourish’.22 In the early nineteenth century, John Clowes looked forward to ‘the renovation of commerce, the intercourse again opened between distant countries, which were ready to perish for want of a free and reciprocal communication of benefits to each other’, and John Strachan called for Britain to ‘render her glory everlasting by extending the benefits of maritime commerce to other states, upon the most liberal principles’.23 Beyond these specific economic issues, preachers laid out the general benefits of economic activity. There was a common feeling about the widespread gains coming to British society from lively and expansive commercial pursuits. Many preachers touched on how commercial activities brought improvements of circumstances of various kinds. John Booth extolled ‘the flourishing state of commerce and trade, in this mart of nations’, where ‘men have opportunities of advancing themselves from low to lofty stations,… while the merchant heaps up, and abounds in wealth, the lowest mechanic and labourer may, if prudent, acquire more than a competency’. In Britain, according to John Grant ‘the Industrious and the Diligent’ were encouraged by the ‘moral Assurances, that the Fruits of their Industry and Labour shall not 19 20

21 22 23

Thomas Hewett, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], in Two Sermons (London, 1816), p. 24; Thomas Hewett, ‘Sermon II’ [1816], in Two Sermons (London, 1816), p. 64. John Grant, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 9; Richard Allen, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 9; John Bates, Two (United)… A Thanksgiving Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), p. 19; Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, n.d.), p. 12; Josiah Woodcock, A Sermon Preach’d August 19, 1708 (London, 1708), p. 20. Norman Mead, A Sermon… 9th of October 1746 (London, 1746), p. v; Henry, The Advantages… 25th Day of April 1749, p. 33. Thomas Wright, A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, n.d.), p. 17; Joseph Cornish, The Miseries… a Thanksgiving Sermon… July 29th, 1784 (Taunton, n.d.), p. 23. John Clowes, A Sermon… 13th of January, 1814 (Manchester, 1814), pp. 7–8; Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814], p. 32.



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be ravished from them… they are assur’d they shall reap, and shall with Security enjoy their multiplied Increase… this inspires Mankind to an active Industry’.24 East Apthorp confirmed ‘Our country will always find sufficient employment for its inhabitants, in agriculture and a simple commerce: a circumstance which… will retard the corruption of manners and depravation of Religion.’ John Dawson advanced the idea of a Protestant work ethic, arguing that ‘the greater number of families, who have by the mere dint of industry risen to opulence and respectability, would be found to have first formed those habits of diligence and sobriety by the influence of genuine Christianity,… The maxims of the gospel… will promote… the temporal as well as the eternal interests of mankind.’25 There were also particular social benefits to increased economic activity. In 1707 Richard Allen asserted that union with Scotland would increase wealth and commercial activity, a result ‘eminently conducive to promote our Manufacture, and consequently yield a fuller Imployment and more plentiful Supply to the Poor’. Over a century later George Bates recounted how the revival of trade and commerce resulted in ‘the full employment for our numerous manufacturers and industrious poor’.26 These ideas were echoed by Hugh Pearson, who noticed ‘the revival of our commerce, and the consequent increase of employment to our manufacturers, and to the poor in general’, and Edward Hitchin, who celebrated the fact that ‘Our manufactures (the grand support of our nation) are open, and the hands of the able and industrious poor may find work.’ Without any hint of irony, Hitchin encouraged his audience to ‘Walk through our shambles in cities and towns, and admire the provision God has made for the inhabitants.’27 Ultimately, these ministers believed increased economic activity was necessary for the benefit of society as a whole. The anonymous author of A Sermon Preached to Two Country Congregations (1814) anticipated ‘Commerce will revive with increasing energy, and will employ, maintain, and enrich multitudes’ after the fall of Napoleonic France. After war, all that was required, according to William Backhouse, was to ‘let “œconomy have her perfect work,” and be, with discretion, cultivated by All’.28 In 1749 Nathaniel Ball told his congregation in West Horsley in Surrey that ‘when Peace revives, the dying Lamp of Trade rekindles its glowing Ardor, disperses a generous Flame about the House of Industry, and inspires the busy World with new and chearful Hopes of Gain’. Robert Drummond succinctly advised the House of Lords that peace meant ‘trade flourishes, manufactures are advanced, plenty and

24 25

26 27 28

John Booth, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (Huddersfield, n.d.), p. 23; Grant, A Sermon… First of May, 1707, p. 13. East Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times. A Sermon… XI August, MDCCLXIII… (Boston, MA, 1763), p. 9; John Dawson, England’s Greatness… a Sermon… Dec. 5, 1805 (Sheffield, 1805), pp. 23–4. Allen, A Sermon… First of May, 1707, p. 10; George Bates, Causes For… National Thanksgiving. A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 20. Hugh Pearson, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (Oxford, 1814), p. 17; Hitchin, A Sermon… 29 November 1759, pp. 23–4. Anonymous, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (Mansfield, n.d.), p. 16; William Backhouse, God the Author… A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (Canterbury, n.d.), p. 17.

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opulency diffused’. Depicting the ‘Halcyon days’ of peaceful domestic life largely in terms of economic comfort, Francis Gregory described how, in those circumstances, ‘the Tradesman may safely mind his Shop, the Husbandman his Plow;… our Flocks and Herds are wont to Multiply, our Corn comes safe into the Barn, our Markets are Full, our Courts are open, our Laws retain their Force, and Justice betwixt Man and Man may freely be adminstred’.29 Yet, even with such views of the positive effects of commercial activities, some preachers cautioned on the potential dangers of dependence on such worldly pursuits. Often these came from dissenting preachers. For example, in 1696 John Shower warned that God could act quickly to rescind blessings ‘If we are solicitous only for Civil Peace and Liberty, for Trade and Riches, and outward Prosperity’. A year later fellow Presbyterian John Howe argued that peace may not make people better because it ‘infers free Trade and Comerce, and that Plenty, and that, Pride and Wantonness’. Preaching to the meeting in King John’s Court in Southwark, in 1749 John Blackburn similarly suggested that the blessings they sought ‘may, in the End, be a Disadvantage. We see that successful Commerce brings Riches; that great Riches lead to Idleness and Corruption; and these to Slavery and Oppression.’30 Though not a dissenter, the Aberdeen Church of Scotland minister Alexander Gerard shared this same spirit of concern in 1759, asking ‘Our commerce is extensive; but is it always carried on with fairness and equity?’ So did Robert Walker on the same occasion in Edinburgh, explaining ‘Luxury is the common attendant upon affluence: This unfits the mind for serious thinking, and breeds a coldness and indifference towards spiritual things.’31 That year John Kiddell told his dissenting congregation in Devon that ‘very generally riches prove destructive to national virtue, and corrupt the public morals; they emasculate the minds of people,… and sink them into a state of luxury and softness’. In 1805 John Payne depicted a vicious circle in which a period of war leads to peace, which then increases trade and commerce, which gives ‘new life, vigour, and scope, to the sensual and malignant passions; and these naturally tend to generate another War’.32 Some Anglican preachers imparted similar messages. Samuel Butler worried about the inverse effects of the recent peace in 1802, which, ‘If they promote comfort, they also minister, and often fatally, to the luxuries, and the vices of mankind. Add to this, that extended commerce, increasing wealth, Asiatic empire, are indeed 29

30

31

32

Nathaniel Ball, The Evil Effects of War… a Sermon… 25th of April, 1749 (London, n.d.), p. 18; Robert Drummond, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 23; Francis Gregory, Oμιλια Ειρηνικη. Or, a Thanksgiving Sermon … The Second Day of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 12. John Shower, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Sixteenth of April, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 25; John Howe, A Sermon… Decemb. 2. 1697 (London, 1698), p. 12; John Blackburn, Reflections on Government… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (London, 1749), p. 22. Alexander Gerard, National Blessings… A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (Aberdeen, 1759), p. 19; Robert Walker, ‘Sermon XVIII…. Nov. 29. 1759’, in Sermons on Practical Subjects, Volume I (London, 1783; third edition), pp. 412–13. Kiddell, A Sermon… November 29, 1759, p. 15; John Payne, ‘Discourse VIII’ [1759], in Evangelical Discourses (London, 1763), p. 188; Geoffrey Hornby, A Sermon… December 5th, 1805 (Manchester, 1806), pp. 15–16.



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splendid, but even if cautiously enjoyed, are dangerous distinctions; it is well if they do not enervate both the corporeal and mental faculties.’ When war had broken out again three years later, Geoffrey Hornby, the rector of Winwick in Lancashire, simply asked pointedly ‘whether in any remote, or unchristianized part of the globe, there can exist a more money-getting, and money-loving, people, than the people of Great Britain’.33 Despite such anxieties, most sermons unequivocally affirmed the many benefits increased wealth brought to the nation. In 1689 John Collinges associated freedom of religion with countries that ‘have abounded in riches’ and he used ‘our Brethren in the Low Countries’ as an example of the mutual benefits of good trade and toleration. The next year Gilbert Burnet looked forward to the successful results of the war that William and Mary had just initiated, counting on it leading to ‘a fulness of Wealth and Happiness to all that are under them; an encrease of Trade, an improvement of Soil, and… an advancement of Prosperity of Nation’. In 1715 Simon Browne anticipated the signs of success in the new reign as having ‘Trade flourish, Commerce be maintain’d and enlarg’d, the Reputation of a People rise, and their Wealth increase’.34 William Henry ascribed a sense of global unity to commerce in the mid eighteenth century, which formed ‘all Mankind into one Society’ by uniting ‘the most distant Nations, Britain and Japan, the East and West-Indies, the northern and southern Poles’, as well as allowing ‘us to send abroad our Superfluities,… while in return our Merchants and Mariners bring home to us… rich Supplies; and make us forget the Inconveniencies of a Northern Climate’. On the same occasion, Thomas Harris asked ‘what can promote and encourage Arts and Manufactures at home more, than a large Call and an extensive Demand for those Manufactures from abroad, and a free Liberty to export those Commodities into foreign Parts, as fast and in as great a Plenty as they can be wrought?’ Harris came to the mercantilist conclusion that ‘by these Means the Advantage, and Ballance of Traffick being on our Side, the Wealth and Treasure of other Nations will flow in to us in a far greater Plenty and Abundance’.35 Preachers connected commerce to the political health and general enhancement of the nation. For Jacob Jefferson in 1763, the well-being of the state would mean ‘industry, trade and commerce… may flourish; and plenty and prosperity, satisfaction and joy, in consequence, reach to the utmost borders of the land’. In a catalogue of the auspicious elements he ascribed to Britain that same year, Edward Sandercock listed ‘the kingdom in so flourishing, so glorious a state; commerce, that source of riches, so protected, encourag’d, and extended’.36 In 1784 Andrew Burnaby 33 34

35 36

Samuel Butler, The Effects of Peace… A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Shrewsbury, n.d.), p. 18; Geoffrey Hornby, A Sermon… December 5th, 1805 (Manchester, 1806), pp. 15–16. John Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 11; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 19th Day of October, 1690 (London, 1690), pp. 35–6; Simon Browne, A Noble King… A Sermon Preach’d… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 18. Henry, The Advantages… A Sermon… 25th Day of April 1749, pp. 9, 13; Harris, The Blessings… 25th of April, 1749, p. 12. Jacob Jefferson, The Blessing… A Sermon… May 5. M.DCC.LXIII (Oxford, 1763), p. 14; Sandercock, A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763, p. 6.

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contended ‘many of the greatest improvements in science, in arts, in manners, in laws, and in religion, are to be deduced from the source of commerce’, and he avowed that commerce ‘must be the first means of healing our wounds, and of re-establishing our prosperity and happiness’. William Hunter concurred, finding ‘the arts and sciences, in whose study and cultivation this nation stands unsurpassed, will preserve their native lustre, and trade and commerce, lately our glory, as they are ever our best political defence and security’. Five years on, William Tremenheere asserted that British principles of political liberty and religious freedom resulted in ‘extended commerce, and flourishing manufactures, agriculture encouraged, industry rewarded, property protected; the arts and sciences patronised, religion fostered, and the national riches daily increasing’.37 In the late 1790s, even though the nation was again at war, optimism for commercial growth and economic success continued. In Musselburgh in Scotland, Alex Black celebrated the thanksgiving for a year when: there is a wholesome abundance in every corner of our land…. Riches are rapidly accumulating through the whole extent of the British Empire. The wealth of the nations is pouring into the coffers of our merchants. Our ministers are forming schemes of extensive commercial advantage. New channels are opening to the productions of our ingenious mechanics. Public credit is restored.38

In Canada, Jacob Mountain described the conditions of ‘our Mother Country’ that supported ‘a vigorous and well directed industry, supply plenty, that circulates to the extremities of the Empire. Our Commerce is flourishing and extensive, beyond all calculation, or comparison.’ In his printed sermon, Abraham Rees included a hymn for ‘National Thanksgiving’ following his sermon, which included lines celebrating ‘Th’ extended trade, the fruitful skies, /… / Here commerce spreads the wealthy store / That pours from ev’ry foreign shore.’39 These messages continued into the nineteenth century. Preaching to the Lord Mayor, aldermen and officials of the city of London in 1805, Andrew Hatt reviewed the blessings that God had provided and found ‘our reflections are immediately directed to the many sources of national prosperity, which arts and commerce open to us, and by which are so copiously diffused through all orders of our personal comforts and domestic endearments’. Along with protection of property and liberty, Hatt enumerated ‘not only… an encreasing extent of territorial dominion, but also a proportionate amount of public revenue – a commerce that embraces the world – a diffusion of the arts’.40

37

38 39 40

Andrew Burnaby, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789), pp. 18, 19; William Hunter, A Sermon… 29th of July, 1784 (Worcester, n.d.), p. 16; William Tremenheere, A Sermon… Twenty-Third of April, 1789 (Exeter, n.d.), p. 10. Alex Black, National Blessings… a Sermon… November 29. 1798 (Edinburgh, 1798), pp. 13–14. Jacob Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799 (Québec, 1799), pp. 26–7; Rees, The Privileges… 29th of November 1798, p. 35. Andrew Hatt, A Sermon… Fifth of December, 1805 (London, 1805), pp. 12–13.



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Commerce and the character of the nation Thanksgiving sermons closely connected trade and economic activity to the country’s status and influence throughout the world. Commercial success would enhance the country’s reputation. In 1715 Samuel Wright proposed that the wasted energy directed toward political disputes could be instead focussed on ‘promoting each others Welfare and Prosperity’, which in turn would mean the public credit of the nation ‘would be raised abroad, and all its Affairs would go on with greater Ease and Success in Foreign Courts’. Four decades later, Nicholas Nichols applauded ‘the Revival of our Publick Credit, the Breath of our Nostrils,… the free Exercise of our Trade, wide as the World,… That makes all Nations tributary to us, not by Conquest or Oppression, but by Choice and Interest’. According to Nichols, it was commercial might, rather than military force, that distinguished Britons as ‘a generous and hospitable, a robust and active, a notable and sagacious, and a happy People too’.41 In 1784 Andrew Burnaby agreed that ‘Commerce, not conquest, seems to be the true interest of this country; indeed it is the true interest of every country: for commerce is the cement of all national friendship and alliance’. To the advantages of Britain’s insular situation, in 1798 Abraham Rees added ‘that it affords an encouragement to our domestic manufactures and to our foreign commerce, which have contributed in no small degree to the reputation of our country… The products of our skill and labour are distributed… to the remotest regions of the habitable earth; and the wealth of both the Indies is transmitted to us in return.’42 One particular benefit of expansion of trade was a religious one. Near the end of Anne’s reign, Benjamin Loveling maintained ‘As we shall be in greater Capacity of extending and improving our Commerce, we ought surely to be more Solicitous of Increasing the Number of Christian Converts; that so we may Enrich those Rude Natives more by our Doctrine, than they can us by their precious minerals.’ Alexander Gerard repeated similar ideas in the mid-century, advising ‘Our acquisitions are not merely fit to gratify wild ambition, but are useful for the enlargement of our commerce, for the increase of our riches, for the security of the lives of our fellow subjects in the British colonies, and for extending the pure, reformed religion over large tracts of country.’43 Thomas Craner agreed, asking his dissenting congregation ‘Is there not provision made for the extending our trade and commerce to distant parts of the globe… and an opportunity given to us of spreading the Gospel of Christ where his name was never known, nor his fame heard?’ Celebrating peace in 1749, Thomas Fothergill discussed how war was a detriment to religion, and he lamented conflict occurring ‘among the trading Powers of Europe; forasmuch as these have made it their pious Endeavour to propogate Christian Knowledge in

41 42 43

Samuel Wright, Of Honouring the King. A Sermon… Jan. 20. 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 20; Nicholas Nichols, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (Hull, n.d.), p. 27. Andrew Burnaby, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 17; Rees, The Privileges… 29th of November 1798, p. 12. Benjamin Loveling, Peace… A Sermon… Seventh of July, 1713 (Oxford, 1713), pp. 17–18; Gerard, National Blessings… November 29, 1759, p. 8.

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those Regions of Darkness, whither the Business of Commerce has severally called them’.44 For John Martin at the close of the eighteenth century, the expansion of British commercial interest meant ‘those who wish to preach in foreign countries may be conveyed thither at less hazard, and at less expence than in former times’. In 1814 Richard Watson expounded on this idea, envisioning how ‘The enterprize of the merchant will open the way for the enterprize of the missionary. Our bales and our bibles will be conveyed across the ocean at an easier freight.’ Watson concluded ‘We trust in God to continue prosperity to this land, and that portion of our wealth which is offered in acts of benevolence will consecrate the rest. We rejoice in peace as it will give us better opportunities to prosecute the glorious idea of christianizing the world.’45 Depicting British commerce as critical to the health and success of the nation in various ways, its essentiality also influenced preachers’ views on the country’s character and the nature of its inhabitants. The importance of Britain’s geographical circumstances recurred in sermons, now associated with the nation’s economic activities and achievements. Emphasising the importance of trade and commerce for enriching the newly united Britain in 1707, Robert Davidson celebrated the opportunity that came from being a ‘Countrey is wash’d round with the Salt Waves, whose Harbours are so Numerous, so Capacious, and so safe, and… whose Land abounds with those Things which many Countreys will be glad to take off our Hands… whose Seas are stor’d with such Things as other Nations will thank us, and pay us well for bringing them’. In 1746 George Benson noted ‘We have many commodious ports and excellent harbors. Our merchants are princes, and our traffickers the honorable of the earth…. We are situated between the old wor[ld] and the new; whereby we are inabled to extend our trade and commerce to the most distant parts of the earth… and to receive in return a large and willing tribute from the most remote nations, and widely differing climes.’ In 1759 John Duncombe likened Britain to Israel in receiving protection from the sea, but also to Tyre because ‘we sit in the Seas, as a Queen among the isles, and are connected by our Commerce with the most Distant Regions’.46 These commercial circumstances and achievements infused the depictions of Britain in thanksgiving-day sermons. Already in 1715 Nathaniel Goodwin would pronounce: For Cloathing England is famous all the World over;… for Building, Plenty of Timber, and Stones, Lime and Bricks; Stores of Mines abounding with Iron, Lead, 44

45 46

Thomas Craner, National Peace… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 5–6; Thomas Fothergill, The Desireableness of Peace… A Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Oxford, 1749), p. 10. Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798, p. 29; Richard Watson, A Sermon… Seventh Day of July… [1814] (Leeds, 1814), pp. 16, 17. Robert Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a. A Sermon … May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 8–9; George Benson, ‘Sermon XVII… Oct. 9, 1746’, in Sermons on the Following Subjects… (London, 1748), p. 420 (italics in the original to indicate a quotation from Isaiah 23: 8); John Duncombe, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), p. 11 (italics in the original to indicate a quotation from Ezekiel 28: 2).



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and other subterraneous Treasures: So… that in Days of Old Foreigners came to seek for our Goods, before our Ancestors wanted any of theirs in Exchange;… and we seem rather now to carry on a Trade to oblige the World.

In 1784 Edward Popham advised that ‘England, as a great commercial Nation, should… endeavor to establish a mutual intercourse and friendly alliance with every part of the Globe.’ Using a biblical comparator, Popham urged the nation to become ‘like the wise Woman in Proverbs, should see that her merchandise is good, and that it brings her food from far; should work wool and flax, and work it willingly with her hands; should look well to the ways of her houshold, and not eat the bread of idleness. This is the business, is the glory of the British Nation!’ In 1797 John Newton proclaimed ‘Our arms and our commerce have, almost like the ocean, encompassed the habitable globe, and we are become the grand mart and emporium of the earth.’47 Such pronouncements construed commerce as a central component of the national character. In 1713 George Hooper reminded both houses of Parliament that Britain was ‘a Nation depending on Commerce’ that should be ‘Merchant-like’ in determining its policies. Hooper later warned against internal discord because ‘a Country under such Agitations and Disturbances can never premise it self to be a Mart for Nations’. At mid-century John Dupont declared that Britons have a distinguishing aspect ‘in which we have an evident Superiority over other People, namely, that of a trading Nation: For ’tis to our extensive Trade and Navigation that we owe most of our Opulency and Grandeur’.48 Preaching at St Margaret’s Westminster in 1789, Samuel Hayes told his audience ‘If wealth and power be conducive to national happiness, there are few, if any, regions which can stand in competition with us, either in opulence, or extensive commerce.’ That same year, the schoolmaster John Pattenson encouraged his Halifax audience to promote their interests ‘by endeavouring to stimulate industry, and extend the manufactures and trade of your neighbourhood’ and in this way ‘will you prove yourselves truly patriots’. Also preaching in Halifax, a decade later Thomas Taylor recognised the qualities inherent in his congregation, and therefore eschewed discussing the history of commercial improvements: ‘considering where I am, it would be like the orator lecturing upon the art of war before Hannibal’.49

47

48

49

Nathaniel Goodwin, God’s Care… a Sermon… January the 20th 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 11; Edward Popham, ‘A Sermon Preached on July 29, 1784’, in Two Sermons (Bath, 1784), p. 40 (italics in the original to indicate a quotation from Proverbs 31, various verses); John Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 9. John Dupont, ‘The Blessings… A Sermon… April 25. Mdccxlix’, in The Loyal Miscellany. Consisting of Several Sermons, and Other Tracts (London, 1751), p. 97; George Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), pp. 9, 27. Samuel Hayes, A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 8; John Pattenson, A Sermon… Twenty-Third of April, 1789 (Halifax, 1789), p. 14; Thomas Taylor, Britannia’s Mercies… Two Discourses… November 29, 1798 (Leeds, 1799), p. 13.

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Thoughts of empire The idea of Britain advancing its commercial and military interests was connected to the extension of its influence and presence to other parts of the world. Thus, the economic and political concerns of the nation became increasingly associated with growth of the British Empire during the long eighteenth century. Thanksgiving-day sermons clearly show an awareness of, and an interest in, these imperial considerations and prospects. Preachers discussed the extension of British territorial interests and the need for securing them, the value and positive effects of a burgeoning empire, along with some ideas about empire in theory. The later eighteenth century saw the events of the American Revolutionary War have a significant impact on some preachers’ attitudes towards empire. It also saw the emergence of a national thanksgiving tradition in the independent United States, as demonstrated by several sermons from the 1783 American thanksgiving day celebrating the Treaty of Paris. Attention to the extension of British territorial interests spanned thanksgivingday sermons across the eighteenth century. The long period of Continental warfare when Anne came to the throne meant there was already a tendency for preachers to be outward looking. At the outset of the reign, Edward Clarke encouraged the country to unite in order to secure its welfare and happiness at home and to maintain ‘the Ballance of Trade and Empire abroad’. Dedicating his printed sermon to the new queen, Benjamin Woodroffe anticipated impending victories over Spain and France would include seizure of their colonial territories, and he listed ‘islands already in Your Majesty’s Possession’, including Trinidad, Tobago, and ‘the whole Carab-Nation’. Samuel Bromesgrove praised Marlborough’s achievements ‘with the unintermitting Acclamations of an Empire’.50 In 1705 Francis Higgins noted the acquisition of Gibraltar as a valuable prize, and Gilbert Burnet announced ‘Our Plantations like so many Nations, are become numerous and powerful.’51 In the first year of George I’s reign Thomas Foster criticised the loss of territories under Anne, complaining that the peace from two years earlier had seen the government ‘giving up to France in a most pernicious and shameful Treaty, the Spanish Indies and those Towns of greatest Security and Strength in the Netherlands’. Though there was a pause in thanksgiving days through much of George I’s reign and into the first part of George II’s, when they resumed, so did thanksgiving preachers’ comments on imperial matters. On a 1745 colonial thanksgiving for the taking of the fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton, the Boston, Massachusetts pastor Thomas Prince saw the war as relieving his concerns that ‘there would be in a few Years Time such a Multitude of French Inhabitants… in the bordering Continent of Nova Scotia and Canada, with the Addition of the Indian Nations,

50

51

Edward Clarke, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, 1703), pp. 25–6; Benjamin Woodroffe, A Sermon… Decem. 3. 1702 (Oxford, 1703), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); Samuel Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704 (London, 1704), sig. a2r. Francis Higgins, A Sermon… 28th of August… [1705] (Dublin, 1705), p. 16; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… xxviith Day of June MDCCVI (London, 1706), p. 17; Thomas Foster, A Sermon… January 20. 1714 (London, 1715), p. 14.



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[who] would exceedingly vex and waste, yea, endanger the Conquest of our English Colonies’. The next year in England, on the celebration of the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion, Thomas Vaughan, the vicar of Eccles in Lancashire, extolled the fact that ‘Europe was not a Theatre wide enough for the English Triumphs, they are extended to the remotes Regions, Cape-Breton, in North-America, has seen, and felt, the English Courage’. Three years later, in Northampton, Philip Doddridge remarked on the ‘memorable Series of Providence which gave Cape Breton into our Hands’ as a bargaining chip, which he speculated could add to the security of Nova Scotia.52 However, it was the Seven Years’ War that especially focussed preachers’ attention onto colonial and imperial concerns. Nathaniel Ball attributed the origins of the war to the French king’s desire ‘to ruin our Colonies abroad’ but then listed the ‘taking of Goree, Guardaloupe, Louisbourgh, Quebec and principal Forts in Canada… as signal Interpositions of Divine Providence’. Richard Brewster recounted the ‘Success of his Majesty’s Arms on the Coast of Africa, and in the East and West Indies; – The Conquest of North America, and the Reduction of Quebeck, the Capital of Canada… are such astonishing Events, as should raise our Minds to Heaven in pious Wonder’. Benjamin Wallin introduced his publication with an explanation of some of the places he would mention in the sermon as ‘the Strong-holds of the Enemy in America, from which we were greatly annoyed, and in Danger of losing our Trade and possessions in that Quarter of the World’. In the sermon itself, Wallin told of the strategic importance of the capture of Louisbourg and Cape Breton, ‘the Key of the River St. Lawrence, and the Enemy’s Magazine for their Northern Settlements’.53 On the November 1759 thanksgiving day in Britain to celebrate the military successes of that year, preacher after preacher remarked on French threat to British colonial interests and on territories captured across the globe, especially in North America. In Dublin, William Fletcher called on his audience to ‘trace the same good Providence from Africk to the Indies,… and add to all this, the more silent blessing so visible upon our Basket and our Store’. John Duncombe noted ‘Every Quarter of the World hath seen our Triumphs, and our Fleets and Armies have been successfully emulous in the Country’s Cause… every one must own, that this also is the Lord’s Doing, and marvellous in our Eyes.’54 Such expressions demonstrate a sense of the importance of the broad scope of these triumphs, the expansion of empire that came with them, as well as a divine endorsement of the results.

52

53

54

Thomas Prince, Extraordinary Events… a Sermon… July 18, 1745 (London, 1746; reprint of Boston, MA edition), p. 18; Thomas Vaughan, Rebellion Extinguished: A Thanksgiving-Sermon… October the 9th, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 11; Doddridge, Reflections… A Sermon… April 25, 1749, p. 18. Nathaniel Ball, The Divine Goodness… a Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 18, 19–20; Richard Brewster, A Sermon… 29th Day of November… [1759] (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1759), p. 19; Wallin, The Joyful Sacrifice… November 29, 1759, pp. v, 20. Gorée is an island off of the west coast of Africa. William Fletcher, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (Dublin, 1760), p. 13 (italics in the original to indicate a quotation from Psalm 113: 3, and from Deuteronomy 28: 5); Duncombe, A Sermon… November 29, 1759, p. 12 (italics in the original to indicate a quotation from Psalm 118: 23).

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In colonial America, a thanksgiving for military successes was held in Massachusetts midway through the Seven Years’ War. The achievements had a special significance there due to the colony’s particular circumstances, not the least of which was their close proximity to hostile forces and territory.55 In Roxbury, Amos Adams asserted that France had been ‘pursuing a long connected Design to become the sole Mistress of North America’ by extending their settlements and military outposts. Adams described recent successes in the war as ‘the favourable Aspect of a kinder Providence’, demonstrated by the capture of a number of forts, the defeat of Indian allies of the French, and the capture of Québec.56 Preaching in Boston, Jonathan Mayhew described the military achievements in North America on a large scale. He characterised the victory at Québec as initiating ‘the reduction of all Canada, from Hudson’s Bay southward and westward to the great lakes: And… all the territory the French possess to the southward still of those lakes till… you come near the Mississippi’. Mayhew proclaimed the advantages from this ‘both to Great-Britain and her American colonies, whose interests are indeed inseparably connected, as both she and they are, of late, more than ever convinced’,57 a claim which, in hindsight, would not prove lasting. Another thanksgiving was held in Massachusetts the next year for the completion of the British conquest of Canada. On that occasion, Thomas Foxcroft articulated the long-held ‘common Opinion… The American Carthage must be reduced, Canada must be conquer’d: or we could hope for not lasting Quiet in these Parts’, and he celebrated the gains as having ‘gloriously added to the Strength, as well as Extent of the British Empire’ and as ‘Specialties in Divine Providence, that have more immediate Aspect… on New-England in particular; but which ultimately redound to the Advantage and Glory of Britain itself ’. In Lancaster, Massachusetts, John Mellen began by reminding his audience that George II, ‘Our aged and gracious Sovereign, who… has been peculiarly kind to his Children in America’, had supported the war in North America and ‘vast Sums have been annually expended for the Support of his Troops, in Conjunction with his loyal Colonies’. Mellen gave a lengthy assurance that, in any settlement that was negotiated, Britain would have to hold onto the territories it had gained because ‘Long experience shews there can be no Peace in North-America, so long as France holds Canada, or even Louisiana’. 55

56 57

Brendan McConville analyses the commemoration of annual anniversary occasions, royal holidays, and occasional celebrations in colonial America in the eighteenth century, demonstrating the integration of these territories in to the empire in the period prior to the Revolutionary War: Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688–1776 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2006), pp. 49–80. Philip Williamson also briefly discusses observances of special worship in colonial America from 1689 to 1776 in his ‘Introduction’ to National Prayers: Special Worship Since the Reformation, Volume 2: General Fasts, Thanksgivings, and Special Prayers in the British Isles, 1689–1870, Church of England Record Society 22, ed. Philip Williamson, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor, and Natalie Mears (Woodbridge, 2017), pp. cxl–cxlv. Amos Adams, Songs of Victory… a Sermon… October 25, 1759 (Boston, MA, 1759), pp. 19, 21, 22–5, quotations on pp. 19 and 23. Jonathan Mayhew, Two Discourses Delivered October the 25th, 1759 (London, n.d.), pp. 37, 33.



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Mellen also eagerly calculated the growth in population in Britain and the colonies that would occur in the next century and a half, concluding that ‘the vast Increment here, shall increase the Population in Britain, as it will give more Employment there, and better Means of Subsistence’.58 The culmination of these aspirations and acquisitions came, both at home and in the colonies, with the Treaty of Paris and a thanksgiving in 1763 to celebrate the end of the war. Though recognising that the peace had not met ‘the Wishes of every Heart’, Simon Reader maintained ‘yet [it] is such as has raised us to a wider Extent of Dominion, and more weakened our Enemies, than perhaps any other Peace that Britain ever made’. John Smith informed congregations in Basingstoke in Hampshire and in Oundle in Northamptonshire that, as a result of the war and the settlement, ‘our American Colonies are now rendered most secure, and greatly extended’.59 In Bristol, Thomas Wright enumerated the gain of ‘vast Countries from Hudson’s Bay to the Gulf of Florida,… together with the Grenades [Grenadines]; to say nothing of the Settlements in the East Indies, on the Coast of Africa’, and Wright concluded by affirming ‘the sagacious merchant knows they are of immense Value’. William Stead loftily declared ‘This Peace secures Great Britain a larger and better territory than all the Wars from the Conquest to this day, have produced.’60 In similar grandiose terms, East Apthorp asked his Massachusetts congregation to consider North America and ‘Reflect on the improbability, that so extensive a Country, to which so many different nations had their respective claims, in so short a time, became the rightful possession of the English only… History affords no parallel to it, not even in the mighty growth of the Roman republic.’ Despite seeing the principal purpose of ‘Britannic arms’ as the repression of tyranny and improper seizure of power, Apthorp went on to argue that British successes would have been in vain ‘had they not been thus timely followed by an advantageous and honourable Peace… disabling our Enemies, [and] removing them from too near a neighbourhood’. It was, in short, a result with ‘many civil advantages to our Continent, and to the whole British empire’.61 Though the circumstances in the American colonies would take their own unexpected turn (which will be considered near the end of this chapter), the security and extension of British territorial holdings continued to be commended. For Abraham Rees, the victories of the late 1790s were a means by which ‘the united naval power of our enemies has been so far reduced, that we trust they will not again… indulge the vain hope of making an impression on any of the coasts belonging to the British empire’. In 1799, Jacob Mountain reminded the members of his Québec diocese to ‘not… think ourselves exempted, by our situation… We form an integral part 58

59

60 61

Thomas Foxcroft, Grateful Reflexions… A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, 1760), pp. 30, 25, 26; John Mellen, A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), pp. 5, 34–8, quotations on pp. 34–5, 37. Simon Reader, Thanksgiving and Prayer… A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763 (London, n.d.), p. 12; John Smith, The Circle Blessing… a Thanksgiving-Sermon… May 5, 1763 (Northampton, n.d.; second edition), p. 28. Wright, A Sermon… May 5, 1763, p. 17; Stead, A Sermon… 5th of May, 1763, p. 8. Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times. A Sermon… XI August, MDCCLXIII, pp. 9, 10, 11.

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of the Empire, and with it we must stand or fall.’62 On the same occasion, and also in Québec, Joseph-Octave Plessis impressed the benefits of imperial rule on his parishioners. Plessis credited the recent British victories over France with ‘special value, because in confirming the power of England, it guarantees to this Province the continuance of peace and happiness’. Listing benefits such as Britain giving asylum to French Catholic clergy and other French citizens from revolutionary France, the lack of taxation of the colonies for the ongoing war, and the political, religious, and legal concessions to citizens in Québec, Plessis insisted his message was ‘not a case of flattery cowardly waving its censer in worship of the powers that be…. It is an acknowledgement imperatively demanded by truth as well as by gratitude.’63 It bears mentioning that Plessis’s praise of British colonial rule was in a sermon for a thanksgiving commemorating a victory over the French navy, preached in French by a Catholic priest to a Catholic congregation in a territory formerly under French rule, demonstrating just how far the British thanksgiving tradition and messages penetrated into colonial culture. In England, by the early nineteenth century, John Stonard celebrated the fact that ‘Our colonies… stand secure, and laugh at the proud vaunts of him who so lately boasted to make them all his own’, and John Garnett applauded how ‘our commerce has been increased beyond all calculation, our dominions in the East have been extended and secured’.64 In the discussion of war, peace, and trade, thanksgiving-day preachers lauded the commercial and financial benefits of imperial holdings. They also described other benefits of colonial power. These included claims of promoting humanitarian principles, along with the positive results from British acquisition and government of its territories. For example, in 1789 Abraham Jobson portrayed George III as the ‘assured friend, the great avenger’ of the previous harm done to the ‘East Indies’ by previous colonial government. Similarly, the Roman Catholic preacher John Milner included among George III’s accomplishments ‘to bestow the comforts of civil life on the most hidden spots of the Southern Hemisphere, and to scatter on every savage coast those precious seeds… [which] will lay the foundation for all the benefits of civilization’. Milner asked ‘Who in past reigns would have attended to the sufferings of human nature on the banks of the Niger and the Ganges?’65 In Ireland in 1759 William Henry observed that the British conquest of Québec meant that French population ‘who shall become the Subjects of Great-Britain, will be advanced from Servitude to Freedom’. In Massachusetts East Apthorp determined ‘that the purpose of the Deity, in giving empire to the English nation, is to maintain and diffuse

62 63

64 65

Rees, The Privileges… A Sermon… 29th of November 1798, pp. 10–11; Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799, p. 32. Joseph-Octave Plessis (trans. Henry Joly de Lotbinière), Thanksgiving Sermon… January 10th. 1799 (Québec, 1906; translation and reprint of the 1799 original), pp. 18–19, 24–8, quotations on p. 24. John Stonard, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Chertsey, 1806), p. 12; John Garnett, A Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (Winchester, 1802), p. 19. Abraham Jobson, The Mercy of God… a Thanksgiving Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (Cambridge, 1789), pp. 7–8; John Milner, A Sermon… April 23. 1789 (London, n.d.), pp. 21–2.



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among Mankind the blessings of humanity, freedom, and religion’. In 1745 Thomas Prince hoped that British victories in North America would ‘be the dawning Earnest of our Divine Redeemer’s carrying on his Triumphs thro’ the Northern Regions; till He extends his Empire from the Eastern to the Western Sea, and from the River of Canada to the Ends of America’.66 Though Prince was speaking of divine interposition here, clearly he believed this would be advanced by British expansion. As with trade, imperial gains and accomplishments could be applied to a loftier, spiritual purpose. In a sermon delivered in Topsham in Devon in 1759, James Fortescue prayed that the ‘Extension of the English Empire in the Indian Land’ in North America during the Seven Years’ War ‘make us ardently desirous to extend with ours the Kingdom of our Saviour Christ… to communicate to the poor unenlightened Natives… the comfortable News of a Saviour that taketh away the Sins of the World’. Countering any suggestion of likeness between the British Empire and that of imperial Rome, on that same occasion Richard Brewster suggested the ancient example was ‘the reverse of ours. They became civilized by those they conquered; but it is now the Birth-right of Englishmen to carry, not only good Manners, but the purest Light of the Gospel, where Barbarism and Ignorance totally prevailed… at the same Time we extend our Conquests, [we] enlarge the Dominion of Christ’s Kingdom’.67 In addition to advancing British trade and commerce, Jonathan Mayhew claimed that the victories of the late 1750s intended ‘to be preparing the way for a much more extensive propagation of the gospel among the savage nations of America; for enlarging the kingdom of Christ’, and he encouraged the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to devote its resources to this purpose. In 1814 Robert Burns called on his audience to ‘Look at our Indian empire, and say whether Britain be not the destined instrument in the hand of God, for the Christianization of that vast continent.’68 Clearly aspects of the concept of the ‘white man’s burden’, in the imperative of civilising and Christianising territories under Britain’s control, were already being established and advanced in the long eighteenth century.

Concerns over empire Not everyone agreed on the purposes and possibilities of Britain’s empire. Some preachers cautioned against repeating the mistakes of the past. As military and imperial successes began to accumulate in the early eighteenth century, Benjamin Woodroffe warned against taking the place of the French and the Spanish and 66

67 68

William Henry, The Triumphs… A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Dublin, 1759), p. 13; Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times… XI August, MDCCLXIII, p. 19; Prince, Extraordinary Events… July 18, 1745, p. 32. James Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Exeter, 1760), p. 20; Brewster, A Sermon… 29th Day of November [1759], p. 27. Mayhew, Two Discourses Delivered October the 25th, 1759, pp. 40–1, 46–7, quotation on p. 46; Robert Burns, Illustrations… A Sermon… Thursday Jan. 13, 1814 (Paisley, 1814), pp. 52–3.

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behaving like them. In 1784 the Presbyterian minister George Walker used a section of his sermon to delineate the destructive actions of humanity against fellow humans, and then recounted how ‘Another World was ravaged and unpeopled by a few Spaniards’. More profoundly, twenty-five years later William Warburton called for consideration of ‘the original claim of European Nations to American possessions, on the severe Principles of Natural and Civil Laws; and then lay our hand on our heart, and ask seriously, Whether the unadjusted claims of the contending nations to deserts of their own making, in the new world, be such a quarrel, as that in which the Creator of all men… is likely, in any extraordinary manner, to interfere?’69 Like Woodroffe and Walker, other preachers cast aspersions towards others’ claims of empire. In 1702 Benjamin Loveling welcomed the fact that Louis XIV was ‘forced to part with his unjust Possessions’, and half a century later Peter Goddard, the rector of Fornham All Saints in Suffolk, celebrated that monarch’s successor losing ‘the Babylon of his American Empire’.70 In his description of the Battle of the Nile, Thomas Bowen described the discovery of the French fleet ‘on the shore of that country which they had so perfidiously invaded’, and the Moravian minister to the Brethren’s Chapel in Bristol, Thomas Grinfield, called the French seizure of Egypt ‘a flagrant violation of every law, divine or human’.71 With no intent of irony Edward Sandercock told how the French ‘had presumed to make claims, and assert some rights in North America, that were not to be admitted, and could not be justified’, enlarging their settlements ‘after such a manner, as must have been very inconvenient to some of our own, and proved dangerous to our Colonies’. Sandercock later applauded the British ‘possession of several new-acquired territories’ that ‘give us an increase of power’.72 Some preachers showed unease about implications of British imperial expansion itself. In his strident support of the 1713 peace, George Hooper decried the acquisition of territories abroad as ‘ruinous to our Country… drained of Natives, to overcome Strangers; and vast Subsidies went out to purchace the less substantial Spoils of Trophies and Glory’. In 1749 John Blackburn worried about ‘such an encrease of Dominion, that at last the Empire sinks, as it were oppress’d by its own Weight’.73 Ideas about the dangers of colonialism and the expansion of empire were given full voice later in the century, after the war with, and loss of, Britain’s American colonies. The sermons from the 1784 British thanksgiving day to mark the end of that war demonstrate attitudes towards empire that often differed in tone and

69

70 71

72 73

Woodroffe, A Sermon… Decem. 3. 1702, p. 19; George Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 17; William Warburton, ‘Sermon IX… November 29, MDCCLIX’, in Sermons and Discourses, Volume III (London, 1766), p. 189. Benjamin Loveling, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, n.d.), p. 21; Peter Goddard, A Sermon Preached November 29, 1759 (Bury St Edmunds, 1760), p. 16. Thomas Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 17; Thomas Grinfield, The Union… a Discourse… November 29, 1798 (Bristol, n.d.), p. 11. Sandercock, A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763, pp. 7–8. Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713, p. 11; Blackburn, Reflections on Government… April 25. 1749, p. 22.



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stance from what was expressed in preceding and future years. Preaching in York, Newcome Cappe asked ‘Why may it not be good for Britain… to confine her attention to her own fields and seas?… Why should it not be good… that America should be governed by her own people and her own laws?’ Stating that ‘Our national pride was become obnoxious to all the kingdoms of the earth’, Andrew Burnaby suggested that Britain was now ‘sufficiently’ large and extensive.74 In Richmond, Gilbert Wakefield’s representation of British colonial rule was far more scathing: recognising the civil and religious liberties in Britain itself, he asked ‘have we been as renowned for a liberal Communication of our Religion and our Laws as for Possession of them? Have we navigated and conquered to save, to civilize, and to instruct; or to oppress, to plunder, and to destroy? Let India and Africa give the Answer to these Questions.’ Responding himself, Wakefield answered ‘The one we have exhausted of her Wealth and her Inhabitants, by Violence, by Famine, and every Species of Tyranny and Murder. The Children of the other we daily carry off from the Land of their Nativity.’75 In his sermon William Backhouse called for the country to ‘abandon the Utopian system of extensive empire. Suffer not the eye to covet more than the hand can hold’. Applying the fruit tree theory of colonialism, with the American branch now ‘severed from the trunk’, Backhouse reserved judgement on ‘whether the separation is, or is not, for the good of the old stock’ but noted that the ‘fruit produced never paid for the expence of cultivation’. Backhouse did lean towards the thought that the ‘Possession of Colonial territory, is not, perhaps, the Best policy, especially when Remote from the parent-state’, but he asked for ‘an Exception to be made in favour of Gibraltar; not for Profit, but for Glory’.76 Even those preachers who did not criticise or call for a withdrawal from colonial territory in 1784 were still subdued in their thanksgiving. William Bennet captured this mood, describing his ‘feeling very painfully with you, both as a Man and as a Briton, that we have not… such splendid achievements to celebrate’. With ‘mortifying reflection, [on] what the British Empire once was’, William Ellis, curate of Stroud in Gloucestershire, lamented that ‘Judah and Israel are alienated from each other, and become two separate nations’, advising that this was caused by Britain’s sinfulness as a nation and especially the lack of proper observation of the sabbath.77 William Keate assessed the futile circumstances of the war for Britain, ‘With one, and no inconsiderable part of its dominions, dismembered from its connection, and with three of the first powers of Europe unnaturally combined, and confederated against her.’ George Walker acknowledged ‘the national temper does not kindly accord with the invitation’ to thankfulness on this occasion, instead replaced by ‘a sense of national humiliation, of national loss, of national affliction’. Finding a more positive spin, Walker contended ‘We were… selected by Providence, to be the 74 75 76 77

Newcome Cappe, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of July, MDCCLXXXIV (York, 1784), p. 22; Burnaby, A Sermon… April 23d, 1789, pp. 13, 14. Gilbert Wakefield, A Sermon… July 29th 1784 (London, 1784), pp. 8, 16. Backhouse, God the Author… July 29, 1784, pp. 16, 19, 20. William Bennet, The Divine Conduct Reviewed, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 18; William Ellis, The Due Method… July 29, 1784 (Gloucester, 1784), pp. 31–4, quotation on p. 31.

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founder of a new people, who are to give a new face to the other half of our world… We were upheld and favoured by Providence… to cherish this new nation of Britons in the other world.’78 Some preachers continued to look back at the effects of the war and the loss of the American colonies after 1784. Congregational minister George Lambert contrasted the 1789 thanksgiving ‘with the scenes which presented themselves before us a few years back. – Then we found ourselves engaged in a formidable war – without a single ally… but this day we rejoice in being at peace with all around us… trade flourishing, commerce extended; our national debt diminished.’ Thomas Leighton similarly described the recent possibility of impending judgement against the nation, when ‘lately we groaned under the scourge of an unsuccessful war, without friends or assistants: the great powers of Europe entered into a strict confederacy with our rebellious colonies: of our antient allies some beheld… with an invidious neutrality little less than hostile; others became our open and rancorous enemies’.79 Thirty years after the end of that American war, John Courtney still recounted ‘provinces revolting from the parent country, whose rebellion… was excited by the unnatural conduct of that Parent, who instead of cherishing and protecting her Offspring, exacted a tyrannous rule over them’, and Courtney declared the loss of the colonies ‘proof that extended Empire is not necessary to the welfare of a state’. Taking a different tack in 1814, Thomas Hewett celebrated the recent British invasion of Washington, DC with an off-colour joke, announcing ‘Their Virginian capital is already no longer virgin.’80 Repercussions from the results of the American Revolutionary War were still current in British North America in the early nineteenth century. In York in Upper Canada, John Strachan lauded his fellow colonists for having the same spirit that ‘animates the children of the Loyalists, which inspired their fathers to put down treason and rebellion; and to stand up for the unity of the empire’. Strachan claimed the War of 1812 was beneficial because ‘it distinguishes our friends from our foes, and rids us of all those traitors and false friends whom a short sighted and mistaken policy had introduced among us’. Preaching to the Scotch Church in Québec, Alexander Spark brought up the recent war, ‘chiefly directed against these Provinces’, because of the need to be thankful to God for its results, and also suggesting that the war had been intended largely as a distraction to Britain in order to aid Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.81

78 79

80 81

William Keate, A Sermon… July 29th. 1784 (Bath, 1784), p. 16; Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784, pp. 23, 34–5. George Lambert, Britain’s King… April 23, 1789 (Hull, 1789), pp. 25–6; Thomas Leighton, Thanksgiving for the King’s Recovery, 1789 (n.p., n.d.), p. 12. George Lambert is identified as a Congregational minister in John Morison, The Fathers and Founders of the London Missionary Society (London, 1844), pp. 381–91, https://archive.org/details/fathersfounderso00mori (accessed 27 February 2015). John Courtney, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 21; Hewett, ‘Sermon II’ [1816], p. 40. Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June… [1814], pp. 34, 36 (Strachan’s reference to the Loyalists is to those who maintained their allegiance to Britain during and after the



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American Thanksgiving – 1783 As a final consideration of the influence of ideas in British thanksgiving-day sermons and their impact on colonial expansion, it is useful to examine a small group of thanksgiving-day sermons from the newly independent United States of America. Though Britain had delayed for almost a year, until late July 1784, its commemoration of the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War, the American Congress declared 11 December 1783 its day of celebration. It is instructive to see how this new nation used familiar themes from the thanksgiving tradition as a means to mark national success and to establish a rhetoric of exceptionalism within the newly independent nation. Though the colonies had celebrated thanksgivings in the past, as subjects of English and British government,82 the 1783 American thanksgivingday sermons demarcated the new country’s nascent nationhood as a break from that past, while at the same time revealing the influence of traditions developed in British sermons throughout the course of the eighteenth century. These included a belief in divine favour towards the United States, ideas of national principles, as well as imperial aspirations. The seven sermons considered here all apply Old Testament passages as their texts (five from the Psalms, one from Isaiah, and one from Judges). Using Psalm 126: 3 (‘The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad’) for his sermon delivered in New York, John Rodgers ascribed the words to God having ‘graciously and fully defeated the designs the Court of Britain had formed to deprive us of our liberties’. Rodgers asserted that God had delivered the nation from Britain’s ‘unjust claims, and future practices upon us; and given us a place among the kingdoms of the world. We have, under the auspices of his holy providence, risen into existance as a people, and taken our station among the nations and empires of the earth!’ Noting how the weight of national debt had forced Britain into negotiations, Rodgers argued that God had been ‘laying the foundation of this new [American] Empire ever since the days of the illustrious William the IIId., for it was in his reign, the foundation of this ruinous debt was laid… by the friends of liberty in that day’.83 According to Rodgers, British wars against the French in the late seventeenth century had providentially led to the British defeat nine decades later.

82

83

Revolutionary War, many moving north to settle in Canadian colonies); Alexander Spark, A Sermon… the 21st April, 1814 (Québec, 1814), pp. 12, 13. In addition to the sermons from colonial thanksgiving days already considered in this study, it should be noted that in his 1783 thanksgiving-day sermon John Murray calculated how there had been 162 ‘anniversary days of Thanksgiving’ in New England ‘since its plantation’: John Murray, Jerubbaal… A Discourse… December 11, 1783 (NewburyPort, MA, 1784), p. 5. David Osgood refers to it being the ‘tenth annual thanksgiving’ with his congregation, and Joseph Buckminster speaks of having frequently met with his congregation on anniversary thanksgiving days: David Osgood, Reflections… A Discourse… 11th of December, 1783 (Boston, MA, 1784), p. 3; Joseph Buckminster, A Discourse… December 11, 1783 (Portsmouth, NH, 1784), p. 3. John Rodgers, The Divine Goodness… December 11th, 1783 (New York, 1784), pp. 10–11, 32–3.

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In Billerica, in Massachusetts, Henry Cumings applied the same biblical passage, explaining that it was inspired by ‘some great and remarkable deliverance, which had been wrought for the people by God’, and he assumed ‘you are all such strong believers, in the doctrine of providence, that, if you have any tolerable acquaintance with the facts, I need not make use of any arguments to persuade you to apply the language of the text, on this occasion’. Reminding his audience of the origins of the war in Britain’s ‘unadvised and arbitrary measures and politics’, Cumings later suggested ‘that God may have designed the benefit of other states and kingdoms, by the great revolution which he has brought about in America’ and he further implied Ireland was already one such country ‘roused to assert her liberties, and contend for her rights’. He predicted ‘that this American revolution may produce changes in Britain, and other parts of Europe; and prepare the way for such alterations in their system of politics, as shall be friendly to the liberties of mankind, and serve to confine the power of arbitrary princes and potentates within narrower bounds’.84 Other preachers developed similar motifs. Preaching in Boston, Joseph Willard, the president of Harvard University, suggestively declared that there ‘never has been a nation for whom God has so miraculously interposed… as often as he did for the children of Israel… Yet divine interpositions for other nations have sometimes been so evident, that he must have been wilfully perverse who has not owned them.’ George Duffield, pastor to the Third Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, fully embraced the prophetic application of his text (Isaiah 66:8) to the circumstances of his day, proclaiming ‘The earth has indeed brought forth, as in a day. A nation has indeed been born, as at once…. almost as soon as our American Zion began to travail… she brought forth her children, more numerous than the tribes of Jacob, to possess the land, from north to south, and from the east to the yet unexplored, far distant west.’ Comparing the British monarch and parliament to pharaoh and the Egyptians, Duffield claimed God had put ‘the spirit of Moses on the elders of Israel, raised up senators, and guided them in council, to conduct the affairs of his chosen American tribes’, and he referred to General Washington as ‘the Joshua of the day’ leading the chosen nation in its final victories.85 David Osgood, pastor to the church in Medford, Massachusetts, also compared British actions to those of pharaoh, ‘not more loth to part with his Hebrew slaves, than the British court to give up their once American subjects’. Echoing Duffield’s ideas on the potential expansion of American territory, Osgood pronounced ‘We are become the proprietors, the sovereigns of a vast continent sufficient to afford ample means of subsistence to many millions of people.’ Confirming the results of the colonies’ revolt, Osgood asserted that ‘These

84

85

Henry Cumings, A Sermon… December 11, 1783 (Boston, MA, 1784), pp. 5, 8, 12, 30, 31. David Osgood also contended that Ireland had now been inspired by the American example to overthrow British political control: Osgood, Reflections… 11th of December, 1783, p. 27. Joseph Willard, A Thanksgiving Sermon… December 11, 1783 (Boston, MA, 1784), p. 13; George Duffield, A Sermon… December 11, 1783 (Philadelphia, PA, 1784), pp. 5, 6, 11, 19, 22.



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united States have come into existence at a time when the quality of liberty and the rights of human nature are defined and understood.’86 In his sermon delivered in Newburyport, Massachusetts, John Murray developed strong providential themes too. Though his text (Judges 8: 34–35) was a reminder for the nation not to fall into sinfulness after its successes, Murray drew parallels between Gideon’s victory with a force of three hundred men and the victory in the recent conflict. Regarding that biblical account, he asked his hearers ‘does it not, in almost every part, address our country more pointedly, than any other under the sun… does it not seem to be written for an history of the American war – only allowing for the change of names – places – and times? Are not we the children of Israel too – a professing covenant-people, in a land peculiarly privileged with gospel-light?’ Continuing this parallel, Murray likened General Washington to Gideon (Jerubbaal) numerous times in the sermon and, in another biblical analogy, compared George III to Nebuchadnezzar.87 Preaching in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Joseph Buckminster began his sermon by averring ‘we, in a sense, celebrate THE BIRTH-DAY OF THIS NEW EMPIRE’. Continuing this imperial theme later in the sermon, Buckminster observed that the United States ‘contains within its limits, an extent of territory far surpassing most of the kingdoms of Europe’, which he reinforced with a calculation of its square mileage in a footnote. With an eye to this vast territory and its future, he considered ‘the desert, the wilderness, and solitary place budding and blossoming as the rose, see cities rising in what are uncultivated wilds, and the whole continent teeming with inhabitants… enjoying all the privileges which Heaven has bestowed on us’. Like others preaching on that day, Buckminster confirmed the political principles of the new nation and its potential impact, characterising the recent war as ‘Our noble stand in defence of the rights of human nature’, which would ‘awaken the dormant sparks of liberty in all quarters of the globe’.88 The growing importance of commercial activities and British territorial expansion are clearly reflected in the thanksgiving-day sermons. Just as war saw the nation’s influence expanding throughout the globe, so too did its trade. Both at home and abroad, economic enterprise was becoming a predominant measure of the health of the country, and was also seen as essential to British purposes and national character in the long eighteenth century. In a similar way, British wars and rivalries brought thanksgiving preachers to comment upon widening territorial interests and made their audiences aware of this expanding realm of British presence and involvement in other parts of the world. The imperial view was also becoming a key component of the sense of British aims during this period, and the thanksgiving-day sermons proudly celebrate the nation’s new spheres of influence. Even the loss of one of

86 87 88

Osgood, Reflections… 11th of December, 1783, pp. 17, 22, 28. Murray, Jerubbaal… December 11, 1783, pp. 32, 36, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 64, 69. Buckminster, A Discourse… December 11, 1783, pp. 3 (emphasis in the original), 18 and 18–19n., 19, 22.

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these territories demonstrated how the rhetoric and themes of British exceptionalism had made their mark on a newly independent set of former colonial holdings, providing it with a sense of its own vision, importance, and destiny but using familiar pretences and themes.

9 Anglicanism, dissent, anti-Catholicism, and infidelity This chapter will look at the religious issues and concerns that were discussed in thanksgiving-day sermons. This will not include a consideration and analysis of fine theological points or doctrinal intricacies but, instead, will focus particularly on preachers’ ideas on relationships among and between denominations of British Protestants, and their perception of the major threats to British Protestantism in the long eighteenth century. These include consideration of the place of the Church of England – and responses to dissent – presented by Anglican clergy, and the views of dissenting clergy regarding their position within the ecclesiastical structure of Britain. It will also examine ideas about the significance of religious freedom and the importance of religious unity for British Christianity in the eighteenth century. Finally, it will analyse the relevance of anti-Catholicism as a prominent theme from the early modern period, and then perceptions of the growth of irreligion as a danger gaining strength in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Anglican preachers and Anglicanism Anglican clergy preached a majority of the thanksgiving-day sermons, so it should be no surprise that they presented some strong opinions regarding the importance of the Established Church within society. In addition to their defence and promotion of the Church of England, some preachers also criticised dissenters and dissenting practices. Though the pitched struggles and provocative rhetoric between Anglican and nonconforming clergy lessened in the period following the Revolution of 1688– 1689, there was still much at stake as the Church of England (and its episcopal counterpart in Ireland) tried to protect and solidify its pre-eminence within British Christianity during the eighteenth century. Though the suspension of the penal laws against Protestant dissenters helped to lower the stakes in religious disagreements between churches and denominations, there was still much to play for in the effort to survive in the competitive landscape of British Christianity: though persecution may have ended, turf wars continued. The belief in the Church of England as properly reformed in its practices and composition was an idea that continued from the Reformation and Restoration into the long eighteenth century, and Anglican clergymen persisted in reminding their

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audiences of their Church’s characteristics. ‘Our Doctrines are True, our Worship, Hierarchy and Ceremonies Pure and Primitive, and every part of our Religion Sincere and without Guile’, Thomas Comber declared in 1697. In the early eighteenth century, Benjamin Lacy maintained that ‘the best of our Old Nonconformists, but even all our Protestant Neighbours beyond the Seas, do unanimously agree’ that the Church of England ‘is the Glory of the Reformation’. Placing it in the middle ground between the extremes, in 1708 Henry Stephens asserted ‘our Publick, and Establish’d Profession is truely Christian, Primitive, and Apostolical. Though our Church glitters not with the gaudy Pomp of Romish splendour, yet she is all Glorious within, pure in her Doctrine, and as free from Enthusiasm, as she is from Superstition.’1 In 1704 John Grant described Anglican worship practices as ‘Grave, Manly, and Decent’ in contrast to Catholic ones, and five years later Richard Lucas concurred: ‘our Liturgy is devout and grave, solid and weighty; and the Rule and Standard both of our Faith and Manners is the Word of God… There is nothing in the Constitution of our Church that ministers either to Fierceness and Bigotry on the one hand, or to Fancy and Enthusiasm on the other.’2 Assertions of the superior qualities of the Church England, either in itself or in contrast to its chief rivals, were stressed throughout the period. In 1716 Edward Chandler declared ‘We are as certain, as the Word of God can make us, that the Religion professed in the Church of England, is the pure Gospel delivered by Jesus Christ.’ Richard Chapman claimed Anglicanism was ‘that Faith once deliver’d to the Saints’.3 Similar messages continued in the middle of the century. After expressing his supreme satisfaction with the civil constitution, John Dupont turned to ‘Our Church, the Pride of our Nation and the Glory of Christendom,… as noted for its Exemption from Superstition… as it is deservedly famous and venerable for its genuine Purity, extensive Charity, and its near Approaches and just Resemblance to the Apostolical and Primitive Times’. Likewise, Richard Brewster, curate of St Nicholas in Newcastle upon Tyne, proclaimed ‘Our Religion and our Constitution retain their original Purity; – we are blessed… with a Religion, reformed from the Errors of former Ages, and which fulfills the Law and the Prophets’. By 1816 Charles Crane, rector of Stoketon in Warwickshire, could still copiously commend the Church of England as ‘that pure and apostolical branch of the Church of Christ… now so established in our land, that this country may be justly considered as the bulwark of the Protestant faith’.4 1

2

3 4

Thomas Comber, A Sermon… Second of December [1697] (London, 1697), p. 17; Benjamin Lacy, A Sermon… 31th of December [1706] (Exeter, 1707), p. 21; Henry Stephens, A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708 (Oxford, 1708), p. 9. John Grant, Deborah and Barak… A Sermon… Seventh of September, 1704 (London, 1704), pp. 20–1; Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 219. Edward Chandler, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 24; Richard Chapman, Good Kings… A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 12. John Dupont, ‘The Blessings… A Sermon… April 25. MDCCXLIX’, in The Loyal Miscellany. Consisting of Several Sermons, and Other Tracts (London, 1751), p. 16; Richard Brewster, A Sermon… 29th Day of November… [1759] (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1759), p. 14; Charles Crane, God’s Mercies… A Sermon… Jan. 18, 1816 (London, 1816), p. 12.



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Despites confirmations of the excellence of the Church of England and its practices, Anglican clergy did notice and comment upon certain issues facing the church. At the time of the Union with Scotland, preachers voiced disappointment that the two constituent parts of the new state did not share the same church. Calling the retention of the Scottish Kirk ‘an unhappy Difference in point of Church Government’, Francis Hutchinson assured his audience that ‘the Church [of England] hath not receded in the least Point from its ancient Rights’, and he counted it a sign of their trust that the Scots were willing to ‘deliver up their Sword, and Purse, and Keys of their Country’ to ‘an Episcopal Queen’. Nathaniel Marshall, the vicar of St Pancras and lecturer of St Mary Aldermanbury in London, acknowledged the possible danger to the Church of England from the civil Union, but he hoped that the ‘Beauty and Comeliness of our Worship, the Gravity and Antiquity of our Episcopal Order… will wipe out those Prejudices against ’em,… that then our Brethren will rather think of giving into ours, than expect our coming over to their Modern Schemes of Discipline and Worship’. Thomas Manningham affirmed that episcopal government ‘will not long continue to be such a frightful Thing to the common People of Scotland when they shall be better acquainted with the Piety and Humility, as well as Learning, of those who are placed amongst us in that higher Order’.5 It is clear from this Anglican perspective which church was seen as better placed to win out as the appropriate vehicle of British Christianity. Yet even within the Established Church there were uncertainties. In addition to criticising the rejection of the ‘Apostolical Order of Bishops… in North Britain, by their Pretended One of Presbyters’, in 1713 Benjamin Loveling also fired a shot at Latitudinarian clergy, condemning the previous ministry for their preference for ‘all Lukewarm Professors’. Two years after his sermon on the Union, Thomas Manningham, a royal chaplain and soon to be bishop of Chichester, was concerned about this kind of ‘fatal Distinction of High and Low Church, or a Jealousy that some had too much Zeal, and some too little’. In 1689 Gilbert Burnet complained of the ‘scandal that falls on all Religions, and on ours in particular, which is occasioned by the diversity… of Rites, and matters indifferent… Many of the Old corruptions doe yet remain among us in practise, and the Administration of the Ecclesiastical authority is liable to great Objections’.6 Distinctions among Anglicans persisted into the mid-century, when William Warburton worried about a ‘new species of Fanaticism… arisen within the bosom of the Church… now known by the fantastic name of Methodism’. Though Methodist ministers held ‘themselves clear of all blame, because they teach only the Doctrines of the established Church’, Warburton argued ‘it should be considered… that the manner of teaching is often as injurious to truth and peace as the matter of the Doctrine, when the heat of zeal raises piety to frenzy’. Over a half century later, 5

6

Francis Hutchinson, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 12, 14; Nathaniel Marshall, A Sermon… May the First, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 15–16; Thomas Manningham, A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 13. Benjamin Loveling, Peace… A Sermon… Seventh of July, 1713 (Oxford, 1713), pp. 19, 12; Thomas Manningham, A Sermon… 17th of February [1709] (London, 1709), p. 15; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of January, 1688… [1689] (London, 1689), p. 33.

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Latham Wainewright, the rector of Great Brickhill in Buckinghamshire, would note his concerns about the Methodists, ‘these bewildered wanderers in the paths of error,… have for several years been rapidly increasing’. Concerned that ‘the converts to these enthusiasts are taken from the very dregs of the people, and… uniformly consist of the ignorant and the weak’, Wainewright hoped for the advancement of education of the poor, which would ‘present an effectual check to the growing evils of fanaticism and delusion’. In the late eighteenth century, some questioned whether all ministers even preached the gospel, to which John Newton replied ‘Most certainly not. The doctrines from many pulpits are contrary,… the doctrines from too many pulpits contradict the articles and the liturgy, which the preachers have solemnly subscribed.’7 Dissent from the Church of England also continued to rankle and provoke comment from Anglican preachers. Criticisms of dissenters are found throughout the thanksgiving-day sermons. In 1706 Benjamin Lacy hoped that dissenters would ‘see their Error, and own their Unreasonable Obstinacy, in quitting and flouting at an Establish’d Unfaulty Church, to make a Causeless and an Unjustifiable Separation; thereby rending the Seamless Vesture of Christ’. In 1789 Thomas Leighton defended the Test Act as the ‘outward bulwark’ for securing ‘the church against the power of her enemies by excluding them from civil offices’, and Leighton criticised ‘the audacity of Schismatics’ which ‘instigated them to revile and ridicule our ordinances and our liturgy’. In 1814 Latham Wainewright endorsed the toleration ‘afforded to every sect and denomination of Christian’, though he went on to add ‘however unfounded and chimerical their tenets, and however adverse their private sentiments to our ecclesiastical polity’, a rather grudging and uncomplimentary representation of dissenting beliefs in the early nineteenth century.8 Accusations of schism, fanaticism, and sectarianism remained part of this critique, and there was a particular vehemence to this in the thanksgiving sermons of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In 1696 Deuel Pead ranked ‘some Protestants’ amongst the heathen for ‘their vilainous Practises’, and six years later Humphrey Prideaux warned of the need ‘to serve God the true way, not with the Idolatrous Papist on the one hand, or with the Schismatical Enthusiast on the other’. In 1709 Richard Chapman condemned the ‘Pretences of Zeal, some Persons may suggest or express for God’s Worship and Service… yet from their venting and belching out such unmerciful Invectives, and invidious Libels… against the present Establishment… we may infer their great defect in Mercy, or true Charity’.9 That

7

8

9

William Warburton, ‘Sermon IX…. November 29, MDCCLIX’, in Sermons and Discourses, Volume III (London, 1766), p. 204; Latham Wainewright, The Constitution… a Sermon… 13th of January 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 13–14n.; John Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon … December 19, 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 11–12. Lacy, A Sermon… 31th of December… [1706], p. 20; Thomas Leighton, Thanksgiving for the King’s Recovery, 1789 (n.p., n.d.), p. 10; Wainewright, The Constitution… a Sermon… 13th of January 1814, p. 15. Deuel Pead, The Protestant King… a Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 10; Humphrey Prideaux, A Sermon… December the 3d, 1702 (Norwich, 1703), p. 16; Richard Chapman, Publick Peace… a Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 9.



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same year, in graphic detail, Thomas Knaggs described dissenters as ‘Snakes’ that ‘live in the Bosom of the same Church,… Nourish’d by the sincere Milk of the same Word,… and yet like a Viporous Brood gnaw upon, and eat out the Bowels of their Mother’, laying open the way for enemies of the English church and state. Francis Hutchinson accused Presbyterians and ‘Independents’ of dividing from an already perfect church, and Michael Stanhope charged dissenters with being ‘the cause of our Differences in Religion’.10 At times this assessment of dissenting ideas and practices was more substantial. In 1704 Luke Milbourne pointed to the existence of ‘a sullen Generation in these Kingdoms, who having… dissolv’d all that Peace and Harmony which once render’d our Church Prosperous and Happy, seem ever since to have been made up of grating Discords’. Milbourne went on to criticise the ‘Evil Spirit from the Lord which has taken Possession of the Quakers’, the ‘sour Humour’ of ‘Our Brownists, Independants and Anabaptists’, whose ‘Mad Spiritual Songs’ are worse than ‘the hoarse Grumbling of Bears, and the ominous Houlings of Wolves’. In 1697 Francis Gregory called for dissenters to ‘act like Men, and hearken to right Reason’, and he argued ‘they could find no just Ground to withdraw themselves from the Church of England, in whose way of Divine Worship there is nothing Prescribed, nothing Practised, but what the Scriptures do either Command, or at least Allow’. Gregory further alleged that when dissenters separated ‘from our Publick Assemblies, and meet in Private Conventicles, ’tis well known that Priests and Jesuits, under a Disguise, creep in amongst them, and by degrees instill their Poisonous Doctrines into the Minds of Unwary and Credulous Men’. Abiel Borfet made similar contentions. He perceived Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism as the two principal religious threats, not only to the Church of England but also to the monarchy. Borfet also worried about ‘the most zealous Religionaries… who separate from the Communion of our Parish Churches as Antichristian,… in the heat of unguided Zeal, they cast out of the Church… many… orderly and decent Observances’.11 Another irritant to many Anglican churchmen was occasional conformity to Church of England worship by dissenters. In 1713 Benjamin Loveling denounced this practice as ‘the Atheistical Hypocrisy of Occasional Conformity for Secular, and even Seditious Purposes’. Preaching to the queen at St Paul’s in 1705, Richard Willis took a different approach. Applying the theme of reconciliation, Willis recommended ‘those Persons should think seriously of this matter, who do own that there is nothing unlawful in our Communion, and therefore can and do sometimes come to our churches’, should simply join the Church of England. Willis said this ‘is the case not only of those few who come to qualify themselves for Offices, but of very great numbers in all parts of the Kingdom, who have not apparently any temporal 10

11

Thomas Knaggs, A Sermon… 16th Day of April, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 14; Hutchinson, A Sermon… First of May, 1707, p. 15; Michael Stanhope, God the Author… A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708 (London, 1708), p. 12. Luke Milbourne, Great Brittains Acclamation… a Sermon… September VII. 1704…. (London, 1704), p. 18; Francis Gregory, Oμιλια Ειρηνικη. Or, a Thanksgiving Sermon… The Second Day of December, 1697 (London, 1697), pp. 18, 19–20; Abiel Borfet, The Minister of Richmond’s Sermon [1696] (London, 1696), pp. 2, 3, 5.

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Interest to serve by it’. Using his chosen text (Isaiah 11-13-14), Willis stated it was ‘the first Duty of Ephraim [i.e. dissenters], to return into Communion with his Brother Judah’.12 Withdrawal from certain public rites was criticised as well. In 1797 Adam Gordon questioned some dissenters’ loyalty to the nation because of their non-participation in the days of national religious commemoration: how can we think otherwise, when we see persons professing godliness, acting in open violation of laws divine and human… calling the duly appointed days of public humiliation and thanksgiving – ordinances of mere men, and therefore persuading themselves and others, that they are not strictly bound to pay due reverence to these pious, humble, and christian efforts to appease God’s just anger, and praise him for his undeserved benefits.

Concerns over ‘sectarian’ separation continued to the end of the period. In 1814 William Mavor observed that ‘In a free country, indeed, like this,… the public mind must always have some gilded bauble… to pursue. At one time… ambitious demagogues are cajoling the people with plans of political reform,… at another time, under the mask of hypocrisy, or the delusion of misapplied zeal, a species of religious Quixotism is promoted and spread.’ In order to defend against this danger, Mavor supported full freedom of religious practice for ‘sects’ but he continued to maintain they should not have access to political power ‘which can never be safely granted to divided allegiance’.13 In addition to a belief in the Church of England as the epitome proper belief and practice, Anglican preachers advanced the idea of conformity as a source of other national benefits, including as a guarantor of unity and a source of political strength. After a century punctuated by long stretches of extended warfare, in 1802 John Brewster suggested it was because of the stability found in the Church of England that the country had ‘suffered less amidst the convulsions of nations than many other countries’. Almost a century earlier Benjamin Carter similarly found ‘Part of our Happiness as a Nation, consists in the full, and peacable Enjoyment of the Protestant, Reformed Religion, as profess’d and taught in the Church of England.’14 In the interests of the country, in 1715 Jonathan Smedley told the congregation of St Peter le Poer in London to ‘be tender of her Unity; support her Dignity; cultivate Peace; encourage Honesty; promote Trade; pay Taxes chearfully; adhere to Christianity, the Reformation, and particularly to the Church of England by Law establish’d’. In 1689 Thomas Watts reminded his congregation that their religion was ‘as much our Property as any thing we enjoy, or more, being established by and interwoven in our Laws’.15 12 13

14 15

Loveling, Peace… A Sermon… Seventh of July, 1713, p. 19; Richard Willis, A Sermon… 23 Day of August 1705 (London, n.d.), pp. 5–6. Adam Gordon, Due Sense… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 8n. (emphasis in the original); William Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon. January 13, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance (London, 1814), pp. 22, 24. John Brewster, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Stockton, 1802), p. 20; Benjamin Carter, The Happiness… A Sermon… June the 7th 1716 (London, 1716), p. 5. Jonathan Smedley, A Discourse… January 20 [1715] (London, 1715), pp. 23–4; Thomas Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th [1689] (London, 1689), p. 23.



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Preachers presented the Established Church as a foundation of order in society. According to John Sturges in 1798, ‘National Religion’ was a crucial means by ‘which the Duties of Man, both to God and his Brethren, are taught in purity and enforced with earnestness’. In 1709 Thomas Manningham proclaimed the importance of maintaining a unified front in civil and ecclesiastical affairs, ‘especially in our religious Concerns, that our Church may be as terrible to our Enemies, as our Camp, as terrible as an Army with Banners’. That same year Richard Lucas challenged those who thought it was ‘an indifferent thing what particular Communion they are of, whether of the National Church or any other’, arguing that this would be like suggesting ‘Confusion is as good as Order, Division as good as Unity, and that causeless Separations draw not ill Effect after them.’16 The national church provided political strength also. In 1706 Charles Lamb pronounced the ‘Establish’d Religion’ as ‘the heart and Vitals of our Government’, and in 1746 one anonymous author paralleled Anglican church government with parliament, ‘wherein the offices of bishops, priests or presbyters, and deacons respectively answer to those of king, lords, and commons in our parliamentary constitution’. Over four decades later John Robinson praised the alliance of church and state, ‘how admirably they have administered strength to each other; so… that they must stand or fall together, – we must necessarily admit that those who betray an implacable hatred to the one, cannot be considered otherwise, than as equally hostile to the other’.17

Dissenting stances Dissenting ministers also presented their own views of nonconformity and of the Established Church. In their turn, dissenters’ thanksgiving-day sermons used the opportunity to note the perceived errors of the Established Church and the laws that protected it. In the several decades following 1689, a chief concern was continuing restriction on religious dissent. In his sermon for the thanksgiving day celebrating William’s intervention and the deliverance of the nation, the Presbyterian John Collinges questioned impositions against nonconforming worship. Collinges’ preface lectured on the need for unity and asserted this was ‘inconsistent with any Persecution’. At this crucial time he asked ‘how do they shew their readiness to do all Offices of love one to another, who make it their business to ruine others, by Fines, Imprisonments, &c.’, and how could Protestant nonconformists ‘joyn in Actions for Publick Good, of whom you require… things that their Consciences tell them they cannot do without Sin?’ Collinges also challenged the idea that civil concord required denominational unanimity: ‘If Men be united in their common Counsels,

16

17

John Sturges, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, n.d.), p. 17; Manningham, A Sermon… 17th of February [1709], p. 15; Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, pp. 227–8. Charles Lamb, England Happy… A Sermon… December the 31st, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 17; Anonymous, A Thanksgiving Sermon… October the 9th, 1746 (n.p., 1746), p. 23; John Robinson, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 11–12.

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Designs, and Readiness to serve the publick,… and a readiness to serve one another in love, it is enough for our Civil and Secular Happiness’; he declared ‘the necessity of any other Union is Chimaera’. In his sermon itself, Collinges denied the propriety of civil authorities prescribing positive laws over religious worship, arguing that ‘in matters of Religion, there is no Judge Superior to a Mans Conscience but God alone’.18 Dissenting preachers’ concerns continued even after the Toleration Act was passed. In 1697 John Howe complained of the creation of new boundaries within Protestant belief, which he said was ‘to Confine Salvation, in the Means of it, to such or such a Party, such a Church; arbitrarily Distinguished from the rest of Christians. As if the Priviledges of his Kingdom belong’d to a Party only.’ Two decades later Michael Pope would still call for vigilance against ‘Ecclesiastical Tyranny, which strips the Body, and Distrains on the Conscience at once! and pretends to the greatest Good, but executes the greatest Evil’. In the aftermath of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion, the anonymous author of The Rebellion of Sheba attacked rigid Anglicanism, asserting ‘we see that no Bonds, sacred or civil, are strong enough to oblige the High Church to the Duties of Subjects’.19 By the middle of the eighteenth century, Gilbert Kennedy would still protest that restrictions on dissenters were ‘a Violation of the common Rights of Subjects’, though he would qualify this by noting things were now much better than for their dissenting predecessors. Though in 1784 Joseph Cornish could comment that religious persecution had declined, he still suggested that ‘inflammatory discourses of enraged bigots may as yet excite a temporary spirit of persecution in a mob; but… never more in nations as a collective body’.20 In the politically tumultuous period of the early eighteenth century, physical attacks against dissenters and their churches were mentioned and condemned in thanksgiving-day sermons. Preaching to a meeting house in Black Friars in London in 1710, Samuel Wright remarked on the ‘uncommon Fury and Tempestuousness by which you have lately suffered, in the tearing to pieces your Place of Worship’. During the first Jacobite rebellion dissenters were the targets of violence. From Lymington in Hampshire, George Farrol remarked on the propensity of his countrymen to transfer ‘the Odium of popish Plots and Conspiracies on the Presbyterians’, and went on to note ‘ridiculously enough, some have adventured to affirm [this] here in the Country, that the Presbyterians were the Rioters, who pull’d down their own Meeting-Houses’. John Withers was amazed at ‘what unaccountable Riots and Tumults have been committed in diverse Parts of the Kingdom’ against dissenters. Withers warned it was the king’s authority that suffered in these instances, because ‘Those Hands which broke down their Meeting Houses, would as 18 19

20

John Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9 (London, 1689), sig. A2v, A3r–v, 4–5, 6–7, 26, quotations from sig. A2v, A3v, and 26. John Howe, A Sermon… Decemb. 2. 1697 (London, 1698), p. 21; Michael Pope, The Merciful Discovery… A Thanksgiving Sermon [1716] (Bristol, 1716), p. 22; Anonymous, The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (Exeter, 1716), p. 5. Gilbert Kennedy, The Great Blessing… A Sermon… April 25th, 1749 (Belfast, 1749), p. 19; Joseph Cornish, The Miseries… a Thanksgiving Sermon… July 29th, 1784 (Taunton, n.d.), p. 23.



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willingly have pull’d Him out of his Throne: And those Feet which trampled upon the Dust of their ruin’d Temples, would have been as ready to kick the Crown from off his Head.’21 In addition to objecting to oppression, dissenting ministers targeted the faults they perceived in the Church of England as a means to distinguish between the propriety of their worship and the errors of the Established Church. The author of A Sermon Preach’d in a Country Church (1689) characterised policies of the Church of England as ‘Al-a-mode d’Rome’, and another anonymous Sermon Preached in a Congregation in the City of Exon (1696) decried those ‘too prone to please themselves with some externals of worship, and splendid formalities’.22 In 1705 Joseph Jacob railed against ‘Apostatiz’d Professors… their Faces so hid with the Hair of Whores, that they do neither blush at, nor stick to commit such Abominations’, and five years later Simon Browne claimed that ‘immoderate warmth for the little Things, the Circumstances,… fringes and little Decorations of religion, [have] wasted the Power of it, and left us little more than a bare Skeleton, an empty high sounding Name, without any great reality answering to it’.23 The issues raised were not limited to ecclesiastical differences. There was also criticism of the civil impacts of Anglican policy. Samuel Bromesgrove criticised lay impropriators of Church of England livings in 1705, claiming the lay impropriator of such livings ‘grows Wanton in his Ill-gotten Pastures; and tho’ he can in no good Sense feed the Flock, yet he Luxuriously Drinks up the Milk, and then Kicks against those Paps that gave ’em Suck’, while the poor minister ‘without competent Provision, can scarce meet with a necessary and a just living Esteem from their Parishioners and Congregations’. In 1746 the Presbyterian minister John Milner warned against falling into pastimes that diminished the importance of the Sabbath, and he denounced the Test Act because it ‘stands not in the way of the Enemies of the Government; but in the way of its Friends’.24 At the beginning of George I’s reign, William Fisher noted that because of dissenters’ refusal ‘to come into those Measures that were destructive to our Religion and Liberties, a severe Law was made against us, by which we were deprived of the Natural Right of Educating our Children’, and Fisher pointedly added that ‘several key supporters of this law against dissenting academies had supported the Pretender in the recent rebellion’. In 1763 Simon Reader still looked back to this ‘Attack made upon this precious Branch of Liberty, at the Close of a late Reign, when the Education of the Children of 21

22 23

24

Samuel Wright, ‘A Sermon… November 7th, 1710’, in The Love of One Another (London, 1710), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); George Farrol, The Late Rebellion… A Sermon… June the 7th. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 26; John Withers, The Perjury… a Sermon… June the 7th. 1716 (London, 1716), pp. 24–5. Anonymous, A Sermon… February 14. 1688… [1689] (London, 1689), pp. 7–8 (emphasis in the original); Anonymous, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 11. Joseph Jacob, Desolations Decypher’d… a Sermon… 23d of the 6th Month, 1705 (London, 1705), p. 3; Simon Browne, The Guilt and Provocation… a Sermon… Nov. 7. 1710 (London, 1711), p. 23. Samuel Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704 (London, 1704), pp. 25–6; John Milner, National Gratitude… A Thanksgiving Sermon … October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), pp. 43, 44.

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Protestant Dissenters was intended to be no longer left to the Option of the Parents’. In the difficult thanksgiving of 1784, William Bennet found comfort in the fact ‘that our Ministers, and others duly qualified… may open schools for the education of our youth… without the necessity of their subscribing to any human imposed creed: a privilege, which, till of late years, did not exist’.25 Dissenting ministers emphasised the legitimacy of their positions outside of Anglican worship. Still a Quaker in 1696, George Keith thanked God for the recent legislation that allowed ‘all in this Nation and in all the three Nations that are Sober and Godly and of tender Consciences’ to ‘enjoy the happy Freedom and Liberty to serve and Worship God according to their Faith and Perswasion’. Preaching in Havant in Hampshire that same year, Charles Nicholetts recognised ‘Great and wide was the breach in the late Reigns, between the Church of England and those of the Dissenting way; but… this breach is competently made up; the Dissenters have their Liberty not only granted but secured and made firm by a Law, and the moderate and sober part of the Church of England are therewith well satisfied.’ Over sixty years later, Thomas Craner contended it was for the sake of dissenters, God’s chosen people, ‘in these Isles of Great Britain and Ireland… that the Lord does favour this nation’.26 Preachers also singled out their particular denominations. Thomas Taylor validated Methodism by recounting how religion had been ‘at a very low ebb’ in Britain until ‘the year 1738 or a little before, when God thrust out his servants into the highways and hedges to gather in the outcasts of mankind, and to form himself a people who were not a people, and from hence light is again sprung up’. For Thomas Belsham it was Unitarians’ exposure ‘to the rigour of penal laws’ that distinguished their faith, and he encouraged his fellows ‘In this instance, and in this alone, let us disobey the laws of our country, and glory in our disobedience.’ Thomas Freke included the Confession of Faith composed by the Westminster Assembly of Divines on the first page of his printed sermon, and he purposefully remarked that the Act of Union had recognised both the Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland as ‘The True Protestant Religion’.27 Regardless of their criticisms of the Church of England and oppressive policies, as well as their strong assertions of the legality of their nonconforming stance, dissenting ministers were also careful to demonstrate their and their congregations’ roles as good citizens in adherence and loyalty to the government. Notwithstanding 25

26

27

William Fisher, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 22; Simon Reader, Thanksgiving and Prayer… A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763 (London, n.d.), p. 24; William Bennet, The Divine Conduct Reviewed, A Sermon… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), p. 31. George Keith, A Sermon… 16th. of the Second Month, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 15; Charles Nicholetts, The Cabinet of Hell Unlocked… a Sermon… April 16th 1696 (London, 1696), p. 13; Thomas Craner, National Peace… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 15–16. Thomas Taylor, Britannia’s Mercies… Two Discourses… November 29, 1798 (Leeds, 1799), p. 18; Thomas Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 22; Thomas Freke, Prayers and Thanksgivings… a Sermon… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. [2].



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his censure of forced religious conformity in 1689, John Collinges explained that he accepted the authority of temporal powers ‘to judge what is necessary and expedient in all Civil things for the upholding and managing the Civil Government… [and] to inforce the Laws of God in Religious things’. Fellow Presbyterian minister John Flavell concluded his 1689 sermon with the directive to ‘Be Loyal, Peaceable and Obedient… Convince the World that Religion breeds the best Subjects.’ At the end of the printed version of his 1696 thanksgiving-day sermon, George Keith included a four-page ‘Testimony of Our Faithful Obedience and Subjection to King William the III. And His Government’, which was subscribed to by the Quaker meeting at Turners’ Hall in London.28 For the thanksgiving celebrating the victory at Blenheim in 1704, Joseph Stennett (the elder) called on his congregation to pray for the continued military successes of Queen Anne’s reign and to ‘contribute what we can to the Support of it… for there’s no Law to restrain any of us from rendering Service to her Majesty and to out Native Country after this pious manner’. Two years later John Spademan introduced the printed version of his sermon with a ‘Gratulatory Address presented to Her Majesty, by the Dissenting Ministers, in and about the City of London’, which used the occasion ‘to renew to your Majesty the Assurance of our inviolable Fidelity’.29 Such reassurances became more necessary after the 1715 Jacobite rebellion. John Withers pointedly concluded his 1716 sermon with a call for his congregation to pray inclusively ‘for our Nobility, Magistrates and Gentry,… For our Ministers of all Denominations’. More directly, in addition to confirming the loyalty of Presbyterian ministers in Scotland during the rising, Michael Pope affirmed ‘that amongst the Protestant Dissenters in England, not one was False to the Constitution’. Also confirming the faithfulness of Scottish Presbyterians, William Fisher countered the common misrepresentation of dissenters as ‘Enemies to all Monarchy, People of Republican Principles, and dispos’d to rebel on every Occasion’, by asserting that ‘there has not been found one English Dissenter in the late Rebellion, but they have all been, to a Man, most Zealous against it, and unmoveable in their Allegiance to their Rightful Sovereign’.30 Thomas Taylor published his thanksgiving sermons at the end of the eighteenth century to show his ‘sincere esteem for the Government under which I live. During the present war, much has been said about Loyalty… This odium has been generally cast upon all Dissenters, for what reason I cannot tell.’ In 1802 the Congregational minister John Clayton felt the need to provide similar reassurances to the government and to his own congregation specifically in the context of the events of the French Revolution. Clayton suggested ‘the republican form of our congregational churches might have supplied occasions of temptations… You might have transferred, as some have done, your ideas of equality 28

29 30

Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9, sig. A3r; John Flavell, Mount Pisgah. A Sermon… February xiiii, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 46; Keith, A Sermon… 16th. of the Second Month, 1696, pp. 28–31. Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704 (London, 1704), p. 31; John Spademan, Deborah’s Triumph… A Sermon… June 27th, 1706 (London, n.d.), (no pag.). Withers, The Perjury… June the 7th. 1716, p. 31; Pope, The Merciful Discovery [1716], p. 26; Fisher, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June the 7th, 1716, p. 21.

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and universal suffrage, obtaining in our societies to civil government.’ However, he asserted that the ‘transient paroxyism of the public mind, produced by the writings of wild speculators on human governments, has not prompted you blasphemously to attempt to revolutionize the immortal soul of Man, the unchangeable God, or the standing revelation of his will’. Clayton concluded that the ‘pestilent effects of doctrines concerning the rights of men have not afflicted your houses: your children and servants have not philosophically risen up against your authority’.31 Thanksgiving days and other general worship events themselves became significant indicators of dissenting commitment and loyalty to the government and national causes. As Abraham Rees declared in 1798, the anniversary of the Hanoverian succession had been long celebrated ‘and by none more sincerely and more joyfully than by Protestant Dissenters’, testifying ‘their approbation of the civil constitution of their country; and on all necessary occasions they have been amongst the most zealous and active in evincing their attachment to it and their desire of its perpetuity’. Over a century earlier J.E. Edzard similarly avowed that his London Lutheran congregation ‘do not keep back. Our interest is most closely united with that of this Land, and the Inhabitants thereof…. Therefore we also with the Multitude (of England) that keep the Holy-day, are gone into the House of God with joy and praise.’32 In the preface to the printed version of his 1763 sermon, John Richardson reported from London that ‘the generality of the Protestant Dissenting Ministers in and about this Metropolis, on the late solemn day, were as fervent in their Thanksgivings to God, and as zealous to inspire their respective Congregations with pacific sentiments, as any of our Brethren of the Established Communion could be’. Also in a preface, in 1702 Daniel Williams dismissed suspicions against dissenters by confirming ‘we had solemnly in the appointed Fast, and usually throughout the Campaign prayed for this Success; yea… we neither do, nor can propose any Interest, separate from that of all true English Protestants’.33 Dissenting congregations participated in thanksgiving days and other national worship days throughout the period. This is demonstrated by the significant proportion of extant thanksgiving-day sermons from dissenting ministers, as well as by statements regarding this practice. In 1746 John Milner affirmed that ‘Among the Dissenters solemn days of Prayer were frequently observed… Our Assemblies were crowded with worshippers.’ Referring to fast days and prayers for peace, in 1783 Thomas Craner pointed to ‘Monday evenings set aside for solemn prayer by our brethren of the Congregational Denomination: and the Friday evenings observed by our brethren of the Baptist persuasion… [and] our own practice of employing an

31 32

33

Taylor, Britannia’s mercies… November 29, 1798, 28n.; John Clayton, The Great Mercies… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), pp. 16, 17, 18–19 (emphasis in the original). Abraham Rees, The Privileges… A Sermon… 29th of November 1798 (London, 1798), p. 12; J.E. Edzard, The Finger of God… A Sermon… 16th of April [1696] (London, 1696), p. 3. John Richardson, The Sovereign Goodness… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. iii–iv; Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702 (London, 1702), p. iii.



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evening once a fortnight for the same sacred purpose’.34 Some dissenting ministers commented on those who did not celebrate or attend on such occasions. In the early eighteenth century, Samuel Bromesgrove criticised the people who were absent from their congregations on thanksgiving days. Such a person, he said, ‘declares himself by that morose and ill-natur’d Separation, no true Lover of his Country, and that he has no hearty Well-wishes for Jerusalem’s Welfare and Propserity: He is an Ill-mannerly Dissenter… and sure he cannot have the Face, or the Appearance of a true English-Man’. In 1709 Thomas Masters wondered how there could be ‘jarring Strings in our Harps,… those among us who can relish nothing that is truly grateful and savory herein, to constrain them to harmonize with their joyful Brethren’.35 The 1789 celebration of the king’s recovery seemed to pose the possibility of a crisis of conscience for some dissenters. It was, according to John Martin, an occasion ‘which hath given joy to millions’, and ‘not to rejoice at such an event… would discover a temper so perverse as to admit of no apology’. However, Martin acknowledged that concerns had been raised among dissenters about the form of service for the thanksgiving day, and he himself did not follow that liturgy. Martin noted a fine line that needed to be walked between ‘contempt of regal authority’ on one hand, and ‘venal adulation’ on the other. Despite this, he affirmed ‘there is not one article in our creed which will ever lead us to repent… of religiously uniting with those who “fear God and honour the King”’, and he reminded his audience how they had ‘prayed, with sincerity, for that blessing we now enjoy… to be thankful is the natural consequence of such conduct’. In 1798, perhaps because of the different occasion, with Britain at war and celebrating a famous naval victory, Martin stated his inclination to use the prayer from the thanksgiving liturgy being followed in Church of England services, citing his agreement with it ‘In point of composition and of sentiment.’36

Religious liberty and Protestant unity While the distinctions and disagreements between the Church of England and dissenting churches were discussed in thanksgiving-day sermons, the importance of religious freedom and of Protestant unity also received much comment from both Anglican and dissenting ministers. The establishment of a legal basis for Protestant toleration marks 1689 as a watershed in British ecclesiastical policy. Even before toleration was legislated, Church of England and nonconforming ministers alike were anticipating some form of religious reconciliation on the 1689 thanksgiving day. John Olliffe expressed his hope ‘that we shall not only be secured from the Fears 34 35 36

Milner, National Gratitude… October 9, 1746, p. 25; Craner, National Peace… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763, p. 2. Bromesgrove, A Sermon… September the 7th, 1704, p. 14; Thomas Masters, A Sermon… November 22. 1709 (London, 1710), p. 20. John Martin, Social Dispositions… a Sermon Preached April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), pp. 8, 11, 12, 24, 25; John Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798 (London, 1799), p. 30.

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of Popery and Slavery, but that we may see a long-look’d-for blessed Union among Protestants’. Fellow Anglican rector William Wilson wanted to see ‘a broken Church made whole, and Protestants united’ in order to ‘fully complete our Deliverance’.37 The Presbyterian minister John Flavell anticipated a ‘National Reformation’ that would end ‘the Groans and Cryes of oppressed Consciences’ and result in ‘The pouring out of the Spirit of Unity upon the people of God to consolidate and strengthen the poor dilacerated Church.’ His Presbyterian colleague John Collinges welcomed ‘such an opportunity of uniting all that profess the Reformed Religion, as possibly our Forefathers for more than an Hundred years… have wanted’. It is clear that Collinges envisioned a Protestant consensus that allowed distinctions of worship practice, and he denied the need of ‘an Unity of Communion’ that required ‘a resorting to the same Church to offer up united Prayers and Praises, and together to receive the Sacrament’.38 The Toleration Act did not bring the kind of full comprehension or unifying conformity that dissenters or Anglicans might have sought. However, the value of freedom for Protestant belief was recognised throughout the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century. One of the mercies that Samuel Clerke was thankful for in 1696 was the ‘Liberty to serve the Lord our God without Fear, Liberty without a Snare or Hook in it, True Protestant Liberty’. In addition to the victories of 1702, Joseph Jacob appreciated ‘the Call and the Liberty we have to keep this Day’.39 In 1709 Thomas Reynolds celebrated the blessing of having ‘THE TRUE RELIGION… and the free Exercise of it secur’d unto us by Acts of Parliament and Royal Assurances’, and similarly Thomas Freke acknowledged ‘we have Liberty of Conscience given us in a Parliamentary way, and established by Law… which under some of the former Reigns we did not enjoy’.40 At the outset of George I’s reign, Samuel Wright suggestively maintained that ‘no Wise Prince will be Positive and Rigorous, where Conscience is really concerned, and at the same time the public Peace is consulted and preserved’. Nathaniel Goodwin, curate of Souldern in Oxfordshire, demonstrated that it was not only dissenters who appreciated the moderating influences of toleration, as he called for support of ‘a Government so happily establish’d, so wisely constituted in all its Parts, wherein our Religion, our Rights and Liberties… are secured from Tyranny and Oppression, from the Rage of a persecuting Spirit, and the rude Insults of Enthusiasm’.41

37 38 39 40

41

John Olliffe, England’s Call… a Sermon… February the 14th, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 7; William Wilson, A Sermon… 14th of Febr. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 34. Flavell, Mount Pisgah… February xiiii, 1688/9, pp. 24–5, 32; Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9, pp. 1, 6. Samuel Clerke, Neck and All. A Sermon… April 16, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 6; Joseph Jacob, The Works of God… a Sermon… 12th of the 9th Month, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 45. Thomas Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. 35 (emphasis in the original); Freke, Prayers and Thanksgivings… November 22d, 1709, p. 13. Samuel Wright, Of Honouring the King. A Sermon… Jan. 20. 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 12; Nathaniel Goodwin, God’s Care… a Sermon… January the 20th 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 20.



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After over half a century of legislated toleration, the Anglican rector John Barr could describe ‘the Exercise of private Judgment, and the Liberty of worshipping God according to Conscience’ as an ‘unalienable’ right, and on the same occasion, fellow Anglican George Harvest praised the ‘excellent Form of Government under which we now live…. In Religious Matters we have Liberty of Conscience, and the free Exercise of Religion.’42 The Presbyterian minister George Benson recounted how ‘Since the late glorious revolution, there has been liberty to study the word of God, and to worship the divine being in spirit and truth; with a manly, free, and rational worship.’ In Belfast in 1749, Gilbert Kennedy also looked back to remind his dissenting audience of ‘the Hardships… in every Reign from the Reformation to the Revolution’ and celebrated ‘that we may now serve God without fear,… without running the Hazard of enormous Fines, being confined to loathsome Dungeons, or forced to seek Shelter in foreign Lands’. A decade later Edward Hitchin contrasted dissenters’ treatment in the past with the benefits of religious freedom they now had, explaining that ‘we are not affrighted with tremendous star-chambers, nor with any religious pretences to stop the mouths of Non-conformists…. We are not obliged to fly into corners, to appear in disguise, to run into the woods, or seek the protection of night; we have no fines for preaching, nor you for hearing, but are protected by the just sword of common liberty.’43 Acknowledgement of the benefits of religious liberty continued in the late eighteenth century. In 1789 Thomas Leighton proudly declared ‘So sacred in the eye of the law is freedom of conscience, that not only our brethren who dissent from us on the subject of Church-discipline,… but even they whose religious opinions our Church condemns as impious and heretical, are secured from persecution by the glorious act of toleration.’ Bristol vicar John Camplin commended George III’s reign as a time when ‘the liberties of toleration have not been abridged but extended’, and William Agutter emphasised the fact that ‘we respect the scruples of others; we force no man’s conscience. The door of Toleration stands open.’44 The dissenter John Clayton credited civil and religious liberty as conditions that allow ‘our merchants and tradesmen [to] pursue their employments in safety, that the high road is occupied, that villages flourish and reap the fruits of honest industry’. Drawing the same correlation in 1805, John Dawson maintained ‘as religious liberty had been enjoyed, industry has been promoted; and the country has risen in greatness and respectability’.45

42

43

44

45

John Barr, A Sermon… Ninth of October [1746] (Lincoln, n.d.), p. 12; George Harvest, ‘Protestant and Jewish Blessings Compared. A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746’, in A Collection of Sermons (London, 1754), p. 156. George Benson, ‘Sermon XVII…. Oct. 9, 1746’, in Sermons on the Following Subjects… (London, 1748), p. 422; Kennedy, The Great Blessing… April 25th, 1749, pp. 18–19; Edward Hitchin, A Sermon… 29 November 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 16. Leighton, Thanksgiving for the King’s Recovery, 1789, p. 9; John Camplin, The Royal Recovery: a Sermon… 23d Of April 1789 (London, n.d.), p. 7; William Agutter, Deliverance… A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 5. Clayton, The Great Mercies… June 1, 1802, p. 1; John Dawson, England’s Greatness… a Sermon… Dec. 5, 1805 (Sheffield, 1805), p. 20.

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As ideas of religious liberty became more accepted, disunity within Protestantism as a whole came to be seen as a problem mirroring discord in the political realm. In 1704 John Dubourdieu explained that the initial progress of the early Reformation had been stalled and even reversed because ‘God was no more with the Reformed, the fatal Disputes which arose on the Eucharist, and Grace having removed the Protection of his Power from them’. Gilbert Burnet suggested a more sinister source of this disunion in 1689: ‘in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign our Adversaries saw no hopes of retrieving Affairs, which had been spoil’d by Queen Mary’s Persecution, but by setting on Foot Divisions among Protestants upon very inconsiderable Matters’.46 From a dissenting pulpit that same year John Collinges observed that some had fallen ‘to railing and reviling, calling Men Schismaticks, Hereticks, Papists, Formalists’, which he suggested was as useless to the cause of unity as calling those who live together in the same house ‘Knaves’ and exposing them to ‘all the brutish Language we could’.47 It is clear that both dissenting and Anglican preachers were concerned about the dangers religious division could still cause. Though firm in his belief in the primacy of the Church of England, in 1705 Richard Willis identified the ‘too common a Mistake for Men to think they have done enough in Religion if they have been Zealous for the Party they reckon Orthodox… when perhaps… the chief Things promoted, are Animosities, Fewds, and Factions’. Willis thought it ‘a Melancholy Thing to consider how much this has been the Case in our own Church and Nation for above these Hundred Years; and more melancholy to Consider that we do not yet seem inclined to grow Wiser’. More simply, in 1696 the Presbyterian minister John Shower asserted that, without ‘Union among Protestants… though there shall be no Foreign War we shall have no Peace at home.’48 Echoing this message the next year, the Anglican schoolmaster Richard Lee declared ‘if we stand upon Punctilio’s, and will not pray but in our own Words; will not worship God, unless we may do it in what form we list our selves; will quit the Church, rather than our Humour, we cannot be said to further, but disturb the Peace both of Church and State’. Francis Gregory compared religious divisions in the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 3: 4, 22) to those in England, where ‘one is for an Episcopal Preacher, another for a Presbyterian, a third for an Independent’. Gregory concluded that such religious differences ‘ferment and grow high; when divided Parties are zealous every one for his own Opinion, how oft do they break into Civil Wars’.49 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Daniel Williams worried for the security of Protestantism, ‘when the Oppressed part of its Strength is made useless; and the Oppressing part distinguished by a fiery Zeal, not for any Protestant Principles, but for things so insignificant, as must narrow its bottom beyond Stability’. On the 46 47 48 49

John Dubourdieu, A Sermon… 7th Day of September [1704] (London, 1704), p. 9; Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of January, 1688 [1689], pp. 14–15. Collinges, The Happiness… Feb. 14. 1688/9, p. 18. Willis, A Sermon… 23 Day of August 1705, p. 12; John Shower, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Sixteenth of April, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 25. Richard Lee, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 2d. of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 11; Gregory, Thanksgiving Sermon… Second Day of December, 1697, pp. 10, 12.



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thanksgiving day for the Union with Scotland the dissenter Giles Dent proclaimed it ‘a very unreasonable thing to disturb the Peace of Civil Society, for the sake of those things which have no manner of concern with it… let a Man worship God either after one or another manner, provided he worships him at all’. In Oxford on the same occasion, Charles Bean criticised those who ‘murmur at being deprived of a barbarous liberty of offending our Brethren… These quick-sighted Politicians can foresee the Danger of a Constitution from those very Measures which contribute most to its Security; they can have fearful Apprehensions of the Ruin of their Religion from the most powerful and zealous Defenders of it.’50 Though these concerns come from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there could still be cause for concern much later. In 1814 the Congregational minister John Arundel worried that, ‘Instigated by the powers of darkness, attempts have been made to raise from the tomb the old principles of religious persecution. Mad with furious zeal, and enraged at the growing empire of the Redeemer, some have endeavoured to arrest the gospel chariot in its course, and to contract the scale of benevolent exertion.’51 Counter to the concerns raised about the dangers of divisions between congregations and churches was the encouragement to unity among Protestant believers. Some expressed support in a moderate stance towards diversity in denominations, while others spoke more constructively about hopes for true Protestant union. In 1696 William Stephens, the rector of Sutton in Surrey, powerfully described the shared aspects of Protestant belief. He affirmed: There is not one Doctrin or Practice necessary to make us good Men here, or happy hereafter, but what we are all agreed in…. Idolatry and Superstition are cast out of the several Forms of Worship which all those Protestants, who dissent from us, adhere to. Now these Bonds of Union, so many in Number, so strong and important in their Nature, cannot but prevail upon a charitable Disposition, to compromize those few Differences… which are Matters of no great Importance.

That same year Deuel Pead called for a very general unity among ‘all that truly fear God, be they of what Nation or Language soever, be they Protestants or Papists, Church-men or Dissenters; Let all that name themselves Christians give God the Praise, Honour, and Glory belonging to his Name’.52 The Union with Scotland brought such sentiments to the fore, especially considering its recognition of two distinct national churches within the new British kingdom. This caused the dissenting minister John Bates to proclaim that ecclesiastical and doctrinal divisions ‘must look a very ill Aspect amongst us, now, after a Nation that is Episcopal, and a Nation that is Presbyterian, have thought it their

50

51 52

Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702, p. 28; Giles Dent, A Thanksgiving Sermon… First Day of May, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 15–16; Charles Bean, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 9–10. John Arundel, National Mercies… A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 13. William Stephens, A Thanksgiving Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 13; Pead, The Protestant King… April 16. 1696, p. 33.

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Interest to joyn together in firm Friendship, and become One’. Thomas Freke announced ‘Some little Differences in Opinion only, are well enough consistent with Union and Peace. If there be Uniformity in Doctrine, ’tis not absolutely necessary, for Peace sake, that there should be always Uniformity in Discipline.’53 Noting that this was an economic and political union ‘but not of Divine Worship and Ecclesiastical Government’, the royal chaplain Thomas Manningham recognised ‘When National Advantages lie in Common… all little Differences in Religion will fall of themselves, which are chiefly kept up, not so much by separate Notions, as by separate Interests.’ Hugh Todd hoped that the political merger might lead to ‘a much greater and more valuable Union… a Religious, Sacramental One; such as all good Men do earnestly desire, and pray for’. Similarly, Patrick Dujon, vicar of St George’s Doncaster in Yorkshire, wished ‘that we may come to be more Unanimous in our Religion…. when Men agree in the main Heads of Doctrine and Worship, and the Holy Spirit joins their Hearts, then they are enflamed with a Noble and Divine Love, and engaged in an Union, that is not to be dissolved by any Worldly Power’.54 This spirit continued after 1707. In his 1710 thanksgiving sermon, published with another from a second occasion under the title The Love of One Another, Samuel Wright stated his intent to bring together those ‘who are all in the real Interest of their Country, and of the Reform’d Religion’, and arguing ‘for this Love one to another from the Consideration of our Professing the same Protestant Religion… agreeing in all the Fundamental and necessary Points of Uncorrupted, Undefiled Christianity, in opposition to Popery, and other… Religions in the World’. To the same purpose, but by a different means, Thomas Swift’s Earnest Exhortation to Peace (1710) sought to ‘endeavour calmly’ to draw dissenters ‘from their wrong Notions, by Dint of Argument, by Force of Reason, by the Precedents of the Primitive Christians, and the Authority of Scripture’, using such means to peacefully bring them back into the Church of England. Samuel Clarke promoted the application of ‘Learning to the Advantage of Religion… by increasing real Knowledge, and not perplexing it with imaginary Subtilities;… by propagating what is certain, and not contending for disputable Opinions’, directing his audience to pursue the ‘Spirit and Design’ of the Reformation and ‘take more and more heed, without regard to any Human Authority whatsoever… to adhere to the Divine Authority of the Scriptures only’.55 53 54

55

John Bates, Two (United)… A Thanksgiving Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), p. 15; Thomas Freke, Union… a Sermon… May the First, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 9. Manningham, A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707, pp. 10, 11; Hugh Todd, A Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), p. 21; Patrick Dujon, A Sermon… May 1 [1707] (London, 1707), p. 15. Wright, ‘A Sermon… November 7th, 1710’, Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.), p. 21; Thomas Swift, Noah’s Dove…. a Sermon… 7th of November, 1710 (London, n.d.), title page, p. 11; Samuel Clarke, A Sermon… Tuesday November 7. 1710 (London, 1710), pp. 12, 14 (emphasis in the original). Clarke would soon lose his royal chaplaincy due to his controversial views on the Trinity, though he would retain his position as rector of St James Westminster until his death: John Gascoigne, ‘Clarke, Samuel (1675–1729)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5530 (accessed 8 July 2016); William Gibson, The Church of England 1688–1832: Unity and Accord (London, 2001), p. 81.



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Occasions of danger also caused ministers to focus on what was shared.56 With thoughts of the first Jacobite rebellion fresh in his mind, Anglican vicar John Jenings called on his parishioners ‘to consider the Dissenters as Men, as Christians, as Protestants, as Tolerated by Law, as Friends to British Libertys; as directly opposite to Papists; as sincerely devoted to the Act of Succession, in His Majesty’s Royal House’. After the second Jacobite uprising thirty years later, the Presbyterian George Benson celebrated how the threat of rebellion caused ‘the happy union of Protestants, of various denominations, against the Papists, our common enemies; and in defence of our excellent constitution’.57 In the midst of the War of the Austrian Succession, Henry Piers directed his thanks ‘to all Denominations of Protestants among us’ for looking towards ‘Union of Heart and Doctrine – by Forbearance and Long-suffering towards each other, till we shall All be of one Mind’. William Warburton’s concerns about the innovations of Methodism made him more understanding towards ‘our Brethren the protestant sectaries of more antient date, who from various accidents have long dissented from the established worship,… we of the national Church should shew, by all brotherly acts of love and kindness, that the Toleration given them by the Laws does, in our sense, add honour to the Gospel, as well as strength and safety to a free Community’. Warburton went on to characterise Presbyterianism as ‘that sounder, and far more considerable part of the Separation’.58 The turn of the nineteenth century saw hopes for Protestant unity continue. In 1802 William Abdy thanked God ‘that in this land of religious and civil liberty, we have an establishment, and we have a toleration’, and he warned ‘to destroy the one and infringe upon the other, would… terminate in the overthrow of both’. Abdy reminded ‘Christians of all denominations; that ‘they are agreed in the grand fundamentals of Christianity, they compose one holy catholic Church’, and he confirmed that in ‘the work of this day… Christians of all names in religion, and of all parties, as to politics, may and ought most cordially to unite’.59 In 1814 the Church of Scotland minister Robert Burns celebrated Christians having ‘discovered a common ground on which they may unite, and agree to lose their lesser and more insignificant names in the grand comprehensive designation of Christian’. Baptist minister John Evans saw peace that year as a precondition for ‘the universal spread of the Christian religion… The union of professors of every description, both in the established Church and among Protestant Dissenters – by means of the Bible Societies – facilitates the progress of religion throughout the earth’.60

56

57 58 59 60

Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden, 2005), pp. 244–9. John Jenings, K. George’s Victory… A Sermon… June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 21; Benson, ‘Sermon XVII…. Oct. 9, 1746’, p. 446. Henry Piers, Religion and Liberty… A Sermon… 9th of October, MDCCXLVI (Bristol, n.d.), p. 20; Warburton, ‘Sermon IX…. November 29, MDCCLIX’, p. 207. William Abdy, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, n.d.), pp. 10, 11. Robert Burns, Illustrations… A Sermon… Thursday Jan. 13, 1814 (Paisley, 1814), p. 46; John Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 36.

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Anti-Catholicism The common ground for British Protestants of all varieties during the long eighteenth century could best be found in the threats they perceived to their religion. These perceptions could be caused by particular, immediate circumstances, but there were several concerns that transcended issues raised by specific political and religious contexts, and permeated across all Protestant denominations throughout the period. These two threats came in the form of Roman Catholicism and infidelity, which together connect the entire period from 1689 to 1816. The presence of antiCatholicism should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the religious history of early modern Britain. However, it is useful to see how this mindset continued to be expressed in thanksgiving sermons long into the eighteenth century. It is also important to see that, even as anti-Catholic vehemence waned, it was replaced by a new apprehension: the spectre of infidelity and non-belief, whose presence loomed just as ominously over the last decades of the eighteenth and the first several of the nineteenth century as ‘papist’ threats had previously. It is also significant that both of these apparent menaces to British Protestantism were largely associated with France. It would be impossible to depict the full range of anti-Catholic sentiment and rhetoric in the thanksgiving-day sermons. However, it will be possible to show some of its flavour. Prominent themes included the religious and political characteristics of ‘popery’, the association between Roman Catholicism and fears of persecution for non-Catholics, the doctrinal criticisms of Catholic beliefs and worship, and a clear connection – in British minds – between Catholic motives and the French. The year 1689 and the thanksgiving celebrated then was associated with an incredibly powerful moment of anti-Catholic fervour. The overthrow of James II/VII and his pro-Catholic policies, along with his replacement by the Protestant William of Orange and Mary, could not help but prompt expressions condemning the former king and the beliefs associated with his short rule. As Timothy Cruso described it, ‘the proud Leviathan at Rome thought to have tumbled without Controul in our Narrow Seas… But God by a wonderful shifting of the Scene… hath tormented them.’ For John Olliffe, the former regime had held the prospect of ‘a more Arbitrary Invasion of our Laws, and means of Establishment and Increase of the Romish Religion among us’. Samuel Peck explained how popish strategy sought ‘to make divisions between Kings and their Subjects, where their Religion hath not obtained, that they may bring it in, and have it uppermost’.61 Thomas Watts described popery and arbitrary power as ‘Twins’ set to impose themselves in Britain, and John Tillotson said these two were ‘inseparable’ companions.62 According to Matthew Mead, James II had tried to have ‘all things being fitted to let in Popery upon us like a Flood… Corrupt and Wicked Judges placed in every Court to make way for

61

62

Timothy Cruso, The Mighty Wonders… a Sermon… January 31, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 17; Olliffe, England’s Call… February the 14th, 1688/9, p. 4; Samuel Peck, Jericho’s Downfal; In a Sermon Preached on Jan. 31. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 13. Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th [1689], pp. [15]–16; John Tillotson, A Sermon… 31th of January, 1688…. [1689] (London, 1689), p. 30.



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it; Popish Justice in every County… Priests and Jesuits sent out to disseminate their poisonous Principles throughout the Nation.’ William Wilson chose not to mince words on the prospect of the reestablishment of Roman Catholicism in Britain: ‘we were not onely proudly threatned that we should eat our own Dung, and drink our own Piss;… it became our crime that we could not obey God less than Man’.63 As attention turned to external matters, anti-Catholic ideas continued to be a consistent element of sermon rhetoric. In Ireland in 1690 William King called for the government to properly complete the job, left unfinished by previous ones, of ‘settling Religion’ there, but he also provided his opinion of what James had planned for Ireland, asserting that the ‘Power and Money of France, the cunning and craft of the Jesuits, the numerous and bigotted Roman Clergy, the wealth and Arms of England, were all to be employed to our Ruin; the indigent and desperate Papists of Ireland were to be Armed and let loose upon us’.64 In 1696 William Stephens looked to the past, calling up images of past papal actions and persecutions with images of the ‘Smithfield Fires’, while the previous year Thomas Knaggs had calculated that 2,156,000 Protestants were murdered in Europe in the early and mid-sixteenth century. Knaggs also evoked the imagery of Marian martyrs by referring to ‘those Barbarities, Massacres, Prosecutions with Fire and Faggot, and shedding of Blood that is proper to Popery, and those inflicted upon Protestants’. The anonymous Sermon Preached… in the City of Exon (1696) incited similar thoughts by alluding to ‘fire, and faggot, with all the Severities, and Cruelties that Popish Malice could have suggested’.65 The discovery of a plot to kill William III in 1696 added further fuel to ideas of papal schemes. According to John Shower, a ‘successful Invasion of French Papists’ and a suppression of the Protestant religion would have followed the murder of the king. John Swanne spoke of the ‘Damnable Designs of those Men… Who have laid cutting of Throats to St. Peter’s door, so that his pretended Successors (the Popes of Rome) Sanctifie Inhumanities for the sake of Christ, and call Assassination the Cause of God’.66 Charles Nicholetts found ‘the finger of the Jesuite in every part of it’ and he declared ‘This was a Conspiracy of the Papists and Popishly affected ones, to root the Protestant Religion out of the Land, and bring in the Abominable Idolatries of Rome’. For Deuel Pead, ‘the bloody Treason at this time was… invented and hatch’d that Men of Romish Principles might have had the opportunity of destroying our King, our Religion, our Laws, our Liberties, our Lives, our Wives, Children, and Country, by introducing Popery and Slavery’.67 The perceived result here was not only an end to Protestantism, but a complete destruction of the British way of life.

63 64 65

66 67

Matthew Mead, The Vision of the Wheels… January 31. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 97; Wilson, A Sermon… 14th of Febr. 1688/9, p. 23. William King, A Sermon… 16th of November. 1690 (Dublin, 1691), sig. A2v. Stephens, A Thanksgiving Sermon… April 16. 1696, p. 10; Knaggs, A Sermon… 16th Day of April, 1696, p. 17; Thomas Knaggs, A Sermon… 22d. of September, 1695 (London, 1695), p. 9; Anon., A Sermon… April 16. 1696, p. 22. Shower, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Sixteenth of April, 1696, pp. 2–3; John Swanne, A Sermon… April the 16th, 1696 (London, 1697), p. 13. Nicholetts, The Cabinet of Hell Unlocked… April 16th 1696, pp. 6, 11; Pead, The Protestant King… April 16. 1696, p. 2.

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During the wars of the early eighteenth century, the idea of French–papal collusion became more entrenched. Humphrey Prideaux styled Louis XIV not merely as an enemy intent on military conquest, but one who ‘designs nothing less… than the putting out of our right eye, yea both the eyes of our inward and better part, the eye of our Reason, and the eye of our Faith… that we may blindly give up our souls to the Tyranny of Rome’. Richard Willis linked together ‘Foreign… French… and Popish Slavery’ in juxtaposition to British Protestantism and government.68 Samuel Baker asked his audience ‘Have not Hell, France and Rome been long Confederate together, to ruin Britain’s happy Constitution?… to destroy both the State and Church: Attempting in the room of one to advance and Maintain a Tyrannick and Unlimited Power, and in the Place of the other, to introduce undisguised Superstition and Popery Alamode.’ John Hough included a lengthy section in his sermon detailing how the Church of Rome and the current French king had been attempting to bring people under arbitrary and absolute rule, as did Deuel Pead, outlining how ‘the French King found Men, Ships and Arms; the Pope, Money, Prayers, and his Blessing, and all this to ruin us’.69 The beginning of George I’s reign, with the accomplishment of Hanoverian Protestant succession and the attempt to reverse that through the first Jacobite rebellion, spurred on anti-Catholic response. Now addressing the issue of religious persecution and violence, in 1715 Richard Willis stated that ‘the great Guilt lies upon those of the Church of Rome, who have shed more Blood of God’s Saints, than all the Heathen Persecutors together’. The Congregational minister Thomas Masters envisaged the result ‘if God (for our Sins) should plague us with a Popish Sovereign… Such… as do reject a Protestant in favour of a Popish Defender of the Faith… would lay their Lives, Religion, and all that is Dear and Valuable to them, at the Feet and Mercy of one train’d up in the Maxims of Despotick Power’. Church of Ireland bishop Nicholas Forster affirmed ‘the Popish Religion is exactly calculated to serve the Purposes of Arbitrary Power, and rarely fails to Introduce Slavery wheresoever it prevails’.70 After the 1715 uprising, Charles Bean recounted how ‘About two Hundred Years ago, our Forefathers were as absolutely in Bondage under the Bishop of Rome, as the Israelites had been under Pharaoh…. What Englishmen then earned by the Sweat of their Brows, was consumed in supporting the Pride and Luxury of Rome; and what escaped being carried thither, was devoured by Swarms of Monks at home.’ Simon Browne predicted that, had the rebellion succeeded, the supporters of the Pretender ‘might have had the cruel Pleasure of seeing us first sacrific’d, but then they must have put their Necks into the Popish Yoke, or have taken their turn after 68 69

70

Prideaux, A Sermon… December the 3d, 1702, p. 5; Willis, A Sermon… 23 Day of August 1705, p. 13. Samuel Baker, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 1709 (London 1710), p. 5; John Hough, A Sermon… 22d of November, 1709 (London, 1709), pp. 6–11; Deuel Pead, Parturiunt Montes… A Sermon… February the 17th, 1708/9 (London, 1709), pp. 6–9, quotation on p. 9. Richard Willis, The Way… A Sermon… 20th of January, 1714 [1715] (London, 1715), p. 17; Thomas Masters, A Sermon… January 20, 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 20; Nicholas Forster, A Sermon… First of March, 1714/15 (Dublin, 1715), p. 12.



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us’. Daniel Waterland, vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, attacked ‘profess’d Papists’ in Britain, ‘Men of the most inveterate Hatred of Our Religion, Laws, and Establishment… Who have been contriving all imaginable ways to blast and ruine our Happy Reformation from the first Commencing of it… feeding upon our Factions, and rejoycing daily in our unhappy Divisions’.71 Just as they had in 1716, the thanksgiving-day sermons in response to the 1745 uprising linked it to ‘popish’ motives and principles. William Wood declared the purpose of the rebellion was to make Britain ‘a Province to imperious France in civil Matters, and to superstitious Rome in religious’. Wood expressed thankfulness ‘that we are delivered from the Oppressions, Disturbances, Rapines, Plunders, Rapes, and Murders, committed by that odious Swarm of Rome’s Vermin that lately overspread so much of the Country’.72 Reminding his audience of past bloodshed instigated by Catholics, Isaac Maddox alleged ‘real Popery is not that smooth, that supple, courteous Thing it appears: while unarmed with Power… [it] speaks friendly to its Neighbours, but imagineth Mischief in its Heart. View it in its genuine Colours… wherever Popery can exert its full Force, there the shocking Tortures of that inhuman, horrid Tribunal, to the inexpressible Misery of Mankind, reign triumphant!’ Maddox included a discussion of French laws that, during the reign of Louis XV, continued to prohibit Protestant belief in that country, and then contended ‘those very Hands which have been dipt so deep in Protestant Blood, are joined in close Confederacy with the late Invader of our Country’. Similarly suggesting it was best to judge papists by their actions against Protestants when they are in positions of political power, Samuel Kerrich listed ‘Burnings and Massacres, Slaughter, and Assassinations;… forcing them from their Habitations and Possessions’. Kerrich pointed to the treatment of French Huguenots who were forced to flee to England, and to more recent emigration of Protestants from the Palatine and Salzburg in the Holy Roman Empire, as examples of the treatment of Protestants by Catholic powers.73 John Milner branded papists ‘the avowed and determined troublers of our Israel’, John Norman claimed popery was ‘a Religion which transforms Men into Monsters’, while John Allen labelled it ‘arbitrary Power over the Conscience’ and, in turn, arbitrary power as ‘civil Popery’.74 As the thanksgiving-day sermons had done previously, the 1716 and 1746 commemorations continued to characterise Catholicism as a threat to civil, as well as religious, institutions.

71

72 73

74

Charles Bean, The Folly and Wickedness… a Thanksgiving-Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 12; Browne, Joy and Trembling… June 7. 1716, p. 13; Daniel Waterland, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (Cambridge, 1716), pp. 15–16. William Wood, Britain’s Joshua. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1746), pp. 14, 15–16. Isaac Maddox, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746; second edition), pp. 12, 14, 15–18, quotations on pp. 12, 14, and 18; Samuel Kerrich, A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), pp. 24–5. Milner, National Gratitude… October 9, 1746, p. 34; John Norman, A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 16; John Allen, Rejoice with Trembling. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 10.

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Though the vehemence of anti-Catholic rhetoric in thanksgiving-day sermons cooled in the later eighteenth century, it was still in evidence. In 1759, Edward Hitchin suggested that the Seven Years’ War ‘was set on foot by the instigation of the devil’s synod, the Jesuits’, and Nathaniel Ball credited providence for continuing in ‘protecting this Nation against popery and arbitrary power’.75 Though giving a hint of a shift in concerns by identifying the ‘most insolent’ enemy of the Church of England as the ‘Unbeliever’, William Warburton still listed the ‘next enemy’ as ‘the Papist’, noting that ‘The Freethinker would cajole us into misery and folly: the papist would frighten us into it’. Using Isaiah 25: 10 as his text (‘and Moab shall be trodden down under him…’), in 1763 Griffith Williams compared the idolatry of the Moabites to that of ‘Papists’, and went on to denounce their chosen name: ‘In our statute-laws they are not called catholicks, or Roman catholicks, but Papists…. They love to be called catholicks, a name which does not belong to them; and they hate to be called Papists, which is their true and proper denomination.’ Williams declared ‘Papists… are not christians, but anti-christians… they have degraded him into a more abject state than the Mahometans have done, by subjecting him to the command of a woman, viz. the virgin Mary, whom they call the queen of heaven.’76 Even during the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, anti-Catholicism was still apparent. In 1797 Christopher Hodgson stressed the importance of ‘the Reformation from Popish Idolatry and Indulgences’, and the removal of ‘the filth of the Romish Priest-hood’ as reasons for the Church of England to be thankful. George Pretyman told the king and both houses of Parliament that ‘the cruelty, the tyranny, and the impiety of the Church of Rome have almost faded from our memory, but we must bring them back to our recollection, if we are to understand “the judgments of God which are abroad in the earth” [Isaiah 26: 9]’. Pretyman claimed that the Catholic Church was now being persecuted in its turn. His fellow bishop, John Buckner, mentioned the Reformation and ‘the present state of that church, from whose depraved worship we have departed. We see it trembling to its very foundation’, and Buckner called for people not to forget ‘the spirit of papal Rome; her unscriptural tenets; her idolatrous practices; her slavish impositions’. In these latter two sermons, originally preached to Parliament and to the House of Lords in successive years, both Pretyman and Buckner drew upon the same apocalyptic imagery and scripture (Revelation 18: 4 ‘Come out of her my people’) to portray Britain’s withdrawal from the papal fold,77 allusions that would have fit seamlessly into English Protestant rhetoric one hundred and fifty years earlier. In a similar vein, in 1802 John Clayton acknowledged ‘Great advances have been made towards the abolition of popery; the states most enslaved by its superstitions have suffered the most. On Britain the vial hath not been poured forth. Our land is not 75 76 77

Hitchin, A Sermon… 29 November 1759, p. 14; Nathaniel Ball, The Divine Goodness… a Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), p. 17. Warburton, ‘Sermon IX…. November 29, MDCCLIX.’, pp. 200–1; Griffith Williams, The Triumph… A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 6, 24–5. Christopher Hodgson, A Sermon… 19th Day of December, 1797 (Peterborough, 1798), pp. 9–10; George Pretyman, A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 12–13, 13n.; John Buckner, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 10, 11.



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the seat of the beast.’ In 1805, John Dawson could still unflinchingly describe the pope as a ‘monster’, and in 1814 Latham Wainewright pronounced it ‘one of the distinguishing privileges of the English nation, that we are emancipated from the despotism of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and possess, in all its purity, a Protestant Church’.78

Fears of infidelity If the volume and tenacity of the attack against Catholic beliefs and policies had receded from their height in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, another equally despised and no less fright-inducing ideology took its place in the thanksgiving-day sermons’ latter period: this was the threat of unbelief and ‘infidelity’ that had arisen during the Enlightenment, and which took on a particularly menacing form to British minds during and after the French Revolution. The amount of anxiety over such ideas matched the intensity of fear associated with antiCatholicism in the earlier period, and also demonstrates interesting parallels, which include the danger infidelity was seen to pose to the political system in Britain, as well as this threat’s association with France. There were preliminary indications of concern over challenges to predominant Christian viewpoints in British society prior to the later eighteenth century. In 1696 Abiel Borfet argued that the ‘way to hinder the growth of Popery is, to stop the growth of Atheism’. A decade later, the royal chaplain Lewis Atterbury labelled his ‘an Atheistical Age… when the greatest part of Mankind seem to have cast off all fear of God, and sense of Religion, and to have exchang’d that Superstition and Biggotry… for the Atheism and Deism of France and Italy’. Among the enemies to religion in 1716, Thomas Sherlock identified ‘Infidels… who deride all Religion’, linking this threat to the political realm because ‘such profane Liberty is destructive… since every Heart that is alienated from a Sense of God and Religion, carries off with it a Pair of Hands from the Defense of the Publick’.79 Similar anxieties are apparent in the mid-century. William Warburton depicted ‘France and Italy overrun with the worst kind of Deism… [and] a set of formal Bellows, grown insolent by Liberty… And so it was, that licentious Ignorance came to be dignified with the Name of Free-Thinking.’ Thomas Secker worried that Britain was becoming the worst nation on earth because of ‘our Neglect of God’s Worship in our Churches, our Families, our Closets; the impious Talk, the infidel Books, that abound everywhere, afford lamentable Evidences of it’, with all of this leading to a complete disregard of religion.80

78 79

80

Clayton, The Great Mercies… June 1, 1802, p. 8; Dawson, England’s Greatness… Dec. 5, 1805, p. 19; Wainewright, The Constitution… 13th of January 1814, p. 11. Borfet, The Minister of Richmond’s Sermon [1696], p. 4; Lewis Atterbury, A Sermon… June 7. 1716 (London, 1716), p. 21; Thomas Sherlock, A Sermon… 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716), p. 30. William Warburton, A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving [1746] (London, 1746), p. 17

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This early apprehension over declining belief set the stage for the thanksgivingday sermons of the 1790s and early 1800s. In this period, preachers showed that the warning signs had now been raised to the level of full-scale alarm. George Pretyman declared that Britain was now ‘the bulwark of Christianity itself ’, comparing the current struggle against ‘Infidels’ to the previous one ‘between Protestants and Papists’. Though the war with France had not been originally undertaken over religious causes, William Goode determined ‘in the end it will be found that all religion is closely connected with it, and all our civil and religious privileges depend upon a happy issue’, seeing one of the aims of the French government being to ‘spread the poison of infidelity, and accomplish… their former avowed design of extirpating Christianity’. Goode ascribed to infidelity ‘the cause of all the evils which have desolated Europe’.81 In 1797 John Newton spent over three pages of his sermon describing the prevalence of infidelity as a growing sin, and he later blasted ‘the atheistical rage and blasphemies of the French Directory and Councils, who insult and defy, not these kingdoms only, but the God whom we worship’. The French Revolution, according to Thomas Rennell, originated in the corruptions of superstition that made way for atheism, which he described as a ‘Convulsive force… aided by the most refined artifice. The policy of Jesuits… combined with the frenzy of Maniacs.’82 Thomas Dikes made ‘the effects of infidelity and irreligion upon the moral character of a nation’ the first topic of his 1798 sermon, and he described it as ‘well known, that for these many years past, great pains have been taken to sow the seeds of profaneness and atheism through the whole kingdom of France’. The concern did not end with France but was for Britain itself, as William Nesfield showed when he announced ‘that intemperance, profligacy, a contempt for the authority of God, the open avowal of infidelity and the utter disregard to moral duties are more or less practised in every corner of this Island’.83 Preachers drew connections between the ideas that had been developing over the preceding century and the effects being felt in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Preaching to the House of Lords in 1802, Henry Majendie proclaimed ‘We know that, during half a century there existed on the Continent a systematic and impious design of employing the press for the destruction of the faith in Christ Jesus. Sophistry and Ridicule were indefatigably engaged to overthrow or to invalidate the evidences of Divine Revelation.’ Though John Brewster’s sermon acknowledged the improvements in knowledge over the preceding decades, Brewster asserted ‘a worm was gnawing the root,… that combination of modern philosophers, who were plotting the dissolution of all civilized society. To destroy religion, they seduced her

81 82 83

(emphasis in the original); Thomas Secker, ‘Sermon VII. (Preached October 9, 1746)’, in Nine Sermons (London, 1771; second edition), p. 159. Pretyman, A Sermon… December 19th, 1797, pp. 19, 20–1; William Goode, Mercies in Judgment: A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1797), pp. 9, 14, 19. Newton, Motives to Humiliation… December 19, 1797, pp. 13–16, 27; Thomas Rennell, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 7–8, 9. Thomas Dikes, The Effects… A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (Hull, 1798), pp. 5, 6; William Nesfield, ‘[Sermon I]’, in Two Sermons… the First on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1797 (Durham, n.d.), p. 8.



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teachers; to destroy monarchy, they made converts of her kings… to flatter the prejudices of an indiscriminating multitude they attempted to establish an impossible equity.’ In 1798 Tufton Scott christened enlightened philosophy ‘the vagrant child of wandering Parents, fostered by one generation, discarded by another, and idolized by a third’, which had now ‘assumed to itself the Power of God, eclipsed the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ; blinded the minds of them which believe not, and rendered instability yet more unstable’.84 In Québec in 1799 Jacob Mountain wanted Britain to be the instrument ‘of discrediting, abashing, and banishing from among men, that spurious, and pernicious Philosophy, which has deprived them [the French] at once of the benefits of Divine Instruction… and delivered them over to the darkness of scepticism’. In the same city and on the same occasion, Joseph-Octave Plessis mentioned ‘the monstrous principles of men such as Diderot, Voltaire, Mercier, Rousseau, Volney, Raynal, d’Alembert and other deists of our time’ who inspired ‘that impious and sacrilegious horde who have risen in such numbers against the joint existence of religion and royalty, and have formed a fatal conspiracy for the destruction and extermination of both’.85 In 1802 in Yorkshire, John Whitehouse named Edward Gibbon as one of the ‘late champions of infidelity’, and in Portsmouth, Tufton Scott found the name of Gibbon, along with those of Shaftesbury, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Joseph Priestley, inscribed on the ‘splendid altar raised to Modern Philosophy… whereon has been sacrificed the blood of Kings, the Wealth of Nations’.86 The anonymous author of England’s Causes for Thankfulness (1798) also blamed Voltaire, Rousseau, and their followers for their denial and denunciation of Christian beliefs and morals. In 1814 George Skeeles, the curate of Great Saxham in Suffolk, affirmed forcefully ‘For all the horrors of this dreadful period, the world may curse the memory of Voltaire: who was enabled by the plausible sophistry of his baneful writings… to disorganize one of the finest countries in the world.’87 The sermons repeatedly warned of the effects and advance of infidelity, blasphemy, and atheism. The perceived consequences of these were many and widespread. James Stillingfleet spoke on ‘the late prevalence of scepticism and free-thinking, and… the dreadful effects of Infidelity’, and from the events over the previous decade he averred ‘we have not so much occasion to dread French Armaments as French Principles’. Stillingfleet pointed to a ‘conspiracy… for exterminating the Christian Religion’ that would lead to ‘hostility against Kings, Potentates and Magistrates’, and then ‘to dissolve the ties of Civil Society’. Thomas O’Beirne also mentioned

84

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Henry Majendie, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 13; Brewster, A Thanksgiving Sermon… June 1, 1802, p. 16; Tufton Scott, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 15. Jacob Mountain, A Sermon… January 10th, 1799 (Québec, 1799), p. 29; Joseph-Octave Plessis (trans. Henry Joly de Lotbinière), Thanksgiving Sermon… January 10th. 1799 (Québec, 1906; translation and reprint of the 1799 original), pp. 14, 15. John Whitehouse, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (Doncaster, 1802), pp. 21, 22n.; Scott, A Sermon… 29th of November, 1798, p. 16. Anonymous, England’s Causes… A Sermon… November 1798 (York, n.d.), p. 9; George Skeeles, The Recent Events… A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (Bury St Edmunds, n.d.), p. 8.

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an ‘impious conspiracy, that has been formed to debauch mankind from all reverence for God, or for the religion of his Son’.88 Summarising the circumstances that occurred in France, William Knox explained how the leaders of the Revolution had ‘denied the existence of a God, they ridiculed his ministers… and the passions of men soon became the willing advocates of Infidelity:… on the ruins of religion modern gigantic reason arose, and under the banners of the Rights of Man, united the weak, the wicked, the vain, the visionary, the desperate in fortune, and the desperate in character’. Knox instructed his audience to ‘not be deluded by the infidel in politics or in religion… Let not the reformers of the present day prevail on us to exchange religion for infidelity, and liberty for licentiousness.’ According to John Martin, formerly wars with France had not been ‘so alarming… But since the enchantment of infidelity… The present war… is a war against everything for which we could wish to live in Great Britain.’89 As the conflict with France was coming to an end, concerns about unbelief remained strong. Both the past and the present coloured John Overton’s 1814 depiction of how the war began ‘Under the disgusting and baleful mummery of Popery, and the delusions of a flattering but false Philosophy the people France had become little else than a Nation of Infidels, and adopted principles utterly subversive of the peace and order of all civil society’. Focussing on the same subject, Edward Vaughan noted that ‘Vast multitudes had become practical atheists; and no small numbers avowedly such… throughout the whole continent of Europe… The war originated… in the necessity which God saw, that “the living” should be taught anew the great lesson of his existence, character, and sovereignty.’90 Harry Davis said the French Revolution had been caused by ‘an unusual ferment… in the minds of men, by wild and extravagant theories with regard to government, and the rights of subjects, as well as by a strong propensity to irreligious tenets’. George Law agreed that the Revolution ‘had its origins in a general decay of religious principles, and an almost unbounded corruption and licentiousness of conduct’.91 Thomas Lancaster turned to again blame the ‘wits and pretended philosophers’ of France for having ‘with execrable industry, diffused atheistical and levelling principles, not only among their own people, but throughout Europe’. To Henry Knapp in 1816, these influences came from ‘the Philosophers of the French infidel school’ who attempted ‘to set up… the infallibility of Human Reason, and the denial of all Divine Revelations, – to consider all men fit to judge of, and free to annul, or create laws at their will’.92

88

89 90 91 92

James Stillingfleet, National Gratitude… a Sermon… Nov. 29, 1798 (Worcester, 1798), pp. 11, 22–3, 24; Thomas O’Beirne, A Sermon… 16th January, 1798 (Dublin, 1798; second edition), p. 33. William Knox, A Sermon,… 29th of November, 1798 (Dublin, 1798), pp. 16–17, 17–18; Martin, The Substance of a Sermon… 29th. of November, 1798, p. 27. John Overton, England’s Glory… A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (York, n.d.), p. 7; Edward Vaughan, The Lesson… A Sermon… July 7… [1814] (Oxford, 1814), pp. 19–20. Harry Davis, A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Banbury, n.d.), p. 8; George Law, A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 13. Thomas Lancaster, The Great Things… A Sermon… 13th of January 1814 (London, 1814), p. 13; Henry Knapp, The Origin… a Sermon… January 18, 1816 (London, 1816), pp. 11–12.



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Support for the Church of England continued as a theme in thanksgiving sermons after the Revolution of 1688–1689, as did arguments in support of Anglican doctrine and worship, and against the ideas and positions of those who dissented from them. In turn, dissenting clergy defended their separation from the Established Church and praised the legal circumstances that allowed them to do so. As the charged tenor of such arguments dissipated as the eighteenth century progressed, acceptance of toleration and ideas of Protestant unity came more to the fore. The one thing that episcopal, Church of Scotland, and dissenting clergy all could agree on consistently was their opposition to Catholicism and their animosity towards ‘papism’ and its association with arbitrary government. Though that anti-Catholicism began to abate in the later eighteenth century, a new danger was perceived in the form of French secular motives and a new, revolutionary dogma from which all religion was under threat. In these circumstances, British clergy found a new nemesis to their principles in the form of the revolutionary atheist. This replacement of Roman Catholicism with ‘infidelity’ as an idea predominantly of French derivation demonstrates the substitution of one ideological and religious enemy with another (also French) one. This let British preachers to easily swap out an old frightening ideology for a new, equally menacing, one in the later eighteenth century. It also allowed for an effective and consistently vehement anti-French religious sentiment, though with some new features and terminology, to continue unabated into the early nineteenth century.

10 Others and Britons The preceding chapters show how thanksgiving-day sermons, in their discussion of a variety of themes, asserted certain principles and ideas about what it meant to be British during the period from 1689 to 1816. Preachers presented characteristics they associated with Britain and Britons –including the nation’s place in the providential scheme, political ideals, structures, and behaviours, military and maritime qualities and purposes, commercial attributes, and religious ideas and positions – and many of these were juxtaposed to traits and attitudes of other peoples and nations perceived as opposite of or contrary to British values. As Kathleen Wilson and Linda Colley have noted, such distinctions were receiving impetus from British commercial and territorial expansion, warfare and their promulgation through printed and popular sources.1 This chapter will demonstrate that thanksgiving-day sermons were one of the genres in which such ideas were given voice. It will examine several prominent responses to ‘others’ which preachers developed and presented to audiences throughout the period, not only moulding attitudes towards other groups, but also reinforcing ideas of Britain.

French rulers Britain’s main rival throughout the entire period from 1689 to 1816 was France, and it was portrayed as the common adversary and antagonist to British concerns and ideals in the thanksgiving days and sermons. Previous chapters have demonstrated some aspects of this relationship, but it is useful to now focus explicitly on how France was perceived and presented by preachers across the long eighteenth century. France as a nation and the French as a people were associated with specific ideologies and imputed to have particular proclivities, but it is first useful to examine how British preachers depicted French rulers. These portrayals say much about what congregations and readers came to understand about the country and people who were Britain’s principal foe. 1

Kathleen Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London, 2003), p. 7; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1992), pp. 1–7; Linda Colley, ‘Britishness and Otherness: An Argument’, Journal of British Studies, 31:4 (1992), 316.



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A number of general attributes were ascribed to French rulers in thanksgiving sermons, and particularly the two rulers who bookended the period. Louis XIV was described variously as ‘the great Destroyer and Enemy of Mankind’, the ‘Enemy of this Nation,… the Common Foe of Europe,… the Common Adversary of all Christendom’, that ‘haughty Monarch’, ‘Proud and Cruel Lewis’.2 In 1702 Benjamin Loveling reflected happily on ‘how the Grand Incendiary of Europe, contrary to his ambitious Inclination’, was forced to give up his conquered territories, and Daniel Williams justified renewed war by pointing to ‘the French King’s Ambition, Oppressions, Cruelty, Depredations, Treachery, and usurping Designs’. To Joseph Stennett in 1704, Louis was the ‘Grand Oppressor, who pretends to give Laws and Kings to so many Nations… to grasp all the Territories of Europe, and subjugate ’em to his Arbitrary Power’.3 Samuel Harris opened his November 1709 sermon by describing the king of France as ‘the Common Disturber of Europe’s Tranquility’, and Richard Chapman quoted from Psalm 10: 18 to depict Louis as ‘this Man of the Earth, the common Enemy and Oppressor’ whom God had raised ‘to be a Scourge of Ours, and for the Sins of Europe’.4 Such examples are a sample of preachers’ repeated, and similar, characterisations of the French king to their audiences, not only depicting Louis as Britain’s enemy, but also with particular traits and flaws intended to disparage him and present his principles as opposite to British ideals and values. The depth to which such characterisations had penetrated, and the purpose that they served, becomes apparent when sermons a century later used the same attributes, and at times the exact same descriptors, when discussing Napoleon. Talking about the French emperor in 1805, William Goode vividly described how ‘Many a time… the Scourge of Europe [has] stood upon the opposite shores, darting his envious and malignant eyes upon this happy land; longing for, and threatening its destruction.’ George Burges claimed the French ruler was obsessed with England, a ‘Gallic usurper’ and ‘fiend’ intent on turning ‘every peaceful village and hamlet into a slaughter house’.5 To John Dawson, Napoleon was ‘the proud and haughty Corsican’, and Nicholas Bull called ‘Buonaparte, the oppressor of the nations, the violator of the laws and liberties of mankind’.6 He was the ‘insatiably ambitious and thoroughly depraved Napoleon’, ‘the savage tyrant of France… the perfidious 2

3

4

5 6

Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 19th Day of October, 1690 (London, 1690), p. 21; Samuel Clerke, Neck and All. A Sermon… April 16, 1696 (London, 1696), p. 17; Richard Lucas, ‘Sermon XI… A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, Volume II (London, 1716), p. 221; Samuel Slater, A Sermon… 27th Day of October, 1692 (London, 1693), p. 17. Benjamin Loveling, A Sermon… December 3. 1702 (London, n.d.), p. 21; Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving Sermon… November 12, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 6; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704 (London, 1704), p. 23. Samuel Harris, A Blow… Or, a Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 5; Richard Chapman, Publick Peace… a Sermon… Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709), p. 13 (emphasis in the original). William Goode, The God of Salvation, a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, 1805), pp. 2–3; George Burges, A Discourse… December 5, 1805 (Wisbech, 1806), pp. 8, 13, 14. John Dawson, England’s Greatness… a Sermon… Dec. 5, 1805 (Sheffield, 1805), p. 26; Nicholas Bull, A Thanksgiving Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, n.d.), p. 17.

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Depopulator of the Continent… the infidel Plunderer of Egypt’, ‘the common oppressor’.7 The powerful and awful imagery of these descriptions could not but have helped colour British perceptions of French rulership. Another aspect of such portrayals was preachers’ use of biblical analogies between the French leaders and Old Testament types to cast French rulers in a negative light. Again, it was Louis XIV and Napoleon who bore the brunt of this type of depiction. One common comparison was to Sennacherib, the Assyrian king whose effort to invade Judah and take Jerusalem was defeated by God, described in 2 Chronicles 32, Isaiah 36–37, and 2 Kings 18–19. In a 1706 sermon celebrating a victory over the French, John Whittel stated his intent to ‘tell you of another Unjust, Usurping, and Incroaching King, who comes not much behind Sennacherib, since he’s vainly, Proudly, and indeed Blasphemously styled by his Court Parasites, Lewis the Great, The King of Glory, The Immortal and Divine Man, &c.’. In 1709 Josiah Woodward listed ‘the Crimes of Sennacherib… Oppression, Debauchery, arbitrary Invasions upon others, Pride, Idolatry, Persecution, and Blasphemy’ and concluded suggestively ‘If these or any least part of these things are true of any Prince living, his hoary Head will probably go down in Sorrow to the Grave.’8 In response to the Battle of the Nile in 1798, William Leigh described the biblical context of Sennacherib’s attack on Judah and then compared it with ‘the spirit and the power of the general of the French nation, in his late attack upon Egypt’. Leigh found in Napoleon ‘a degree of coincidence which equally at this time seems to mark the Divine interference in the government of mankind’, with ‘His mighty fleet… like the host of the Assyrian general… destroyed in a single night’. Regarding Napoleon in 1814, Thomas Lancaster, the curate of Merton in Surrey, asked ‘Can you hear of this mad-man losing his numerous and powerful army, and almost himself, on the snowy plains of Russia, in a manner little less providential, than the destruction of the blasphemous Sennacherib’s mighty host; and not perceive, “that the Lord your God is he that hath fought for you?”’9 Parallels with other biblical kings were also drawn. Regarding Louis XIV, in 1704 John Evans noted that ‘God permits but one ambitious and turbulent Spirit in an Age, as the Instrument of his Wrath… How does it cause the whole Earth to tremble, and shake Kingdoms, as was once said of Nebuchadnezzar… And may be as truly said of the French King? Who has involv’d Europe in Blood and Ruin, carrying Fire and Desolation, wherever his Fatal Arms have been display’d’. In 1816 an anonymous author compared Napoleon to Nebuchadnezzar, a ‘Rod of Divine Vengeance… who marched his victorious armies to the walls of Jerusalem’, while for 7

8

9

Thomas Hewett, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], in Two Sermons (London, 1816), p. 20; Burges, A Discourse… December 5, 1805, p. 22; Thomas Belsham, The Prospect… a Thanksgiving Sermon… July 3, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 2–3. John Whittel, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… June the 27th, 1706 (London, 1706), p. 8; Josiah Woodward, A Sermon… February 17th, 1708/9 (London, 1709), pp. 20–1 (see also pp. 3, 5, 9). William Leigh, A Sermon… November 29th, 1798 (Bath, 1799), pp. 12–13, 15 (emphasis in the original); see also pp. 12n–14n.; Thomas Lancaster, The Great Things… A Sermon… 13th of January 1814 (London, 1814), p. 18.



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the Scottish episcopal minister Archibald Alison he was like Belshazzar, ‘weighed in the balance and… found wanting’.10 Not only were French rulers equated with paragons of misguided power and opposition to God’s people, but also made into instruments chosen, first to dole out, and later suffer, divine wrath. In Anne’s reign, comparisons were common between the French king and Jabin, the king of Canaan defeated by Deborah and Barak (Judges 4). The dissenting minister John Spademan declared that, just as God ‘once suffer’d a tyrannous Jabin to prevail against his People,… so in our Days hath He permitted a very Canaanite, and a potent Enemy of the Israel of God, to succeed in vexing and oppressing it’. Just as Deborah and Barak became Anne and the duke of Marlborough in John Grant’s sermon, Louis XIV was the ‘Neighbouring King, a Cowardly Jabin… a Great and Mighty Oppressor, One that has sacrific’d so many of the Countries and Liberties of Europe to his boundless Ambition and Revenge’.11 Louis XIV and Napoleon were also compared to Pharaoh, Adonizedec, and Herod.12 In 1814 John Strachan combined a number of these comparisons to depict Napoleon’s unwillingness to accept his fate in Russia as ‘the boasting of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar; or the blasphemous flattery of the people to Herod’. Hopefully, and prematurely, in 1799 Joseph-Octave Plessis proclaimed that the punishment for France’s actions had started, and called Napoleon ‘this proud Pharaoh, this ambitious Nebuchadnessar, this insolent Goliath [who] is now beginning to lose ground’.13 A final comparison of the French king to a biblical monarch was to Nimrod, identified in Genesis 10: 8–9 as ‘a mighty one in the earth… a mighty hunter’ who founded the Babylonian kingdom. Samuel Slater termed the naval successes of 1692 a ‘great and signal Victory… over the French Fleet, whereby the Marine Power of that Cruel Nimrod was greatly shaken and shatter’d’. In 1695 fellow Presbyterian Vincent Alsop prayed for William to ‘reduce to Reason that mighty Nimrod, who has taught us what we may expect from his prevailing Arms, by the treatment he has given to his own Loyal Subjects’.14 John Evans called Louis XIV ‘this Mighty 10

11

12

13

14

John Evans, The Being and Benefits… a Sermon Preached on Septemb. 7 [1704] (London, 1704), p. 12; Anonymous, The Parallel… a Sermon… [1816] (Exeter, n.d.), p. 11; Archibald Alison, A Discourse… Jan. 18, 1816 (Edinburgh, 1816), p. 9 (Alison is paraphrasing Daniel 5: 27 here). John Spademan, Deborah’s Triumph… A Sermon … June 27th, 1706 (London, n.d.), p. 15; John Grant, Deborah and Barak… A Sermon… Seventh of September, 1704 (London, 1704), pp. 5–6. John Mackqueen, ‘A Sermon… 7th of September, 1704’, in British Valour… Some Discourses (London, 1715), p. 15; Joseph Sharpe, A Sermon… July the 7th, 1814 (Macclesfield, 1814), p. 11; William Wood, Britain’s Joshua. A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1746), p. 3; Deuel Pead, Parturiunt Montes… A Sermon… February the 17th, 1708/9 (London, 1709), p. 7; Anon., The Parallel… a Sermon [1816], p. iv; Charles Crane, God’s Mercies… A Sermon… Jan. 18, 1816 (London, 1816), p. 17. Adonizedec was one of the kings who opposed the Israelites’ entry into the land of Canaan in Joshua 10: 1, 3. John Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June… [1814] (Montréal, 1814), p. 20; Joseph-Octave Plessis (trans. Henry Joly de Lotbinière), Thanksgiving Sermon… January 10th. 1799 (Québec, 1906; translation and reprint of the 1799 original), p. 18. Slater, A Sermon… 27th Day of October, 1692, p. 21; Vincent Alsop, Duty and Interest… a Sermon… Sept. 8. 1695 (London, 1695), p. 22.

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Nimrod, and Oppressor of the Age’ in 1704, and in 1746, with his mind on the latest French transgressions against Britain, Thomas Vaughan criticised collectively the ‘Nimrods’ who ‘resolve to extend their Empires… by Fraud and Violence, by Blood and Rapine’.15 Louis XIV was also represented as the biblical leviathan, a large sea monster that was used to depict the potency of divine power through God’s control over it (Job 41, Isaiah 27: 1). Preaching to the king and queen to celebrate the victories over the French navy at Barfleur and La Hogue in 1692, John Tillotson paid tribute to William as ‘the Man whom God hath honoured to give a check to this Mighty Man of the Earth, and to put a hook into the Nostrils of this great Leviathan who has long had his pastime in the Seas’. In 1696 William Perse called Louis ‘that great Leviathan, who spares nothing that comes within his reach and grasp… the common Disturber of the Peace and Welfare of Christendom’.16 In Anne’s reign, Charles Williams, the lecturer at Isleworth, amalgamated biblical imagery and types to express wonder at: the stupendous Successes of a Female Conqueror, that hath… so strangely put a Hook into the Nose, and a Bridle into the Lips of a Proud Sennacherib, that hath so long… threatned all Europe… the Grand Monarch… so strangely defeated, and like the host of the Egyptian Tyrant, overwhelm’d in the midst of Floods.17

The prevailing themes of these biblical analogies reinforced the impression of traits such as ambition, pride, violence, and unjust conquest that preachers attached to French monarchs. Another powerful idea imprinted by the sermons was that French monarchy and monarchs were inherently tyrannical by nature. William Corbin proclaimed the military victories in the mid-1690s as ‘the Performance of so great a Work, as that of Relieving almost all the Christian World from the Tyranny and Rage… and proud Insults of… a growing Tyrant; I mean Lewis XIV’. In the early eighteenth century, Ralph Lambert reported ‘the Restless Endeavours of France have long been working to reduce us to the Model of his own Tyranny…. England was that Place alone which could set Bounds to his Lust, and stop his hopes of Universal Tyranny, over the rest of Europe’. Josiah Hort claimed the ‘Providence of God seems to determine to Humble and Reduce the French Tyrant, and to have mark’d out our Queen to be the most glorious Instrument of doing it’, and he later called Louis XIV ‘a Tyrant… Who has been long grasping at Universal Monarchy’.18 According to

15

16 17 18

John Evans, A Sermon… Septemb. 7th. 1704 (London, 1704), p. 13; Thomas Vaughan, Rebellion Extinguished: A Thanksgiving-Sermon… October the 9th, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 11. John Tillotson, A Sermon… 27th of October [1692] (London, 1692), p. 34; William Perse, A Sermon… 16th Day of April, 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 28–9. Charles Williams, The Blessedness… In a Sermon… First Day of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 13. William Corbin, EΥΧAΡIΣTIA: Or, a Grateful Acknowledgment… a Sermon… 22d of September 1695 (London, 1695), p. 3; Ralph Lambert, A Sermon, Preach’d Nov. the 12th. 1702 (London, 1703), p. 10; Josiah Hort, A Sermon… 31st of December 1706 (London, 1707), pp. 9, 12.



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Michael Stanhope, without Marlborough’s victories ‘we must have bowed our Necks to the French, Popish, tyrannical Yoke’. For Samuel Baker it was the overthrow of liberty and the British constitution that ‘that Monster of Mankind the French Tyrant, hath been for several Years striving for’.19 In 1749 Robert Finch, chaplain to Guy’s Hospital in London, declared British motives for war in the mid-century were justified as an effort to ‘curb the wild Ambition of a tyrannical Monarch, and to reduce the Extravagencies of unreasonable Men, to guard the Immunities of a free and well-governed People, and for the preservation of Equity’. In Boston, Massachusetts in 1759 Amos Adams noted that wars are too often fought for glory, enlarging empire, and gaining riches, ‘Principles on which the Tyrants of the World have often attempted to enslave the globe’, citing Louis XIV as a previous example of this.20 As with other attributes, British preachers easily translated accusations of tyranny to Napoleon’s rule. For Samuel Horsley the French emperor was ‘a tyrant, who has surpassed in crime all former examples of depravity in an exalted station’. William Mavor recounted how ‘on the ruins occasioned by the dissolution of all regular government in France… a blood-stained tyrant erected his throne, and in the madness of his ambition grasped at universal empire, and extended his domination over the fairest portion of Europe’. John Courtney told how events in France had proceeded ‘till an Individual, eminently gifted with some qualities, but miserably destitute of others,… grasped the sovereign power, and established a Tyranny infinitely more despotic’ than the French monarchy.21 In 1814 William Tooke described Napoleon as ‘a mighty tyrant… a despot mighty and powerful’, and Thomas Belsham opened his sermon with a reminder of Napoleon’s ‘portentous and devouring despotism, which trampled Europe under its feet,… which disposed of crowns and kingdoms, and at whose voice the earth trembled’. Although slightly prematurely, Henry Manning discussed ‘the late Tyrant of France’ as having ‘established an uncontrolled system of despotism… [that] had subdued and humbled all the neighbouring nations of the continent’.22 In total, the assignment of all of these attributes allowed for a remarkable, damning, and frightening compilation of characteristics to French rulers in the thanksgiving-day sermons. In 1814 William Palmer described Napoleon as ‘a man of lying front, in whom all craft and spirit of the revolution seemed to be concentrated; of ambitious, fierce, unsparing mind – a man certainly of extraordinary character – of considerable talents – a great commander – the spoiler of nations – and tyrant of the earth’. In a 1704 sermon to the Prussian congregation in the Savoy, John

19 20 21

22

Michael Stanhope, God the Author… A Sermon… 19th of August, 1708 (London, 1708), p. 11; Samuel Baker, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 1709 (London 1710), p. 6. Robert Finch, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), pp. 16–17; Amos Adams, Songs of Victory… a Sermon… October 25, 1759 (Boston, MA, 1759), pp. 11–12. Samuel Horsley, The Watchers… A Sermon… December 5, 1805 (London, 1806), p. 26; William Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon… July 7, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance (London, 1814), p. 18; John Courtney, A Sermon… January 13, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 22. William Tooke, A Sermon… Thirteenth of January, 1814 (London, 1814), p. 22; Belsham, The Prospect… a Thanksgiving Sermon… July 3, 1814, p. 1; Henry Manning, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], in Three Sermons (Thetford, 1814), p. 8.

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Caesar ranked Louis XIV as ‘the falsest of Princes and the greatest Covenant-breaker that ever sway’d a Scepter’.23 Thomas Hewett asserted that the French emperor had succumbed to his own ‘licentious policy’, giving an example of ‘how deplorable are the last results of a policy which mocks the restraints of integrity!’ To William Sherlock, royal chaplain and dean of St Paul’s, Louis XIV was ‘an imperious Prince, who enslaves his Subjects at home, and disturbs his Neighbours abroad, who has lived upon Spoil and Rapine and sacrificed many Thousands of his own Subjects, and of his innocent, Enemies, to his own Lust and Ambition’.24 Preachers purposefully and powerfully dehumanised French rulers. In 1805 Caleb Colton described Napoleon as acting ‘With the malevolence of Satan, when he looked into the garden of Eden, HE observes in this happy country, many things which are at once, a bar to his aggrandisement, and a satire on his reign.’ A century earlier, John Dubourdieu depicted Louis XIV as ‘a proud Lucifer, a Tyrannick Nimrod, and a Cruel Nero’, and Alexander Jephson called him ‘an ungrateful Viper, who eats thro’ the Bowels of those that gave him life and strength’.25 In 1706 George Mills referred to the French king as ‘the Gallict Tyrant, the insatiable Cormorant,… A ravenous Man of Blood and a real Monster of Iniquities’. According to Charles Crane in 1816, Napoleon was ‘the demon of mischief ’.26 Such characterisations could even take on a more profound and wider reaching implications. In 1814 John Overton described Napoleon not only as ‘the Corsican Monster’, but also ‘like the Apollion of St. John… a man who in subtlety, in Malignity, and success in promoting human misery, appears more nearly than any other human Being to have resembled “the Angel of the bottomless pit”’, assigning prophetic imagery and import to the French ruler. Similarly, in 1704 Edward Fowler designated Louis XIV the ‘Haughty and Ambitious Prince, whose Heart seems to have been set upon the Raising of a Fifth Monarchy; and hath for many years been a lamentable Plague to a great part of Europe’. Fowler fitted the French monarch to the description of the beast from Revelation 13: 3, ‘Particularly in the unexpected Healing of his deadly Wound, and his being restored in his Old Age to such great Health and Vigour both of Body and Mind’.27

23 24 25

26 27

William Palmer, A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (Buckingham, 1814), p. 11; John Caesar, God’s Inevitable Judgments… a Sermon… 7th Day of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 23. Hewett, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], p. 19; William Sherlock, A Sermon… Seventh of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 13. Caleb Colton, A Sermon… December 5th 1805 (Tiverton, 1805), p. 26 (emphasis in the original); John Dubourdieu, A Sermon… 7th day of September [1704] (London, 1704), p. 10; Alexander Jephson, A Sermon… 7th Day of September, 1704 (London, 1705), p. 6. George Mills, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (Norwich, 1707), p. 29; Crane, God’s Mercies… Jan. 18, 1816, p. 18. John Overton, England’s Glory… A Sermon… July 7th, 1814 (York, n.d.), p. 15; Edward Fowler, A Sermon… 7th of September 1704 (London, n.d.), p. 9 (emphasis in the original). Overton’s references are to Revelation 9: 11. In addition to his application of the beast to Louis, Fowler also makes references to the prophecies of the five monarchies in Daniel 2 and 7, as well as a vague reference to the seven vials of the plagues of God’s wrath in Revelation 15–16.



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While these references to biblical types and prophecies, as well as the excessive invectives, may read now as over-the-top political polemic, they were something different to audiences in the long eighteenth century. This was an age when the bible was still commonly used as a guide to understanding day-to-day events, and in which sermons – both orally delivered and printed – continued to be popular and heeded. Therefore, such depictions were repeatedly impressed upon congregations and readers throughout the long eighteenth century. These ongoing and strong messages not only gave British people a particular perspective against French monarchs, but also seeped into their ideas about the French people as a whole.

‘French principles’ The descriptions of France’s rulers presented to thanksgiving-day sermon audiences could also colour British impressions about the French people as a whole. The preachers themselves left little doubt as to the potency of this trickle-down effect within the French nation. In 1706 William Ward, vicar of Portsmouth, declared the French ‘a People that delighted in War, whose Meat and Drink was to do the Will of an Ambitious Monarch… and their Name a Terror to their Neighbours’. Making a similar connection between ruler and ruled, three years later Deuel Pead claimed that, ‘since their King was now chiefly guided by Feminine Counsels, it was not likely his Souldiers Hearts should be Masculine’.28 Under Napoleon, according to Henry Manning in 1814, the French exhibited ‘a character of like sanguinary and unprincipled ambition combined with a more cool and insidious policy; of equally insatiate lust of conquest, and profounder schemes of domination’. William Palmer described how ‘From impiety and rebellion of the French… there sprang a power that in the first instance established a tyranny over themselves,… and having thus possessed itself of the natural force of that great nation, sought by its means to establish an universal empire over all’.29 The sermons gave a clear view of the perceived characteristics of the French nation that matched the traits ascribed to their rulers. It is interesting to note that some of the language in descriptions of imagined French actions was remarkably like that which had been used previously to denounce religious opponents in the age of confessional warfare. William Wake depicted the potential results of a successful French invasion of Britain in 1696 as ‘Confusion and Desolation… Our Houses in Flames about our Ears; Our Land destroy’d; Our Friends and Relations slaughter’d before our Eyes’. Wake picked up the imagery again towards the end of his sermon: ‘Oh! the Horrour and Confusion, the Shrieks and the Lamentations, that would have been seen, and heard in our Streets! How often should we in vain have wish’d to die, rather than live to behold and suffer such Evils.’ Such messages were meant to invoke fear and revulsion, and Wake was not alone in using them. John Shower also mentioned the possible 28 29

William Ward, A Sermon… December. 31. 1706 (London, 1707), p. 15; Pead, Parturiunt Montes… A Sermon… February the 17th, 1708/9, pp. 14–15. Manning, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], p. 4; Palmer, A Sermon… July 7th, 1814, pp. 10–11.

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scenario occurring from a French invasion on the same occasion, calling on people to imagine ‘confused Shrieks and Groans… Some hiding themselves and perishing by Fire, some hastening to flee, and meeting Death by the Sword: Some crying aloud to spare such a Relation, and not to kill such a Friend, my Child, my wife, my Father, my Brother.’30 James Gardiner considered the potential consequences of a French invasion: ‘The Mother dasht in pieces upon the Children: No reverence to the Person of the Aged, nor pity to the sucking Babe… the Church destroy’d,… All Laws overlaid, and stifled’. Contrasting the actual thanksgiving to what might have happened, John Piggott described how, ‘instead of singing this day, the Tears of our Widows and Fatherless Children, might have been mixed with the Ashes of Our City, and our Streets floated with a Stream of Human Blood’.31 This kind of speculation about horrors brought on by French military action did not disappear in the late seventeenth century. In Weston, Massachusetts in 1760 Samuel Woodward posited that, had the French been successful in the Seven Years’ War: then we had been stripp’d of every Thing dear to us… What could have been too much for the unbridled Rage of those, who have discovered so much Cruelty in the Temper already; of those who can sport themselves with the Miseries of Men, and make the inhuman Butchery of innocent Babes, the awful Spectacle of their fond Parents; and the Distresses of Parents, the affecting Entertainment of their loving Children?

His Massachusetts colleague, John Mellen, asked his audience to reflect on miseries of a country ‘conquered by Papists, Tyrants and Slaves… plundered by a rude & voracious Soldiery… Think of your Country in Flames, your Dwellings laid Waste, your Children dash’d against Stones, your Wives ravished, your all taken from you’. Even in 1805, on the defeat of another French invasion effort, David Brichan called for people to ‘Calculate the consequence – ravage and murder – your fields desolated – your houses plundered – your temples profaned – your property annihilated – your wives, your daughters, your sisters.’32 The strength of this kind of hyperbole is apparent in how long it remained current, and its impact is demonstrated by how deeply it was burned into preachers’ and, from that, their audiences’ consciousness in the long eighteenth century. Like for French rulers, an inventory of traits and proclivities were assigned to the French by thanksgiving-day preachers. In 1702 Humphrey Prideaux went all the way back to the Norman Conquest to discover how the English then had ‘their Lands, their Liberties, and their Laws… taken from them’ by French invaders. Prideux 30 31

32

William Wake, A Sermon… April xvith. 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 13, 24; John Shower, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Sixteenth of April, 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 11–12. James Gardiner, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… April 16th. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 5; John Piggott, ‘A Good King… A Sermon, Preach’d April 16. 1696’, in Eleven Sermons (London, 1714), p. 21. Samuel Woodward, A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), p. 26; John Mellen, A Sermon… October 9. 1760 (Boston, MA, n.d.), p. 30; David Brichan, A Sermon… Fifth of December, 1805 (London, 1806), p. 20.



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asserted that ‘now… over and above this there is the fiery Zeal of Rome, the bigotry of an old Tyrant, and the rage of Ambition long disappointed to provoke their anger… the little finger of a second French Conquest will be much thicker than all the Loyns of the former’. William Wilson described the Revolution of 1688–1689 as ‘a State threatened with a Government of the French mode’.33 Regarding the assassination plot of 1696, the anonymous Sermon Preached in a Congregation in the City of Exon asserted it ‘was to have reduced us to the Posture of France, to have made us Slaves and Idolators’, to be ‘followed with an invasion from France… to invite over the barbarous French to execute their horrid cruelties amongst us!’ On the same occasion, Charles Nicholetts asked ‘Are the Liberties and Franchi[se] we enjoy of no more value, than to be sacrificed to a French Tyranny?’34 William Talbot warned that any who had leaned towards the French and ‘think they should have fared better than their Neighbours upon account of their own great Merits o[r] their fair promises they may have had from abroad, they have very wrong notions of Popish Gratitude, and French Trust’, and Christopher Taylor saw the Union of 1707 as an end of the opportunity for ‘the common enemy… to make dreadful Havock among us, and… to have brought the French Scourge upon us’.35 This discourse in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw thanksgiving-day sermons apply the derogatory term ‘frenchify’ and its variants. In 1689 Thomas Watts claimed that popish advisors had ‘cheated and gull’d’ James II and had ‘frenchifi’d his Court’. Deuel Pead described the true enemies of the nation as the ‘French and Frenchify’d Heathen [i.e., papists]’ who ‘are more troubled at our Liberty than their own Thraldom’.36 Henry Day spoke of ‘bigotted, Unreasonable, Licentious, Superstitious, Needy, Atheistical Men’ and ascribed these characteristics to ‘every Frenchifi’d Jacobite’, while Samuel Clerke referred to ‘Frenchified, or otherwise tainted’ subjects who did not support William III.37 In response to criticisms, the preface of John Swanne’s sermon described it as an ‘un-frenchified Discourse’ and, to answer such reproaches ‘from any of the French Nation or Principles’, Swanne feigned a French accent in telling his critics to ask ‘wheder de whole or de Major part vas his grand mistake, or rader reproof, and derefore did not please him’. Swanne noted ‘it must be own’d that French Taylors, Dancing Masters, Cooks,

33 34 35 36

37

Humphrey Prideaux, A Sermon… December the 3d, 1702 (Norwich, 1703), pp. 7–8; William Wilson, A Sermon… 14th of Febr. 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 33. Anonymous, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), pp. 21, 23; Charles Nicholetts, The Cabinet of Hell Unlocked… a Sermon… April 16th 1696 (London, 1696), p. 19. William Talbot, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 18; Christopher Taylor, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… First Day of May, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 5–6. Thomas Watts, A Sermon… Febr. the 14th [1689] (London, 1689), p. 5; Deuel Pead, The Protestant King… a Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 11. The Oxford English Dictionary finds the first usage of this term in 1592: ‘Frenchify, v.’, OED Online (Oxford, June 2016), www.oed.com/view/Entry/74488?redirectedFrom=frenchify (accessed 23 July 2016). Henry Day, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… April the 16th. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 13; Clerke, Neck and All… April 16, 1696, p. 1.

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Peruke-Makers, Valets, and (the top of all) French Whores, have been none the least of this Kingdoms blessed Vanities for some years past’.38 The impact of such descriptions, heightened by the wars of the period, accumulated. By 1749, even on the occasion of peace, Benjamin Kennicott would describe France as ‘a mortal enemy of Great Britain; since We alone are, and have been often the Power, that breaks their Scheme of Universal Empire’. During the Seven Years’ War, Richard Winter branded the French as acting ‘like Barbarians in a Time of War’ and as ‘Breakers of Treaties, and the Incendiaries of the World, over which they have been aiming for a long Succession of Years to extend an absolute Monarchy’.39 That conflict brought new issues into the characterisations of the French by British preachers. William Henry suggested that the conquest of Québec would result in ‘those of them [the ‘French Nation’], who shall become Subjects of Great Britain, will be advanced from Servitude into Freedom’. John Mellen saw this military success as now allowing better results in spreading the gospel among natives and French Canadians, in place of ‘French Priests and Politicians’ continuing to ‘corrupt and debauch them’.40 Depicting further failings, in 1759 an anonymous author alleged that the French, in: those Parts of America where our People border upon them, they have been guilty of a Barbarity scarce credible. In stead of spreading the merciful Doctrines of the Christian Religion among the Natives… they have encouraged in them a Cruelty of Disposition… and tempted them, even when no War subsisted, to seize every Countryman of ours they could find, and put him to a torturing Death, giving a Reward in Proportion to the Numbers they thus massacred.

Samuel Woodward called the French dishonest and without honour, ‘as has been too evident by their sending the Natives to butcher us under the most solemn Stipulations of Peace’. Richard Winter weighed in on this subject also, accusing the French of burning native prisoners who were allies of the British, as well as having taught natives to believe ‘that the English crucified Christ’ by showing them pictures ‘representing our Saviour with English Soldiers, distinguished by their Uniform, scourging him’.41 As they had been for French rulers, biblical parallels were also used to depict the French in negative and unflattering light. In 1696 Peter Newcome, the vicar of Aldenham in Hertfordshire, proclaimed that ‘Israel might as reasonably think to make Peace with Egypt as we with France and Popery, whose Designs We (and God for us) have hitherto so vigorously opposed’. A decade later Gilbert Burnet 38

39 40 41

John Swanne, A Sermon… April the 16th, 1696 (London, 1697), sig. A3r, A3v. A ‘peruke’ is a wig or a periwig: ‘peruke, n.’, OED Online (Oxford, June 2016), www.oed.com/view/ Entry/141644?rskey=wn2hPo&result=1 (accessed 23 July 2016). Benjamin Kennicott, The Duty… A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 14; Richard Winter, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 6, 26. William Henry, The Triumphs… A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Dublin, 1759), p. 13; Mellen, A Sermon… October 9. 1760, p. 31. Anonymous, A Sermon… 29th of November 1759 (London, n.d.), p. 10; Woodward, A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760, p. 15; Winter, A Sermon… November 29, 1759, p. 7.



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described ‘an Egypt and a Pharaoh near us… as full of Idolatry… which to the Perfidy of Injust and Cruel Wars has added a Series of new and unheard of Persecutions’, adding the apocalyptic pronouncement that France ‘is become drunk with the Blood of Saints, carrying the Bondage of the Israel of God much farther then the Egyptians did’.42 At the time of the Union between Scotland and England, Thomas Freke characterised the French people as a whole by praying ‘we might all joyn against the Philistine, the common enemy, ’till he be utterly destroy’d’. One anonymous minister compared the French to the ‘Ammonites, the inveterate Enemies of Israel’.43 In a discussion of Babylon in the Old Testament, in 1746 Thomas Bradbury affirmed ‘there is a Nation in our day equally deceitful and barbarous, aspiring to an Universal Monarchy’. Similarly expounding an Old Testament context, in 1763 Griffith Williams explained that ‘the Moabites were inveterate enemies to the Israelites’, later arriving at the conclusion ‘our thoughts are easily led to form a comparison between the Moabites and our enemies the French’. For the anonymous author of England’s Causes for Thankfulness (1798), France and those who supported its revolutionary and atheistic principles were ‘uncircumcised Philistines’.44 By the time of the French Revolution such characterisations of France and its people had become commonplace, even if the political circumstances in the country had now been altered. Summarising the recent course of French history, in 1814 Alexander Spark recounted ‘we have beheld a great and powerful nation, having first renounced their allegiance to their Prince, and their Maker, – having assumed the character of Regicides and Infidels, – and after being given up, for a time, to all the horrors of Anarchy, Misrule, and Murder, at last submitting to the despotic will of a cruel and ambitious Tyrant’. Also describing France’s passage from the destruction of monarchy and the church, through ‘promiscuous confiscation and massacre’, and finally to despotism, in 1816 William Howley concluded that these events ‘produced little alteration in its character or views. Its predominant characteristics in every stage were contempt of all social and religious ties, insatiate lust of dominion, and savage delight in blood.’ William Mavor maintained the ‘revolutionary impetus which had been given to the French people, reinforced by a national vanity’, had enabled Napoleon ‘either to vanquish or to awe every country, except our own’.45 Beyond specific political or ideological associations, other denigrating traits were assigned to the French in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In 1798 John Booth described how ‘our insidious and perfidious Gallic foes have exhausted 42

43 44

45

Peter Newcome, A Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), p. 11; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 3. The reference to the blood of saints is from Revelation 17: 6, part of the description of the whore of Babylon. Thomas Freke, Union… a Sermon… May the First, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 16; Anonymous, Nahash’s Defeat… A Sermon… August 19. 1708 (London, 1708), p. 5. Thomas Bradbury, ‘[Sermon I]’, in Joy in Heaven… In Two Sermons on the Thanksgiving-Day October 9, 1746 (London, 1747), p. 2; Griffith Williams, The Triumph… A Sermon… May 5, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 6, 19; Anonymous, England’s Causes… A Sermon… November 1798 (York, n.d.), p. 12. Alexander Spark, A Sermon… the 21st April, 1814 (Québec, 1814), p. 10; William Howley, A Sermon… January 18, 1816 (London, 1816), p. 9; William Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon… July 7, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance (London, 1814), p. 39.

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their serpentine wiles, and fox-like cunning, with a view, first to deceive and then destroy’. In 1814 John Hodgson contended the French had succumbed to the ideas of revolution because their ‘character has ever been volatile and easily excited’. Likewise, in 1802 Thomas Belsham argued the French people were the cause of their own political misfortunes, because despotism could not ‘tyrannize over an enlightened and a polished nation, as it may over a rude and ignorant and barbarous people’.46 George Pretyman noted the ‘long preeminence of the French nation in every species of vice and irreligion’, William Vincent pointed to their divorce laws as evidence of the country’s lack of morals, and Thomas Hewett cited moral failings that caused the French people to side with Napoleon again after his first fall from power.47 Considering the threat of invasion in 1798, William Mann referred to the French as ‘lawless banditti’. Thomas Bowen spoke of ‘flagrant national crimes which have polluted their unhappy country, and rendered it the horror and execration of the world’, and he asserted the French were attempting ‘to establish in every country the same system of sacrilege, murder, and confiscation, which they practised in their own’. Thomas Clarke, chaplain to the Prince of Wales, told Britain to beware of ‘foreign poison’ and warned, if his country abandoned its own ‘moral customes for the glittering immorality of french fashions, the manners of that Nation will prove more dangerous than their arms’.48 So, at the turn of the nineteenth century, being French was again equated with a particular, new set of features, which once more threatened to affect Britain, just as ‘popish’ ones had previously. In 1797 Adam Gordon was alarmed about ‘the common people, who absurdly listen to the unnatural and wild discourses of that new-formed character, a frenchified Briton, – one strangely weary of his ancient laws, – customs, – and religion’. On the other hand, William Mavor assured his readers that ‘French principles will never be justly imputed to any considerable number of thinking men, in this kingdom.’ John Overton explained that ‘so deplorably had French principles infected the surrounding States; so did these vile principles, at once, provoke the wrath of the Almighty’.49 David Lloyd had his audience imagine ‘our native residence to have been the nation of the French – we, like them, should, of course, have been borne down the mad torrent of the same wild and chimerical politics’, and he ascribed to ‘French principles and politics’ the attributes of disorder, anarchy, despotism, and tyranny. Declaring a wish ‘rather to die as Englishmen than 46

47

48

49

John Booth, A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (Huddersfield, n.d.), p. 11; John Hodgson, A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1814), p. 9; Thomas Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… a Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), p. 19. George Pretyman, A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 11–12; William Vincent, A Sermon… June 1, 1802 (London, 1802), pp. 21–2; Thomas Hewett, ‘Sermon II’ [1816], in Two Sermons (London, 1816), pp. 50–5. William Mann, A Sermon… November 29th, 1798 (London, n.d.), p. 17; Thomas Bowen, The Efficacy of Courage… A Sermon… Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798 (London, 1798), p. 15; Thomas Clarke, Proofs of Providence… A Sermon… November 29, 1798 (n.p., n.d.), p. 19 (emphasis in the original). Adam Gordon, Due Sense… A Sermon… 19th of December, 1797 (London, 1798), p. 22; William Mavor, The Duty… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Oxford, 1798), p. 21n.; Overton, England’s Glory… July 7th, 1814, p. 12.



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to live enslaved to France’, William Agutter hoped that during the long war with France ‘we have not been corrupted by their principles’.50 John Garnett argued it was actually the states who were exposed to French ‘fraternization, whose governments she subverted, whose property she pillaged, and whose subjects she imprisoned’ that became the best advocates ‘towards the extermination of what were called French principles’. Even on the occasion of peace with France in 1802, William Williams proclaimed ‘French principles are the sons of Amalek, with whom we must wage war for ever. And it will especially become us, to be alike on our guard against the poison of their creed, and the contagion of their conduct.’51

Other British peoples Although ideas about France and the French dominated British response to another country in the thanksgiving-day discourses, the sermons also contained references to other peoples. While these comments were not nearly as extensive or as systematic as those towards the French, they do give some idea of attitudes that existed towards other nations during the long eighteenth century. Prominent among this commentary are attitudes about Scotland, Ireland, native North Americans, as well as some comment on the slave trade and ideas regarding African people in the last two decades of the period. It is not surprising that preachers would include remarks and observations like these in thanksgiving-day celebrations that were most often in response to external circumstances, and as Britain began to expand its perspective globally. Comments towards Scotland and the Scottish were not expressed in terms of Britons and another, but, instead, of the English and another. Though many times there was an attempt to envelop Scots and the English under the name of Britons, distinctions were still clearly being made. Such responses were concentrated largely around two events in the early and mid-eighteenth century: the Union with Scotland and the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Preachers’ observations upon, and responses to, these occasions give clear indications about English attitudes towards their ‘north British’ neighbours. While the Union was met with approval in the thanksgiving-day sermons marking its accomplishment, it is also apparent that there were underlying subtexts demonstrating existing and long-standing views about Scotland. Almost four decades later, Scottish participation in the rebellion that came close to unseating the British government brought those ideas to the surface again. The idea of Britain as a national entity encompassing both England and Scotland was one which preachers tried to explain. In 1706 Gilbert Burnet was anticipating 50

51

David Lloyd, England’s Privileges: A Thanksgiving Sermon… December 19, 1797 (Hereford, 1797), pp. 7–8, 9–10; William Agutter, Deliverance… A Sermon… December 19th, 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 15, 10. John Garnett, A Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (Winchester, 1802), p. 20 (emphasis in the original); William Williams, The Removal… A Thanksgiving Sermon… 1st of June, 1802 (High Wycombe, 1802), pp. 18–19. Amalek fought against the Israelites after they had left Egypt in Exodus 17.

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the ‘promising Tidings of a happy Project for making this Island to become one People’, and the next year John Grant celebrated the union by proclaiming the name ‘GREAT BRITAINS bespeaks us a Great Nation, and a Mighty People; capable of enterprizing Nobler and Bolder Designs than ever.’52 Thomas Freke went back to ancient history to argue that the name Great Britain was one ‘not unknown to the Ancient Romans, a name that made a mighty Figure in former Annals’, and he concluded by asking ‘Why should this be thought a strange Name to us…?’ Also going back to much earlier times, Hugh Todd maintained ‘that ever since we have any Authentick Records of such Matters, the People of Britain were esteem’d and look’d upon, as One Entire Body of Men, living under the same Customs and Rules of Government. The Romans found them distinguish’d… into several Provinces and Districts; but withal United at the same time.’ Though seemingly reading history differently, John Bates could still positively assert that the union allowed ‘Britains’ to rid themselves of the assessment by the Romans ‘That we were a People led by Parties and Factions, and seldom two or three Cities of us could agree together’, and he maintained that ‘For Us… God hath reserved the Glory to become perfect Britains, and to have Hearts as large as our Island.’53 While English preachers tried to justify and accommodate the new amalgamation, even their most complimentary efforts often ran counter to the ideas of differences they expressed regarding the Scots’ nation and character. English sermons from the 1707 thanksgiving day were approving towards Scotland and the Union, but within the praise, particular perspectives became apparent. For example, in mentioning the now greater security of the border, Deuel Pead referred to it previously being used as a means ‘whereby to infest England’, denoting an unflattering connotation to what was coming south across that frontier. Likewise, Robert Davidson acknowledged ‘’tis true, the Kings of England did seek to make themselves Masters of the whole Island, by force of Arms’, but went on to explain that this was the because ‘the Scots being a hardy and a restless People, were at every Turn making Incursions on the Borders of England, and could never be kept long from disturbing the Peace of this Island at Home’.54 Recognising the ancient foundations of the Scottish kingdom and its hostilities with England, Thomas Manningham determined ‘the Scotch Nation was our near and neighbouring Mischief, ready to augment any Foreign Distress, or to heighten any Domestick Troubles: ’Twas a rough Engin, fitted upon all Occasions to molest us, especially as it was managed by the Policies of France’. Anticipating the coming union, Charles Lamb labelled Scotland ‘that Sturdy Nation beyond the Tweed, an Old Adversary to our Peace’ which now ‘express’d an inclination to take part of our Blessings, by laying aside 52 53

54

Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of December, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 3; John Grant, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 16 (emphasis in the original). Freke, Union… May the First, 1707, pp. 14–15; Hugh Todd, A Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), p. 15; John Bates, Two (United)… A Thanksgiving Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 4, 5. The italics in the quotation from Bates are in the original. He cites Tacitus in a footnote, p. 4n. Deuel Pead, The Honour… a Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), p. 6; Robert Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a. A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 13.



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their inveterate Grudges’.55 Based on the context, these remarks were not intentionally derogatory, but the use of words like ‘infest’, ‘disturbing’, ‘Mischief ’, ‘molest’, and ‘inveterate Grudges’ to describe Scotland’s part in the past relationship certainly presented the country in a less than positive light. The sermons often recognised the long history of the Scots, describing them as ‘a People who have had an uninterrupted Succession of Kings and Queens for Two Thousand Years’, an ‘Antient and Free People’, and ‘a remainder of Britons that fled Northward from the Roman servitude’.56 However, again recognition of Scotland’s history was tinged with hints of diminution and backhanded praise. Thus, Francis Hutchinson introduced his appreciation of the honour and fame gained by Scottish kings in wars against England with the qualification ‘Though Scotland was the lesser Nation’. Expecting the military benefits of adding Scots to the ranks, John Bates spoke of ‘our Northern Swarms of hardy and stout, and well commanded Soldiers, every way equal to those of the Southern Parts’ and he told of a contingent ‘of ’em in France, under Francis the I’s Reign… call’d Six Thousand Devils, for their extraordinary Valour’. Thomas Manningham credited the Scots as being part of ‘the Northern People’ who had brought down the Roman Empire, though he also noted that these groups ‘have not been much magnified’ by the Greek and Roman civilisations. Turning to more recent history, Manningham maintained ‘that the seditious and treacherous Behaviour of many of that Kingdom (of which our late Civil Wars gave us so sad an Experience) have raised such Prejudices in our minds against ’em, as are hardly to be removed’.57 The sermons did celebrate the Union’s creation of Great Britain and Britons, as well as pointing out similarities and common ground. John Bates reported how it is ‘Conjectur’d by Historians, that the People of the two Nations of our Island are near akin’. Joshua Oldfield called for his audience to ‘endeavour to compleat the Union, by being, both among our selves, and with our Brethren of the other part of this so Fortunate Island, of one Heart and of one Soul’, and Charles Bean credited ‘both Parliaments, for this Law that makes us One People and Nation’.58 For Josiah Woodcock it was the ‘Barbarities and Cruelties committed, the Inroads and Invasions made upon one another’ that brought ‘every true Briton heartily into the Interests of the Union, and to inspire him with a Resolution to do all that lies in his Power to cultivate, strengthen, and improve it’. Charles Lamb characterised the union as ‘making these jarring Kingdoms one affectionate People’.59 55 56

57 58

59

Thomas Manningham, A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 4–5; Charles Lamb, England Happy… A Sermon… December the 31st, 1706 (London, 1707), p. 16. Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a… May the 1st, 1707, p. 21; Giles Dent, A Thanksgiving Sermon… First Day of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 11; John Bates, Two (United)… A Thanksgiving Sermon… May 1. 1707 (London, 1707), p. 17. Francis Hutchinson, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 5; Bates, Two (United)… May 1. 1707, pp. 26–7; Manningham, A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707, pp. 7–8. Bates, Two (United)… May 1. 1707, p. 17; Joshua Oldfield, Israel and Judah… A Sermon Preach’d May the First, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 14; Charles Bean, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 12. Josiah Woodcock, A Sermon Preach’d August 19, 1708 (London, 1708), p. 17; Lamb, England Happy… December the 31st, 1706, p. 16.

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Yet even while acknowledging unity, there was still a pejorative aspect in the sermons for English audiences. Francis Hutchinson asserted a similarity in temperament and blood between the Scottish and English, concluding ‘we need not be ashamed either of their Likeness or Relation’. In 1709 Thomas Reynolds celebrated the ongoing war as having ‘promoted the Union and fill’d us with People [the Scots], that have given manifold Proofs they are no Burthen, but a great Addition to the Riches and Strength of our Nation, if we will but employ ’em’. Outlining the tradeoff of wealth and goods flowing into Scotland while England would be given greater security and defence, Patrick Dujon added that the ‘Riches and Fertility of the South, will make amends for the commonly reputed Barrenness and Poverty of the North’.60 At times, prejudices and biases were more openly acknowledged. In a 1709 reference to the Union, Thomas Masters credited divine intervention for curing ‘that implacable Hatred and Aversion that was settled in the Hearts and Minds of one Nation against another’ and for removing ‘the Prejudices, Fears and Jealousies that were mutually engendred on both sides’. More mundanely, Thomas Manningham called for ‘all National Satyrs, all Proverbs of Reproach and Scorn be laid aside, and utterly forgot’.61 In their ‘admiration’ of perceived traits of the Scots, English preachers often displayed attitudes demonstrating limited credit for the depth of Scottish attributes and character. When John Grant lauded the Scottish gentry as ‘men of great Humanity, Sagacity, and Honour’, he noted also they were ‘well instructed in Letters, commonly polished and improved by their Travels’. Regarding ‘their Commons or Plebians’, Grant depicted ‘a very hardy, laborious and industrious People; fitted for the Hazard of the Seas, and capable to struggle with the greatest Difficulties by Land’ and who had ‘a Natural Prowess and Gallantry for War’; though not uncomplimentary, Grant’s conclusion that these were ‘a People to supply our Navies… to fill our Troops, and increase our Armies’ seemed to rather limit the Scottish contribution to the new state.62 Richard Allen seemed to agree, assessing the ‘Union will probably conduce much to our Strength and Stability, by increasing our naval and maritime Forces’. Robert Davidson described Scottish soldiers as ‘remarkable not only for their courage, but their Hardiness, in the enduring both of Labour and Want’, and their ‘Common People are generally very obedient and respectful to all above them, and are utterly ignorant of many Vices which abound in more Opulent Countreys.’ The Scots were ‘hardy Stout, and Warlike, Honourable, and lovers of Liberty’ according to John Bates, and ‘their Country… wants not for its Fruitful Valleys, and profitable Produce; tho’ it is nothing so fruitful as this’.63

60

61 62 63

Hutchinson, A Sermon… First of May, 1707, pp. 12–13 (emphasis added); Thomas Reynolds, The Wisdom… A Discourse… November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710), p. 33 (emphasis added); Patrick Dujon, A Sermon… May 1…. [1707] (London, 1707), p. 13. Thomas Masters, A Sermon… November 22. 1709 (London, 1710), pp. 15–16; Manningham, A Sermon… May the 1st, 1707, p. 7. John Grant, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), pp. 10–11. Richard Allen, A Sermon… First of May, 1707 (London, 1707), p. 13; Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a… May the 1st, 1707, pp. 20–1; Bates, Two (United)… May 1. 1707, p. 12.



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Daniel Williams’s description of the union made it clear who was joining whom. Williams declared it was England ‘into which Scotland is engrafted… The Addition is most properly made to England, in as much as its Representatives in Parliament are far more numerous, and the Legislature is chiefly in our hands.’ He went on to assure that ‘England has no reason to despise it, for it shuts a back Door, at which Foreigners entred to distress this Land. Such oft prevailed also with the Scots, to divert us from great Enterprizes Abroad.’ Williams asserted that Scotland’s ‘Strength is as an appendage to England:… the disposal of Men and Treasure will be chiefly in our hands,… England is aggrandized by the ingrafture of a Nation, so famous for Warriors and Men of Sense’. He concluded ‘Scotland is not without its Benefit, and will partake of the fatness of that Tree, into which it is engrafted.’64 Not putting too fine a point on his own botanic analogy, Deuel Pead portrayed the union as ‘the uniting of the Rose and the Thistle, accounting the Thistle a low and contemptible Weed, yet I fancy there will be an encrease of Strength by the Conjunction’.65 The sermons celebrating the defeat of the 1745 Jacobite uprising displayed a different tone towards the characteristics of at least some Scots. While the rebellion provoked understandable outrage, much of the language used to describe Scottish participants suggested something more was at work than simple indignation at those who had dared take up arms against the British government. William Stevenson, a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, included a rather muted description of the members of ‘the Northern Clans’ who had supported the Pretender that contained echoes of the characteristics of the Scots described in 1707. They were ‘a Set of Men naturally strong, active, brave, dexterous in the use of their peculiar Arms; inured to Toil and Want’, but who had been ‘hurryed-on by an enthusiastick Zeal, or inticed by the pleasing hopes of Plenty and Plunder’. In his comment on these men, William Wood declared that ‘the heads of the Highland Clans’ should have been content under George II’s government ‘had they consulted the Principles of unbiassed Reason, and pursued its Dictates… which would have render’d them worthy of the Denomination of Subjects of moral and civil Government’. Christopher Mays maintained ‘that the Scotch Gentry envy the more thriving condition of the English; and would have been glad to see them humbled…. And many of them, it is generally supposed, are heartily weary of the Union, and would be glad to be disunited from us at any rate.’66 Other preachers were much more disparaging in their judgements. The anonymous sermon Gratitude to God the Surest Defence (1746) told of London being saved ‘from the intended Rapine and Plunder of Highland Robbers’, and to Nicholas Nichols the Highland Scots were ‘a Swarm of terrible ones from the Northern Hive 64

65 66

Daniel Williams, A Thanksgiving-Sermon… May the 1st, 1707 (London, n.d.), pp. 5, 11, 12. Showing his Presbyterian orientation, Williams did credit the Scots for the purity of their religion: p. 12. John Bates also used the imagery of Scotland being grafted to the ‘Stock’ of England: Bates, Two (United)… A Thanksgiving Sermon… May 1. 1707, p. 30. Pead, The Honour… May 1. 1707, p. 15. William Stevenson, The True Patriot’s Wishes. A Sermon … 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 22; Wood, Britain’s Joshua… October 9, 1746, p. 4; Christopher Mays, A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), p. 13.

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of fierce Natures, and rude Manners’.67 John Milner pronounced the core of the Pretender’s army ‘the dregs of the Scotish Nation. Men as yet rude and barbarous in the methods of life, hardened by Vassalage, and prepared for Plunder or Parricide.’ According to Thomas Wingfield, vicar of Yalmeton in Devon, the rebellion had introduced ‘an Army of Savages into the Bowels of a civilized Nation’, and Thomas Newman claimed the uprising had relied ‘upon the numbers of disaffected savages’ where the Pretender had landed.68 At St Ann’s in Dublin, John Madden, dean of Kilmore Cathedral, asserted that there had been ‘little Probability that such a Banditti should subdue such a Nation as the English are’, and three years later Joseph Stennett was still referring to ‘that banditti of northern rebels’.69 Not surprisingly, biblical parallels were also used. After recounting the context of Joshua’s victory over Israel’s enemies, William Wood noted ‘the People under these Canaanitish Kings were a Set of rude, ignorant, and wicked Idolaters’ who were like ‘the common People that constituted the Rebel Army; to wit, the Popish Party in the Highlands… the most illiterate, barbarous, thievish, brutish, and superstitious Generation of Men’. Explaining the circumstances of the biblical text for his sermon, Ebenezer Latham described ‘the Clans of the Canaanites, as sort of Highland Army’. For Thomas Vaughan, the Highland Scots were like ‘those Gygantick Sons of Anach’ who ‘fall before British Fire’.70 Though Ireland was not the subject of the same kind of dedicated attention as Scotland in national thanksgiving commemoration, the thanksgiving-day sermons did contain some mention of Ireland and its people. The war in Ireland after the Revolution of 1688–89 instigated some of this. Preaching to the Lord Justices in Dublin in 1690, William King credited their predecessors in government for ‘Reforming the Superstitions and Barbarity of the Natives’ in Ireland. The next year Gilbert Burnet described ‘Our Neighbouring Island’ in unflattering terms. It was ‘long in a most horrible Convulsion, the Seat of War and Rapine: the Fire and the Sword, had gone over the breadth and the length of it, and had turned it to a heap of Ruines and Ashes’.71 By the mid-1690s, John Travers, chaplain to the Irish House of Commons, discussed the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland in familiar ways. Travers compared the Catholic Irish to ‘the obstinate Egyptians… Who by the 67 68

69 70

71

Anonymous, Gratitude to God… A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (London, 1746), p. 22; Nicholas Nichols, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (Hull, n.d.), p. 19. John Milner, National Gratitude… A Thanksgiving Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 22; Thomas Wingfield, The Lawfulness… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 13; Thomas Newman, Vows Made… A Sermon… Ninth of October, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 19. John Madden, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (Dublin, 1746), p. 11; Joseph Stennett, A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), p. 27. Wood, Britain’s Joshua… October 9, 1746, p. 5; Ebenezer Latham, Great Britain’s Thanks… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (Derby, 1746), p. 4; Vaughan, Rebellion Extinguished: A Thanksgiving-Sermon… October the 9th, 1746, p. 10. The children of Anak were a race of giants who were driven out of the promised land: Numbers 13: 33, Deuteronomy 9: 2, Joshua 15: 14, and Judges 1: 20. William King, A Sermon… 16th of November. 1690 (Dublin, 1691), sig. A2v; Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 26th of Novemb. 1691 (London, 1691), p. 9.



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unsuccessfulness of their frequent Attempts against Israel were Discourag’d… Tho’ our Egyptians shew themselves too unteachable, or too self conceited, or too Malicious, to be convinc’d by any such Experiments.’ Claiming the Catholic population of Ireland had been overindulged, Travers concluded ‘Ingratitude, abuses, Indulgence, and Vipers sting those Bosoms in which they are cherish’d…. the Experience of their constant behaviour ever since England first subdu’d them, gives us plainly to understand, that there is no safe relying on their candor and integrity’.72 Other preachers referred to ‘Irish Cut-throats’ and ‘desperate bloody-minded Irish-men’ in connection with the plots and threats of the day.73 With the dangerous days of the early 1690s behind him, in 1704 William King, now the archbishop of Dublin, reminded his audience of the contributions Ireland had already made in support of Anne’s reign, including the victory at Blenheim, where ‘we had our portion, both in the Conduct and Execution, for a considerable part of Her Majesties Forces on the Danube were from hence’. Three years later, Francis Hutchinson emphasized the uniqueness of the union with Scotland by noting that ‘Ireland… hath been united to England; But after how many Wars and Slaughters?’74 Celebrating the Hanoverian succession in 1715 Alexander Jephson recounted how, in James II’s reign, ‘poor Ireland already had the Skean brandish’d at every Protestant’s Throat’. In 1749 in Scotland, John Warden would also turn back to William’s campaign in Ireland to denounce the Irish as having a ‘brutal Disposition’ and hearts ‘inured to slaughter’, later referring to them as ‘Savages’. That same year William Henry reminded his Irish parishioners, with no intent of irony, how ‘We have hitherto been encouraged and cherished by Great Britain, with all the Tenderness of a Parent towards a favourite Child. We have been protected without bearing the Expence; and while our kind Mother lay struggling with the Difficulties of War abroad, and an unnatural Rebellion at home, we enjoyed the Blessings of a profound Peace.’75 Echoing the reaction to Scots in 1746, in the late 1790s preachers responded to the Irish rebellions by referring to ‘lawless and ferocious rebels’ and ‘ignorant, deluded, and disaffected inhabitants’.76 Taking a more thoughtful approach and hopeful outlook in 1814, John Strachan announced that the ‘sufferings and discontents of Ireland will meet with a patient and unprejudiced investigation; and healing balm will be applied to her diseases with firmness and ability,… and all those evils for ever

72 73 74 75

76

John Travers, A Sermon… 8th Day of October, 1695 (Dublin, n.d.), pp. 4–5. Shower, A Thanksgiving Sermon… Sixteenth of April, 1696, p. 12; Richard Lee, A Thanksgiving Sermon… 2d. of December, 1697 (London, 1697), p. 20. William King, A Sermon… 7th. of September, 1704 (London, 1704), p. 25; Hutchinson, A Sermon… First of May, 1707, p. 9. Alexander Jephson, A Sermon… 20th Day of January (London, 1715), p. 6; John Warden, The Happiness… a Sermon… April 25. 1749 (Edinburgh, 1749), pp. 32, 33; William Henry, The Advantages… A Sermon… 25th Day of April 1749 (London, 1749), p. 20. Henry Courtenay, A Sermon… 1st of June 1802 (London, 1802), p. 4; Thomas Rutledge, God the Defence… A Thanksgiving Sermon… 5th of December 1805 (London, 1806), p. 22.

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removed, which have hitherto prevented such a noble and fertile kingdom from adding much to the strength and energy of the British Empire’.77 The revolt of the American colonies created a new target of national animus for some preachers. Though George Walker had optimistically suggested that his countrymen embrace the United States as a ‘new nation of Britons’,78 by the early nineteenth century this affection had not materialised. Thomas Hewett condemned the new country for entering into ‘a sort of subservient alliance with an unprincipled domineering power [France]… [and] aggrandizing their own republic by the subjugation of a few neighbouring [British] colonies’. Hewett labelled Americans ‘Our envious brethren of America, also animated by the same spirit [as the French],… without much regard to decency’. John Strachan criticised the United States for its ‘horrid joy’ at Britain’s troubles, and for becoming the only country to ally with Napoleonic France by choice, in order ‘to share in her spoils with their ferocious ally’. Having expected the United States would stand in defence of the principle of freedom, John Bethune claimed instead ‘such was the rancorous hatred of the ruling faction towards Great Britain, that they deserted the cause of humanity, and joined the tyrant’.79 The gist in all of these appraisals was that the new United States was following a wrong path, as well as implying that French traits were rubbing off on Americans.

Native North Americans Another group of peoples who received some significant comment within the thanksgiving-day sermons were native North Americans. These assessments were not only coloured by religious and political differences, but also by a bigotry based on judgements of native culture and society. Already in 1689 John Olliffe would contrast the presumed civilised and advanced state of English society and religious practices with supposed examples of practices of ‘rude and barbarous Indians or Servants of some cruel Dunghil Deity’, who might ‘wallow in all Licentiousness, or… like Beasts of Prey devour and tear one another’ as a means to ‘satisfy best the Fiends they serve’. Constructing a similar argument, the Sermon Preached… in the City of Exon (1696) provided an instance of false worship where ‘some besotted wretches worship the Devil… as if he were the God who made them’. The author supposed this was ‘A piece of Idolatry practised amongst many of the Inhabitants of Florida and the Natives of Virginia,… and generally in the Southern America they have set up the destroyer of Souls for their Deitie’. Deuel Pead told how the ‘blind Indians are said to Sacrifice to the Devils lest they hurt them’.80 Such descriptions 77 78 79 80

Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814], pp. 32–3. George Walker, The Doctrine… July 29, 1784 (London, 1784), pp. 34–5. Hewett, ‘Sermon I’ [1814], pp. 11, 29; Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June [1814], p. 17; John Bethune, A Sermon… 18th Day of June, 1816 (Montréal, 1816), pp. 17–18. John Olliffe, England’s Call… a Sermon… February the 14th, 1688/9 (London, 1689), p. 21; Anon., A Sermon… April 16. 1696, pp. 5–6; Pead, The Protestant King… April 16. 1696, p. 13.



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reinforced the presumption of the need to convert indigenous people to Christianity. Benjamin Loveling endorsed conversion efforts towards ‘rude natives’, and Joseph Acres encouraged the sending of missionaries from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to ‘recommend Christianity to the Savage Indians’. John Richardson applauded the fact that ‘a door is opened for the preaching of the blessed Gospel in its purity to a multitude of poor American savages’.81 Indigenous peoples’ involvement in European battles for North American territory in the middle of the eighteenth century instigated more extensive comment. In his 1746 sermon, William Warburton attempted to construct a character study of a ‘Savage’ to criticise excesses in British society. Warburton had this persona ask ‘Do I not use the Gifts of Nature just as you employ the Benefits of Society?… I waste and devour them with an immoderate and beastly Appetite’ The character continued: ‘we waste them only as we find them, rude from Nature’s Hand: being as incapable of preserving or improving them, as of using them with Moderation’. The intended moral of this account was that ‘here the poor untaught Indian might set you a Lesson. The Patience, Fortitude, the Resignation… astonishes the civilized Beholder’. As a final point to verify his depiction, Warburton noted that ‘The Character here drawn of the Savage, is common to all the natives of North America, as our Voyagers and Missionaries agree in attesting.’82 The sermons reiterated the claim that the French had encouraged and increased horrific actions among their native allies, which reinforced views of the supposed inherent brutality of indigenous people. Preaching to the Irish House of Commons on the thanksgiving day for the conquest of Québec, William Fletcher suggested that one of the benefits of this victory was rescuing ‘the poor Indian… from the power of Those, who… have abused their uneducated minds,… inflaming their blood much even beyond its natural temper, and training them to the same detestable trade of treachery and cruelty with themselves’. In Edinburgh, Robert Walker asserted that British success would ensure ‘the security of our colonies from the inroads and devastations of merciless savages, rendered still more savage by the instigation and example of perfidious Frenchmen’. In Boston, Amos Adams alleged a long-standing imperial policy of the French government ‘to force the Indian Nations into their Interest; and make use of them as the Instruments of their Barbarity’.83 Such accusations were repeated in numerous sermons. East Apthorp labelled French colonies ‘schools of superstition and cruelty, wherein the native barbarity of the Indians, hath been trained to the utmost fierceness and hatred against us’. According to William Henry, the French ‘spirited up, and themselves led the Way 81

82 83

Benjamin Loveling, Peace… A Sermon… Seventh of July, 1713 (Oxford, 1713), p. 18; Joseph Acres, Glad Tidings… A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 25; John Richardson, The Sovereign Goodness… A Sermon… May 5th, 1763 (London, 1763), pp. 18–19. William Warburton, A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving… [1746] (London, 1746), pp. 23–5 and 25n. William Fletcher, A Sermon… Nov. 29, 1759 (Dublin, 1760), p. 15; Robert Walker, ‘Sermon XVIII…. Nov. 29. 1759’, in Sermons on Practical Subjects, Volume I (London, 1783; third edition), p. 405; Adams, Songs of Victory… October 25, 1759, p. 21.

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to, the savage Indians… to burn, murder, scalp, and destroy many Hundred Families’. Samuel Woodward spoke of ‘Swarms of Indians… protected and rewarded by the French; who have… proved but little less blood-thirsty and cruel than the barbarous Natives of the Land’.84 Sometimes mention of French encouragement was simply left out. Simon Reader celebrated ‘our American Plantations freed from the Cruelties of Savages’, and James Fortescue expressed thanks for the colonies’ deliverance ‘from the Hand of their cruel – scalping – Enemies’. In Connecticut, Mather Byles described how the ‘Howling Inhabitants of the Wilderness triumphed upon our Frontiers, were decorated with our Spoils, and glutted with the Blood of our dearest Friends.’85 Whether attributing supposed behaviour to French influence or not, such descriptions reinforced shocking and erroneous stereotypes of indigenous peoples. The end of the conflict with France brought some preachers to also consider the pursuit of a new, though hardly more altruistic, relationship with indigenous peoples in North America. Jonathan Mayhew considered the commercial benefits of this at length. The possession of Canada would bring ‘all our Indian enemies into a friendly alliance with us…. they cannot be supplied from thence as heretofore, with arms, ammunition, and other things, which long use has made necessary to them…. they must therefore come to us for them; and be obliged to court our friendship’. Mayhew posited the development of a British economic hegemony over all of North America, from Hudson Bay to Florida, where ‘an extensive trade will… be opened with all the savage nations back of us; particularly the fur trade’, a commercial enterprise ‘which will greatly increase the demand for British manufactures, and both well employ and maintain many thousand more people in Great Britain, than do or can get a livelihood there at present in any honest way’. Another outcome of this would be the expansion of missionary work, ‘gospelizing the savages in the extensive wilderness of America’.86 East Apthorp also spoke of a different relationship with indigenous North Americans. He anticipated peace to come by either ‘obliging the Indians to recede, from our frontiers’, or ‘by what is all more desirable, a firm treaty of Peace with them’. Apthorp continued: ‘Such a treaty might ascertain their territory, and lead them to a state of civility and settlement; it might induce them to throw themselves on the humanity of our nation, and to learn from us the arts of life; it might open the way to an equitable and mutually beneficial commerce.’ Apthorp also envisioned the advancement of conversion efforts ‘to bring these savage nations out of their darkness, into the light of His Gospel’, and such a treaty would include ‘an express stipulation in regard to Religion’; he also suggested ‘Schools and Seminaries for the 84

85

86

East Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times. A Sermon… XI August, MDCCLXIII… (Boston, MA, 1763), pp. 7–8; Henry, The Triumphs… A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759, p. 12; Woodward, A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760, pp. 13–14. Simon Reader, Thanksgiving and Prayer… A Sermon… May the 5th, 1763 (London, n.d.), p. 13; James Fortescue, A Sermon… November the 29th, 1759 (Exeter, 1760), p. 20; Mather Byles, A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760 (New-London, CT, 1760), p. 17. Jonathan Mayhew, Two Discourses Delivered October the 25th, 1759 (London, n.d.), pp. 37, 40–1, 46.

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Indian Youth… in the subserviency to a royal and national encouragement’.87 It is important to note that some elements of Apthorp’s plan did play out in the long term, through efforts by the British and American governments to use policies like economic and cultural assimilation, pushing indigenous people onto frontier reservations, and in the establishment of residential schools. Unfortunately, proper peace and tranquillity, along with economic equity, for and with North American First Nations never did materialise, and instead led to over two and half more centuries of prejudice, destruction of their cultures, economic exploitation, and oppression.

Africans Another focal point for commentary on other peoples that emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was on the treatment of enslaved Africans. During this time, thanksgiving-day preachers began to demonstrate a more sympathetic and concerned attitude towards Africans and the trade that placed many of them in servitude. In his assessment of the policies of empire in 1784, Gilbert Wakefield roundly condemned the slave trade. He talked of children or whole families being dragged ‘together to the Horrous of a mutual Servitude: we keep them in the profoundest Ignorance; we gall them in a tenfold Chain, with an unrelenting Spirit of Barbarity’. Wakefield shamed his audience with the declaration ‘Such is the Conduct of us, enlightened Englishmen! reformed Christians!’ Celebrating George III’s return to health five years later, George Townsend declared ‘Britain is stained too much with the traffic of human blood, in the trade of Slavery. May the recovery of the Sovereign with the effort of his Parliament, prove the liberty of Africa, even the freedom of thousands, of the human species.’ Though that same year John Cottingham stated rather vaguely his hope that the ‘power of policy will cease to contend with the glorious cause of humanity’, in a footnote he was more assertive, describing Old Testament proofs used to justify the slave trade as examples of ‘times of ignorance which Jehovah winked at’, and claiming ‘many things found under that dispensation cannot be admissible and justifiable at present, because of that glorious light of liberty which now shines’.88 Some preachers were less willing to speak against slavery. The Catholic priest John Milner chose not to ‘here presume to enter into intricate and complex questions of facts’. In a footnote, Milner asserted that if newly imposed regulations did not make the slave trade more humane, neither ‘private or public advantages should prevent its total destruction’, but he also suggested that slavery might actually better the living conditions of slaves ‘amongst civilized people, effectually protected and cherished by law and religion’. Milner would only go so far as to firmly argue that bonds of

87 88

Apthorp, The Felicity of the Times… XI August, MDCCLXIII, pp. 12–14. Gilbert Wakefield, A Sermon… July 29th 1784 (London, 1784), p. 17; George Townsend, The King’s Recovery… in Two Discourses… April the 23d 1789 (Canterbury, 1789), p. 12; John Cottingham, A Commemoration… a Sermon… April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789), pp. 36 and 36–7n.

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marriage should be respected by not separating married African couples. Referring to revolutions and slave rebellions in the Caribbean in the 1790s, Thomas Belsham used the example of the ‘instantaneous emancipation of the negroes in some of the West India islands’ as a warning against ‘unbridled liberty’. According to Belsham, this had demonstrated that giving immediate freedom ‘to men who have been long trained to habits of servitude, and who know not how to value or to use the blessings of liberty, is to put arms into the hands of madmen to destroy one another’.89 By the late 1790s more preachers were speaking out on the slave trade. John Newton lamented the delay in putting a stop to it, which resulted in ‘the blood of many thousands of our helpless, much injured fellow creatures,… crying against us’. He declared this ‘a national sin’ and chastised Britons for their passiveness on this issue, claiming ‘The shop-tax a few years since, touched them in a more sensible and tender part, and therefore petitions and remonstrances were presented and repeated, till the tax was repealed.’ Newton implied that the nation was being punished, asking ‘Can we wonder that the calamities of the present war begin to be felt at home, when we ourselves wilfully and deliberately inflict much greater calamities upon the native Africans, who never offended us?’90 Preaching before the University of Cambridge, Richard Hardy also labelled the trade a ‘national Sin’ and, after listing several arguments that defended the practice, Hardy concluded ‘Perish our African commerce for ever; rather than Britons should be stained with the blood of their fellow Men!’ Thomas Taylor affirmed ‘What a weight of guilt… lies upon this nation in the bloody traffic of the slave trade’, noting that, despite ‘many efforts… to break that hellish yoke, yet the oppressed are still in the jaws of the oppressor, and the spoil is yet in his teeth’. In 1805 Geofrey Hornby expressed his frustration that, ‘After years of enquiry, and investigation… a new sanction is given to the continuance of the slave trade – a commerce, adverse to the rights of humanity, destructive of the lives, the freedom, and the happiness of so large a portion of our fellow creatures’, and he asked his audience ‘of what avail will be your praises and thanksgivings, whilst such abominations in the sight of the Lord are permitted in your land?’91 In 1807 Britain passed legislation to abolish the slave trade in its territories, but a new issue emerged in 1814. Edward Vaughan described this as ‘the voice of an united nation, including public petitions and parliament’, demanding that ‘Africa shall not again be despoiled of her unoffending sons: the waves shall not again transport men for oxen; nor the islands… be reddened again with the blood of men that are our brothers’.92 Vaughan was referring to a proposed clause in the recent peace treaty, which allowed France to continue the slave trade for five more years. This caught 89 90 91

92

John Milner, A Sermon… April 23. 1789 (London, n.d.), pp. 22 and 22–3n; Belsham, Reflections and Exhortations… June 1, 1802, pp. 18–19. John Newton, Motives to Humiliation… A Sermon… December 19, 1797 (London, 1798), pp. 23–4. Richard Hardy, A Sermon… Dec.19, 1797 (Cambridge, 1798), pp. 11, 13; Thomas Taylor, Britannia’s Mercies… Two Discourses… November 29, 1798 (Leeds, 1799), p. 22 (the last section of Taylor’s statement is a paraphrase of Job 29: 17); Geoffrey Hornby, A Sermon… December 5th, 1805 (Manchester, 1806), p. 16. Edward Vaughan, The Lesson… A Sermon… July 7 [1814] (Oxford, 1814), pp. 27, 11.



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the attention and ire of a number of other thanksgiving-day preachers. In July 1814 William Mavor announced that ‘One blot remains on the name of the Peace;… the wounds of Africa are to bleed afresh:… thousands of unoffending natives are to be torn from their now-peaceful shores, to fatten with their blood a soil from which they reap no increase.’ So unnerved by this prospect, Mavor ended his sermon by declaring ‘The subject over whelms me – I cannot proceed’. John Evans lamented ‘the article in the Preliminaries of Peace which guarantees the revival of the slave trade for five years in France’, but he went on to hope that ‘this nefarious practice, the reproach of our species, will be altogether annihilated’ in the negotiations. Evans also mentioned nearly one thousand petitions with almost one million signatures presented to parliament ‘in behalf of the oppressed natives of Africa’. Thomas Belsham confirmed that awareness of the treaty’s clause ‘has electrified the country with amazement, indignations, and horror; and has produced an incredible number of petitions to both Houses of Parliament… to induce France to forego her purpose… [and bring] the immediate total and eternal abolition of the most unjust, inhuman, and nefarious traffic which ever disgraced the annals of mankind’.93 In the context of that diplomatic decision two years earlier, in 1816 Thomas Hewett found a silver lining in Napoleon’s brief return to power, noting that ‘our particular regrets at the last peace on account of our African fellow-men are, by the present treaty with France, terminated…. To Napoleon’s policy we are possibly indebted for this repeal.’ In Glasgow Thomas Chalmers would celebrate Britain’s place in leading the call for abolition, as well as its role in policing Africa’s coast ‘where an inhuman avarice is still plying its guilty devices, and aiming to perpetuate among an unoffending people, a trade of cruelty, with all the horrid train of its terrors and abominations’. Chalmers would also remind his audience how the delays to the abolition in Britain had allowed ‘twenty annual flotillas burdened with the load of human wretchedness’ to be ‘wafted across the Atlantic, while Parliament was deafened and overborne by unceasing clamours about the much damage that would accrue to the trade’.94

The character of Britons The attitudes towards other peoples displayed by thanksgiving-day preachers are only one part of the story. As previous chapters have shown, in their comments upon a variety of themes the sermons are filled with ideas about what Britons thought of themselves and their nation, depicted through ideas about upright behaviour, proper policies, and appropriate attitudes. References to other peoples, ideas, political systems, religions, and other social and cultural practices were made in the context

93

94

Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon… July 7, 1814’, pp. 50–1; John Evans, Peace the Real Interest… July 7, 1814 (London, 1814), pp. 30, 31n. (emphasis in the original); Belsham, The Prospect… July 3, 1814, p. 22. Hewett, ‘Sermon II’ [1816], p. 66; Thomas Chalmers, Thoughts… a Sermon… January 18, 1816 (Glasgow, 1816), pp. 23, 37–8.

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of comparing these to, and celebrating, the superiority of the ideas of Britain and its people. This final section will very briefly examine some, more general assertions found in the sermons about what it meant to be British, summarising much of what has been said more specifically elsewhere in this book. Thanksgiving celebrations were occasions when a great variety of traits and virtues were extolled, and it is clear that preachers were very concerned about reminding their audiences of important ideas and values that were associated with being good British citizens. For Stephen Lobb, chaplain of Penzance Chapel, the reasons for thanksgiving in 1716 – ‘the Triumphs of Religion and Liberty, over Error, Ignorance and Slavery; the Triumphs of a Legal Monarchy…; the Triumphs of Loyalty and due Obedience, over Treachery and Rebellion’ – epitomised the characteristics of a people, ‘the Triumphs of Faithful Subjects, and Honest Britons’. A century later in Edinburgh, Archibald Alison also proclaimed the basis for thankfulness was ‘as Citizens… of a free Government, whose liberty has been assailed; as the descendants of an ancient people’, and he asserted there was no ‘man who has ever felt within his bosom one throb of a British heart, who will not, on this day, at least bless “the God of his fathers,” that his country is saved; that her faith and her freedom are alike triumphant’. In Montréal in Canada in 1814, the Presbyterian minister James Somerville would define ‘the spirit of the people’, listing the education of youth, ‘the political constitution under which they live’, the stability of the ‘national legislature’, ‘the independence, the purity, and the dignity of our Courts of Justice’, freedom of the press, ‘decency’ of manners and morals, and ‘benevolent and charitable institutions’ as essential aspects of what made up British national character.95 The catalogue of the features of the national personality was extensive and diverse. One preacher advised to be always mindful of the ‘the Moderation of Christians and the generosity of Britons’, another praised the country ‘where vast numbers of Brave and Martial People are never wanting’, and a third noted ‘the natural Courage of our People’.96 According to William Roby in 1715, ‘every True Briton… has a value for his Religion, his Liberty and Property’, while in 1789 Thomas Lancaster emphasised ‘the distinguished benevolence and humanity of Britons’, and John Black noted ‘the native valour and union of our countrymen’ in 1797.97 Nathaniel Goodwin credited both nature and nurture for the nation’s temperament in 1715: ‘we enjoy in a sweet Temperature of Air… To this… we may ascribe that Vivacity of Temper, and graceful Complexion, which appears generally in our Natives; though in a great measure the Constitution of our Government contributeth hereto.’ To

95

96

97

Stephen Lobb, ‘Sermon II…. June 7, 1716’, in Sermons Preach’d on Several Occasions (London, 1717), pp. 13–14; Alison, A Discourse… Jan. 18, 1816, pp. 15, 16; James Somerville, The Greatness… A Discourse… 21st of April Last [1814] (Montréal, 1814), pp. 7–17. Samuel Kerrich, A Sermon… October 9. 1746 (Cambridge, 1746), p. 23; William Stephens, A Thanksgiving Sermon… April 16. 1696 (London, 1696), Epistle Dedicatory (no pag.); George Hooper, A Sermon… July 7. 1713 (London, 1713), p. 10. William Roby, A Sermon… January the 20th 1714/5 (London, 1715), p. 10; Thomas Lancaster, The Christian Duty… A Sermon… April 23, 1789 (London, 1789), p. 17; John Black, ‘A Sermon,… 19th. December, 1797’, in Political Calumny Refuted (Ipswich, n.d.), p. 20.



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Isaac Maddox in the mid-century, the law of the land was ‘the Birth-Right of every Briton’ and the constitution was something which ‘every upright British Heart must agree in the most essential Principles’. That same year William Wood defined ‘true Britons’ as all those ‘who have in any Kind contributed towards the Defence of our present Constitution’.98 These aspects that made up the nation’s character were repeated again and again across the period in the thanksgiving-day sermons. Another idea developing in the sermons was the concept of patriotism and love of country. Like national characteristics, the definition of patriotism varied to incorporate and reinforce particular qualities. At the outset of the period, Gilbert Burnet found ‘those who are the truest Patriots and the best Friends to their Religion and Country’ were the supporters of William of Orange’s efforts in 1688–1689. In 1715 Jonathan Smedley advised people ‘to be Religious first, and then to preserve a national Integrity and Courage,… To exert on all Occasions an honest English Publick-Spiritedness; In short, to shew (free from Self-Interest) that in all your Actions you may be truly said to love your Country’, later arguing that love of country was based on the principle ‘our Country is our common or original Parent’. Smedley would spend five pages of his sermon expounding on liberty as the primary reason for Britons to love their country. Though not using the word ‘patriotism’, in 1746 Samuel Chandler did speak reverentially about the ‘sacred Appellation of our Country’, connecting this intimately with ‘Our Persons, Families, Relations and Friends, our Governors, Protectors and Guardians, our Houses and Churches, our Religion, Substance and Estates, our most distant Posterity, our national Privileges, and Private Advantages of Life’.99 The love of country was the central theme of John Conybeare’s sermon, entitled True Patriotism, preached to the House of Commons on the thanksgiving for peace in 1749. Conybeare, soon to become bishop of Bristol, proclaimed ‘there is one general Principle, which ought to govern our Actions in reference to the present Point,… I mean, a Publick Spirit, – the Love of our Country, – or, to use another Word… Patriotism. This… makes our Wishes center in the Good of the Community; – must therefore lead us to do all we can for the publick Service.’ He described the proper ‘Sphere’ for the ‘Exercise of our Benevolence’ as ‘Our Country; the great Community to which we belong; those who are under the same common Government, and subject [to] the same common Laws’. Conybeare called ‘Love… the most active Principle in our Nature. It will carry a Man on to the Object it proposes with a Vehemence not easy to be resisted… Such must be our Love of Country.’ The ‘real Patriot’, he said, ‘whilst he studies in what Ways the Publick may be served, will

98

99

Nathaniel Goodwin, God’s Care… a Sermon… January the 20th 1714/15 (London, 1715), p. 12; Isaac Maddox, A Sermon… 9th of October, 1746 (London, 1746; second edition), pp. 25, 31; Wood, Britain’s Joshua… October 9, 1746, p. 23. Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon… 31st of January, 1688 [1689] (London, 1689), p. 17; Jonathan Smedley, A Discourse… January 20 [1715] (London, 1715), pp. 9, 12, 15–19; Samuel Chandler, National Deliverances… A Sermon… October 9, 1746 (London, 1746), p. 16 (emphasis in the original).

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chearfully embrace each which offers, suitable to the Station he is in, and the Abilities he is possessed of ’.100 In his sermon at St Paul’s ten years later, James Townley affirmed the ‘Love which a Man bears to the Country wherein he was born is an universal Principle… implanted in the human Breast, by the all-wise Creator, as an incentive to great and good Actions’. Perhaps with his original audience – the Lord Mayor and officials of the City of London – in mind, Townley claimed the ‘common People feel it very strongly; but cannot, as Individuals, make it of any material Advantage. In Persons of Rank… it may have its utmost Scope; nor can they, at any Time, forget the Duty which it prescribes, without making themselves the Objects of perpetual Disgrace.’ For Townley, the person ‘bless’d with superior Talents… will give the surest Proof of his Patriotism, by the Reverence he pays to the Religion of his Country’, and also ‘He who loves his Country, will conscientiously observe the Laws which it has established’. While Townley noted that generally ‘Men incline to a Side or Party, as Interest, or Education, or Humour happens to direct’, ultimately ‘the true Patriot forms his Judgment and determines his Actions by the golden Mean’.101 The wars of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries caused other preachers to comment on patriotism and devotion to the nation. William Henry discussed the social duty of ‘Magnanimity and Courage in defence of our Country’, which was ‘the Characteristic of Free Born Britons and Irish Men, as has appeared during the whole Course of this last most memorable Campaign’. Richard Brewster applauded the fact that ‘a truly publick-spirited Ardor seems to glow in the Breast of every [Briton]’. Exhorting his audience to charitable causes after the Battle of Trafalgar, Thomas Stevenson informed them ‘you will feel irresistibly impelled to strengthen the calls of honour and the ties of patriotism, by convincing your countrymen that “to be born Britons, is not only to be the heirs of freedom, but likewise the sons and daughters of benevolence”’.102 According to John Gardiner in 1805, patriotism was basic trait of humanity, ‘as prevalent among mankind, and as congenial to their nature, as those which arise from the still more intimate connections of kindred and friendship’. That same year, John Stonard also asserted there was ‘a principle implanted in the breast of man, which, exclusive of all other reasons, prompts him to love his country’, but despite this claim of universality he concluded ‘of all others, Britons should be animated with the most fervent zeal of patriotism. We have motives, beyond any other people, to foster and encourage this generous principle.’ In 1814 Samuel Barker credited ‘the sacred flame of patriotism’ for British military success against France, inspiring the ‘spirit of determined and enthusiastic resistance to the ignominious bondage of a plebian Despot, and a vain and profligate People’.103 100 John

Conybeare, True Patriotism. A Sermon… April 25, 1749 (London, 1749), pp. 6–7, 10, 22–3. 101 James Townley, A Sermon… November 29, 1759 (London, 1759), pp. 6–8. 102 Henry, The Triumphs… November the 29th, 1759, p. 20; Richard Brewster, A Sermon… 29th Day of November [1759] (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1759), p. 15; Thomas Stevenson, A Sermon… December 5 1805 (Blackburn, 1805), p. 15. 103 John Gardiner, A Tribute… In a Sermon… December 5, 1805 (Bath, n.d.), p. 3; John



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The idea of Britain and Britons being differentiated from other places and peoples by special national characteristics was a powerful one. Laying out the features of British government, in 1746 George Harvest pronounced these ‘the Blessings of Britons and Protestants! Blessings unknown to other Countries, and by which we are as much distinguished from all other Nations under Heaven, as the Jews were in their Polity’. Comparing Britain to its main rival, in 1763 Samuel Lowthion described the ‘French model’ of religion and government as ‘perfectly heterogeneous to ours… a shameful corruption of Christianity… and… an unlimited monarchy… from both of which every judicious, honest Briton will ardently beseech Almighty God… to deliver us’.104 Two decades later, Gilbert Wakefield declared ‘We have been enabled to claim for ourselves a Degree of civil and religious Liberty, which has made us the Envy of the World.’ After recounting the positive features of the country’s circumstances in 1797, George Pretyman asked ‘how can we avoid concluding, that there must be some inherent qualities in the Establishments of this kingdom in Church and State, which check the growing mischief, and raise the virtues and the glory of this nation above the rest of Europe?’105 George Skeeles proclaimed ‘we alone have been secure and pre-eminent, we have not only resisted the Tyrant… but have enabled other countries to follow our example;… we afforded an asylum to the miserable exile; we were the comfort of the afflicted, the hope of the persecuted, and the arbiters of Europe’. Although acknowledging the nation still had sins, in 1814 John Strachan asked ‘Where is there a nation equal to the British in the number and extent of its charitable institutions? or possessing such a spirit of independance, such intrepid virtue, such a rational piety[?]’106 Of course, God’s favour could not be forgotten and was also what set the nation apart from others in the world. Going back to the beginning, in 1707 Robert Davidson declared that ‘God, when he laid the Foundation of the Earth, did give this Countrey, (that is now, and was of Old call’d Britain) the Inhabitants of it… some of the greatest Blessings of Humane Life’. In 1749 Benjamin Kennicott pronounced ‘We Englishmen… are the most indebted to the Divine Providence of the whole Race of Mankind.’ According to William Leigh in 1798, the ‘interposition of Providence in the signal punishment of our apostate enemies… contributed to establish national character; and refuted the unjust accusations of that enemy who labours… to arraign its clemency, to depreciate its honour, and to debase its integrity’.107 In Stonard, A Sermon… 5th of December, 1805 (Chertsey, 1806), pp. 2, 4; Samuel Barker, ‘The Manifold Mercies… A Sermon… 13th Day of January, 1814’, in Two Sermons &c. (n.p., n.d.), p. 32. 104 George Harvest, ‘Protestant and Jewish Blessings Compared. A Sermon… October the 9th, 1746’, in A Collection of Sermons (London, 1754), pp. 157–8; Samuel Lowthion, The Blessings… A Sermon (Thursday, May 5, 1763) (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1763), p. 11 (emphasis in the original). 105 Wakefield, A Sermon… July 29th 1784, p. 15; Pretyman, A Sermon… December 19th, 1797, pp. 14–15. 106 George Skeeles, The Recent Events… A Sermon… July 7, 1814 (Bury St Edmunds, n.d.), p. 14 (emphasis in the original); Strachan, A Sermon… Third of June… [1814], p. 6. 107 Davidson, Brit. Ann. 1a… May the 1st, 1707, p. 6; Kennicott, The Duty… April 25, 1749, p. 27; Leigh, A Sermon… November 29th, 1798, p. 16.

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1805 William Goode echoed these assertions, maintaining ‘it is the glory of Britain that to it in a peculiar sense belong the oracles of God, the ordinances and institutions of his worship, and the light of his salvation’. At the end of the eighteenth century, John De Veil claimed it was the recent military skills and successes that ‘prove to the world, that the inhabitants of Great Britain continue to be, what they have ever been, a highly favoured people!’108 From all of this, preachers could celebrate Britain’s leading place among nations. In 1816 Archibald Alison enthused: She now stands foremost in the ranks of human kind… it is her Constitution which they are everywhere attempting to imitate, and her Laws which they are everywhere struggling to adopt;… the Sovereigns of distant thrones have come… to inhale the patriot inspiration, with which they may return to be the legislators of their people, and the benefactors of the world.

The nation’s role in defending Europe meant, for Nicholas Brady over a century earlier, that ‘we of this Kingdom… shall spread our Honour and Reputation over all the Habitable World, and be Courted for Friends, and Dreaded for Enemies’.109 The impact of such influence would extend into the future. Joseph Sharpe agreed that, in 1814, the nations of Europe looked upon ‘the spirit that has animated Great Britain in the good cause with astonishment and admiration: her fame, her ardour for the general happiness of surrounding nations, her blood and treasure poured out for their deliverance will be subjects transmitted by the glowing pen of the historian’. Even further, William Mavor claimed ‘It requires… no prophetic eye to see, that the influence of her principles and a veneration for her institutions, will extend even further than her power; and that myriads of human beings and ages unborn will look to her as the soil from whence their blessings flow.’110 The stance taken toward the French is by far the most conspicuous and fully developed opinion towards another nation and people found in the thanksgiving-day sermons. Influenced largely by war, but also by religious and later other ideological differences, preachers developed a complete and thorough denigration of what they perceived as the values of France and its people. However, it is also clear that the thanksgiving sermons provided their audiences with a representation of other British and non-British peoples. In addition to reinforcing the perception of Britons’ values and characteristics, these depictions said much about British attitudes towards the lands and people they encountered and absorbed during the long eighteenth century. These views were contextualised within perceptions of the general features

108 Goode,

The God of Salvation… December 5, 1805, p. 8; John de Veil, National Blessings… A Sermon… November, 29th, 1798 (London, 1798), pp. 24–5. 109 Alison, A Discourse… Jan. 18, 1816, pp. 17–18 (emphasis in the original); Nicholas Brady, ‘A Sermon… Sept. 7th. 1704’, in Fifteen Sermons (London, 1706), p. 423. 110 Sharpe, A Sermon… July the 7th, 1814, pp. 13–14; Mavor, ‘Thanksgiving Sermon… July 7, 1814’, p. 40.



OTHERS AND BRITONS  291

and attributes of Britons themselves that were extolled in the sermons. In combination, the descriptions of other peoples were an essential backdrop against which to set off the sense of the impressive traits of the British nation the thanksgiving-day preachers conveyed.

Conclusion In 1798 A New Year’s Gift to the Good People of England was published anonymously. Its full title presented the work as ‘a sermon, or something like a sermon… preached on the Day of public thanksgiving’.1 It becomes clear, however, that the pamphlet is not what it purported to be; instead, it is a parody containing pointed assessments and criticisms of the thanksgiving-day sermon tradition. The flavour of the tract’s message is apparent from its opening passage, which feigned to assert ‘At a time when the nation seemeth still divided, in sentiments, between peace and war, it is the duty of every individual, but more particularly of the vigilant pastor, to throw his weight… into that scale of opinion which he wisheth to preponderate.’2 Continuing in this vein, the author discussed his ‘conversion’ from being an opponent to the ‘rash, unnecessary, pernicious war’ with France, abandoning ‘a strict adherence to Gospel-maxims’ in order to go along with ‘the uniform tenor of that multitude of Christian Sermons, which my fellow-ministers have preached and published during these four last years’ in support of the war. This change of heart was intended to promote the author’s advancement to a bishopric, and eventually – by delivering ‘a pastoral charge against French infidels, and English heretics’ – he would be ‘instantly translated to a better see; and so from one see to another, until I be translated to Lambeth’.3 The tone of these opening pages demonstrates not only a criticism of government policy, but also a sharp denunciation of the clergy who used their positions to advocate in support of it. The reference to, and ridicule of, practices and devices from thanksgiving-day sermons continued throughout the work. The author declared he would deliver ‘a theologico-political Sermon’, and ‘(at your request) to print it’, expecting ‘its rapid circulation’ because he had been careful to use ‘such ingredients, as cannot but be suitable to the palates of every loyal liege, and sound believer, throughout the whole of his Majesty’s dominions’.4 The author noted he had included no main biblical text because it was too difficult to find, or for preachers to stick to, a proper text, though

1

2 3 4

Anonymous, A New Year’s Gift to the Good People of England, Being a Sermon, or Something Like a Sermon, in Defence of the Present War: Preached on the Day of Public Thanksgiving, by Polemophilus Brown, Curate of P-n (n.p., 1798), title page. Anon., New Year’s Gift, p. 3. Anon., New Year’s Gift, pp. 4, 5, 6. Anon., New Year’s Gift, p. 7. Emphasis in the original.



CONCLUSION  293

he did explain how the verse on the ‘sword of the Lord, and of Gideon’ would have ‘given me an ample field for pulpit eloquence, and beautiful allegory. – Our commander in chief, for example, rolling down like a huge barley loaf, on the tent of Buonaparte… and suddenly overwhelming it, would be a metaphor to dwell on for hours together.’5 The chosen themes – ‘I. The present war with France is a natural, just and necessary war. II. The present war with France ought to be persevered in’ – and the intent to prove the syllogism that ‘Every war is natural, which is waged with a natural enemy: But the French are our natural enemies: Therefore, war with France is a natural war’, clearly made light of preachers’ uninhibited enthusiasm to promote and defend the war in their sermons.6 The tract made (tongue-in-cheek) arguments of the need to safeguard the country ‘from the contagion of French principles’, from imported copies of Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, and from the efforts of ‘regicide republicans’. It also affirmed the ‘bounden duty’ to protect the king, the nobility, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, ‘who are all personally invested with sovereign power’, from ‘a nation who assert, that all sovereignty is lodged in the people’.7 The author also levelled his aim at the Church of England, claiming ‘If she have not contracted so many wrinkles as her Romish sister; it is because she is not nearly so old. But still she has some wrinkles, spots, and blemishes; and the introduction of French principles would have been a false magnifying mirror, to reflect them into caricatures.’8 Turning to social issues, the third argument in favour of the war was ‘the necessity of keeping the people poor and miserable, in order to make them humble and tractable’. The best means of pursuing this policy was ‘a continual war’, which ‘demandeth continual and encreasing taxes; and these drain all that superfluous cash; which would, otherwise, be spent in fashionable, foolish pursuits, or in the acquirement of useless knowledge’. The lesson in this was to ‘Keep a fellow poor, if you would have him loyal; keep him poor if you would have him religious; keep him poor, if you would have him ignorant!’9 The closing pages of the tract lampooned the idea that the French are the enemies of God and, as a result, the British are God’s people, and the work concludes with an excessive paraphrase of Deuteronomy 32: 42: And now, may the Lord, Jehovah, who is a man of war, go forth in his might before our fleets and armies; shield them from the bombs, bullets and bayonets of the haughty foe; send hornets among them to make them fly before the face of our intrepid soldiers; and grant these the grace, to scalp the heads of their enemies, and make their swords drunk with their impious blood! --- And may the peace, &c. &c.10

This tract from the end of the eighteenth century provides a useful closing to the

5 6 7 8 9 10

Anon., New Year’s Gift, pp. 8, 9. The suggested text here is actually biblical: Judges 7: 20. Anon., New Year’s Gift, p. 10. Anon., New Year’s Gift, pp. 12, 15, 18, 19. Anon., New Year’s Gift, p. 22. Anon., New Year’s Gift, pp. 29–30, 30–1. Anon., New Year’s Gift, pp. 37–8 and 38n., 43.

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discussion of thanksgiving-day sermons in the period from 1689 to 1816. This parodic treatment demonstrates the response to a number of themes and elements that were present in thanksgiving-day sermons throughout the long eighteenth century. The author using them in this way shows an easy application of common aspects of the sermons, as well as an expectation that his audience would easily understand those references. The concerns which the author raises, and the anticipation of his readers’ awareness of them, shows how deeply the sermons and their messages had permeated British society. Of course, the ridicule of aspects of the thanksgiving-day messages does not present them in a good light, but it does indicate how prevalent and apparent they had become. This current study has demonstrated the predominant ideas found in the thanksgiving-day sermons in the long eighteenth century, which developed and communicated a wide range of views to audiences from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. While the opinions delivered by each preacher were not precisely the same, their ongoing presence in association with these significant and prominent occasions did demonstrate a consistent exposure of audiences to the discussion of a wide range of ideas of Britain. These contributed to considerations of what such issues meant to the development of the nation over this period. The impetus and emphases of thanksgiving-day celebrations allowed preachers to put Britain in the divine spotlight, making it the centre of God’s attention. The connection of thanksgivings to biblical rites and circumstances also made it convenient to draw connections to ancient Israel as a type and, in doing so, allowed for forceful and elevated claims to special status for the British people. Similarly, providential explanation and theories reinforced the perception of Britain as the focal point of the divine interest, which placed important national events and circumstances in that context. This forced preachers to discuss issues like free will, the laws of nature, and workings of the affairs of state in order to reconcile these worldly aspects with their overarching ideas of providential pre-eminence. The resolution of these issues in conjunction with the providential plan led to avowals of favoured standing for the country, and the portrayal of Britain and Britons as God’s chosen nation and people. The sermons also demonstrate an awareness of, and a willingness to apply, political theories, and to discuss important political principles. These considerations often developed within the context of preachers’ perceptions of how such ideas agreed with or challenged British political ideals. This became even more critical in the last three decades of the long eighteenth century, when revolutionary impulses and thought began to spread in Europe. The defence and survival of British political structures and principles were presented as a further sign of the nation’s special place in the divine scheme, acting as a bastion of proper liberty and constitutional forms. The business of current political affairs and disagreements was also an acceptable topic for discussion in thanksgiving-day sermons, occasions when national matters were front and centre. Preachers weighed in with their considerations of the abilities and shortcomings of monarchs, support and criticism for government ministers and ministries, and opinions on the disputes between clashing political parties. Despite this, however, the sermons also expressed concern over discontent and disunity,



CONCLUSION  295

which they perceived as endangering the security of the nation and the government. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the sermons shifted their focus from internal political issues to external ones. The French Revolution introduced new political ideas and concerns, and preachers had much to say about it and the revolutionary impulses that it spawned. This new political menace not only affected France and continental Europe, but threatened to penetrate Britain as well, and gave the sermons an opportunity to reinforce what they saw as distinctive and superior British political and social values. Given the preponderance of thanksgiving days for military victories, preachers could not help but comment upon war. The sermons celebrated martial achievements and attributes, naval might, and the impact these had on national purpose and policy. They connected Britain’s roles – as protector of Europe, a bulwark of freedom, and the providential frontrunner – to these intentions, seeing these responsibilities as being built upon, and intimately connected to, the nation’s ongoing military successes. Audiences were also told of the effects of war on the country, reminding them of the costs in human life, casualties, orphaned children and widowed family members, as well as reduced wealth and economic activity. As the period progressed, the sermons paid more and more attention to the increasing taxation and national debt which large-scale and extended warfare demanded. Preachers attempted to balance their support for important military causes with their awareness of the horrible consequences of war on its participants and the more immediate and daily impact of increased financial burdens on their parishioners and readers. While recognition of the costs of war was prominent, the sermons also showed that peace was no simple thing. There was always a general relief with the end of warfare, in having the nation’s burdens lifted and the economy back to normal functioning. However, the sermons reveal that peace could be contentious. Hard fought policies, dearly bought victories, and long-standing animosities developed over the course of the long eighteenth century, and these ideas were supported and reiterated by thanksgiving preachers. It was, at times, difficult to retreat from those positions, especially when political debates intervened to make it appear as though peace was less of an accomplishment than a failing. Preachers also illustrated the growing importance of commercial activity to Britain. Not the usual subject of religious edification, the widespread presence of ideas on trade, commerce, and the significance of growing prosperity as thanksgiving-day sermon themes demonstrate preachers’ awareness of the association of these activities with the good of the nation. Connected to acknowledgement and support of economic growth were endorsements of British territorial expansion throughout the globe. However, encouragement for the establishment and spread of imperial holdings was not without its own complexities, especially in the later eighteenth century when Britain lost the war to hold onto its thirteen colonies on the mid-Atlantic seaboard of North America. The foundation of the independent United States of America inspired that new country’s reiteration and rejuvenation of its own thanksgiving traditions, applying and reassigning themes of providence, empire, and exceptionalism to itself, while in Britain the defeat was greeted with concern about its imperial strategies and some rethinking of its own national destiny and purpose.

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As church ceremonies, thanksgiving-day services and the sermons that accompanied them had an underlying religious focus. This allowed ample room for comment on the ideas and state of British Protestantism. Anglican ministers used the opportunity to emphasise the place and purpose of the Church of England within society, as well as to critique dissent from the Established Church. Thanksgiving services were also observed by dissenting clergy and congregations, and those ministers used the occasions to declare their loyalty as Britons and emphasise their standing within British society. Dissenters, too, sometimes took the chance to affirm the aptness of their religious structures and beliefs. Beyond these areas of distinction, together the sermons also bolstered British Protestantism in general, in the face of international Catholicism and, increasingly as the period went on, new and revolutionary intellectual currents. These new ideologies not only challenged both Anglicanism and Protestant dissent, but Christian belief as a whole. Traditional anti-French, antiCatholic sentiment was easily exchanged for an equally intense hatred of French infidelity and atheism, a response that allowed preachers to reassert their views of superior British religious, social, and political tenets. The reinforcement of British ideals and characteristics was accompanied by the inverse intention of describing other peoples’ and countries’ traits. Thanksgiving preachers’ ideas on other nations not only compared them with Britons, but also reinforced opinions of difference and dissimilarity. While France bore the brunt of such judgements, other countries – even non-English ones within the United Kingdom – were also subject to such characterisations. The counterpoint to the opinions of ‘others’ in the sermons were ideas about Britons themselves. Found throughout the variety of themes explored in this book, assertions about the special features of Britain and Britons culminated in general affirmation of the glorious attributes of the nation and its people. These were located in British temperament, legal and political values, religious beliefs, martial attributes, patriotism, and providential blessings that preachers saw infused into the spirit of the nation. As this concluding summary shows, the ideas the thanksgiving-day sermons touched upon almost every major aspect of British life and society in the period from 1689 to 1816. The recurrence of these motifs within the sermons – providentialism, political ideas, the value of political unity and stability, the importance of war and military endeavours, a recognition of the costs of war, the consequences of peace, the growing significance of commerce and empire, the continued place of religious concerns, and of attitudes towards other peoples – made and reinforced assertions of British exceptionalism. These pronounced and powerful statements about essential ideas of Britain were woven through the thanksgiving-day sermons throughout the long eighteenth century, buttressing claims for the special and favoured place of Britain and Britons as the nation developed into a world power.

Appendix A

Thanksgiving-day preachers’ and sermon details The biographical information provided below is not intended to give full details of preachers’ lives and careers. Instead, it supplies details pertinent to the context of the delivery of thanksgiving-day sermons. Please see pages xii–xiii for information on the sources of basic biographical details of preachers.

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name William J. Abdy

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 29 Nov. 1798; 1 Jun. 1802

Thomas Ackland

1 Jun. 1802

Joseph Acres Amos Adams John Adams

20 Jan. 1715 25 Oct. 1759 8 Sep. 1695; 22 Nov. 1709

Lancaster Adkin

5 Dec. 1805

William Agutter

19 Dec. 1797

Archibald Alison John Allen Richard Allen Vincent Alsop East Apthorp

18 Jan. 1816 9 Oct. 1746 1 May 1707 8 Sep. 1695 11 Aug. 1763

John Arundel

13 Jan. 1814

Edmund Arwaker

12 Dec. 1697

Thomas Ashton

9 Oct. 1746

St John’s Southwark, London (St John’s Southwark, Volunteers); St John’s Southwark, London (St John’s Southwark, Volunteers)

Preacher’s position

Chaplain to Volunteers of St John’s Southwark, London; Curate of St John’s, Southwark; Lecturer of All Hallows Lombard Street, London; Lecturer of St Mary le Bow and St Pancras Soper Lane with All Hallows Honey Lane, London Christchurch, Surrey, & Crooked Lane Rector of Christchurch, Surrey; Chaplain to the Co. Co. of Fishmongers of Fishmongers Blewberry, Berkshire Vicar of Blewberry, Berkshire Roxbury, Massachusetts Pastor of the First Church, Roxbury, Massachusetts Whitehall Palace, London; Rector of St Alban, Wood Street; Royal Chaplain St Paul’s Cathedral (Lord Mayor & Aldermen London) St Andrew’s, Norwich Curate of St Andrew’s, Norwich; Rector of Belaugh, Norfolk; Vicar of Scottow, Norfolk Chapel of the Asylum for Female Chaplain & Secretary, Asylum for Female Orphans, Orphans, London London Episcopal Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh Minister of Cowgate Chapel, Edinburgh New Broad Street, London −−− −−− Rector of Little Staughton, Bedfordshire Westminster, London Presbyterian minister, Tothill Street, London Christ Church, Cambridge, ‘Missionary at Cambridge’, Massachusetts Massachusetts Whitby, Yorkshire Congregational minister, Silver Street Church, Whitby, Yorkshire St Ann’s, Dungannon, Armagh, Ireland Rector of Drumglass, Dungannon; Chaplain to Duke of Ormond Eton College Chapel, Eton, Berkshire Fellow of Eton College, Eton; Rector of Aldingham, Lancashire

Denomination Anglican

Anglican Anglican New England Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Dissenter Anglican Presbyterian Anglican: New England Congregational Church of Ireland Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Lewis Atterbury

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 23 Aug. 1705; 7 Jun. 1716

William Backhouse Samuel Baker Nathaniel Ball

29 Jul. 1784

Royal Chaplain; Preacher, Highgate Chapel, London; Anglican Rector of Shepperton, Essex Rector of Deal, Kent; Archdeacon of Canterbury

Anglican

Preacher in the diocese of Winchester Vicar of Great Tey, Essex; Master of the Chelmsford Free School; Curate of West Horsley Curate, Burgh Castle, Suffolk Rector of Owmby, Lincolnshire Rector of Great Brickhill, Buckinghamshire; Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons

Anglican Anglican

Vicar of South Mims, Middlesex; Lecturer of Cripplegate −−− Fellow of Merton College, Oxford; Chaplain to the Earl of Peterborough; Vicar of Lydd, Kent; Proctor for clergy of Canterbury diocese Vicar of Abbotsham, Devon Minister of Essex Street Chapel, London

Anglican

Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge

Anglican

−−−

Dissenter

George F. Bates

13 Jan. 1814

John Bates Charles Bean

1 May 1707 1 May 1707;

Hackney, London Oxford University;

16 Apr. 1696

Philip Bennet

7 Jun. 1716 7 Jul. 1713 1 Jun. 1802; 3 Jul. 1814 (for 7 Jul. 1814) 25 Apr. 1749

William Bennet

29 Jul. 1784

William Bear Thomas Belsham

Denomination

Whitehall Palace, London (Queen Anne); Whitehall Palace, London (Queen Anne) Deal, Kent Winchester Chelmsford, Essex; West Horsley, Surrey Herringfleet, Suffolk −−− St Mary Le Bow, London (Lord Mayor & Aldermen); St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons) St Giles Cripplegate, London

Samuel Barker John Barr Samuel Barton

22 Nov. 1709 25 Apr. 1749; 29 Nov. 1759 13 Jan. 1814 9 Oct. 1746 27 Oct. 1692;

Preacher’s position

Barham, Kent −−− Hackney, London; Essex Street Chapel, London Cambridge University of Cambridge Meeting house on the Pavement, Moorfields, London

Anglican Anglican Anglican

Dissenter Anglican Anglican Unitarian

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

George Benson

9 Oct. 1746

Martin Benson

19 Dec. 1797

Crutched Friars, Poor Jewry Lane, London Tunbridge Wells, Kent

John Bethune Samuel Billingsly John Bisset Alex Black John Black

18 Jun. 1816 7 Jun. 1716 25 Apr. 1749 29 Nov. 1798 19 Dec. 1797

Brockville, Upper Canada Horley, Surrey The New Church, Aberdeen −−− Otley, Yorkshire

John Blackburn

25 Apr. 1749

Lawrence Blakeney John B. Blakeway

13 Jan. 1814 5 Dec. 1805

Presbyterian meeting, King John’s Court, Southwark, London −−− St Mary, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

Thomas Blennerhaysett John Booth Abiel Borfet

20 Jan. 1715

Patching, Sussex

29 Nov. 1798 16 Apr. 1696

Wibsey Chapel, Yorkshire −−−

James Bowden John Bowden Thomas Bowen

23 Apr. 1789 20 Jan. 1715 29 Nov. 1798

Lower Tooting, Surrey Frome, Somerset St Paul’s Cathedral (Lord Mayor & Aldermen of London)

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Presbyterian minister at Crutched Friars, Poor Jewry Lane, London Rector of Merstham, Surrey; Minister of Tunbridge Wells Chapel Rector of Augusta and Elizabeth Town, Upper Canada Vicar of Horley; Rector of Newdigate Minister of Aberdeen; Second Charge – St Nicholas Minister of Musselburgh, Scotland Curate of Butley, Suffolk; Curate of Little Bealings, Suffolk Presbyterian minister, King John’s Court, Southwark, London Curate of Lechlade, Gloucestershire Rector of St Mary’s, Shrewsbury; Rector of Filton, Gloucestershire; Vicar of Neen Savage, Shropshire; Vicar of Kinlet, Shropshire Rector of Patching, Sussex; Chaplain to Earl of Dorset Assistant Curate of Wibsey Chapel, Yorkshire Curate of Richmond, Surrey; Rector of Lyminge, Kent Minister, Lower Tooting, Surrey Minister, Frome, Somerset Minister of Bridewell Precinct; Chaplain to Lord Mayor

Presbyterian Anglican Anglican: Canada Anglican Church of Scotland Church of Scotland Anglican Presbyterian Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Dissenter Presbyterian Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Thomas Bradbury

John Bradford Nicholas Brady

John Brewster Richard Brewster David Brichan Samuel Bromesgrove Robert A. Bromley Simon Browne

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 27 Jun. 1706; 7 Nov. 1710; 20 Jan. 1715; 9 Oct. 1746 9 Oct. 1746 26 Nov. 1691; 2 Dec. 1697; 7 Sep. 1704; 1 May 1707; 7 Jul. 1713 1 Jun. 1802 29 Nov. 1759 5 Dec. 1805 7 Sep. 1704

Minister’s assistant, Stepney; Minister, Fetter Lane, Congregational London; Lecturer, Salters’ Hall & Pinners’ Hall

Minister of Fitzroy Chapel, London; Rector of St Anglican Mildred Poultry with St Mary Colechurch, London Minister in Portsmouth; Minister to the Old Jewry, Dissenter London

Nicholas Bull

5 Dec. 1805

George Burges

5 Dec. 1805

West Walton, Norfolk

29 Nov. 1798

Denomination

Stepney, London; −−−; −−−; −−− Exeter Castle Chapel (Exeter J.O.P.s of Devon) St Katharine Cree, London; Richmond, Surrey; −−−; Richmond, Surrey; Richmond, Surrey Stockton on Tees, Durham St Nicholas, Newcastle upon Tyne −−− The Tabernacle, Spitalfields, London Fitzroy Chapel, London; Fitzroy Chapel, London Portsmouth; Portsmouth; Old Jewry, London First Church of Christ, Portsmouth, New Hampshire Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) Saffron Walden, Essex

Joseph Buckminster John Buckner

23 Apr. 1789; 29 Nov. 1798 7 Nov. 1710; 20 Jan. 1715; 7 Jun. 1716 11 Dec. 1783

Preacher’s position

Vicar of Pinhoe, Devon

Anglican

Curate of St Katharine Cree, London; Lecturer Anglican of St Michael’s Wood Street, London; Curate of Richmond; Royal chaplain Vicar of Stockton on Tees, Durham Curate of St Nicholas, Newcastle upon Tyne Minister of the Scots Church, Artillery St., London Preacher to the Tabernacle, Spitalfields, London

Anglican Anglican Presbyterian Dissenter

−−−

American

Bishop of Chichester

Anglican

Vicar of Saffron Walden, Essex, & Vicar of Ickleton, Anglican Cambridgeshire Curate of Leverington, Cambridgeshire Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Andrew Burnaby Gilbert Burnet

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 29 Jul. 1784; 23 Apr. 1789 31 Jan. 1689; 19 Oct. 1690; 26 Nov. 1691; 2 Dec. 1697; 27 Jun. 1706; 31 Dec. 1706

Andrew Burnett Robert Burns John Burton

16 Apr. 1696 13 Jan. 1814 9 Oct. 1746

Edmund Butcher

1 Jun. 1802

John Butler Samuel Butler

9 Oct. 1746 1 Jun. 1802

Mather Byles

6 Mar. 1760

John Caesar

7 Sep. 1704

John Camplin

23 Apr. 1789

Greenwich Church – St Alfege, Greenwich London (House of Commons); Whitehall Palace, London (William III & Mary II); Whitehall Palace, London; Whitehall Palace, London (William III); Salisbury Cathedral; St Paul’s Cathedral (Queen Anne, Houses of Commons & Lords) Presbyterian meeting, Barbican, London Low Church, Paisley, Scotland St Mary’s, Oxford (Oxford University) Upper High Street Chapel, Sidmouth, Devon St Margaret’s, Westminster, London Little Berwick Chapel, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Vicar of Greenwich

Anglican

Bishop of Salisbury

Anglican

Minister, Barbican, London Minister, Paisley, Scotland Fellow of Eton College Oxford; Vicar of Mapledurham, Oxfordshire Minister

Presbyterian Church of Scotland Anglican

‘Assistant Preacher’, St Margaret’s, Westminster Headmaster of Shrewsbury School, Shrewsbury; Curate, Little Berwick Chapel, Shrewsbury; Vicar of Kenilworth, Warwickshire −−− Pastor of the First Church of Christ, New London, Connecticut Prussian Congregation in the Savoy, Chaplain to the King of Prussia London St Mark’s Chapel, Bristol Vicar of St Nicholas and St Leonard, Bristol (Lord Mayor of Bristol)

Unitarian Anglican Anglican New England Foreign Anglican

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Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Newcome Cappe George Carr Benjamin Carter

29 Jul. 1784 26 Jun. 1746 7 Jun. 1716

Gideon Castelfranc Thomas Chalmers Edward Chandler

2 Sep. 1763 18 Jan. 1816 22 Nov. 1709; 7 Jun. 1716 9 Oct. 1746 3 Dec. 1702; 22 Nov. 1709; 7 Jun. 1716 20 Jan. 1715

Samuel Chandler Richard Chapman Knightley Chetwood Samuel Clapham Edward Clarke

19 Dec. 1797 3 Dec. 1702

James S. Clarke

19 Dec. 1797

John Clarke

1 Jun. 1802

Samuel Clarke

22 Nov. 1709;

Thomas B. Clarke John Clayton

7 Nov. 1710; 25 Apr. 1723 29 Nov. 1798 1 Jun. 1802

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Dissenting Chapel, St Saviourgate, York Minister Unitarian English Chapel, Edinburgh Minister of the English Chapel, Edinburgh Anglican Westham, Essex Rector of Wilford, Nottinghamshire, Canon of Anglican Southwell, Nottinghamshire St Andrew, Kingston, Jamaica Rector of St Andrew, Kingston, Jamaica Anglican: Jamaica −−− Minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow Church of Scotland Worcester Cathedral Canon of Worcester; Royal Chaplain Anglican Old Jewry Chapel, London −−−; −−−; Cheshunt, Hertfordshire Gloucester Cathedral

Minister of the Old Jewry Chapel, London Dissenter Vicar of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire; Prebend of Anglican Chichester Dean of Gloucester

Anglican

Great Ouseburn, Yorkshire St Mary’s, Nottingham (Mayor & Corporation of Nottingham) Park Street Chapel, Grosvenor Square, London −−−

Vicar of Great Ouseburn, Yorkshire Vicar of St Mary’s, Nottingham

Anglican Anglican

St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons); St James, Westminster, London; St James, Westminster, London Grosvenor Chapel, London King’s Weigh House Chapel, London

Vicar of Preston, Sussex, Morning Preacher, Park St. Anglican Chapel ‘LL.B.’ Dissenter Schoolmaster, Clarke’s Academy, Enfield, London Rector of St James, Westminster; Royal Chaplain Anglican (dismissed as Royal Chaplain in c. 1710 over heterodox views) ‘Secretary for the Library’; chaplain to Pr. of Wales Minister, King’s Weigh House Chapel, London

Anglican Congregational

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Preacher’s name Samuel Clerke

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Robert Cocks

11 Nov. 1693; 16 Apr. 1696 5 Dec. 1805; 13 Jan. 1814; 7 Jul. 1814 7 Jun. 1716

−−−; Saffron Walden, Essex St John’s, Manchester; St John’s, Manchester; St John’s, Manchester Woodstock, Oxfordshire

John Collinges Jeremiah Collins Samuel Collins Caleb Colton

14 Feb. 1689 18 Jan. 1816 2 Dec. 1697 5 Dec. 1805

−−− Probus, Cornwall Tamworth, Staffordshire St Peter’s, Tiverton, Devon

Thomas Comber George Conway John Conybeare

2 Dec. 1697 17 Feb. 1709; 22 Nov. 1709 25 Apr. 1749

Samuel Cooper

23 Apr. 1789

Durham Cathedral Ockingham, Berkshire; Ockingham, Berkshire St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons) Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

William Corbin

22 Sep. 1695

−−−

Joseph Cornish John Cottingham

29 Jul. 1784 23 Apr. 1789

Henry R. Courtenay

1 Jun. 1802

Colyton, Devon Chapel of Mile-End New Town, Stepney, London St George’s Hanover Square, London

John Clowes

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Minister

Dissenter

Rector of St John’s, Manchester

Anglican

Rector of Great Rollright, Oxfordshire; Rector of Bladon with Woodstock, Oxfordshire Minister, Norwich Minister Vicar of Tamworth Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge; Curate of Prior’s Portion, Tiverton, Devon Dean of Durham Master of Blandford Free School, Blandford Forum, Dorset Dean of Christ Church, Oxford

Anglican

Rector of Morley St Botolph with St Peter, Norfolk; Rector of Yelverton, Norfolk; Curate of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk Preacher at Bromley St Leonard, Middlesex; Lecturer of St Clement Eastcheap, London Minister, Colyton, Devon ‘Late of Edmund Hall, Oxford’

Anglican

Presbyterian Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

Anglican Presbyterian Dissenter

Bishop of Exeter; Rector of St George’s Hanover Anglican Square, London

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Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

John Courtney

13 Jan. 1814

Charles Cowper

5 May 1763

Charles Crane Thomas Craner

18 Jan. 1816 5 May 1763

Timothy Cruso Henry Cumings Peter Cunningham Thomas Curteis Robert Davidson James Davies

31 Jan. 1689 11 Dec. 1783 23 Apr. 1789

Preacher’s position

Sanderstead, Surrey

Denomination

Curate of Gedling, Nottinghamshire; Vicar of Sanderstead, Surrey York Cathedral Rector of Oswaldkirk, Yorkshire; Rector of Foston, Yorkshire; Canon & Prebendary of York Cathedral New Brentford, Middlesex Rector of Stoketon, Warwickshire Red Cross Street meeting house, Minister, Red Cross Street meeting house, London London −−− Minister Billerica, Massachusetts Pastor of Billerica, Massachusetts Eyam, Derbyshire Curate of Bolton by Bowland, Yorkshire; Rector of Derwent, Derbyshire (from July 1789) Wrotham, Kent Rector of Wrotham, Kent −−− Rector of Hayes, Kent Llandilo, Radnor, Wales Curate of Llandilo, Radnor, Wales

Anglican

Brasted, Kent

Anglican

George Davis

7 Jun. 1716 1 May 1707 16 Jun. 1713 [for 7 Jul. 1713] 5 May 1763

Harry Davis Benjamin Dawson John Dawson Henry Day Richard Dayrell

7 Jul. 1814 23 Apr. 1789 5 Dec. 1805 16 Apr. 1696 29 Nov. 1759

John de Veil

29 Nov. 1798

−−− −−− Nether Chapel, Sheffield Sutton, Surrey St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons) Edgware, London

Patrick Delany Giles Dent

5 May 1763 1 May 1707

St Margaret’s, Westminster, London −−−

Master of Free Grammar School, Sevenoaks, Kent; Assistant Preacher, St Paul’s Covent Garden, London Curate of South Newington, Oxfordshire Rector of Burgh, Suffolk Minister Vicar of Hunstanton, Norfolk Rector of Lillingstone Dayrell, Buckinghamshire

Anglican Anglican Baptist Presbyterian American Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

Anglican Anglican Dissenter Anglican Anglican

Vicar of Aldenham, Hertfordshire; Justice of the Anglican Peace for Middlesex. Dean of Down, Ireland Church of Ireland Minister Dissenter

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Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Charles Dickens Thomas Dikes Richard Dobbs

29 Jul. 1784 29 Nov. 1798 29 Nov. 1759

Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire St John’s, Hull −−−

Philip Doddridge John Doughty John Downes Robert Drummond John Dubourdieu

25 Apr. 1749 9 Oct. 1746 20 Jan. 1715 25 Apr. 1749

Northampton St James, Clerkenwell, London Painswick, Gloucestershire Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) −−−; Savoy-Church, London Third Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia St George’s, Doncaster, Yorkshire St Anne’s Westminster, London

George Duffield

7 Sep. 1704; 27 Jun. 1706 11 Dec. 1783

Patrick Dujon John Duncombe

1 May 1707 29 Nov. 1759

John Dupont J.E. Edzard

9 Oct. 1746; 25 Apr. 1749 16 Apr. 1696

William Ellis William Elstob Richard Enock John Evans

29 Jul. 1784 7 Sep. 1704 1 May 1707 7 Sep. 1704; 7 Sep. 1704

Aysgarth, Yorkshire; Aysgarth, Yorkshire Trinity Lane, London German Lutheran Congregation Stroud, Gloucestershire −−− −−− Chester & Wrexham, Cheshire & Wales; −−−

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Vicar of Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire Curate of St John’s, Hull Rector of Lisburn, County Antrim and County Down, Ireland Minister, Castle Hill Church, Northampton Curate of St James Clerkenwell, London Vicar of Painswick, Gloucestershire Bishop of St Asaph

Anglican Anglican Church of Ireland Congregational Anglican Anglican Anglican

Minister of the French congregation at the Savoy, Foreign London Pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia American Vicar of St George’s, Doncaster, Yorkshire Anglican Assistant Preacher at St Anne’s Westminster London; Anglican Rector of St Andrew’s and St Mary Bredman, Canterbury Vicar of Aysgarth, Yorkshire Anglican Minister to the German Lutheran Congregation, London Curate of Stroud, Gloucestershire Rector of St Swithun’s & St Mary Bothaw, London Rector of Stutton, Suffolk Minister of Ewell, Surrey

Foreign Anglican Anglican Anglican Presbyterian

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Preacher’s name John Evans Greville Ewing John Eyre Hugh Farmer William Farmerie George Farrol Richard Fiddes Robert Pool Finch William Fisher John Flavell William Fleetwood

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 1 Jun. 1802; 7 Jul. 1814 29 Nov. 1798 5 May 1763 9 Oct. 1746 7 Jun. 1716 7 Jun. 1716 23 Aug. 1705 25 Apr. 1749 7 Jun. 1716 14 Feb. 1689 7 Sep. 1704; 19 Aug. 1708;

Alexander Fleming William Fletcher

7 Jun. 1716 19 Dec. 1797 29 Nov. 1759

Richard Formby Nicholas Forster

23 Apr. 1789 1 Mar. 1715

Thomas Forster

29 Jul. 1784

Worship Street, Moorfields, London; Brighton Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel, Edinburgh Wylye, Wiltshire Walthamstow, Essex Somerset House, London Lymington, Hampshire −−− St Mary Woolnoth, London −−− ‘to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters’ −−− −−−; St Paul’s Cathedral (Queen Anne); −−−; Ely-House Chapel, Holborn, London Hamilton, Scotland St Andrew’s, Dublin

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Minister, Worship Street, Moorfields, London

Baptist

Minister Curate of Wylye, Wiltshire Dissenting minister at Walthamstow, Essex Rector of Heapham, Lincolnshire Dissenting minister Rector of Halsham, Yorkshire Chaplain of Guy’s Hospital, London Dissenting minister

Congregational Anglican Dissenter Anglican Dissenter Anglican Anglican Dissenter

Presbyterian minister, Devon Presbyterian Rector of St Austin’s, London; Royal Chaplain; Anglican Bishop of St Asaph; Bishop of Ely

Church of Scotland minister, Hamilton, Scotland Church of Scotland Rector of St Mary’s, Dublin; Prebendary of St Church of Ireland Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin St George’s, Liverpool Lecturer of St John’s, Liverpool Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Bishop of Killaloe Church of Ireland (Lords Justices of Ireland) Tunbridge Wells, Kent Minister of Tunbridge Wells: Vicar of Tunsted, Anglican Norfolk; Rector of Halesworth, Suffolk

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Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

James Fortescue

29 Nov. 1759

Topsham, Devon

Thomas Foster George Fothergill

20 Jan. 1715 9 Oct. 1746

Thomas Fothergill

25 Apr. 1749

Edward Fowler

16 Apr. 1696;

Thomas Foxcroft John Francis

7 Sep. 1704 9 Oct.1760 25 Apr. 1749

Barkhamsted St Peter’s, Hertfordshire St Martin’s, Oxford (Lord Mayor & Aldermen, Oxford) St Mary’s, Oxford (Oxford University) Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords); Guild Hall Chapel, London Old Church, Boston, Massachusetts St Peter’s Mancroft, Norwich

1 May 1707; 22 Nov. 1709 2 Dec. 1697 16 Apr. 1696; 2 Dec. 1697; 7 Jul. 1713 29 Nov. 1798; 5 Dec. 1805 7 Jun. 1716

Bartholomew Close, London; Bartholomew Close, London St Dunstan’s in the West, London St Michael’s, Crooked Lane, London; St Michael’s, Crooked Lane, London; Lincoln Cathedral Octagon Chapel, Bath; Octagon Chapel, Bath Hanslope, Buckinghamshire

Thomas Freke William Gallaway James Gardiner John Gardiner Shadrach Garmston John Garnett Alexander Gerard

1 Jun. 1802 29 Nov. 1759

Winchester Cathedral Aberdeen

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford; Curate of St Swithun’s, Merton, Oxfordshire Dissenting minister Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford (1734); later Head of St Edmund’s College, Oxford (1751) Prebendary of Durham Cathedral

Anglican

Bishop of Gloucester

Anglican

Dissenter Anglican Anglican

Pastor, The Old Church, Boston, Mass. New England Rector of St Botolph with St Peter; Rector of St John Anglican Maddermarket; Assistant Curate St Peter Mancroft, Norwich Dissenting minister Dissenter Chaplain to His Majesty’s Artillery Anglican Rector of St Michael, Crooked Lane, London; Anglican Subdean & Canon Residentiary of Lincoln Cathedral Rector of Brailsford, Derbyshire; Vicar of Shirley, Anglican Derbyshire Vicar of Hanslope, Buckinghamshire Anglican Prebendary of Winchester Cathedral; Royal Chaplain Anglican Curate of Over Wallop, Hampshire; Curate of Preston Candover with Nutley, Hampshire Professor of Divinity, Marischal College, Aberdeen Church of Scotland

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Edmund Gibson

7 Jun. 1716

John Gilbert Robert Gilbert

9 Oct. 1746 29 Nov. 1759

Thomas Gisborne

7 Jul. 1814

Thomas Goddard

7 Nov. 1710

Peter S. Goddard

29 Nov. 1759

William Goldwin Thomas Good William Goode

31 Dec. 1706 7 Jul. 1713 19 Dec. 1797; 5 Dec. 1805

Nathaniel Goodwin Adam Gordon

19 Dec. 1797

John Grant

7 Sep. 1704

Francis Gregory

16 Apr. 1696; 2 Dec. 1697 29 Nov. 1798 1 Jun. 1802

Thomas Grinfield Robert Hall

20 Jan. 1715

Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) Whippingham, Isle of Wight Northampton

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Bishop of Lincoln

Anglican

Rector of Whippingham, Isle of Wight Congregational minister, Castle Hill Church, Northampton Barton under Needwood, Staffordshire Curate of Barton under Needwood Chapel, Staffordshire St George’s Chapel, Windsor Canon of Windsor; Rector of North Tiddworth, Wiltshire Fornham All Saints, Suffolk, and St Rector of Fornham All Saints & Westley, Suffolk James’s, Bury St Edmunds Newnham, Hertfordshire Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge Astley, Worcester Rector of Astley, Worcester St Andrew by the Wardrobe, & St Ann Rector of St Andrew by the Wardrobe & St Ann Blackfriars, London; Blackfriars, London St Andrew by the Wardrobe, & St Ann Blackfriars, London Souldern, Oxfordshire Curate of Souldern, Oxfordshire −−− (‘A Country Congregation’) Rochester Cathedral; St Dunstan’s in the West, London −−−; Hambleden, Buckinghamshire Brethren’s Chapel, Bristol Cambridge Baptist Meeting, St Andrew’s Street, Cambridge

Anglican Congregational Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

Anglican

Rector of West Tilbury, Essex; Prebendary of Bristol Anglican Cathedral Vicar of St Dunstan’s in the West, London; Anglican Prebendary of Rochester Rector of Hambleden, Buckinghamshire Anglican Moravian minister Moravian Baptist minister, Baptist meeting, St Andrew’s Street, Baptist Cambridge

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Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Congregational minister Rector of St Cuthbert’s, York Royal Navy chaplain - imposter; (unordained) chaplain of Elm, Cambridgeshire; onboard the Britannia during the Battle of Trafalgar Congregational minister, Plymouth

Congregational Anglican Imposter

Anglican

Anglican

Thomas Hall George Halley Laurence-Hynes Halloran

9 Oct. 1746 14 Feb. 1689 19 Dec. 1797

−−− York Cathedral −−−

Nathaniel Harding Richard Hardy

20 Jan. 1715

Plymouth

19 Dec. 1797

Francis Hare

17 Feb. 1709

John Harris Samuel Harris

29 Nov. 1759 22 Nov. 1709

Thomas Harris William Harris

25 Apr. 1749 7 Jun. 1716

Cambridge (University of Cambridge) St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons) Greensted, Essex Meeting in Mill-Yard, in Goodman’sFields, London Gravesend, Kent −−−

Thomas Harrison

20 Jan. 1715

−−−

George Harvest

9 Oct. 1746

Thames Ditton, Surrey

Andrew Hatt

5 Dec. 1805

William Hawtayne Samuel Hayes

20 Jan. 1715

St Paul’s Cathedral (Lord Mayor & Aldermen of London) Elstree, Hertfordshire

Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Curate of Wormley, Hertfordshire Canon Residentiary of St Paul’s cathedral, London; Chaplain General to the Army Rector of Greensted, Essex Minister, Mill Yard meeting, Goodman’s Fields, London Rector of Gravesend, Kent Presbyterian minister, Crutched Friars, Poor Jewry Lane, London; Evening Lecturer at the Weighhouse, Eastcheap; Merchant’ Lecturer at Salters’ Hall Baptist minister, Little Wild Street, London; (resigned in 1729, recanted, and became Rector of Ratcliffe on Wreake, Leicestershire) Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge; Curate of Thames Ditton, Surrey Chaplain to the Lord Mayor; Curate of Cliddesden, Farleigh Wallop, Hampshire Rector of Elstree, Hertfordshire

23 Apr. 1789

St Margaret’s, Westminster, London

Anglican minister

Congregational

Anglican Anglican Baptist Anglican Presbyterian Baptist Anglican Anglican Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

John Heath

29 Nov. 1759

Writtle, Essex

William Henry

John Hewlett

25 Apr. 1749; 29 Nov. 1759 5 Dec. 1805 7 Jul. 1814; 18 Jan. 1816 19 Dec. 1797;

Urney, Tyrone, Ireland; St Michael’s, Dublin St Mary Stratford Bow, London −−−; −−− The Foundling Hospital, London

Charles Hickman

19 Oct. 1690

St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons)

Francis Higgins Edward Hitchin

28 Aug. 1705 29 Nov. 1759

Nathaniel Hodges Christopher Hodgson John Hodgson George Hooper

31 Dec. 1706 19 Dec. 1797

Geoffrey Hornby Samuel Horsley Josiah Hort John Hough

5 Dec. 1805 5 Dec. 1805 31 Dec. 1706 22 Nov. 1709

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin New Meeting in White-Row, Spital Fields, London −−− Castor and Marholm, Northamptonshire Jarrow & in Heworth, Durham St Paul’s Cathedral (Houses of Commons & Lords) Winwick, Lancashire St Asaph Cathedral, Wales Wendover, Buckinghamshire Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords)

Samuel Henshall Thomas Hewett

7 Jul. 1814 7 Jul. 1713

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Master of the Free Grammar School, Chelmsford, Anglican Essex Rector of Urney, Tyrone, Ireland Church of Ireland Rector of St Mary Stratford Bow, London Curate of Chesham, Buckinghamshire

Anglican Anglican

Lecturer of St Vedast with St Michael le Querne, London; Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital, London Royal chaplain; Rector of Norton juxta Twycross, Leicestershire; Rector of Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire Prebendary of St Michael’s, Dublin Congregational minister, White Row, Spitalfields, London −−− Rector of Marholm, Northamptonshire

Anglican

Curate of Jarrow, Durham Bishop of Bath and Wells

Anglican Anglican

Rector of Winwick, Lancashire Bishop of St Asaph Vicar of Wendover, Buckinghamshire Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry

Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

Anglican Church of Ireland Congregational Unknown Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Nathaniel Hough

7 Sep. 1704

−−−

John Howe

2 Dec. 1697

−−−

William Howley Obadiah Hughes

18 Jan. 1816 25 Apr. 1749

William Hunter William Huntington William Hurn Francis Hutchinson Thomas Hutchinson William Jackson

29 Jul. 1784 19 Dec. 1797 19 Dec. 1797 1 May 1707

Whitehall Chapel, London Dissenters Chapel, Long-Ditch, Westminster, London −−− Providence Chapel, Titchfield Street, London Debenham, Suffolk Bury St Edmund’s, Suffolk

Lecturer of Kensington, London; Fellow of Jesus Anglican College, Cambridge Presbyterian minister, Silver Street, Wood Street, Presbyterian London Bishop of London Anglican Presbyterian minister, Princess Street Chapel, Presbyterian Westminster, London Rector of St Anne’s Limehouse, London Anglican Minister to Providence Chapel, Titchfield Street, & Dissenter to Monkwell Street meeting, London Vicar of Debenham, Suffolk Anglican Preacher of St James’, Bury St Edmund’s Anglican

9 Oct. 1746

Hosham, Sussex

Vicar of Horsham, Sussex

29 Nov. 1798

Preacher to Society of Lincoln’s Inn; Prebend of Bath Anglican & Wells Cathedral Congregational minister, Turners’ Hall Congregational

William Jane

12 Nov. 1702; 23 Aug. 1705 26 Nov. 1691

Jacob Jefferson

5 May 1763

Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, London (Society of Lincoln’s Inn) Turners’ Hall, London; −−− St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons) St Mary’s, Oxford Oxford University

John Jefferson

23 Apr. 1789

St Anne’s Westminster, London

John Jenings

7 Jun. 1716

Benjamin Jenks

2 Dec. 1697

Gamlingay & Great Gransden, Cambridgeshire Harley, Shropshire

Joseph Jacob

Anglican

Dean of Gloucester & Royal Chaplain

Anglican

Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford; Curate of Milton Chapel, Milford, Hampshire Lecturer of St Anne Westminster, London; Rector of Padworth, Berkshire Vicar of Gamlingay & Great Gransden, Cambridgeshire Rector of Harley

Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Alexander Jephson Thomas Jervis Abraham Jobson

Christopher Johnson James Johnson William Keate George Keith Gilbert Kennedy White Kennett

Benjamin Kennicott Samuel Kerrich

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 7 Sep. 1704; 20 Jan. 1715 18 Jan. 1816 23 Apr. 1789; 19 Dec. 1797; 29 Nov. 1798 16 Apr. 1696; 2 Dec. 1697 29 Nov. 1759 29 Jul. 1784 16 Apr. 1696 25 Apr. 1749 7 Sep. 1704; 22 Nov. 1709; 7 Jun. 1716 25 Apr. 1749 9 Oct. 1746

Camberwell, Surrey; Ramsden Bellhouse, Essex Dissenting Chapel, Mill Hill, Leeds Ely; Ely; Ely (Ely United Loyal Dodington Assn) Mortlake Church St Mary the Virgin, London; New Brentford Church, Middlesex Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) −−− Turners’ Hall, London Belfast St Botolph’s-without- Aldgate, London; St James’s Palace, London (Queen Anne); St Mary Aldermary, London St Martin’s, Oxford (Lord Mayor & Aldermen, Oxford) Dersingham, and Wolferton, Norfolk

John Kiddell Arnold King

29 Nov. 1759 25 Apr. 1749

Tiverton, Devon St Paul’s Cathedral (Lord Mayor & Aldermen of London)

John King

29 Nov. 1798

Witnesham, Suffolk

Preacher’s position

Denomination

‘Master of the Free- School in Camberwell’; Rector of Ramsden Bellhouse, Essex Unitarian Minister of Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds Vicar of Wymeswold, Leicestershire; Rector of Wardley with Belton, Rutland; Domestic Chaplain to Beilby Porteus (who is bishop of Chester and later London) School-master of Richmond in Surrey

Anglican

Bishop of Worcester

Anglican

Rector of Piddlehinton, Dorset Quaker Presbyterian minister, New Meeting House, Belfast Curate of St Botolph’s-without- Aldgate, London; Dean of Peterborough Cathedral; Royal chaplain

Anglican Quaker Presbyterian Anglican

Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford

Anglican

Vicar of Dersingham, and Rector of Wolferton, Norfolk Dissenting minister Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London; Lecturer of St Stephen Coleman Street, London; Rector of St Michael Cornhill, London Rector of Witnesham, Suffolk

Anglican

Unitarian Anglican

Anglican

Dissenter Anglican Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name William King

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Henry Knapp William Knox

16 Nov. 1690; 7 Sep. 1704 22 Sep. 1695; 16 Apr. 1696; 19 Aug. 1708; 22 Nov. 1709 18 Jan. 1816 29 Nov. 1798

Benjamin Lacy

31 Dec. 1706

Charles Lamb Ralph Lambert George Lambert

31 Dec. 1706 12 Nov. 1702 23 Apr. 1789

Thomas Lancaster William Lane Thomas Langdon Ebenezer Latham George H. Law

23 Apr. 1789; 13 Jan. 1814 9 Oct. 1746 7 Jul. 1814 9 Oct. 1746 7 Jul. 1814

William Law

7 Jul. 1713

Hanworth, Middlesex; Merton, Surrey Hereford Cathedral Leeds Derby St Paul’s Cathedral (Prince Regent, Houses of Lords & Commons) Haslingfield, Cambridgeshire

Richard Lee

2 Dec. 1697

Highgate Chapel, London

Thomas Knaggs

St Patrick’s, Dublin; Holy Trinity Cathedral, Dublin All Hallows, Newcastle upon Tyne; All Hallows, Newcastle upon Tyne; St Margaret’s, Westminster, London; Knightsbridge Chapel, London St Andrew Undershaft, London −−− (Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) St John’s Chapel, Exeter (Mayor& Aldermen of Exeter) Enfield, Middlesex St Giles’s in the Fields, London Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin; Archbishop of Dublin

Church of Ireland

Vicar of Merrington, Durham; Lecturer, St Giles’s in Anglican the Fields, London Curate of St Andrew Undershaft, London Bishop of Killaloe

Anglican Church of Ireland

Master of the Grammar-School, Crediton, Devon

Anglican

Curate of Enfield, Middlesex Rector of Grindon, Staffordshire Dissenting pastor of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire; one of the Founders of the London Missionary Society Curate of Feltham, Middlesex; Curate of Merton, Surrey Lecturer of Hereford Cathedral Baptist minister, Leeds ‘M.D.’ Bishop of Chester

Anglican Anglican Congregational Anglican Anglican Baptist Dissenter Anglican

Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Curate Anglican of Haslingfield, Cambridgeshire; later ejected from both as a nonjuror (1716–1717) −−− Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

William Leigh Thomas Leighton David Lloyd William Lloyd Stephen Lobb Benjamin Loveling Samuel Lowthion

29 Nov. 1798 23 Apr. 1789 19 Dec. 1797 31 Dec. 1706 7 Jun. 1716 3 Dec. 1702; 7 Jul. 1713 5 May 1763

Richard Lucas

27 Jun. 1706; 22 Nov. 1709; 7 Nov. 1710 7 Sep. 1704; 19 Aug. 1708; 17 Feb. 1709 9 Oct. 1746

John Mackqueen John Madden Isaac Maddox Henry W. Majendie William Mann

9 Oct. 1746 1 Jun. 1802 29 Nov. 1798

Henry C. Manning

7 Jul. 1814

Thomas Manningham

1 May 1707; 17 Feb. 1709

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Free Church, Bath −−− Diocese of Hereford Diss, Norfolk Penzance Chapel, Cornwall Banbury, Oxfordshire; Banbury, Oxfordshire Hanover Square meeting, Newcastle upon Tyne −−−; −−−; −−− St Mary’s, Dover; −−−; St Mary’s, Dover St Ann’s, Dublin

Rector of Little Plumstead, Norfolk Vicar of Ludham, Norfolk Vicar of Llanbister, Radnorshire, Wales Curate of Diss, Norfolk Chaplain of Penzance, Cornwall Vicar of Banbury, Oxfordshire

Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

Dissenting minister, Hanover Square meeting, Newcastle upon Tyne Prebendary of Westminster, London; Rector of St Stephen, Coleman Street; Lecturer of St Olave, Southwark Curate of St Mary’s, Dover

Dissenter

Dean of Kilmore Cathedral

Worcester Cathedral Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) St George the Martyr, Southwark, London St Peter’s, Thetford, Norfolk

Bishop of Worcester Bishop of Chester

Church of Ireland Anglican Anglican

St Andrew Holborn, London; St James’s Palace, London (Queen Anne)

‘M.A. Chaplain to… the Countess Dowager of Carhampton’ Curate of St Peter’s & St Cuthbert’s, Thetford, Norfolk; Rector of Santon, Norfolk; Rector of Burgh Castle, Suffolk Royal Chaplain; Dean of Windsor; in Nov. 1709 becomes Bishop of Chichester

Anglican Anglican

Anglican Anglican Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Nathaniel Marshall William Marston

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 1 May 1707 17 Feb. 1709

John Martin

23 Apr. 1789; 29 Nov. 1798

Thomas Masters

22 Nov. 1709; 20 Jan. 1715 19 Dec. 1797; 13 Jan. 1814; 7 Jul. 1814

William Mavor

Jonathan Mayhew Christopher Mays William M’Kechnie Henry Mead

25 Oct. 1759 9 Oct. 1746 29 Nov. 1798

Matthew Mead

31 Jan. 1689

Norman Mead

9 Oct. 1746

John Mellen

9 Oct.1760

Thomas F. Middleton

29 Nov. 1798

23 Apr. 1789

New Chapel, Ormond Street & St Mary Aldermanbury Redbourn, Hertfordshire

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Vicar of St Pancras; Lecturer of Aldermanbury, Anglican London Vicar of Redbourn, Hertfordshire; Chaplain to the Anglican Duke of Marlborough −−−; Baptist minister, Grafton Street, Piccadilly, London; Baptist Meeting house, Keppel Street, Bedford minister of Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London Square, London −−−; Congregational minister, Rotherhithe, Surrey Congregational ‘The Point’, Rotherhithe, Surrey −−−; Vicar of Hurley, Berkshire; Curate of Westcote Anglican −−−; Barton, Oxfordshire; Rector of Stonesfield, −−− Oxfordshire; Schoolmaster of Wootton, Woodstock Chapel, Oxfordshire; Rector of Bladon, Oxfordshire −−− −−− New England St Giles’, Cambridge Curate of St Peter’s & St Giles’, Cambridge Anglican −−− Minister of the Relief Church, Musselburgh, Presbyterian Scotland St Pancras, London Morning Preacher at St Pancras; Lecturer, St John’s Anglican Wapping Merchants Lecture, Broad Street, Congregational minister, Stepney, London; Lecturer, Congregational London, and at Stepney Pinners’ Hall, London St Paul’s Cathedral Lecturer of St Vedast, Foster Lane, London; Chaplain Anglican (Lord Mayor & Aldermen of London) to the Lord Mayor of London; Rector of Little Braxted, Essex, & Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral West Parish, Lancaster, Massachusetts Pastor of the Second Church, Lancaster, New England Massachusetts Norwich Cathedral Rector of Tansor, Northamptonshire Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Luke Milbourne George Mills John Milner John Milner

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 7 Sep. 1704; 7 Jul. 1713 31 Dec. 1706 9 Oct. 1746 23 Apr. 1789; 18 Jan. 1816

St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate, London; St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate, London Norfolk Peckham, Surrey Roman Catholic Chapel, Winchester; Roman Catholic Chapel of St Chad, Chadwell Street, Birmingham Donoughmore, Cork (‘Captain Johnston’s Independent Company of Militia’) St James’s Palace, London (William III) Ely Cathedral

James Moody

9 Oct. 1746

John Moore

16 Apr. 1696

Caesar Morgan

23 Apr. 1789

Jacob Mountain John Murray

10 Jan. 1799 11 Dec. 1783

Walter Neale William Needham

16 Apr. 1696 12 Nov. 1702

William Nesfield

19 Dec. 1797

Québec Presbyterian Church, Newbury-Port, Massachusetts Christchurch, Cork, Ireland Westminster Abbey, London (Lower House of Convocation) Chester le Street, Durham

Peter Newcome Thomas Newman

16 Apr. 1696 9 Oct. 1746

Aldenham, Hertfordshire −−−

John Newton

23 Apr. 1789; 19 Dec. 1797

St Mary Woolnoth, London; St Mary Woolnoth, London

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Rector of St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate, London

Anglican

Congregational Pastor, Guestwick, Norfolk Presbyterian minister, Peckham, Surrey Roman Catholic preacher

Congregational Presbyterian Catholic

Presbyterian minister of Newry, Ireland (Counties Presbyterian Armagh and Down) Bishop of Norwich

Anglican

Minor canon & Preacher at Ely Cathedral; Curate of Ely St Mary Bishop of Québec Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Newbury-Port, Mass. Rector of Shandon, Cork, Ireland Rector of Alresford, Hampshire

Anglican

Curate of Mileham, Norfolk; Curate of Chester le Street, Durham Vicar of Aldenham, Hertfordshire Presbyterian assistant minister at the Meeting House, Little Carter Lane, Doctors Common, Black Friars, London Rector of St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch Haw, London

Anglican

Anglican: Canada American Church of Ireland Anglican

Anglican Presbyterian Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Charles Nicholetts

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Nicholas Nichols John Norman Richard Norris Thomas O’Beirne

16 Apr. 1696; 2 Dec. 1697 9 Oct. 1746 9 Oct. 1746 7 Sep. 1704 16 Jan. 1798;

William Odell Joshua Oldfield

5 Dec. 1805 5 Dec. 1805 1 May 1707

Havant, Hampshire; Havant, Hampshire Patrington, Yorkshire Portsmouth −−− −−− (Lord Lieutenant, Lords, & Commons of Ireland); Kells, Meath, Ireland Limerick Cathedral, Ireland −−−

John Olliffe David Osgood John Overton Edward Owen Thomas Page

14 Feb. 1689 11 Dec. 1783 7 Jul. 1814 13 Jan. 1814 20 Jan. 1715

Almer, Dorset −−− St Crux, York Mortlake, Surrey Beccles, Suffolk

Simon Paget William J. Palmer

2 Dec. 1697 7 Jul. 1814

St Mary’s, Truro, Cornwall −−−

John Parkhurst Simon Patrick

5 May 1763 31 Jan. 1689; 26 Nov. 1691

John Pattenson John Payne

23 Apr. 1789 29 Nov. 1759

Epsom, Surrey St Paul’s, Covent Garden, London; Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) Halifax, Yorkshire −−−

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Dissenting minister, Havant, Hampshire

Dissenter

Rector of Patrington, Yorkshire Dissenting minister, Portsmouth Dissenting minister Bishop of Ossory, Ireland; Bishop of Meath, Ireland

Anglican Dissenter Dissenter Church of Ireland

−−− Presbyterian Minister, Globe Alley, Maid Lane, Southwark, London Rector of Almer, Dorset Pastor of Medford, Massachusetts Rector of St Crux, York; Rector of St Margaret, York Curate of Mortlake, Surrey Rector of Wheatacre, Norfolk (1714–1715); rector of Beccles, Suffolk Rector of Truro Rector of Mixbury, Oxfordshire; Rector of Beachampton, Buckinghamshire Anglican minister Rector, St Paul’s, Covent Garden; Bishop of Ely

Church of Ireland Presbyterian

Schoolmaster at Rushworth −−−

Unknown Unknown

Anglican American Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Deuel Pead

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Samuel Pearce

16 Apr. 1696; 31 Dec. 1706; 1 May 1707; 17 Feb. 1709 29 Nov. 1798

Zachary Pearce

25 Apr. 1723

Robert Pearse

7 Jun. 1716

Hugh Pearson

13 Jan. 1814

St James, Clerkenwell, London; St James, Clerkenwell, London; St James, Clerkenwell, London; St James, Clerkenwell, London Cannon Street Baptist Church, Birmingham St Paul’s Cathedral (Lord Mayor & Aldermen of London) St Martin’s, Oxford (Lord Mayor & Aldermen, Oxford) St Martin’s, Oxford

William Pearson

7 Sep. 1704

York Cathedral

Samuel Peck

31 Jan. 1689

−−−

John Pennington William Perse

9 Oct. 1746 16 Apr. 1696; 27 Jun. 1706 9 Oct. 1746; 29 Nov. 1759 16 Apr. 1696

Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire St Michael’s, New Malton, Yorkshire; Malton, Yorkshire Bexley, Kent; Bexley, Kent −−−; −−−

10 Jan. 1799 23 Apr. 1789

Henry Piers John Piggott Joseph-Octave Plessis Charles Plumptre

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Curate of St James, Clerkenwell, London; Rector of Anglican Newland St Lawrence, Essex Baptist minister, Cannon Street Baptist Church, Baptist Birmingham Rector of St Bartholomew by the Exchange, London Anglican ‘Vice-Principal’ St Edmund Hall, Oxford

Anglican

Senior Proctor, Oxford University; Curate of Chobham, Surrey; Curate of Bisley, Surrey Archdeacon of Nottingham; Canon of York Cathedral Curate, Poplar Chapel, Stepney; Rector of Inworth, Essex Rector of All Saints, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire Minister of Malton; Rector of Heslerton, Yorkshire

Anglican

Vicar of Bexley, Kent

Anglican Baptist

Québec Cathedral, Québec

Baptist minister, Hart Street, Covent Garden; minister (1699) to Little Wild Street meeting, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London Curé of Notre-Dame at Québec

Mansfield, Nottinghamshire

Rector of Teversal, Nottinghamshire

Anglican

Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

Catholic: Canada

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Thomas Pocock

7 Jun. 1716

Thames Ditton, Surrey

Giles Pooley Michael Pope Edward Popham

7 Jun. 1716 7 Jun. 1716 29 Jul. 1784

St Leonard Shoreditch, London −−− Laycock, Wiltshire

Beilby Porteus

23 Apr. 1789

George Pretyman

29 Jul. 1784;

St Paul’s Cathedral (George III, Houses of Commons & Lords) St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons); St Paul’s Cathedral (George III, Houses of Commons & Lords) Norwich Cathedral

19 Dec. 1797 Humphrey Prideaux Thomas Prince Simon Reader Abraham Rees Thomas Rennell Thomas Reynolds Edward-Pickering Rich John Richardson

3 Dec. 1702 18 Jul. 1745 5 May 1763 29 Nov. 1798 29 Nov. 1798

South Church, Boston, Massachusetts Wareham, Dorset Old Jewry Meeting House, London St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons)

22 Nov. 1709 29 Nov. 1759

−−− −−−

5 May 1763

Meeting house, Artillery Spitalfields, London

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Rector of Danbury, Essex; Rector of Latchingdoncum-Lalling, Essex; Chaplain to the Royal Hospital at Greenwich Vicar of St Leonard Shoreditch, London Dissenting minister Rector of Chilton Foliat, Wiltshire; Vicar of Laycock, Wiltshire Bishop of London

Anglican Anglican Dissenter Anglican Anglican

Prebendary of Westminster; Rector of Corwen, Anglican Wales; Bishop of Lincoln

Dean of Norwich

Anglican

Pastor of the South Church, Boston, Mass. Congregational minister, Wareham, Dorset Presbyterian minister, Old Jewry, London Master of the Temple, London; Vicar of Alton, Hampshire; Rector of St Magnus the Martyr with St Margaret New Fish Street, London Presbyterian minister, Great Eastcheap, London Rector of Bagendon, Gloucestershire

New England Congregational Presbyterian Anglican

Lane, Congregational minister

Presbyterian Anglican Congregational

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Robert Richardson Richard Richmond Thomas Rivers

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 5 May 1763

The Hague

5 May 1763

Dunkeld, Scotland

22 Nov. 1709

Winchester Cathedral

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Rector of Wallington, Hertfordshire; Prebendary of Anglican Lincoln Cathedral Vicar of Walton, Lancashire Anglican

John Robinson William Roby John Rodgers Thomas Rutledge Edward Sandercock Henry Sanders Thomas Scott

19 Dec. 1797 20 Jan. 1715 11 Dec. 1783 5 Dec. 1805 5 May 1763

Prebendary of Winchester; Fellow of All Souls, Oxford −−− Vicar of Althorne, Essex; Rector of Cricksea, Essex Oxford Dissenting minister New York −−− −−− Presbyterian minister Dissenting Chapel, St Saviourgate, York Congregational minister, St Saviourgate, York

Anglican

20 Jan. 1715 29 Nov. 1759

Long Combe, Oxfordshire Ipswich

Presbyterian minister, Long Combe, Oxfordshire Congregational minister, St Nicholas Street Chapel, Ipswich Curate of Olney and Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire Chaplain to Prince of Wales; Chaplain to the Portsmouth Dockyard Rector of St James, Westminster

Presbyterian Congregational

Thomas Scott

29 Jul. 1784

Olney, Buckinghamshire

Tufton C. Scott

29 Nov. 1798

St Ann’s, Dockyard, Portsmouth

Thomas Secker John Sharp

9 Oct. 1746; 25 Apr. 1749 11 Nov. 1693

Joseph Sharpe Thomas Sherlock

7 Jul. 1814 7 Jun. 1716

St James, Westminster, London; St James, Westminster, London Whitehall Palace, London (William III & Mary II) Old Church, Macclesfield, Cheshire St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons)

Archbishop of York

Anglican

Anglican Dissenter American Presbyterian Congregational

Anglican Anglican Anglican

Chaplain to the Duke of Cambridge Anglican Dean of Chichester Cathedral; Master of the Temple; Anglican Royal Chaplain

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

William Sherlock

7 Sep. 1704

John Short John Shower

31 Dec. 1706 16 Apr. 1696

St Paul’s Cathedral (Queen Anne) −−− −−−

Thomas Simmons Thomas B. Simpson George Skeeles

20 Jan. 1715 5 Dec. 1805

Broadstreet, Wapping, London Stroud, Gloucestershire

Samuel Slater Edward Smallwell Samuel Smalpage

27 Oct. 1692 29 Jul. 1784 [for 30 Jul.] 5 Dec. 1805

Crosby Square, London Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) Whitkirk, Yorkshire

Jonathan Smedley Elisha Smith

20 Jan. 1715 20 Jan. 1715

St Peter’s le Poer, London Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

Henry Smith James Smith John Smith

7 Jun. 1716 13 Jan. 1814 5 May 1763

Thomas Smith

29 Nov. 1759

James Somerville John Spademan

21 Apr. 1814 27 Jun. 1706

Weybridge, Surrey −−− Basingstoke, Hampshire, and later in Oundle, Northamptonshire St Giles without Cripplegate, & Stratford Bow St Mary, London Scotch Church, Montréal −−−

7 Jul. 1814

−−−

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral; Master of the Temple; Royal Chaplain Congregational minister, London Presbyterian minister, Curriers’ Hall, Jewin Street, London Dissenting minister Vicar of Keynsham, Somerset

Anglican Congregational Presbyterian Dissenter Anglican

Curate of Great Saxham, Suffolk; Curate of Denham, Anglican Buckinghamshire Presbyterian minister, London Presbyterian Bishop of St David’s, Wales Anglican Vicar of Whitkirk, Yorkshire; Vicar of Laughton with Wildsworth, Lincolnshire; Rector & Vicar of Ringcurran, Cork, Ireland Lecturer of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire; Rector of Castle Riding and of Roydon, Norfolk Rector of Weybridge, Surrey Minister of Abbey Church, Paisley, Scotland −−−

Anglican

Lecturer of St Giles without Cripplegate, London

Anglican

Church of Ireland Anglican Anglican Church of Scotland Unknown

Presbyterian minister, Scotch Church, Montréal Presbyterian: Canada Co-Pastor at Haberdashers’ Hall, Staining Lane, Dissenter Cheapside, London

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name Alexander Spark Joseph Standen George Stanhope

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 21 Apr. 1814 1 May 1707 26 Nov. 1691;

Henry Stephens

19 Aug. 1708

William Stephens

16 Apr. 1696

Thomas Stevenson William Stevenson James Stillingfleet

5 Dec. 1805 9 Oct. 1746 29 Nov. 1798

Scotch Church, Québec −−− Gray’s inn Chapel, London (Society of Gray’s Inn); St Paul’s Cathedral (Queen Anne); −−− (Queen Anne) Whitehall Palace, London Reigate, Surrey −−−; −−−; −−−; −−− Little Wild Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London; Little Wild Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London St Mary’s, Oxford (Oxford University) St Mary Le Bow, London (Lord Mayor & Aldermen of London) St John’s, Blackburn, Lancashire Colwall, Herefordshire Worcester Cathedral

John Stonard

5 Dec. 1805

Chertsey, Surrey

27 Jun. 1706; 7 Nov. 1710 Michael Stanhope William Stead Joseph Stennett (the elder) Joseph Stennett (the younger)

19 Aug. 1708 5 May 1763 7 Sep. 1704; 27 Jun. 1706; 1 May 1707; 17 Feb. 1709 9 Oct. 1746; 25 Apr. 1749

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Presbyterian minister, Scotch Church, Québec Presbyterian: Canada Minister of Coleford, Somerset Dissenter Vicar of Lewisham, Kent; Vicar of Tewin, Anglican Hertfordshire; Dean of Canterbury; Royal Chaplain

Preacher in the diocese of Coventry & Lichfield Anglican Vicar of Reigate, Surrey Anglican Baptist minister, Pinners’ Hall, London; Evening Baptist lecturer, Devonshire Square, London Baptist minister, Little Wild Street, Lincoln’s Inn Baptist Fields, London Fellow of Merton College, Oxford

Anglican

Rector of Sutton, Surrey

Anglican

Curate of St John’s, Blackburn, Lancashire Prebend of Salisbury Rector of Knightwick & Doddenham, Worcestershire; Prebendary of Worcester Cathedral Curate of Sundridge, Kent

Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

George Stone

29 Nov. 1759

John Strachan John Strype Philip Stubbs John Sturges

3 Jun. 1814 16 Apr. 1696 7 Jul. 1713 29 Nov. 1798

Christ Church, Dublin (Lord Lieutenant, & Lords of Ireland) York, Upper Canada −−− St James Garlickhythe, London Winchester Cathedral

John Swanne

16 Apr. 1696

Cherlbury, Oxfordshire

Thomas Swift John Swynfen Arthur Sykes Richard Synge William Talbot

7 Nov. 1710 2 Dec. 1694 9 Oct. 1746 7 Jun. 1716 16 Apr. 1696; 1 May 1707;

Thomas Tayler

29 Nov. 1798

−−− St Paul’s, Covent Garden, London Winchester Cathedral St Mary le Savoy, London Worcester Cathedral; St Paul’s Cathedral (Queen Anne); St James’s Palace, London (George I) Carter Lane meeting house, London

Christopher Taylor Thomas Taylor Thomas Taylor George A. Thomas

1 May 1707 2 Dec. 1697 29 Nov. 1798 1 Jun. 1802

−−− Bicester, Oxfordshire Methodist Chapel, Halifax, Yorkshire Wickham, Hampshire

7 Jun. 1716

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Archbishop of Armagh

Church of Ireland

Anglican minister; later Bishop of Toronto Vicar of Low Leyton, Essex Rector of St James Garlickhythe, London Chancellor of Winchester diocese; Prebendary of Winchester; Curate of Shipston on Stour Chapel, Tredington, Gloucestershire Rector of Puttenham, Surrey Lecturer at St Magnus, London Prebendary of Winchester; Rector of Rayleigh, Essex Chaplain at Somerset House, London Dean of Worcester; Bishop of Oxford; Bishop of Salisbury

Anglican: Canada Anglican Anglican Anglican

Presbyterian minister, Carter Lane meeting house, London Presbyterian minister, Leather Lane, London Vicar of Bicester, Oxfordshire Methodist preacher Rector of Wickham, Hampshire; Prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral

Presbyterian

Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican

Presbyterian Anglican Methodist Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name John Tillotson

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 31 Jan. 1689; 27 Oct. 1692

Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, London (Society of Lincoln’s Inn); Whitehall Palace, London (William III & Mary II) Penrith, Cumbria

Hugh Todd

1 May 1707

John Tomlyns William Tooke

20 Jan. 1715 13 Jan. 1814

James Townley

29 Nov. 1759

George Townsend John Travers

23 Apr. 1789 8 Oct. 1695

Jonathan Trelawny

12 Nov. 1702

William Tremenheere Charles Trimnell

23 Apr. 1789

St Paul’s Cathedral (Queen Anne, Houses of Commons & Lords) Madron, Cornwall

2 Dec. 1697;

Norwich Cathedral;

17 Feb. 1709

Westminster Abbey, London (House of Lords) Newcastle upon Tyne (Mayor & aldermen of Newcastle upon Tyne) St Martin’s, Leicester

George Tullie

19 Oct. 1690

Edward T. Vaughan

7 Jul. 1814

−−− St Paul’s Cathedral (Lord Mayor & Aldermen of London) St Paul’s Cathedral (Lord Mayor & Aldermen London) Isle of Thanet, & Ramsgate, Kent St Andrew’s, Dublin

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Dean of Canterbury Cathedral; Archbishop of Canterbury

Anglican

Vicar of Penrith, Cumbria; Canon of Carlisle Cathedral Dissenting minister Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London

Anglican

Rector of St Benet Gracechurch with St Leonard Eastcheap Congregational minister, Ramsgate ‘Minister of St Andrew’s’, Dublin; Chaplain to the Irish House of Commons Bishop of Exeter

Anglican

Curate of Knossington, Leicestershire

Anglican

Rector of Brington, Northamptonshire; Prebendary of Norwich; Bishop of Norwich; Bishop of Winchester

Anglican

Dissenter Anglican

Congregational Church of Ireland Anglican

Sub-Dean of York Cathedral; Preacher at Newcastle Anglican upon Tyne Vicar of St Martin’s & All Saints, Leicester; Vicar of Anglican Foston, Leicestershire

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Thomas Vaughan William Vincent

9 Oct. 1746 1 Jun. 1802

Barton Under Neewod, Staffordshire St Margaret’s, Westminster, London (House of Commons)

Latham Wainewright William Wake

13 Jan. 1814

Great Brickhill, Buckinghamshire

26 Nov. 1691

Gilbert Wakefield George Walker

29 Jul. 1784 29 Jul. 1784

Robert Walker Edward Walkington

29 Nov. 1759 8 Oct. 1695

Abraham Wallett

23 Apr. 1789

St Mary Le Bow, London (Lord Mayor & Aldermen); St James, Westminster, London Richmond, Surrey −−− (Nottingham Meeting of Protestant Dissenters) −−− −−− (Lord Deputy of Ireland & Irish House of Lords) Clare, Suffolk

Benjamin Wallin

29 Nov. 1759

John R. Walsh William Warburton

13 Jan. 1814 9 Oct. 1746;

Maze Pond Baptist meeting house, Southwark, London −−− −−−;

29 Nov. 1759

Bristol

9 Oct. 1746 31 Dec. 1706

Prestbury, Cheshire Portsmouth

Joseph Ward William Ward

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Vicar of Eccles, Lancashire Sub-Almoner to George III; Prebendary of Westminster; Rector of All Hallows the Great, London Rector of Great Brickhill, Buckinghamshire

Anglican Anglican

Royal Chaplain; Preacher to Society of Gray’s Inn; Rector of St James, Westminster

Anglican

Dissenting scholar Presbyterian minister, High Pavement Chapel, Nottingham

Dissenter Presbyterian

Minister, The High Church, Edinburgh Bishop of Down & Connor, Ireland

Church of Scotland Church of Ireland

Vicar of Clare, Suffolk; Curate of Bolingbroke with Hareby, Lincolnshire Baptist minister, Maze Pond Baptist meeting house, Southwark, London Anglican minister Rector of Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire; Rector of Firsby, Leicestershire; Dean of Bristol Cathedral; prebendary of Durham Cathedral; Bishop of Gloucester Vicar of Prestbury, Cheshire Vicar of Portsmouth

Anglican

Anglican

Baptist Anglican Anglican

Anglican Anglican

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Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

John Warden Manison Warner Richard Warner Daniel Waterland

25 Apr. 1749 9 Oct. 1746 5 Dec. 1805 7 Jun. 1716

Richard Watkins Richard Watson

9 Oct. 1746 7 Jul. 1814

Thomas Watts James Welton

14 Feb. 1689 29 Nov. 1759

Old Church, Perth, Scotland St Ives, Cambridgeshire St James’s, Bath Cambridge (University of Cambridge) −−− Methodist Chapel, Wakefield, Yorkshire, and the Old Chapel, Leeds −−− Norwich Cathedral

Richard Welton John Whitehouse

2 Dec. 1697 1 Jun. 1802

St Mary Whitechapel, London Armthorpe, Yorkshire

Charles Whiting

3 Dec. 1702

Hereford Cathedral

John Whittel John Wilder

27 Jun. 1706 27 Jun. 1706

Foots-Cray, Kent −−−

Joseph Willard

11 Dec. 1783

Charles Williams Daniel Williams

1 May 1707 12 Nov. 1702; 31 Dec. 1706; 1 May 1707 5 May 1763

Boston, Massachusetts (‘to the Religious Society in Brattle Street’) Istleworth, Middlesex Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, London; Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, London; Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, London Great Totham, Essex

Griffith Williams

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Minister of Perth, Scotland Church of Scotland Vicar of St Ives, Cambridgeshire Anglican Curate of St James’s, Bath Anglican Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge; Vice- Anglican Chancellor, University of Cambridge Rector of Clifton Campvill, Staffordshire Anglican Methodist minister Methodist Vicar of Orpington, Kent Head Master of the Free School in Norwich; Rector of Bardwel, Suffolk; Rector of Honington, Suffolk Rector of St Mary Whitechapel, London Rector of Armthorpe, Yorkshire, & Chaplain to Duke of York Rector of Ross, Herefordshire & canon of Hereford Cathedral Rector of Foots Cray, Kent Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford; later Rector of St John, and of St Aldates, Oxford President of Harvard University

Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican Anglican American

Lecturer of Istleworth, Middlesex Anglican Presbyterian minister, Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, Presbyterian London Vicar of Great Totham, Essex

Anglican

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name John Williams William Williams Richard Willis

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience) 1 Jun. 1802 1 Jun. 1802 23 Aug. 1705; 20 Jan. 1715

William Wilson

14 Feb. 1689

William Wilton

19 Dec. 1797

Thomas Wingfield

9 Oct. 1746

Richard Winter

29 Nov. 1759

John Withers Robert Wood William Wood

7 Jun. 1716 5 Dec. 1805 9 Oct. 1746

Josiah Woodcock Benjamin Woodroffe Josiah Woodward Samuel Woodward Hugh Worthington

19 Aug. 1708 3 Dec. 1702 17 Feb. 1709 9 Oct.1760 5 Dec. 1805

Preacher’s position

Denomination

−−− High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire St Paul’s Cathedral (Queen Anne); St Paul’s Cathedral (King George I) St Peter’s, Nottingham, (Mayor, aldermen, etc. of Nottingham) Upper and Lower Swell, Gloucestershire St George the Martyr, Southwark, London Congregational Meeting House, New Court, Carey Street, London Exeter Sneinton, Nottinghamshire Darlington, Durham (‘Congregation of ProtestantDissenters in Darlington’) −−− St Mary’s, Oxford (Oxford University) St Mary Whitechapel, London −−−

Vicar of Wellsbourn, Warwickshire Anglican Curate, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire Anglican Dean of Lincoln Cathedral; Royal Chaplain; Bishop Anglican of Gloucester

Salters’ Hall, London (‘Dissenting congregation’)

Rector of St Peter’s, Nottingham

Anglican

Rector of Upper Swell, Gloucestershire

Anglican

Vicar of Yalmeton, Devon,

Anglican

Congregational minister

Congregational

Presbyterian minister, Bow Meeting, Exeter Curate of St Mary’s Nottingham ‘M.D.’

Presbyterian Anglican Dissenter

Dissenting minister Canon of Christ Church, Oxford

Dissenter Anglican

Curate Poplar Chapel, Stepney, Middlesex, London Pastor of Weston, Massachusetts

Anglican New England

Dissenting minister, Salters’ Hall, London

Dissenter

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787448407.014 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Preacher’s name

Date(s) preached Place(s) preached (audience)

Robert Wright

25 Apr. 1749

St John at Hackney, London

Samuel Wright

22 Nov. 1709;

Thomas Wright

5 May 1763

Christopher Wyvill Edward Yardley

22 Sep. 1695

Meeting House Court, Knightrider Street, Black Friars, London; Meeting House Court, Knightrider Street, Black Friars, London; Meeting House Court, Knightrider Street, Black Friars, London; Meeting House Court, Knightrider Street, Black Friars, London Dissenting meeting, Lewin’s Mead Chapel, Bristol Collegiate Church, Ripon

9 Oct. 1746

Highgate Chapel, London

Robert Young

5 Dec. 1805

Scots Church, London Wall, London

7 Nov. 1710; 20 Jan. 1715; 25 Apr. 1723

Preacher’s position

Denomination

Rector of St John at Hackney, London; Chaplain to Anglican the Prince of Wales Presbyterian minister, Meeting House Court, Presbyterian Knightrider Street, Black Friars, London

Dissenting minister, Lewin’s Mead Chapel, Bristol

Dissenter

Dean of Ripon

Anglican

Archdeacon of Cardigan, Wales; Rector of St Florence, Pembrokeshire Presbyterian minister, Scots Church, London Wall, London

Anglican Presbyterian

Appendix B

Denominational breakdown of thanksgiving-day preachers Anglican – Church of England

378

Church of Ireland

20

Anglican – Canada

3

Anglican – New England

1

Anglican – Jamaica

1

Church of Scotland

9

Dissenter – Unknown

41

Dissenter – Presbyterian

39

Dissenter – Congregational

26

Dissenter – Baptist

19

Dissenter – Unitarian

5

Dissenter – Methodist

2

Dissenter – Moravian

1

Dissenter – Quaker

1

Presbyterian – Canada

2

Catholic – England

2

Catholic – Canada

1

New England – Unknown

7

Foreign in England

4

American

7

Imposter (Anglican)

1

Unknown Total

17 587

Appendix C

Main scriptural texts used for thanksgiving-day sermons Old Testament Texts Genesis

4

Exodus

10

Ecclesiastes

8

Song of Solomon

0

Leviticus

0

Isaiah

Numbers

4

Jeremiah

7

Lamentations

1

Deuteronomy

24

45

Joshua

5

Ezekiel

17

Judges

13

Daniel

4

Ruth

0

Hosea

2

1 Samuel

15

Joel

0

2 Samuel

18

Amos

0

1 Kings

6

Obadiah

0

2 Kings

5

Jonah

0

1 Chronicles

10

Micah

1

2 Chronicles

21

Nahum

2

Ezra

3

Habakkuk

0

Nehemiah

3

Zephaniah

1

Esther

0

Haggai

0

Job

0

Zechariah

2

Malachi

0

Psalms

273

Proverbs

13  

 

  Total Old Testament

  517

332  APPENDIX

C

New Testament Texts Matthew

6

1 Timothy

5

Mark

1

2 Timothy

1

Luke

11

Titus

2

John

4

Philemon

0

Acts

6

Hebrews

0

11

James

2

1 Corinthians

1

1 Peter

1

2 Corinthians

3

2 Peter

0

Galatians

0

1 John

0

Ephesians

2

2 John

0

Philippians

1

3 John

0

Colossians

5

Jude

0

1 Thessalonians

5

Revelation

2

2 Thessalonians

1

 

 

Romans

 

 

Total New Testament

70

Bibliography of primary sources

Primary sources: thanksgiving-day sermons by date preached 1689 Anonymous. A Sermon Preach’d in a Country Church, February 14. 1688. Upon That Eminent Occasion of Thanksgiving For the Great Deliverance of this Kingdom From Popery and Arbitrary Power (London, 1689) Burnet, Gilbert. A Sermon Preached Before the House of Commons, On the 31st of January, 1688. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For the Deliverance of This Kingdom From Popery and Arbitrary Power, By His Highness the Prince of Orange’s Means (London, 1689) Collinges, John. The Happiness of Brethrens Dwelling Together in Unity. Discoursed Upon Psalm 133. Vers. 1. On Occasion of the Late Thanksgiving, Feb. 14. 1688/9 (London, 1689) Cruso, Timothy. The Mighty Wonders of a Merciful Providence. In a Sermon Preached on January 31, 1688/9. Being the Day of Publick Thansgiving to God for the Great Deliverance of This Kingdom By His Highness the Prince of Orange (London, 1689) Flavell, John. Mount Pisgah. A Sermon Preached at the Public Thanksgiving February xiiii, 1688/9. For Englands Deliverance From Popery, &c. Upon Deut. 3. 24, 25 (London, 1689) Halley, George. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of St. Peter in York, On Thursday the Fourteenth of February, 1688/9. Being the Day Appointed By the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, Assembled at Westminster, for a Publick Thanksgiving To Almighty God, For Having Made His Highness the Prince of Orange, the Glorious Instrument of the Great Deliverance of This Kingdom From Popery and Arbitrary Power (London, 1689) Mead, Matthew. The Vision of the Wheels seen By the Prophet Ezekiel; Opened and Applied: Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-Street; and Partly at Stepney, on January 31. 1688/9. Being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the Great Deliverance of This Kingdom From Popery and Slavery, By His Then Highness the Most Illustrious Prince of Orange. Whom God Raised Up To Be the Glorious Instrument Thereof (London, 1689) Olliffe, John. England’s Call To Thankfulness, For Her Great Deliverance From Popery and Arbitrary Power, By the Glorious Conduct of the Prince of Orange, (Now King of England) in the Year 1688. In a Sermon Preach’d in the Parish-Church of Almer in Dorsetshire, on February the 14th, 1688/9 (London, 1689) Patrick, Simon. A Sermon Preached at St. Paul’s Covent Garden On the Day of Thanksgiving Jan. XXXI. 1688. For the Great Deliverance of This Kingdom By the Means of His Highness the Prince of Orange From Arbitrary Power (London, 1689) Peck, Samuel. Jericho’s Downfal; In a Sermon Preached on Jan. 31. 1688/9. Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving to God For Our Deliverance From Popery and Arbitrary Power (London, 1689)

334  BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Tillotson, John. A Sermon Preached At Lincolns-Inn-Chappel, On the 31th of January, 1688. Being the Day Appointed For A Publick Thanksgiving To God For Having Made His Highness the Prince of Orange the Glorious Instrument of the Great Deliverance of This Kingdom From Popery & Arbitrary Power (London, 1689) Watts, Thomas. A Sermon Preached Upon Febr. the 14th. Being the Day of Thanksgiving To Almighty God, For Having Made His Highness the P. of Orange, &c. the Glorious Instrument of the Great Deliverance of This Kingdom From Popery and Arbitrary Power (London, 1689) Wilson, William. A Sermon Preached Before the Mayor, Aldermen, and Common-Council of Nottingham, in St. Peter’s Church, On the 14th of Febr. 1688/9. Being the Thanksgiving Day For Our Deliverance From Popery and Arbitrary Power (London, 1689)

1690 October Burnet, Gilbert. A Sermon Preached Before the King and Queen, at White-Hall, on the 19th Day of October, 1690. Being the Day of Thanksgiving, for His Majesties Preservation and Success in Ireland (London, 1690) Hickman, Charles. A Sermon Preached Before the Honourable House of Commons, at St Margaret’s Westminster, on Sunday the 19th of October, 1690. Being the Thanksgiving-Day for the Wonderful Preservation of His Majesties Person, &c. (London, 1690) Tullie, George. A Sermon Preached October, the 19, 1690. Before the Right Worshipful the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriff, &c. of the Town and County of New-Castle upon Tyne: Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanks Giving for His Majestie’s Safe Return, and Happy Success in Ireland (York, 1691)

November (Ireland) King, William. A Sermon Preached at St. Patrick’s Church Dublin, on the 16th of November. 1690. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Preservation of His Majesties Person. His Good Success in Our Deliverance, and His Safe and Happy Return into England (Dublin, 1691)

1691 Brady, Nicholas. A Sermon Preached at St. Catherine Cree-Church on the 26th of November, 1691. Being the Thanksgiving-day, for the Preservation of the King, and the Reduction of Ireland (London, 1692) Burnet, Gilbert. A Sermon Preached at White-Hall on the 26th of Novemb. 1691. Being the Thanksgiving-Day for the Preservation of the King and the Reduction of Ireland (London, 1691) Jane, William. A Sermon Preached Before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret Westminster, on Thursday, the 26th of November, 1691. Being a Day of Publick Thanks-giving (Oxford, 1691) Patrick, Simon. A Sermon Preached Before the Lords Spiritual & Temporal, in the AbbyChurch at Westminster, on the 26th of Novemb. 1691 Being the Thanksgiving-Day for the Preservation of Their Majesties: The Success of Their Forces in the Reducing of Ireland: And for the King’s Safe Return (London, 1691) Stanhope, George. A Sermon Preached at Grays-Inn Chappel Novemb. the 26th. 1691. Being the Day of Thanksgiving, for the Success of Their Majesties Forces, and Reducing of Ireland (London, 1692)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  335

Wake, William. A Sermon Preach’d before the Lord-Mayor and Court of Aldermen, in the Church of St. Mary Le Bow; on Thursday the 26th of November, Being the Day of the Publick Thanksgiving (London, 1691)

1692 Barton, Samuel. A Sermon Preached before the Right Honourable, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, at St. Mary-Le-Bow, Octob. 27th 1692. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Signal Victory at Sea, for the Preservation of His Majesties Sacred Person, and for His Safe Return to His People (London, 1692) Slater, Samuel. A Sermon Preached on the Thanksgiving Day. the 27th Day of October, 1692. at Crosby Square (London, 1693) Tillotson, John. A Sermon Preached Before the King and Queen at White-Hall, the 27th of October, Being the Day Appointed for a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Signal Victory at Sea: for the Preservation of His Majesty’s Sacred Person, and for His Safe Return to His People (London, 1692)

1693 Clerke, Samuel. A Sermon Preached to a Country Auditory, Upon the Eleventh of November, Being the Day Appointed for a Solemn Thanksgiving for a Late Victory By Sea; and His Majesty’s Safe Return Out of Flanders (London, 1693) Sharp, John. A Sermon Preach’d Before the King & Queen at White-Hall, the 12th of November, 1693. Being the Day Appointed for a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Gracious Preservation of His Majesty, and His Safe Return (London, 1693)

1694 Swynfen, John. A Sermon Preached at St. Paul’s Covent-Garden upon Sunday the Second of December, 1694. Being the Day Appointed by Their Majesties for a Publick Thanksgiving for the Preservation of His Majesty from the Dangers to Which His Royal Person was Exposed During His Late Expedition; and for His Safe Return to His People, and for the Success of His Forces by Sea and Land (London, 1695)

1695 September Adams, John. A Sermon Preach’d at White-Hall on Sunday, September 8, 1695. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Taking of Namur, and the Safety of His Majesty’s Person (London, 1695) Alsop, Vincent. Duty and Interest United in Prayer and Praise for Kings, and All That are in Authority. From 1 Tim. II. 1, 2. Being a Sermon Preach’d at Westminster, Upon the Late Day of Thanksgiving, Sept. 8. 1695 (London, 1695) Corbin, William. EΥΧAΡIΣTIA: Or, a Grateful Acknowledgment of God’s Goodness in Preserving Our Most Gracious King William, and for the Success of His Arms This Last Summer. Deliver’d in a Sermon to a Country-Auditory on the 22d of September 1695. Being the Day Appointed by Authority for a Publick Thanksgiving (London, 1695) Knaggs, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d at All-Hallows in New Castle upon Tyne, on the 22d. of September, 1695. Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Taking the Town and Castle of Namur, and for Protecting His Majesty’s Sacred Person (London, 1695)

336  BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Wyvill, Christopher. A Sermon Preach’d in the Collegiate Church of Ripon, on Sunday the 22d of September, 1695. Being the Day Appointed for a Publick Thanksgiving for the Reduction of the Town and Castle of Namur, and the Preservation of His Majesties Person (London, 1695)

October (Ireland) Travers, John. A Sermon Preached in St Andrew’s-Church, Dublin; Before the Honourable the House of Commons the 8th Day of October, 1695. The Day Appointed by the Lord Deputy and Council for a Solemn Thanksgiving, for the Preservation of Our Gracious King William, and the Good Success of His, and His Allies Forces this Last Campaign (Dublin, n.d.) Walkington, Edward. A Sermon Preached in Christ-Church Before His Excellency the Lord Deputy, and the Honorable House of Peers; October the 8th. 1695. Being the Day Appointed for a Solemn Thanksgiving for the Taking the Strong Citadel of Namur, and for the Other Happy Successes of His Majesty’s Forces, and Those of His Allies in Flanders this Campaign (Dublin, 1695)

1696 Anonymous. A Sermon Preached in a Congregation in the City of Exon, on the Thanksgiving-Day, Thursday, April 16. 1696 (London, 1696) Barton, Samuel. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Honourable House of Commons at St. Margaret’s Westminster, Upon the 16th of April, 1696. Being a Day of Thanksgiving Unto Almighty God, for Discovering and Disappointing an Horrid and Barbarous Conspiracy of Papists and Other Traiterous Persons To Assassinate and Murder His Most Gracious Majesty’s Royal Person; and For Delivering this Kingdom From an Invasion Intended by the French (London, 1696) Borfet, Abiel. The Minister of Richmond’s Sermon Upon the Last Thanksgiving-Day. Published to Prevent or Stifle False Reports. With a Postscript in Vindication of Some of His Former Sermons (London, 1696) Burnett, Andrew. A Sermon Preach’d at Barbican Upon the Sixteenth of April, 1696. Being a Day of Thanksgiving Unto Almighty God for Discovering and Disappointing an Horrid and Barbarous Conspiracy of Papists and Other Traiterous Persons To Assassinate and Murder His Most Gracious Majesty’s Royal Person, and for Delivering This Kingdom from an Invasion by the French (London, 1696) Clerke, Samuel. Neck and All. A Sermon Preached at Saffron-Walden in Essex, April 16, 1696. Upon His Majesties Safe Deliverance From the Late Intended Assassination (London, 1696) Day, Henry. A Thanksgiving-Sermon Preach’d at Sutton in Surrey, April the 16th. 1696. Being the National Thanksgiving-Day For His Majesty’s Most Happy Preservation From the Most Detestable Assassination, in Order to a French Invasion (London, 1696) Edzard, J.E. The Finger of God Over His Anointed. A Sermon Preached to the German Lutheran Congregation in Trinity-Lane, in Their Vulgar Tongue, on Thursday the 16th of April, Being the Appointed Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Miraculous Discovery and Disappointment of the Late Horrid Conspiracy Against His Majesty’s Most Sacred Person and Government (London, 1696) Fowler, Edward. A Sermon Preached Before the House of Lords in the Abby-Church at Westminster, Upon Thursday the Sixteenth of April, 1696. Being a. Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For The Most Happy Discovery and Disappointment of a Horrid Design to Assassinate His Sacred Majesty, and For Our Deliverance from a French Invasion (London, 1696)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  337

Gardiner, James. A Thanksgiving-Sermon Preached at St. Michael’s Crooked-Lane, April 16th. 1696. Upon Occasion of His Majestie’s Deliverance From the Late Intended Assassination of His Sacred Person, in Order to a French Invasion (London, 1696) Gregory, Francis. A Thanksgiving Sermon for the Deliverance of Our King From the Late Intended Assassination of His Sacred Person: And of the Kingdom from the French Invasion (London, 1696) Johnson, Christopher. ‘The Living Lord a Rock of Salvation. Sermon III Preached in Mortlake Church in Surrey, April the 16th. 1696. Being the Day of a General Thanksgiving for the Preservation of the King, from the Intended Assassination of His Royal Person, &c.’, in Three Sermons Preached... The Third in Mortlake Church, April 16. 1696. Being the Day of Thanksgiving unto Almighty God, For Discovering and Disappointing the Horrid and Barbarous Conspiracy to Assassinate His Most Gracious Majesty’s Royal Person: and For Delivering This Kingdom From an Invasion, Intended By the French (London, 1696), pp. 41–59 Keith, George. A Sermon Preached at the Meeting of Protestant Dissenters Called Quakers in Turners-Hall, London; On the 16th. of the Second Month, 1696. Being the Publick Day of Thanksgiving For the Deliverance of the King and Kingdom (London, 1696) Knaggs, Thomas. A Sermon Preacht at Alhallows in Newcastle upon Tyne, on the 16th Day of April, 1696. Being the Thanksgiving-Day to Almighty God, For Delivering and Disappointing a Horrid and Barbarous Conspiracy of Papists, and Other Trayterous Persons, to Assassinate and Murder His Most Gracious Majesty’s Royal Person, and For Delivering This Kingdom From an Invasion Intended By the French (London, 1696) Moore, John. A Sermon Preach’d Before the King at St. James’s, April 16. 1696. Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Discovery of a Horrid Design to Assassinate His Majesty’s Person: and For the Deliverance of the Nation From a French Invasion (London, 1696) Neale, Walter. A Sermon Preached in Christ-Church, Cork, in the Kingdom of Ireland: Upon the 23d of April, 1696. Being the Day Appointed for a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Preservation of His Majesty’s Sacred Person, and These Nations, From the Late Horrid Conspiracy and Designed Invasion (London, 1696) Newcome, Peter. A Sermon Preached in the Parish-Church of Aldenham in the County of Hertford, on Thursday, April 16. 1696. Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God for Discovering and Disappointing a Horrid and Barbarous Conspiracy of Papists and Other Trayterous Persons to Assassinate and Murder His Most Gracious Majesty’s Royal Person; and For Delivering This Kingdom From an Invasion intended By the French (London, 1696) Nicholetts, Charles. The Cabinet of Hell Unlocked: or, the Late Grand Conspiracy Emblazon’d With Practical Reflections Thereon. In a Sermon Preached at Havant April 16th 1696. Being the Publick Day of Thanksgiving (London, 1696) Pead, Deuel. The Protestant King Protected: the Popish Kings Detected and Defeated. In a Sermon Preach’d at St. James Clarkenwell, April 16. 1696. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Deliverance of His Majesty K. William III. From Assassination, and His Kingdoms From Invasion By the French (London, 1696) Perse, William. A Sermon Preached on the 16th Day of April, 1696. in the Parish Church of St. Michael in New-Malton: Being the Thanksgiving Day Appointed For the Discovery and Disappointment of the Horrible and Barbarous Conspiracy, &c. (London, 1696) Piggott, John. ‘A Good King and His People, the Special Care of Heaven. A Sermon, Preach’d April 16. 1696. Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving. For the Discovery and Defeat of the Late Detestable Conspiracy Against His Majesty’s Person, and of a Design’d Invasion from France’, in Eleven Sermons Preach’d Upon Special Occasions, By the Late Reverend Mr. John Piggott, Minister of the Gospel. Being All That Were Printed in His Life-Time (London, 1714), pp. 5–37

338  BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Shower, John. A Thanksgiving Sermon Upon Thursday the Sixteenth of April, 1696 (London, 1696) Stephens, William. A Thanksgiving Sermon Preach’d Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Court of Aldermen, Sheriffs and Companies of the City of London, at St. Maryle-Bow, April 16. 1696. Upon Occasion of His Majesty’s Deliverance From a Villanous Assassination, in Order to a French Invasion (London, 1696) Strype, John. David and Saul. A Sermon Preached on the Day of National Thanksgiving, for God’s Gracious Deliverance of the King’s Majesty From an Assassination, and the Kingdom From a French Invasion (London, 1696) Swanne, John. A Sermon Composed on a Sudden and Preached at Cherlbury in the County of Oxon, April the 16th, 1696. Upon the Occasion of the Thanksgiving for the Happy Deliverance of His Majesty, From the Intended Barbarous Assassination of His Royal Person, and the Subverting the Government of These Kingdoms, by Papists, and Other Worse Tools of Popery (London, 1697) Talbot, William. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral Church of Worcester, Upon the Thanksgiving-Day, April 16. 1696 (London, 1696) Wake, William. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. James, Westminster, April xvith. 1696. Being the Day of the Publick Thanksgiving, For the Preservation of His Majesty’s Person From the Late Horrid and Barbarous Conspiracy; and For Delivering This Kingdom From the Danger and Miseries of a French Invasion (London, 1696)

1697 Anonymous. Glorifying of God, the Just Tribute of a Thankfull People, Discovered and Press’d in a Sermon Preach’d December 2. 1697. Being the Thanksgiving for the Peace (London, 1698) Arwaker, Edmund. God’s King the People’s Blessing. A Sermon Preached on the Day of Thanksgiving For Peace, at St. Ann’s Church in Dungannon, in the Diocess of Armagh (Dublin, 1698) Brady, Nicholas. A Thanksgiving-Sermon For the Peace: Preach’d at the Parish-Church of Richmond in Surry, Decemb the 2d, 1697 (London, 1697) Burnet, Gilbert. A Sermon Preached Before the King, at Whitehall, on the Second of December, 1697. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Peace (London, 1698) Collins, Samuel. Prudenter, Pie, Prospere. A Sermon Preach’d at Tamworth on the Second of December 1697. Being the Thanksgiving Day for His Majesty’s Safe Return, and for the Happy and Honourable Peace (London, 1698) Comber, Thomas. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of Durham, on the Second of December, Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Peace (London, 1697) Gallaway, William. A Thanksgiving-Sermon For the Peace Preach’d at the Parish-Church of St. Dunstan’s in the West, Dec. IId. 1697 (London, 1697) Gardiner, James. A Thanksgiving-Sermon For the Peace: Preach’d at St Michael Crookedlane, December the 2d, 1697 (London, 1697) Gregory, Francis. Oμιλια Ειρηνικη. Or, a Thanksgiving Sermon For Peace Abroad; with Motives to Unity at Home, Especially in Matters of Religion. Preach’d at Hambleden in the County of Bucks, On Thursday The Second Day of December, 1697 (London, 1697) Howe, John. A Sermon Preach’d on the Late Day of Thanksgiving. Decemb. 2. 1697 (London, 1698) Jenks, Benjamin. A Sermon Preach’d at Harley in Shropshire, December 2. 1697. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Peace; and For His Majesty’s Safe Return (London, 1697)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  339

Johnson, Christopher. A Sermon Preached in New Brentford Church in Middlesex, December the 2d. 1697. Being the Thanksgiving-Day to Almighty God For His Majesty’s Safe Return, and For the Happy and Honourable Peace, of Which God Hath Made Him the Glorious Instrument (London, 1698) Lee, Richard. A Thanksgiving Sermon For His Majesty’s Safe Return, and For the Happy and Honourable Peace, of Which God Has Made Him the Glorious Instrument. Preached in Highgate Chapel, on Thursday the 2d. of December, 1697 (London, 1697) Nicholetts, Charles. The Great Work of God in This Present Dispensation of Peace, Consider’d, Open’d, and Apply’d in a Sermon, Preach’d at Havant in Hampshire, on Thursday Decemb. 2d. 1697 (London, 1698) Paget, Simon. A Sermon Preached at St. Mary’s Truro, on the Second of December, 1697. Being the Day Appointed for a Public Thanksgiving for Peace (London, 1698) Taylor, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish Church of Burcester in the County of Oxford, on the Second Day of December, 1697. Being the Day Appointed For a Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For His Majesty’s Safe Return, and For the Happy and Honourable Peace, of Which God Has Made Him the Glorious Instrument (London, 1697) Trimnell, Charles. A Sermon, Preached in the Cathedral Church of Norwich: Before the Mayor and Aldermen. Upon the Second of December 1697. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving, &c. (London, 1697) Welton, Richard. A Sermon Preach’d at St. Mary Whitechappel, on the Second of December, 1697. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for Peace (London, 1697)

1702 Chapman, Richard. The Providence of God Asserted and Maintained in a Sermon Preached on Decemb. the 3d. 1702. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For the Good Success and Victory Obtained By the Great Triumviri of This Nation (London, 1703) Clarke, Edward. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Right Worshipful the Mayor and Corporation of the Town and County of Nottingham, in the Parish Church of St. Mary in the Said Town, December 3. 1702. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Signal Successes God Has Been Pleased to Grant to Her Majesties Forces Both By Sea and Land (London, 1703) Jacob, Joseph. The Works of God Declar’d, in a Sermon Preach’d at Turners-Hall, the 12th of the 9th Month, 1702. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Success of the Queens Forces (London, 1702) Lambert, Ralph. A Sermon, Preach’d Nov. the 12th. 1702. Being the Day, Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God: For the Glorious Successes of Her Majesties Arms, By Sea and Land, in the Parish-Church of St. Giles’s in the Fields (London, 1703) Loveling, Benjamin. A Sermon Preach’d at Banbury, December 3. 1702. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving (London, n.d.) Needham, William. A Sermon Preach’d at Westminster, Nov. 12. 1702. in K. Henry the VII’s Chapel, Before the Reverend Clergy of the Lower House of Convocation. Being the Day Appointed By Her Majesty For Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Signal Successes Vouchsafed to her Forces Both By Sea and Land (London, 1702) Prideaux, Humphrey. A Sermon Preach’d in the Cathedral-Church of Norwich, December the 3d, 1702. Being a Day Appointed For Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Signal Successes Vouchsafed to her Majesty’s Forces Both By Sea and Land; and Also to Those of Hew Allies Engaged in the Present War Against France and Spain (Norwich, 1703)

340  BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Trelawny, Jonathan. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Queen, and Both Houses of Parliament: At the Cathedral Church of St. Pauls Nov. 12. 1702. Being the Day of Thanksgiving; For the Signal Successes Vouchsafed to her Majesties Forces By Sea and Land: Under the Command of the Earl of Marlborough in the Low-Countries; and James Duke of Ormond General, and Sir George Rook Admiral at Vigo. As Also to Those of Her Allies, Engaged in the Present War Against France and Spain. And Likewise, For the Recovery of His Royal Highness the Prince of Denmark (London, 1702) Whiting, Charles. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral-Church in Hereford, Dec. 3. 1702. Being the Day Appointed By Her Majesty for Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Signal Successes, Vouchsafed to Her Forces, and Those of Her Allies, Both By Sea and Land (Oxford, 1703) Williams, Daniel. A Thanksgiving Sermon, For the Success of Her Majesties Forces. Preach’d at Hand-Alley, November 12, 1702 (London, 1702) Woodroffe, Benjamin. A Sermon Preached Before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary’s Church, Decem. 3. 1702. Being the Day of Thanksgiving, ‘For the Signal Successes, Vouchsafed to Her Majesty’s Forces, Both By Sea and Land: As Also Those of Her Allies Engaged in the Present War Against France and Spain’ (Oxford, 1703)

1704 Brady, Nicholas. ‘A Sermon Preach’d on Thursday Sept. 7th. 1704: Being the Thanksgiving-Day for the Late Glorious Victory’, in Fifteen Sermons Preach’d on Several Occasions (London, 1706), pp. 411–39 Bromesgrove, Samuel. A Sermon Preached at the Tabernacle in Spittle-Fields, on September the 7th, 1704. Being the Day of Thanksgiving, For the Glorious Victory Obtained Over the French and Bavarians at Bleinheim, near Hochstet, By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) Caesar, John. God’s Inevitable Judgments on Perjured Princes: a Sermon Preached To the Prussian Congregation in the Savoy, the 7th Day of September, 1704. Being the Solemn Thanksgiving For the Seasonable and Fatal Overthrow of Perfidious Bavaria, with a French Army, near Hochstet in Germany (London, 1704) Dubourdieu, John. A Sermon Preached on the 7th day of September, Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Glorious Victory Obtained By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Conduct of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) Elstob, William. A Sermon Upon the Thanksgiving For the Victory Obtain’d By Her Majesty’s Forces, and Those of Her Allies, Over the French and Bavarians Near Hochstet, Under the Conduct of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) Evans, John. The Being and Benefits of Divine Providence, Vindicated and Asserted, in a Sermon Preached on Septemb. 7. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving: For the Glorious Victory Over the French and Bavarians, Obtain’d at Bleinheim in Germany; on Wednesday, Aug. 2. By the Forces of Her Majesty, and Her Allies; Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) Evans, John. A Sermon Preach’d at Chester and Wrexam. Septemb. 7th. 1704. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Glorious Victory at Bleinheim (London, 1704) Fleetwood, William. A Sermon Preached on September the 7th. Being the Day Appointed for the Thanksgiving (London, 1704) Fowler, Edward. A Sermon Preach’d in the Chappel at Guild-Hall, Upon Thursday the 7th of September 1704. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Late Glorious Victory, Obtained Over the French and Bavarians, at Bleinheim, Near Hochstet; on Wednesday the Second of August, By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, n.d.)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  341

Grant, John. Deborah and Barak the Glorious Instruments of Israel’s Deliverance. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral Church of Rochester, on the Seventh of September, 1704. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For The Glorious Victory Obtained by the Duke of Marlborough, Over the French and Bavarian Armies, at Bleinheim Near Hochstet, on the Banks of the Danube (London, 1704) Hough, Nathaniel. Successes, When the Signs of Divine Favour: A Sermon Preached Upon the Occasion of the General Thanksgiving Sept. 7. 1704 (London, 1704) Jephson, Alexander. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish-Church of Camberwell, on the 7th Day of September, 1704. Being Appointed By Her Majesty as a Day of Publick Thanksgiving and Rejoycing For the Glorious Victory Obtain’d Over the French and Bavarians at Bleinheim, Near Hochstet, on the 2d of August Last Past, By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1705) Kennett, White. A Sermon Preached in the Church of St. Botolph Aldgate, in London, on September VII. 1704. the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving For the Late Glorious Victory Obtain’d Over the French and Bavarians By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) King, William. A Sermon Preach’d Before Their Excellencies, the Lords Justices of Ireland, at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, Alias Christ-Church, on the 7th. of September, 1704. Being the Thanksgiving-Day for the Late Glorious Victory Obtained Over the French and Bavarians at Blenheim near Hochstet, on Wednesday the 2d. of August, By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) Mackqueen, John. ‘A Sermon Preached in St. Mary’s Church, in the Town and Port of Dover; on Thursday the 7th of September, 1704. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Late Glorious Victory Obtained Over the French and Bavarians at Blenheim Near Hochstet, on the 13th Day of August, By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of His Excellency John Duke of Marlborough’, in British Valour Triumphing Over French Courage: Under the Conduct of the Duke of Marlborough, Prince of the Empire. Set Forth in Some Discourses on the Victories Obtained Over Them at Blenheim, Ramellies, Oudenard, the Taking of Lisle, the Reduction of Ghent and Bruges (London, 1715), pp. 1–60 Milbourne, Luke. Great Brittains Acclamation to Her Deborah. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. Ethelburga, September VII. 1704. Being the Day Appointed By Her Majesty For a Solemn Thanksgiving For the Great Victory Gain’d By the Confederate Forces of England, Holland and the Empire, Against the French and Bavarians at Bleinheim in Germany, Under the Conduct of John Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy (London, 1704) Norris, Richard. A Sermon Preach’d on September 7. 1704. Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Glorious Victory Obtain’d Over the Forces of France and Bavaria, By the Arms of Her Majesty, and Her Allies, Under the Conduct of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) Pearson, William. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of St. Peter in York. Septemb. VII. 1704. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Late Glorious Victory Obtained Over the French and Bavarians at Bleinheim Near Hochstet the Second of August By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (York, n.d.) Piggott, John. A Sermon Preach’d the 7th of September, 1704. Being the Solemn ThanksgivingDay For the Late Glorious Victory Obtain’d Over the French and Bavarians at Bleinheim Near Hochstet, on Wednesday the Second of August, By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704)

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OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Sherlock, William. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Queen, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, on the Seventh of September, 1704. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For the Late Glorious Victory Obtain’d Over the French and Bavarians at Bleinheim Near Brochster, on Wednesday the Second of August, By the Forces of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704) Stennett, Joseph. A Sermon Preach’d on Thursday the 7th of September 1704, Being the Day Appointed by Her Majesty for a Solemn Thanksgiving To Almighty God for the Late Glorious Victory Obtain’d Over the French and Bavarians at Bleinheim near Hochstet, by the Confederate Forces Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1704)

1705 Atterbury, Lewis. A Sermon Preach’d at Whitehall, August the 23d, 1705. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving For the Late Glorious Success of Her Majesty’s Arms, and Those of Her Allies, Under the Command of John Duke of Marlborough (London, 1705) Fiddes, Richard. A Thanks-Giving Sermon on the 23 of August, 1705. Or a Discourse Showing That God in the Government of the World Acts By Particular Wills (York, 1705) Higgins, Francis. A Sermon Preach’d Before Their Excellencies the Lord Justices, at ChristChurch, Dublin; on Tuesday the 28th of August, Being the Day Appointed for a Solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Late Glorious Success in Forcing the Enemies Lines in the Spanish Netherlands, By the Arms of Her Majesty, and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (Dublin, 1705) Jacob, Joseph. Desolations Decypher’d and the Kingdom of Christ Discover’d. In a Sermon Preacht the 23d of the 6th Month, 1705. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Late Success of the Army, Under the Conduct of John Duke of Marlborough (London, 1705) Willis, Richard. A Sermon Preached Before the Queen, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, on the 23 Day of August 1705. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For the Late Glorious Success in Forcing the Enemies Lines in the Spanish Netherlands, By the Arms of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, n.d.)

1706 June Bradbury, Thomas. ‘A Sermon Preach’d at Stepney, on Thursday, June 27th, 1706. The Day Appointed by Her Majesty for a General Thanksgiving’, in The Welfare of Israel, Consider’d in Two Sermons on the Fifth of November, 1705, and 1706. With a Thanksgiving-Sermon, Preach’d at Stepney, on June the 27th, 1706 (London, 1707), pp. 33–50 Burnet, Gilbert. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, on the xxviith Day of June MDCCVI. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Great Successes God Has Given to the Arms of Her Majesty and Her Allies in Flanders and Spain, &c. (London, 1706) Dubourdieu, John. The Triumphs of Providence in the Downfal of Pharoah, Renew’d in the Late Battle of Ramellies: Being a Sermon on Exodus ix. Ver. 16. Preach’d at the SavoyChurch (London, 1707) Lucas, Richard. ‘Sermon IX: Of the Love of Our Country. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preach’d June 27. 1706’, in Sixteen Sermons, the Eight Last of Which Were Preach’d Upon Particular Occasions, Volume II (London, 1716), pp. 175–93



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  343

Perse, William. A Sermon Preached at Malton in Yorkshire. June 27th. 1706. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Signal and Glorious Victory, Obtain’d by Her Majesties Arms, in Conjunction With Those of Her Allies; Under the Command of Her Captain Generall His Grace the Duke of Marlborough in Brabant Over the French Army, and For Other Great Successes in Catalonia, and Other Parts of Spain (York, n.d.) Spademan, John. Deborah’s Triumph Over the Mighty. A Sermon Preach’d on the Day of Publick Thanksgiving, Thursday June 27th, 1706. Appointed By Her Majesty, For the Glorious Victory in Brabant, and Great Successes in Spain (London, n.d.) Stanhope, George. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Queen, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, the Twenty Seventh Day of June MDCCVI. Being the dAy Appointed For a General Thanksgiving To Almighty God For the Success of Her Majesty’s Arms in Flanders and Spain, &c. (London, n.d.) Stennett, Joseph. A Sermon Preach’d on Thursday the 27th of June 1706. Being the Day Appointed By Her Majesty For a Solemn Thanksgiving To Almighty God For the Late Glorious Progress of Her Majesty’s Arms and Those of Her Allies in Flanders and Spain (London, 1706) Whittel, John. A Thanksgiving-Sermon Preach’d at Foots-Cray in Kent, June the 27th, 1706. For the Signal and Glorious Victory in Brabant, Over the French Army, Obtain’d by Her Majesties Arms, in Conjunction With Those of Her Allies, and For the Surprizing and Strange Progress of the Confederates Ever Since. As Also for the Continued Successes of the Forces of Her Majesty, and Her Allies, in Spain (London, 1706) Wilder, John. A Sermon Preach’d on the 27th of June, 1706. Being the Thanksgiving-Day, For the Late Glorious Victory, Obtain’d Over the French in Brabant, By the Invincible Courage and the Admirable Conduct of That Great Captain, His Excellency and Grace, the Prince, and Duke of Marlborough (Oxford, 1706)

December Burnet, Gilbert. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Queen, and the Two Houses of Parliament, at St. Paul’s on the 31st of December, 1706. The Day of Thanksgiving For the Wonderful Successes of This Year (London, 1707) Goldwin, William. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached on the 31st of Decemb. 1706. at Newnham in Hertfordshire (London, 1707) Hodges, Nathaniel. A Sermon Preach’d December 31. 1706. Being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving Appointed By Her Majesty For the Late Glorious Successes of Her Arms, and Those of Her Allies, During the Last Campaign (London, 1707) Hort, Josiah. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish Church of Wendover, in the County of Bucks, on the 31st of December 1706. The Day of Thanksgiving For the Wonderful Successes of This Year (London, 1707) Lacy, Benjamin. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Right Worshipful the Mayor, and Aldermen of the City of Exon, at St. John’s Chapel, the 31th of December, Being the Day Appointed for Publick Thanksgiving, For the Glorious Successes Vouchsafed to the Arms of her Majesty and Her Allies (Exeter, 1707) Lamb, Charles. England Happy at Home and Abroad. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Enfield, in the County of Middlesex; on December the 31st, 1706. The Day of general Thanksgiving, For the Glorious Successes With Which God Has Been Pleas’d To Crown the Armies of Her Majesty, and the Confederates, Both By Sea and Land (London, 1707) Lloyd, William. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish Church of Diss in Norfolk. Upon the 31st of December, 1706. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Wonderful Successes of This Year (London, 1707)

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OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Mills, George. A Sermon Preach’d to a Dissenting Congregation in Norfolk, On the 31st of December, 1706. Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving Appointed By Her Majesty, For the Glorious Success of Her Majesties Arms and Those of Her Allies the Last Campaign in Flanders, Spain, and Italy (Norwich, 1707) Pead, Deuel. Annus Victoriis Mirabilis: A Thanksgiving Sermon Preach’d on Tuesday, Dec. 31. 1706. At St. James Clerkenwell. Occasion’d By the Signal Victories Obtain’d Over the French, By the Duke of Marlborough, and the Rest of the Confederate Forces (London, n.d.) Short, John. A Sermon Upon the Head-ship of Christ. Preach’d the 31st of December 1706. The Day of Thanksgiving For the Happy and Wonderful Successes of This Year (London, 1707) Ward, William. A Sermon Preach’d at Portsmouth, December. 31. 1706. On Occasion of the General Thanksgiving For the Successes Wherewith It Has Pleased God to Bless the Arms of Her Majesty and Her Allies, This Year (London, 1707) Williams, Daniel. A Sermon Preached at Hand-Alley, the 31st of December, 1706. Being the Day of Thanksgiving Appointed By the Queen (London, 1707)

1707 Allen, Richard. A Sermon Preach’d on Thursday the First of May, 1707. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For the Union of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Bates, John. Two (United) are Better Than One Alone. A Thanksgiving Sermon Upon the Union of the Two Kingdoms, of England and Scotland, Preach’d at Hackney, May 1. 1707 (London, 1707) Bean, Charles. A Sermon Preach’d Before the University of Oxford, On the First of May, 1707. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For the Happy Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Brady, Nicholas. A Sermon Preach’d at Richmond in Surry, on Thursday the First of May, 1707. Being the Day Appointed By Her Majesty For a General Thanksgiving, For the Happy Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Davidson, Robert. Brit. Ann. 1a. A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving-Day, For the Happy Union of Great Britain. Under Her Sacred Majesty Queen Anne, May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707) Dent, Giles. A Thanksgiving Sermon Preach’d on the First Day of May, 1707. On Occasion of the Happy Union Between England and Scotland (London, 1707) Dujon, Patrick. A Sermon Preached in St. George’s Church in Doncaster, May 1. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Wonderful and Happy Conclusion of the Treaty For the Union of Her Majesty Queen Ann’s Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Enock, Richard. The Blessed Union: or, a Sermon Preached on Psalm 133. 1. On the First Day of May, 1707. Being the Thanksgiving-Day, Appointed By Her Majesty’s Special Command. For the Wonderful, and Happy Conclusion, of the Treaty, For the Union of Her Majesty’s Two Kingdoms, of England and Scotland, &c. (London, 1707) Freke, Thomas. Union, the Strength of a People. Considered in a Sermon, Preach’d in Bartholomew-Close, on May the First, 1707. Being the Day Appointed By Her Majesty, For a General Thanksgiving For the Happy Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland, in Great Britain (London, 1707) Grant, John. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish Church of St. Dunstan’s in the West, London, on the First of May, 1707. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For the Glorious and Happy Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland (London, 1707)



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Hutchinson, Francis. A Sermon Preached at St. Edmund’s-Bury, on the First of May, 1707. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Union of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Manningham, Thomas. A Sermon Upon the Union of the Two Kingdoms, Preached in the Parish Church of St. Andrew Holborn, May the 1st, 1707 (London, 1707) Marshall, Nathaniel. A Sermon Preach’d at the New Chapel in Ormond –Street, Upon Thursday, May the First, 1707, Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland. And at the Parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury the Sunday Following (London, 1707) Oldfield, Joshua. Israel and Judah Made One Kingdom: A Sermon Preach’d May the First, 1707. Being the Day Appointed For Publick Thanksgiving Upon the Union of England and Scotland, Commencing on That Day (London, 1707) Pead, Deuel. The Honour, Happiness, and Safety of Union. Or, a Sermon Upon the Uniting England and Scotland, Preach’d at the Parish Church of St. James Clerkenwel, May 1. 1707 (London, 1707) Standen, Joseph. A Sermon Preach’d May 1. 1707. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Stennett, Joseph. A Sermon Preach’d on the First of May, 1707. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving For the Happy Union of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Talbot, William. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Queen at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, on May the First 1707. Being the Day Appointed By Her Majesty For a General Thanksgiving For the Happy Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Taylor, Christopher. A Thanksgiving-Sermon, Preach’d on the First Day of May, 1707. On Occasion of the Happy Union Between England and Scotland (London, 1707) Todd, Hugh. A Sermon Preach’d at Penrith, Not Far From the Confines of the Two United Kingdoms, on Thursday May 1. 1707. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For the Happy Union of England and Scotland (London, 1707) Williams, Charles. The Blessedness of Union. In a Sermon Preach’d Upon the First Day of May, 1707. At the Parish-Church of Thistleworth in Middlesex, Being a Day of Thanksgiving For the Happy Union Between England and Scotland (London, 1707) Williams, Daniel. A Thanksgiving-Sermon, Occasioned By the Union of England and Scotland, Preach’d at Hand-Alley, May the 1st, 1707 (London, n.d.)

1708 Anonymous. Nahash’s Defeat, and Jabesh-Gilead’s Rescue: A Sermon Preach’d August 19. 1708. at York on Occasion of the Defeat of the Intended Invasion of North-Britain, and of the French Forces Near Audenarde (London, 1708) Fleetwood, William. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Queen at St. Paul’s, August the 19th. 1708. The Day of Thanksgiving for Our Deliverance from the Late Invasion, and for the Victory Obtain’d Near Audenard (London, 1708) Knaggs, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, August the 19th. 1708. Being the Thanksgiving-Day for the Late Great Victory Obtain’d Over the French Army Near Audenarde, by Her Majesty’s Forces, and Those of Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1708) Mackqueen, John. ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon for the Victory Obtain’d at Oudenard’, in British Valour Triumphing Over French Courage: Under the Conduct of the Duke of Marlborough, Prince of the Empire. Set Forth in Some Discourses on the Victories Obtained Over Them at Blenheim, Ramellies, Oudenard, the Taking of Lisle, the Reduction of Ghent and Bruges (London, 1715), pp. 62–107

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OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Stanhope, Michael. God the Author of Victory. A Sermon Preach’d in the Royal-Chappel at White-Hall, on Thursday the 19th of August, 1708. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Happy Success of Her Majesty’s Councils and Forces, Against the Late Insolent Attempt of the Pretender to Invade Her Majesty’s Kingdom of Great-Britain: As Also for the Glorious Victory Obtain’d over the French Near Audenarde in Flanders, By the Arms of Her Majesty and Her Allies, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1708) Stephens, Henry. A Sermon Preach’d Before the University of Oxford, at St Mary’s, on Thursday the 19th of August, 1708. Being the Day of Thanksgiving, for Our Deliverance From the Late Invasion, and For the Victory Obtain’d Near Audenard (Oxford, 1708) Woodcock, Josiah. A Sermon Preach’d August 19, 1708. Being a Day of Thanksgiving, Appointed by Authority, for Defeating the Design’d Invasion; and the Victory Near Audenard (London, 1708)

1709 February Conway, George. A Sermon Preach’d at Ockingham, February the 17th 1708/9. Being the Day Appointed by Authority for a Publick Thanksgiving for the Great and Glorious successes of the Last Year (London, 1709) Hare, Francis. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Honourable House of Commons, at the Church of St. Margaret Westminster, on Thursday, Feb. 17. 1708/9. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Preservation of Her Majesty from the Treacherous Designs and attempts of her Enemies this Last year; and for the Many Great Successes of Her Arms, &c. Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1709) Mackqueen, John. ‘A Thanksgiving Sermon for the Taking of Lisle, and the Reduction of Ghent and Bruges. Preached in St. Mary’s Church, in the Town and Port of Dover; on Thursday the 17th of February, 1708’, in British Valour Triumphing Over French Courage: Under the Conduct of the Duke of Marlborough, Prince of the Empire. Set Forth in Some Discourses on the Victories Obtained Over Them at Blenheim, Ramellies, Oudenard, the Taking of Lisle, the Reduction of Ghent and Bruges (London, 1715), pp. 110–44 Manningham, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d before the Queen at St. James’s on Thursday the 17th of February, being Appointed for a Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for Our Many and Great Successes Throughout this Last Year (London, 1709) Marston, William. A Sermon Preach’d at Redbourn Near St. Alban’s in Hartfordshire, on the Seventeenth Day of February, 1708/9. Being the Day of Thanksgiving, for Protecting Her Majesty from the Attempts of Her Enemies, and for the Many and Great Successes Throughout this Last Campaign (London, 1709) Pead, Deuel. Parturiunt Montes, &c. or, Lewis and Clement Taken in Their Own Snare. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish Church of St. James’ Clarkenwell, on Thursday February the 17th, 1708/9. Being the Day of Thanksgiving Appointed by Her Majesty for the Glorious Successes of the Last Campaign (London, 1709) Stennett, Joseph. A Sermon Preach’d on Thursday, February 17. 1708/9. Being Appointed by Her Majesty for a Solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Many and Great Successes of the Confederate Arms this Last Campaign (London, 1709) Trimnell, Charles. A Sermon Preach’d before the House of Lords, at the Abbey-Church in Westminster, on Thursday, Feb. 17. 1708. Being the Day Appointed for a Publick Thanksgiving, &c. (London, 1709) Woodward, Josiah. A Sermon Preached in the Parish-Church of St. Mary White-Chappel, February 17th, 1708/9. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Successes of the Last Campaign (London, 1709)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  347

November Adams, John. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral-Church of St. Paul, Before the Right Honourable Sir Samuel Garrard, Bar. Lord-Mayor of the Cith of London and the Court of Aldermen. On Tuesday, Novemb. 22. 1709. Being the Day Appointed by Her Majesty’s Royal proclamation, for a Publick Thanksgiving (London, 1709) Baker, Samuel. A Thanksgiving Sermon on Deuter. XXVIII. part of Verse 7th. Occasion’d by the Late Signal Victory over the French Near Mons, on Septemb. 11th. N.S. and the Other Remarkable Successes of This Present Year 1709 (London, 1710) Chapman, Richard. Publick Peace Ascertain’d; with Some Cursory Reflections upon Dr. Sacheverel’s Two Late Sermons. In a Sermon Preach’d on Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Signal and Glorious Victory Obtained Near Mons, and for the Other Great Successes of Her Majesties Arms this Last Year, Under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1709) Chandler, Edward. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral Church of Worcester, on the TwentySecond Day of November being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving for the Glorious Campaign of the Arms of Her Majesty and Her Allies the Last Summer, Particularly the Signal Victory at Blaregnies, under the Duke of Marlborough, &c. (Worcester, 1710) Clarke, Samuel. A Sermon Preach’d before the Honourable House of Commons, at the Church of St. Margaret Westminster. On Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Signal and Glorious Victory Obtained Near Mons, and for the Other Great Successes of Her Majesties Arms, this Last Year, under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1709) Conway, George. A Sermon Preach’d at Ockingham, November the 22d, 1709. Being the Day Appointed by Authority for a Publick Thanksgiving for the Great and Glorious Advantages Obtained Over the French Army, by Her Majesty’s Forces and Her Allies, under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1709) Freke, Thomas. Prayers and Thanksgivings to be Offer’d Up to God in Christian Assemblies, for Magistrates, Supreme and Subordinate. Set Forth in a Sermon Preach’d in BartholomewClose, on the Occasion of the Publick Thanksgiving November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710) Harris, Samuel. A Blow to France. Or, a Sermon Preach’d at the Meeting in Mill-Yard, in Good-man’s-Fields; Nov. 22. 1709. Being the Day Appointed by Her Majesty, for a General Thanksgiving, for the Late Glorious Victory Obtain’d Over the French, at Blaregnies, Near Mons; by the Forces of Her Majesty, and Her Allies, Under the Command of His Grace, John, Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene: and Other Successes of the Campaign of the Year, 1709 (London, 1709) Hough, John. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in the Abby Church at Westminster, on the 22d of November, 1709. Being the Thanksgiving-Day (London, 1709) Kennett, White. Glory to God, and Gratitude to Benefactors. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Queen, in Her Royal Chapel of St. James’s, on Tuesday the 22d. of Nov. 1709. The Day of Publick Thanksgiving, For the Signal and Glorious Victory at Blaregnies, near Mons in Hainault (London, 1709) Knaggs, Thomas. A Thanksgiving Sermon for Our Many Deliverances, Particularly the Victory Obtain’d Near Mons, by the Troops of Her Majesty, and Those of Her Allies, under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough. Preach’d in the Chapel at Knightsbridge, Nov. 22. 1709 (London, 1709) Lucas, Richard. ‘Sermon XI. The Happiness of England. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preach’d November 22. 1709’, in Sixteen Sermons, the Eight Last of Which were Preach’d upon Particular Occasions, Volume II (London, 1716), pp. 215–30

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Masters, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d on November 22. 1709. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Successes of the Last Campaign (London, 1710) Reynolds, Thomas. The Wisdom and Mercy of God in Prolonging the Church’s Conflicts, and Gradually Subduing Her Enemies. A Discourse Preach’d on the Day of Publick Thanksgiving, November 22d, 1709. And Since Enlarg’d (London, 1710) Rivers, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral-Church of Winchester, on Tuesday, Nov. 22. 1709. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the Glorious Victory, and Signal Successes of Her Majesties Arms, this Last Year, under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough (London, 1710) Wright, Samuel. A Sermon Preach’d at Black-Fryars; on Occasion of the Publick Thanksgiving, November 22d, 1709 (London, 1710)

1710 Bradbury, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d on Tuesday, Novemb. 7. 1710. Being the Day of Thanksgiving Appointed by Her Majesty For the Successes of the Last Campaign in Flanders and Spain (London, 1710) Browne, Simon. The Guilt and Provocation of Taking Encouragement to Sin, from the Mercies of God. Represented in a Sermon Preach’d Nov. 7. 1710. Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Successes in Spain and Flanders (London, 1711) Clarke, Samuel. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish-Church of St James’s Westminster. On Tuesday November 7. 1710. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Successes of the ForeGoing Campaign (London, 1710) Goddard, Thomas. The Mercy of God to This Church and Kingdom, Exemplify’d in the Several Instances of it from the Beginning of the Reformation Down to the Present Time. A Sermon, Preach’d in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, On Tuesday the 7th of November, 1710. Being Appointed as a Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Wonderful Course of Successes Given by Him to Her Majesty and Her Allyes this Campaign; and More Particularly a Signal and Glorious Victory in Spain (London, 1710) Lucas, Richard. ‘Sermon XII: The Duty of Prayer and Thanksgiving. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preach’d November 7. 1710’, in Sixteen Sermons, The Eight Last of which Were Preach’d upon Particular Occasions, Volume II (London, 1716), pp. 231–44 Stanhope, George. ‘Sermon XI. A Thanksgiving Sermon for the Successes of the Campaign, 1710’, in Twelve Sermons Preached on Several Occasions (London, 1727), pp. 378–99 Swift, Thomas. Noah’s Dove. An Earnest Exhortation to Peace: Set Forth in a Sermon Preach’d on the 7th of November, 1710. A Thanksgiving-Day (London, n.d.) Wright, Samuel. ‘A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving Day, November 7th, 1710’, in The Love of One Another, the Great Duty of Christians. Considered in Two Sermons; the One Preached on the Fifth of November, the Other on the Day of Thanksgiving, the 7th of November, 1710. Wherein Due Regard is Had to the Temper and Behaviour of the Papists; as Also to the True Interest of Protestants in Observing of this Duty (London, 1710), pp. 20–32

1713 Bear, William. The Blessing of Peace. Set Forth in a Sermon, Preached on Tuesday July the 7th, 1713. Being the Day Appointed for a Publick Thanksgiving, For the Conclusion of a Just and Honourable Peace, Between Her Most Excellent Majesty the Queen of GreatBritain, and the French King (Exeter, 1713)



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Brady, Nicholas. A Sermon Preach’d at Richmond in Surrey, Upon July the 7th, 1713. Being the Day of Thanksgiving Appointed by Her Majesty For a General Peace (London, 1713) Davies, James. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish-Church of Randilo, in the County of Radnor, on Tuesday the 16th Day of June, Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Conclusion of a Just and Honourable Peace, Between Her Most Excellent Majesty the Queen of Great- Britain, and the French King (London, 1713) Gardiner, James. The Duty of Peace Amongst the Members of the Same State, Civil or Ecclesiastical, Impartially Laid Down and Recommended: Or, How a Man Should Behave Himself, as Becomes a Christian, with Respect to High and Low-Church, Whig and Tory. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of Lincoln; July the 7th, 1713 (London, 1713) Good, Thomas. The Blessedness of Peacemakers. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish-Church of Astley in the County of Worcester, on Tuesday, July 7th, 1713. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Conclusion of a Just and Honourable Peace Between Her Most Excellent Majesty the Queen of Great-Britain, and His Most Christian Majesty the French King (Worcester, 1713; second edition) Hooper, George. A Sermon Preach’d before Both Houses of Parliament, in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, on Tuesday, July 7. 1713. Being the Day Appointed by Her Majesty for a General Thanksgiving for the Peace (London, 1713) Law, William. A Sermon Preach’d at Hazelingfield, in the County of Cambridge, on Tuesday, July 7. 1713. Being the Day Appointed by Her Majesty’s Royal Proclamation for a Publick Thanksgiving for Her Majesty’s General Peace (London, 1713) Loveling, Benjamin. Peace the Gift of God: Rest, Safety, and Opportunities of Piety, the Fruits of Peace. A Sermon Preach’d at Banbury, in Oxford-Shire, on Tuesday the Seventh of July, 1713. It Being the Day of Thansgiving, Appointed by Her Majesty, for a General Peace (Oxford, 1713) Milbourne, Luke. Peace the Gift of God, But the Terrour of the Wicked; in a Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving for the Peace, July the 7th, 1713. At the Parish-Church of St. Ethelburga (London, 1713) Stubbs, Philip. Thankfulness for Peace, the Subjects Duty to God’s Vicegerent. A Sermon Preach’d at St. James Garlick-Hythe, London, and in the Oratory of the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, July 1713. On Occasion of the General Thanksgiving Appointed by Her Majesty for Peace (London, 1713)

1715 January Acres, Joseph. Glad Tidings to Great Britain: A Sermon Preach’d at Blewberry in Berkshire, January the 20th 1714/5. Being the Thanksgiving-Day, For His Majesty’s Quiet and Peaceable Accession to the British Throne (London, 1715) Blennerhaysett, Thomas. Plus Quam Speravimus: or; The Happy Surprize. A Sermon Preach’d at Patching, in Sussex, January the 20th, 1714/15. Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Bringing His Majesty to a Peaceable and Quiet Possession of the Throne; and Disappointing Thereby the Designs of the Pretender and All His Abettors and Adherents (London, 1715) Bowden, John. A Sermon Preach’d at Frome, in the County of Somerset, January the 20th 1714/5. Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving For His Majesty King George’s Safe, Quiet, and Happy Accession to the Throne (London, 1715) Bradbury, Thomas. Justice and Property the Glory of a Deliverance. In Two Sermons Jan. the 20th (Being a Day of Publick Thanksgiving For His Majesty’s Safe Arrival) and Jan. the 23d 1715 (London, 1715)

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Browne, Simon. A Noble King a Blessing to a Land. A Sermon Preach’d at Portsmouth, January 20, 1714/15. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Peaceable Accession of Our Sovereign King George to the Throne of Great-Britain. With Two Hymns Sung Upon That Occasion (London, 1715) Chetwood, Knightley. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral Church of Gloucester, on Jan. 20. Being the Day of Thanks-giving For His Majesty’s Happy Accession to the Throne (London, 1715) Downes, John. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish Church of Painswick, in the County of Gloucester. On January 20th, Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God for Bringing His Majesty to a Peaceable and Quiet Possession of the Throne (London, 1715) Foster, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d at Barkhamsted St. Peter’s in the County of Hertford, on Thursday, January 20. 1714. Being the Day of Publick-Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Bringing Our Lawful Sovereign King George to a Peaceable and Quiet Possession of the Throne of Great-Britain, and Thereby Disappointing the Designs of the Pretender, and the Wicked Contrivances of His Adherents (London, 1715) Goodwin, Nathaniel. God’s Care Over His Vineyard: or, a Sermon Preach’d at Souldern in Oxfordshire, on January the 20th 1714/15. Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Bringing His Majesty to a Peaceable and Quiet Possession of the Throne, and Thereby Disappointing the Designs of the Pretender and His Adherents (London, 1715) Harding, Nathaniel. The Peoples Part in Blessing Their King. A Sermon Preach’d at Plymouth on the Thanksgiving-Day, January the 20th 1714/5. For His Majesty King George’s Being Brought To the Peaceable Possession of His Throne (London, 1715) Harrison, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d the 20th of January 1714/15. Being the Solemn Thanksgiving-Day For the Happy Accession of our Gracious Sovereign King George to the British Throne (London, 1715) Hawtayne, William. A Sermon Preach’d at Elstree in Hertfordshire, on the Twentieth of January, 1714. Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God For His Majesty King George’s Safe Arrival and Peaceable Accession to the Throne of These Kingdoms (London, 1714 [1715]) Jephson, Alexander. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish-Church at Ramden Bell-House in Essex, on the 20th Day of January, Being the Publick Thanksgiving Day For His Majesty’s Safe Arrival in This Kingdom, and His Easy and Peaceable Accession To the Throne (London, 1715) Masters, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d at the Point in Rotherhithe, on January 20, 1714/15. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving, For His Majesty’s Peaceable and Happy Accession to the Throne of These Realms (London, 1715) Page, Thomas. Supremacy Defended, and His Present Majesty’s Title Prov’d and Maintain’d. In a Sermon Preach’d at Beccles, in the County of Suffolk, January the 20th, 1714. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the King’s Peaceable Possession of the Throne (London, 1715) Roby, William. A Sermon Preach’d at Oxford, January the 20th 1714/5. Being the Thanksgiving-Day Appointed to be Kept For His Majesty’s Happy and Peaceable Accession To the Throne (London, 1715) Sanders, Henry. Religious and Loyal Thankfulness. A Sermon Preach’d at Long Combe, in the County of Oxon, January 20, 1714/15. Being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving For His Gracious Majesty King George’s Happy Accession and Safe Arrival to the Throne of GreatBritain and Ireland (London, 1715) Simmons, Thomas. The King’s Safety the Church’s Triumph. A Sermon Preach’d in Broadstreet, Wapping, January 20, 1714/15. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving On Occasion of the Happy and Peaceable Accession of His Majesty King George To the Crown of These Realms (London, 1715)



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Smedley, Jonathan. A Discourse Concerning the Love of Our Country. Preached at the Parish Church of St. Peter’s le Poor in Broad-Street, January 20. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For King George’s Safe, Quiet, and Happy Accession to the Throne (London, 1715) Smith, Elisha. ‘The Olive Branch: or, the Sure Way To Peace, and Abolition of Parties. A Sermon Preach’d at Wisbeech, in the Isle of Ely, January 20, 1714/15. Being the Thanksgiving For King George’s Accession to the Throne’, in Two Sermons Preach’d at Wisbeech in the Isle of Ely. One Upon Occasion of a New Vicar’s Settling There, &c. The Other on the Thanksgiving For King George’s Accession to the Throne (London, 1715), pp. 1–23 [separately paginated] Tomlyns, John. Mercy’s Memorial. A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving-Day, January 20; 1714/15. Enjoin’d by Publick Authority, For His Majesty’s Peaceable and Happy Accession to the Throne of These Nations (London, 1715) Willis, Richard. The Way to Stable and Quiet Times: A Sermon Preach’d Before the King at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, on the 20th of January, 1714. Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God For Bringing His Majesty to a Peaceable and Quiet Possession of the Throne, and Thereby Disappointing the Designs of the Pretender, and All His Adherents (London, 1715) Wright, Samuel. Of Honouring the King. A Sermon Preach’d at Black-Fryars, Jan. 20. 1714/15. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, on Account of His Present Majesty’s Peaceable and Quiet Possession of the Throne of Great Britain (London, 1715)

March (Ireland) Forster, Nicholas. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Lords Justices of Ireland, at Christ’s Church, Dublin, on the First of March, 1714/15. Being the Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God For His Majesty’s Peaceable Accession to the Throne, and Thereby Disappointing the Designs of the Pretender, and All His Adherents (Dublin, 1715)

1716 Anonymous. Loyalty to King George. A Sermon Preach’d at Catherlough, June the 7th. 1716. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving For Putting an End to the Late Unnatural Rebellion in Great-Britain (Dublin, n.d.) Anonymous. The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon, Preach’d June the 7th, 1716, Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving, For the Success of His Majesty’s Forces Against the Rebels at Preston, Dunblain, and Perth (Exeter, 1716) Atterbury, Lewis. A Sermon Preach’d at Whitehall, on Thursday, June 7. 1716. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Supressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion. And at the Chapel at Highgate, June 10 (London, 1716) Bean, Charles. The Folly and Wickedness of the Late Rebellion Considered. In a Thanksgiving-Sermon Preach’d at Barham in the County of Kent, June 7. 1716 (London, 1716) Billingsly, Samuel. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish-Church of Horley in Surrey, on June the 7th, 1716. Being the Thanksgiving-Day, for the Suppressing of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Browne, Simon. Joy and Trembling. A Sermon Preach’d in the Old Jewry, June 7. 1716. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving for the Suppression of the Late Unnatural and Monstrous Rebellion (London, 1716)

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Carter, Benjamin. The Happiness of Great Britain Under the Present Establishment. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish-Church of Westham, in the County of Essex: on Thursday June the 7th 1716. Being a Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God For His Blessing upon His Majesties Counsels and Arms in Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Chandler, Edward. A Sermon Preach’d at the Cathedral-Church of Worcester, on the 7th of June, 1716. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the Blessing of God, &c. in Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Chapman, Richard. Good Kings the Care of Heaven. With Some Seasonable Advice to the Female Sex. A Thanksgiving Sermon Preached at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, June 7. 1716. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Cocks, Richard. The Beauty and Necessity of the Duty of Praising God. A Sermon Preach’d at Woodstock, June 7th, 1716. On the Thanksgiving-Day (London, 1716) Curteis, Thomas. Religious Princes the Greatest Blessing and Safety to the Church and State. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish Church of Wrotham in Kent, on Thursday the 7th of June, 1716. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Horrid and Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Farmerie, William. The Ingratitude of Israel and England Compar’d. A Sermon Preach’d at the Lord Bishop of London’s Private Chappel in Somerset-house, on the Seventh of June, 1716. Being a Day Appointed by Authority For a Publick Thanksgiving For the Happy Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Farrol, George. The Late Rebellion Against King George, Worse Than Absalom’s Against King David. A Sermon Preach’d at Lymmington in Hampshire, on the Day of Publick Thanksgiving, June the 7th. 1716 (London, 1716) Fisher, William. A Thanksgiving Sermon For the Defeat of the Late Horrid and Unnatural Rebellion, Preach’d to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters, June the 7th, 1716 (London, 1716) Fleetwood, William. A Sermon Preach’d at Ely-House Chapel in Holbourn; on Thursday June 7, 1716. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving, For the Blessing of God Upon His Majesty’s Counsels and Arms, in Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Garmston, Shadrach. Considerations of Present Use: As They Were Delivered in a Sermon Preach’d in the Parish-Church of Hanslope, in the County of Bucks, on the 7th of June, 1716. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Gibson, Edmund. The Deliverances and Murmurings, of the Israelites, and These Nations, Compar’d. A Sermon Preached Before the Right Honourable House of Peers, at Westminster-­Abbey, on Thursday June 7, 1716. Being the Day of Publick-Thanksgiving, For the Blessing of God upon His Majesty’s Counsels and Arms, in Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Harris, William. A Sermon Preached on the Publick Thanksgiving, June 7, 1716. Appointed by Authority for Suppressing the Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Jenings, John. K. George’s Victory Over the Rebels at Preston, Parallel to K. David’s at the Wood of Ephraim: And God the Author of Both. A Sermon Preach’d at Gamlingay and G. Gransden, on Thursday June the 7th, 1716. The Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God For Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Kennett, White. A Thanksgiving-Sermon For the Blessing of God in Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion. Deliver’d in the Parish-Church of St. Mary Aldermary, in the City of London, on Thursday, the 7th of June, 1716 (London, 1716)



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Lobb, Stephen. ‘Sermon II. Preach’d on June 7, 1716. Being a Thanksgiving-Day for the Suppression of the Rebellion’, in Sermons Preach’d on Several Occasions, in PenzanceChapel in the County of Cornwall (London, 1717), pp. 13–21 Pearse, Robert. The Duty of Blessing and Praising God For Private and Publick Benefits. A Sermon Preach’d at St. Martin’s in Oxford. Before the Worshipful the Mayor, and Aldermen of That City, on June 7th, 1716, being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Pocock, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d at Thames-Ditton, in the County of Surrey, June the 7th, 1716. The Thanksgiving Day, For the Blessing of God Upon His Majesty’s Councels and Arms, in Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Pooley, Giles. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish-Church of St. Leonard Shoreditch, on Thursday June 7th, 1716. Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a Publick Thanksgiving For Suppressing the Late Rebellion (London, 1716) Pope, Michael. The Merciful Discovery, and Glorious Defeat, of Perjury and Rebellion. A Thanksgiving Sermon For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, Against King, Lords and Commons. Preach’d on the Day Appointed By Publick Authority (Bristol, 1716) Sherlock, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret’s Westminster, on Thursday, the 7th of June, 1716. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Smith, Henry. God’s Displeasure Against Rebellion Shewn in the Fatal Destruction of Rebels. A Sermon Preach’d at Weybridge in Surry, June 7th, 1716. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Putting an End to the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Synge, Richard. ‘A Sermon Preach’d at St. Mary’s in the Savoy On the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving unto God For Having Put an End to the Late Unnatural Rebellion’, in Loyalty To His Majesty King George, Recommended in Eight Sermons (London, 1720), pp. 80–97. Talbot, William. A Sermon Preach’d Before the King at St. James’s-Chapel, on Thursday, June 7. 1716. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1716) Waterland, Daniel. A Sermon Preach’d Before the University of Cambridge, on Thursday the 7th of June, 1716. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God for Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (Cambridge, 1716) Withers, John. The Perjury and Folly of the Late Rebellion Display’d: In a Sermon Preach’d at Exon, June the 7th. 1716. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving, For the Success of His Majesties Forces Against the Rebels, at Preston, Dumblain, and Perth (London, 1716)

1723 Clarke, Samuel. ‘Sermon IX. Preach’d in the Parish-Church of St. James Westminster, April 25, 1723, being the Day Appointed by His Majesty for a Publick Thanksgiving to God for Preserving His Majesty and His Subjects from that Dreadful Plague’, in Sermons on Several Occasions, Volume 11 (London, 1749; seventh edition), pp. 149–62 Pearce, Zachary. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and Citizens of London, on Thursday, April 25, 1723. Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty for a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for Preserving His Majesty and His Subjects from that Dreadful Plague, with which the Kingdom of France was Lately Visited; and for Putting an End to the Same (London, 1723)

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Wright, Samuel. Our Present Health and Safety Owing, Intirely, to the Mercies of God. A Sermon Preached at Black-Fryars, on the Day of Thanksgiving for Our Preservation from the Plague, April 25, 1723 (London, 1723)

1745 Prince, Thomas. Extraordinary Events the Doings of God, and Marvellous in Pious Eyes. Illustrated in a Sermon at the South Church in Boston, N.E. on the General Thanksgiving, Thursday, July 18, 1745. Occasion’d by Taking the City of Louisbourg on the Isle of Cape-Breton, by New-England Soldiers, Assisted by a British Squadron (London, 1746; reprint of Boston, MA edition)

1746 June (Scotland) Carr, George. A Sermon Preach’d at the English Chappel in Edinburgh, June 26. 1746. Being the Day Appointed to be Observed as a Day of Thanksgiving For the Late Victory at Culloden (Edinburgh, 1746)

October Allen, John. Rejoice With Trembling. A Sermon Preached at New Broad-Street, London, October 9, 1746. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Anonymous. Gratitude to God the Surest Defence Against Future Dangers. A Sermon Preached to a Select Audience, on Thursday October 9. 1746. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For Our Happy Deliverance From the Miseries of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Anonymous. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preach’d October the 9th, 1746. For the Happy Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (n.p., 1746) Ashton, Thomas. A Sermon Preach’d in the Collegiate-Chapel at Eton, on Thursday the 9th Day of October, 1746. Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, and Deliverance of These Kingdoms From the Calamities of an Intestine War (London, 1746) Barr, John. A Sermon Preach’d on the Ninth of October, Being the Day Appointed to be Observ’d as the Day of a General Thanksgiving, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (Lincoln, n.d.) Benson, George. ‘Sermon XVII. Preached at Crouched Friars, London, Oct. 9, 1746. Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Glorious Victory, Obtained Over the Rebels, Near Culloden-House, in Scotland’, in Sermons on the Following Subjects… (London, 1748), pp. 417–54 Bradbury, Thomas. [Sermon I], in Joy in Heaven, and Justice on Earth. In Two Sermons on the Thanksgiving-Day October 9, 1746; and the Fifth of November (London, 1747), pp. 1–19 Bradford, John. A Sermon Preached at the Chapel in the Castle of Exeter, Before the Worshipful the Justices of the Peace For the County of Devon, October 9, 1746. Being the Thursday in Sessions-Week, on Occasion of the Publick Thanksgiving (London, n.d.)



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Burton, John. The Expostulation and Advice of Samuel to the Men of Israel Applied. A Sermon Preach’d Before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary’s, Oct. 9. 1746. Being the Day Appointed to be Kept as a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (Oxford, 1746) Butler, John. A Sermon Preached at S. Margaret’s Church Westminster, on Thursday, October 9, 1746. Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Chandler, Samuel. National Deliverances Just Reasons For Publick Gratitude and Joy. A Sermon Preached at the Old-Jury, October 9, 1746, Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving, on Account of the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Doughty, John. A Dependance Upon Providence the Fairest Prospect of Success, and the Use We Should Make of It When It Has Pleased God to Bless Us With It. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish Church of St James, Clerkenwell, on Thursday, October 9, 1746; Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving, For the Total Reduction of the Rebels By His Majesty’s Forces, Under the Wise and Valiant Conduct of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland (London, 1746) Dupont, John. The Peculiar Happiness and Excellency of the British Nation Consider’d and Explain’d: A Sermon Preach’d at Aysgarth, October 9, 1746. Being the Day Appointed By Authority For the Celebration of a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Success of His Majesty’s Arms, Under His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland; and For the Entire Suppression of the Late Wicked and Most Unnatural Rebellion in Scotland (London, 1747) Farmer, Hugh. The Duty of Thanksgiving, and Paying Our Vows Made in a Time of Trouble, Explain’d and Enforc’d. In a Sermon Preach’d to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters at Walthamstow; on Thursday the 9th of October, 1746. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving to God For Suppressing the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Fothergill, George. The Duty of Giving Thanks for National Deliverances. A Sermon Preach’d at St. Martin’s in Oxford, Before the Mayor and Corporation, on Thursday, October 9th. 1746. Being the Day Appointed to be Kept as a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (Oxford, 1747) Gilbert, John. The Duty of Fearing God, and the King: and the Danger of Meddling With Them That are Given to Change. Set Forth in a Sermon Preached at the Parish-Church of Whippingham; on Thursday the Ninth Day of October, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (Salisbury, 1746) Gill, Jeremiah. The Importance and Improvement of Our Late National Deliverance Represented in a Thanksgiving Sermon Preached to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters at Cambridge; July 27, 1746. On Occasion of the Victory Obtained By His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, Over the Rebels at Culloden (London, 1746) Hall, Thomas. Christ’s Rule Displayed in Great Britain’s Deliverance. A Sermon Preached October 9. 1746. Being the Day of Thanksgiving Appointed By Publick Authority, For the Victory Obtained Over the Rebels at the Battle of Culloden, on the 16th of April Last (London, 1746) Harvest, George. ‘Protestant and Jewish Blessings Compared. A Sermon Preach’d at Ditton upon Thames in Surrey. On Thursday, October the 9th, 1746; Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving for the Success of His Majesty’s Arms, Under the Command of His Royal Highness The Duke of Cumberland; in Suppressing the late Unnatural Rebellion’, in A Collection of Sermons, Preached Occasionally on Various Subjects (London, 1754), pp. 126–71

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Hutchinson, Thomas. A Sermon Preached in the Parish-Church of Horsham in Sussex; On Thursday, the 9th of October, 1746. Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (London, 1746) Kerrich, Samuel. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Churches of Dersingham and Woolferton, in the County of Norfolk, on Thursday, October 9. 1746. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, and Deliverance of These Kingdoms From the Calamities of an Intestine War (Cambridge, 1746) Lane, William. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of Hereford, on Thursday October 9, 1746. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (London, 1746) Latham, Ebenezer. Great Britain’s Thanks to God, to Her Governours, and the People, That Offer’d Themselves Willingly in Defence of Their Dear Country, Against the Late Attempt by France and Rome. A Sermon on Occasion of the Publick Thanksgiving, October 9, 1746. Preach’d at Derby (Derby, 1746) Madden, John. A Sermon Preach’d at St. Anne’s, Dublin, on Thursday the 9th of October, 1746. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, and Deliverance of These Kingdoms From the Calamities of an Intestine War (Dublin, 1746) Maddox, Isaac. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of Worcester, on Thursday the 9th of October, 1746; Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, and Deliverance of These Kingdoms From the Calamities of Intestine War (London, 1746; second edition) Mays, Christopher. A Sermon Preached at St. Giles’s Church in Cambridge, on Thursday, October 9. 1746. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (Cambridge, 1746) Mead, Norman. A Sermon Preached Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, and Aldermen, and the Several Livery Companies of the City of London; at the Cathedral Church of St Paul: on Thursday the 9th of October 1746. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, and Deliverance of These Kingdoms From the Calamities of an Intestine War (London, 1746) Milner, John. National Gratitude Due For National Mercies. A Thanksgiving Sermon Preached at Peckham in Surry, October 9, 1746. On Occasion of the Total Defeat of the Rebels at Culloden By the King’s Forces, Under the Command of His Royal Highness William Duke of Cumberland, April 16, 1746 (London, 1746) Moody, James. A Sermon Preached at Donoughmore, on Thursday October the Ninth, 1746. Being the General Thanksgiving For the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (Belfast, 1746) Newman, Thomas. Vows Made to God in a Time of Trouble, With the Obligation to the Performance, Considered. A Sermon Preached on the Ninth of October, 1746. Being a Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving, For the Suppression of the Late Wicked Rebellion (London, 1746) Nichols, Nicholas. A Sermon Preached at Patrington, in Holderness, on Thursday the 9th of October, 1746. Being the Day Appointed to be Observed as a General Thanksgiving For the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (Hull, n.d.) Norman, John. A Thanksgiving Sermon, For the Success of His Majesty’s Forces in Suppressing the Late Wicked and Unnatural Rebellion. Preached at Portsmouth, October 9, 1746 (London, 1746) Pennington, John. Judah’s Deliverance Exemplified in That of This Kingdom. A Sermon Preached at Huntingdon, October the 9th, 1746. Being the Thanksgiving-Day For Suppressing the Late Rebellion (Cambridge, 1746)



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Piers, Henry. Religion and Liberty Rescued From Superstition and Slavery, Great Subjects of Thanksgiving: A Sermon, Preached in the Parish-Church of Bexley, in Kent, on the 9th of October, MDCCXLVI. The Day Appointed by His Majesty for a General Thanksgiving for the Suppression of the Rebellion (Bristol, n.d.) Secker, Thomas. ‘Sermon VII. (Preached October 9, 1746, on the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving for the Suppression of the Rebellion.)’, in Nine Sermons Preached in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, on Occasion of the War and Rebellion in 1745 (London, 1771; second edition), pp. 151–75 Stennett, Joseph. The Lord Was There: or, the Triumphs of Judah and Israel Over the Edomites. A Sermon Preach’d in Little-Wild-Street October 9, 1746. Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a National Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Stevenson, William. The True Patriot’s Wishes. A Sermon Preach’d at Colwal in Herefordshire, on the 9th of October, 1746. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving To Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion; and For the Deliverance of These Kingdoms From the Calamitys of an Intestine War (London, 1746) Sykes, Arthur. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of Winchester, on the 9th Day of October, 1746. Being the Day Appointed, For a General Thanksgiving, To Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Vaughan, Thomas. Rebellion Extinguished: A Thanksgiving-Sermon, Preached at Barton Under-Neewood, in the County of Stafford, October the 9th, 1746. On Account of the Deliverance of These Kingdoms From the Calamities of an Intestine War (London, 1746) Warburton, William. A Sermon Preach’d on the Thanksgiving Appointed to be Observed the Ninth of October, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Ward, Joseph. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Prestbury, in the Diocese of Chester: On Thursday, October 9, 1746. Being the Day Appointed to be Kept as a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1747) Warner, Manison. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Saint Ives, on Thursday, October 9, 1746; Appointed a Day of Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Suppressing the Late Rebellion (Cambridge, 1746) Watkins, Richard. A Sermon Preached October 9. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God; For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746) Wingfield, Thomas. The Lawfulness of Wishing Destruction to the King’s Enemies. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish-Church of St. George, in Southwark, on Thursday, October 9, 1746. Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, and Deliverance of These Kingdoms from the Calamities of an Intestine War (London, 1746) Wood, William. Britain’s Joshua. A Sermon Preached at Darlington, October 9, 1746; the Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Suppression of the Late Rebellion (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1746) Yardley, Edward. ‘A Sermon Preach’d in the Chapel of Highgate, Middlesex: On the Ninth Day of October 1746. Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, and Deliverance of These Kingdoms from the Calamities of an Intestine War’, in Two Sermons Preach’d in the Chapel of Highgate, Middlesex: One on the General Fast, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 1745. The Other on Thursday, Octob. 9, 1746. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Suppression of the Late Unnatural Rebellion (London, 1746), pp. 36–60

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1749 Ball, Nathaniel. The Evil Effects of War, and the Blessings of Peace, Represented in a Sermon Preached at Chelmsford, on the 25th of April, 1749. Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving, on Account of the Happy Restoration of Peace (London, n.d.) Bennet, Philip. ‘The Means of Enjoying and Perpetuating Peace. A Sermon, Preached Before the University of Cambridge, April 25. 1749. The Day Appointed by His Majesty for a General Thanksgiving’, in The Harmony Between Justice and Peace; and the Means of Enjoying and Perpetuating Peace. Two Sermons, Preached Before the University of Cambridge, March 16, and April 25, 1749 (Cambridge, 1749), pp. 30–58 Bisset, John. A Sermon Preached in the New-Church of Aberdeen, Upon the Twenty-Fifth Day of April, 1749, Being the National Thanksgiving For the Peace Concluded Last Year at Aix-la-chapelle (Aberdeen, 1749) Blackburn, J. Reflections on Government and Loyalty. A Sermon Preached at King John’s Court, April 25. 1749. Being the Day Appointed, by Authority, For a General Thanksgiving For the Late Happy Peace (London, 1749) Conybeare, John. True Patriotism. A Sermon Preach’d Before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret’s Westminster, on Tuesday, April 25, 1749. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For the General Peace (London, 1749) Doddridge, Philip. Reflections on the Conduct of Divine Providence in the Series and Conclusion of the Late War: A Sermon Preached at Northampton, April 25, 1749. Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving on Account of the Peace Concluded with France and Spain (London, 1749) Drummond, Robert. A Sermon Preached Before the House of Lords in the Abbey Church of Westminster, on Tuesday, April 25, 1749. Being the Day Appointed by his Majesty For a General Thanksgiving for the Peace (London, 1749) Dupont, John. ‘The Blessings of Peace in General, and the Particular Advantages of It to Great-Britain, Consider’d: A Sermon Preach’d at Aysgarth, April 25. Mdccxlix. Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving’, in The Loyal Miscellany. Consisting of Several Sermons, and Other Tracts and Essays, in Prose and Verse: Published in Separate Pieces From the Beginning of the Late Unnatural Rebellion, to the Conclusion of the Present Peace (London, 1751), pp. 92–112 Finch, Robert. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish Church of St. Mary Woolnoth in Lombard Street, on Tuesday, April 25, 1749. Being the Day Appointed to be Observed as a General Thanksgiving (London, 1749) Fothergill, Thomas. The Desireableness of Peace, and the Duty of a Nation Upon the Recovery of It. A Sermon Preach’d Before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary’s, on Tuesday, April 25. 1749. Being the Day Appointed to be Kept as a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Peace (Oxford, 1749) Francis, John. ‘Sermon II. On the Peace. Preached Upon the Thanksgiving Day, April the 25th, 1749, at St. Peter’s Mancroft, in Norwich’, in Sermons Preached on Several Occasions at the Cathedral in Norwich, and at the Parish Churches of St. Peter’s, Mancroft, and St. John’s, Maddermarket, in the Said City, Volume I (London, 1773), pp. 44–64 Harris, Thomas. The Blessings and Obligations Arising From Peace. A Sermon Preach’d in the Parish-Church of Gravesend in Kent, on the 25th of April, 1749. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Putting an End to the Late Bloody and Expensive War, by the Conclusion of a Just and Honourable Peace (London, 1749) Henry, William. The Advantages of Peace, and the Means to Perpetuate the Present Peace. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Urney, on the 25th Day of April 1749, Being the Publick Thanksgiving For the Peace (London, 1749)



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Hughes, Obadiah. Peace Attended with Reformation a Complete Blessing. A Sermon Preached at the Protestant Dissenters Chapel in Long-Ditch, Westminster. On April xxv. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to God, on Account of the Peace, Signed at Aix la Chapelle, October 18, N.S. 1748 (London, 1749) Kennedy, Gilbert. The Great Blessing of Peace and Truth in Our Days. A Sermon Preach’d at Belfast, on Tuesday, April 25th, 1749. Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Peace (Belfast, 1749) Kennicott, Benjamin. The Duty of Thanksgiving For Peace in General, and the Reasonableness of Thanksgiving For Our Present Peace. A Sermon Preach’d at St. Martin’s in Oxford, Before the Mayor and Corporation, on Tuesday, April 25, 1749. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for the General Peace (London, 1749) King, Arnold. A Sermon Preached Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and Citizens of London, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, on Tuesday, April 25, 1749. Being the Day of Thanksgiving For a General Peace (London, n.d.) Secker, Thomas. ‘Sermon IX. (Preached April 25, 1749, on the Thanksgiving for the Peace.)’ In Nine Sermons Preached in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, on Occasion of the War and Rebellion in 1745 (London, 1771; second edition), pp. 207–35 Stennett, Joseph. A Sermon Preach’d at Little-Wild-Street on Tuesday, April 25, 1749. Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty, For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Peace (London, 1749) Warden, John. The Happiness of Britain Illustrated; in a Sermon Preached in the Old Church of Perth, on the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Peace, April 25. 1749 (Edinburgh, 1749) Wright, Robert. A Sermon Preach’d at the Parish-Church of St. John’s, Hackney, on Tuesday, April 25, 1749, Being the Day Appointed For a Publick Thanksgiving For the Peace (London, n.d.)

1759 October (Massachusetts) Adams, Amos. Songs of Victory Directed By Human Compassion, and Qualified With Christian Benevolence; in a Sermon Delivered at Roxbury, October 25, 1759. On the General Thanksgiving, For the Success of His Majesty’s Arms, ‘More Particularlly, in the Reduction of Quebec, the Capital of Canada’ (Boston, MA, 1759) Mayhew, Jonathan. Two Discourses Delivered October the 25th, 1759, Being the Day Appointed By Authority to be Observed as a Day of Public Thanksgiving, For the Success of His Majesty’s Arms, More Particularly in the Reduction of Quebec, the Capital of Canada (London, n.d.)

November Anonymous. A Sermon Preached on Thursday the 29th of November 1759, the Late Day of Thanksgiving (London, n.d.) Ball, Nathaniel. The Divine Goodness and Human Gratitude Properly Consider’d, in a Sermon Preach’d at West-Horsley in Surry, November 29, 1759, Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving on Account of the Late Glorious Successes His Majesty’s Arms Have Obtain’d Over the French (London, 1759) Brewster, Richard. A Sermon, Preached in the Church of St. Nicholas, in Newcastle upon Tyne, on Thursday, the 29th Day of November, Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1759)

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OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Dayrell, Richard. A Sermon Preached Before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on Thursday, November 29, 1759. Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving For the Signal Successes of His Majesty’s Arms, &c. (London, 1759) Dobbs, Richard. A Remarkable Accomplishment of a Noted Scripture Prophecy, as Applied to the History of England During the Last and Present Centuries, in a Thanksgiving Sermon (London, 1762) Duncombe, John. A Sermon Preached in the Parish-Church of St. Anne, Westminster, on Thursday, November 29, 1759: Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Signal Successes of the Present Year (London, 1759) Fletcher, William. A Sermon Preached in St. Andrew’s, Dublin; Before the Honourable House of Commons: on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1759; Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (Dublin, 1760) Fortescue, J. A Sermon Preach’d at Topsham on Thursday November the 29th, 1759, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For the Late Successes of His Majesty’s Arms By Sea & By Land, and For the Late Very Plentiful Harvest (Exeter, 1760) Gerard, Alexander. National Blessings an Argument For Reformation. A Sermon, Preached at Aberdeen, November 29, 1759. Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation For Public Thanksgiving For the Success of His Majesty’s Arms in the Present War (Aberdeen, 1759) Gilbert, Robert. Britain Revived, and Under the Smiles of Mercy, Summoned to the Work of Praise. A Sermon Delivered at Northampton on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1759. Appointed to be Observed as a Day of Public Thanksgiving (London, n.d.) Goddard, Peter. A Sermon Preached November 29, 1759. Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving. At Fornham All-Saints. And on the Wednesday Following, at the Lecture at St. James’s in St. Edmond’s Bury (Bury St Edmunds, 1760) Harris, John. A Thanksgiving-Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of Greensted, in Essex, on Thursday November 29, 1759. ‘Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to God, For Vouchsafing Such Signal Successes To His Majesty’s Arms Both By Sea and Land, Particularly By the Defeat of the French Army in Canada, and the Taking of Quebec; and For Most Seasonably Granting Us, at This Time, an Uncommonly Plentiful Harvest’ (London, 1759) Heath, John. God’s Blessing on a People’s Just Endeavours to Assist Themselves in Time of Danger. A Sermon Preached at Writtle in Essex, on Thursday the 29th of November, 1759; Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1760) Henry, William. The Triumphs and Hope of Great Britain and Ireland. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. Michael, Dublin; On Thursday, November the 29th, 1759. Being the Day of General Thanksgiving For the Success of His Majesty’s Arms, Both By Sea and Land; and For Granting Us an Uncommonly Plentiful Harvest (Dublin, 1759) Hitchin, Edward. A Sermon Preached at the New Meeting in White-Row Spital-Fields, on Thursday 29 November 1759. Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving (London, n.d.) Johnson, James. A Sermon Preached Before the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled, in the Abby-Church, Westminster, on Thursday, November 29, 1759, Being the Day Appointed to be Observed as a Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Signal Successes With Which His Majesty’s Arms Have Been Blessed (London, 1759) Kiddell, John. A Sermon Preached at Tiverton, Devon. November 29, 1759. Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving (London, 1760) Payne, John. ‘Discourse VIII. On the Nature of War, and Its Repugnancy to the Christian Life: From Psalm XCVII. 1. Occasioned By the Appointment of a Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Successes Obtained in the Present War’, in Evangelical Discourses (London, 1763), pp. 180–231



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Piers, Henry. Victory and Plenty Great Subjects of Thanksgiving. A Sermon Preached in the Parish-Church of Bexley in Kent. On Thursday the 29th of November, 1759. Being Appointed By His Majesty For a Public Thanksgiving ‘For Success to His Majesty’s Arms Over His Enemies’ and ‘For an Uncommonly Plentiful Harvest.’ (London, 1759) Rich, Edward-Pickering. A Sermon Preached on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1759, Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Success of His Majesty’s Arms in Canada, and Taking of Quebeck (London, n.d.) Scott, Thomas. The Reasonableness, Pleasure, and Benefit of National Thanksgiving. A Sermon Preached Nov. 29, 1759, at Ipswich, in the County of Suffolk (Ipswich, n.d.) Smith, Thomas. The Terrible Calamities That are Occasioned By War, and the Blessedness of a People That Live Under the Protection of God. A Sermon Preached at the Sunday Morning Lecture in the Parish Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and Afterwards at Stratford-­­Bow, November the 29th, 1759. Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Vouchsafing Such Signal Successes to His Majesty’s Arms, Both By Sea and Land, Particularly, For Defeating the French Army in Canada, and the Taking of Quebec, and For Seasonably Granting at This Time, a Most Plentiful Harvest (London, 1760) Stone, George. A Sermon, Preached in Christ-Church, Dublin; on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1759. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving: Before His Grace John Duke of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant, General, and General Governor of Ireland: and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled (London, 1760) Townley, James. A Sermon Preached Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and the Liveries of the Several Companies of the City of London, in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, on Thursday, November 29, 1759; Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to God; For Vouchsafing Such Signal Successes To His Majesty’s Arms, Both By Sea and Land, Particularly By the Defeat of the French Army in Canada, and the Taking of Quebec; and For Most Seasonably Granting Us at This Time an Uncommonly Plentiful Harvest (London, 1759) Walker, Robert. ‘Sermon XVIII. Preached on the Day of National Thanksgiving, Nov. 29. 1759’, in Sermons on Practical Subjects, Volume I (London, 1783; third edition), pp. 400–20 Wallin, Benjamin. The Joyful Sacrifice of a Prosperous Nation. A Sermon Preached at the Meeting-House Near the Maze-Pond, Southwark, on Thursday November 29, 1759; Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a Solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, on Account of Repeated Success Against Our Enemies the French, and Other National Blessings (London, 1760) Warburton, William. ‘Sermon IX. Preached at Bristol, November 29, MDCCLIX. Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving, For Victories Obtained By the British Arms’, in Sermons and Discourses on Various Subjects and Occasions, Volume III (London, 1766), pp. 185–210 Welton, James. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church at Norwich, on Thursday Nov. 29. 1759. Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Signal Successes of the Present Year (Norwich, n.d.) Winter, Richard. A Sermon Preached at New-Court, Carey-Street; on Thursday, November 29, 1759. Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Signal Successes Obtained Over the French, Particularly the Taking of Quebec (London, 1759)

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1760 (North America) March Byles, Mather. A Sermon, Delivered March 6th 1760. Being a Day Appointed, by Order of His Majesty, as a Public Thanksgiving, for the Late Signal Successes, Granted to the British Arms (New-London, CT, 1760)

October Foxcroft, Thomas. Grateful Reflexions on the Signal Appearances of Divine Providence for Great Britain and its Colonies in America, which Diffuse a General Joy. A Sermon Preached in the Old Church in Boston, October 9. 1760. Being the Thanksgiving-Day, on Occasion of the Surrender of Montreal, and the Complete Conquest of Canada, by the Blessing of Heaven on His Britannic Majesty’s Brave Troops, under the Auspicious Conduct of That Truly Great and Amiable Commander, General Amherst (Boston, MA, 1760) Mellen, John. A Sermon Preached at the West Parish in Lancaster, October 9. 1760. On the General Thanksgiving for the Reduction of Montreal and Total Conquest of Canada. Containing a Brief Account of the War, from the Year 1755;- and a Review of the First Settlement and Several Expeditions Against (with Some of the Reasons for Holding) Canada (Boston, MA, n.d.) Woodward, Samuel. A Sermon Preached October 9. 1760. Being a Day of Public Thanksgiving on Occasion of the Reduction of Montreal and the Entire Conquest of Canada, by the Troops of His Britannic Majesty, Under the Command of General Amherst (Boston, MA, n.d.)

1763 May Anonymous. ‘Sermon II. On the Thanksgiving For Peace. May 5, 1763’, in Sixteen Sermons, Prepared For the Press From the Manuscript of a Clergyman, Now Deceased, of the County of Salop (London, 1797), pp. 17–30 Cowper, Charles. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of York, on Thursday, May 5, 1763, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Putting an End to the Late Bloody and Expensive War, By the Conclusion of a Peace (York, 1763) Craner, Thomas. National Peace a Choice Blessing of the Lord. A Sermon Preached to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters, at the Meeting-house Over-against the Library in Red-Cross-Street, May 5th, 1763: Being the Day Appointed By His Most Excellent Majesty King George, For a Solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Restoring Peace to These Realms (London, 1763) Davis, George. A Sermon Preached at the Parish-Church of Brastead in Kent, on Thursday, the Fifth of May, 1763. Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving on Account of the Peace (London, 1763) Delany, Patrick. A Sermon on Psalm 122. Ver. 6, 7, 8, 9. Preached at the Parish Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, on Thursday, May 5, 1763, Being the Day Appointed For the General Thanksgiving For Peace (London, 1763) Eyre, John. Serving the Lord the Only True Thankfulness. A Sermon on Deuteronomy ix. 6. Preached at Wylye Thursday the 5th of May 1763 (Salisbury, 1763) Jefferson, Jacob. The Blessing of Peace, and the Means of Preserving It. A Sermon Preached Before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary’s on Thursday, May 5. M.DCC.LXIII. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving To Almighty God For the Peace (Oxford, 1763)



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Lowthion, Samuel. The Blessings of Peace. A Sermon Preached in Hanover-Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, on the General Thanksgiving Day, (Thursday, May 5, 1763,) Appointed by Royal Proclamation, For the Peace Concluded Between Great-Britain, France, and Spain (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1763) Parkhurst, John. The People’s Duty on the Return of Peace. A Sermon on Psalm xlvi. 8, &c. Preached in the Parish Church of Epsom in Surrey, on Thursday May 5, 1763: Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty’s Proclamation, For a General Thanksgiving, on the Conclusion of the Peace (London, n.d.) Reader, Simon. Thanksgiving and Prayer For Those in Authority, Recommended. A Sermon Preached at Wareham, in Dorsetshire, May the 5th, 1763: Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Peace With France and Spain (London, n.d.) Richardson, John. The Sovereign Goodness of the Most High in Putting an End to Destructive Wars, Gratefully Acknowledged. A Sermon Preached May 5th, 1763: the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a Solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God on Account of the Peace (London, 1763) Richardson, Robert. A Discourse Delivered in the Chapel of His Excellency Lt. Gen. Sr. Joseph Yorke, K.B. His Majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Their High Mightinesses the State General, at the Hague: on Thursday the 5th of May 1763. Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God on Account of the Late Happy Conclusion of a Just and Honourable Peace (The Hague, 1763) Richmond, Richard. ‘A Sermon Preach’d in the Episcopal Chapel at Dunkeld; on Thursday May 5th, 1763: Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty’s Royal Proclamation, to be Observ’d as a Day of Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God; For the Peace’, in Sermons and Discourses on Several Subjects and Occasions (London, 1764), pp. 164–77 Sandercock, Edward. A Sermon Preach’d May the 5th, 1763, A Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Peace To a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters, at the Chapel in St. SaviourGate, York (York, 1763) Smith, John. The Circle Blessing of Peace Considered in its Vast Importance. The Substance of Which was Delivered in a Thanksgiving-Sermon at Basingstoke, in Hants, on Thursday, May 5, 1763, the Day Set Apart By Publick Authority, on the Solemn and Joyful Occasion of Peace. But More Fully Considered in Two Sermons at Oundle, in Northamptonshire, on the Lord’s-Day, May 15, 1763 (Northampton, n.d., second edition) Stead, William. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Reigate in Surry, on Thursday, the 5th of May, 1763. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Putting an End to the Late Bloody and Expensive War (London, 1763) Williams, Griffith. The Triumph of Israelites Over Moabites, or Protestants Over Papists. A Sermon Preached at Great Totham in Essex, on May 5, 1763. Being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For the Peace (London, 1763) Wright, Thomas. A Sermon Preached to a Society of Protestant Dissenters; at Lewin’s-Mead, in Bristol, on Thursday, May 5, 1763: Being the Day Appointed For a National Thanksgiving For the Peace (London, n.d.)

August (Massachusetts) Apthorp, East. The Felicity of the Times. A Sermon Preached at Christ-Church, Cambridge, on Thursday, XI August, MDCCLXIII. Being a Day of Thanksgiving for the General Peace (Boston, MA, 1763)

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OF PRIMARY SOURCES

September (Jamaica) Castelfranc, Gideon. A Sermon, Preached at the Parish Church of St. Andrew, on Friday the Second of September, 1763, Being the Day Appointed by His Excellency the Governor, for a General Thanksgiving, on Account of the Peace (Kingston, Jamaica, 1763)

1783 (United States) Buckminster, Joseph. A Discourse Delivered in the First Church of Christ at Portsmouth, on Thursday December 11, 1783; Being the Day Recommended by the Honorable Congress for a General Thanksgiving Throughout the United States of America, After the Ratification of a Treaty of Peace, in the Ultimate Acknowledgment of Their Sovereignty and Independence (Portsmouth, NH, 1784) Cumings, Henry. A Sermon Preached in Billerica, December 11, 1783, the Day Recommended by Congress to All the States, to be Observed as a Day of Public Thanksgiving, and Appointed to be Observed Accordingly, Throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by the Authority of the Same (Boston, MA, 1784) Duffield, George. A Sermon Preached in the Third Presbyterian Church in the City of Philadelphia, on Thursday December 11, 1783. The Day Appointed by the United States in Congress Assembled, to be Observed as a Day of Thanksgiving, for the Restoration of Peace, and Establishment of Our Independence, in the Enjoyment of Our Rights and Privileges (Philadelphia, PA, 1784) Murray, John. Jerubbaal, or Tyranny’s Grove Destroyed, and the Altar of Liberty Finished. A Discourse on America’s Duty and Danger, Delivered at the Presbyterian Church in Newbury-Port, December 11, 1783. On Occasion of the Public Thanksgiving for Peace (Newbury-Port, MA, 1784) Osgood, David. Reflections on the Goodness of God, in Supporting the People of the United States Through the Late War, and Giving Them So Advantageous and Honourable A Peace. A Discourse Delivered at the Annual Thanksgiving, on the 11th of December, 1783 (Boston, MA, 1784) Rodgers, John. The Divine Goodness Displayed, in the American Revolution: a Sermon, Preached in New-York, December 11th, 1783 (New York, 1784) Willard, Joseph. A Thanksgiving Sermon Delivered at Boston December 11, 1783, to the Religious Society in Brattle Street, Under the Pastoral Care of the Rev. Samuel Cooper, D.D. (Boston, MA, 1784)

1784 Backhouse, William. God the Author of Peace and Lover of Concord. A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church of Deal, on Thursday, July 29, 1784. Being the Day Appointed and Commanded By the King to be Kept as a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Peace (Canterbury, n.d.) Bennet, William. The Divine Conduct Reviewed, A Sermon Preached in the Meeting-House, on the Pavement, Moorfields, July 29, 1784; Being a Day of General Thanksgiving (London, 1784) Burnaby, Andrew. A Sermon Preached in Greenwich Church, on Thursday, July 29, 1784; the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving: and Printed at the Desire of Several of the Most Respectable Inhabitants of the Place (London, 1784) Cappe, Newcome. A Sermon Preached Thursday the Twenty-Ninth of July, MDCCLXXXIV, the Late Day of National Thanksgiving to a Congregation of Protestant-Dissenters, in Saint-Saviour-Gate, York (York, 1784)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  365

Cornish, Joseph. The Miseries of War, and the Hope of Final and Universal Peace, Set Forth in a Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached at Colyton, in the County of Devon, July 29th, 1784 (Taunton, n.d.) Dickens, Charles. A Thanksgiving Sermon Preached To His People 29 July, 1784 (Cambridge, 1784) Ellis, W. The Due Method of Keeping the Sabbath, and Its Reward. A Sermon, Preached at the Parish Church of Stroud, Glocestershire, on the Day of Thanksgiving. July 29, 1784 (Gloucester, 1784) Forster, Thomas. ‘Sermon IX. Preached on the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving, For the Peace, Concluded in the Year 1783’, in Sermons Upon Various Subjects, Delivered at Tunbridge Wells, Volume II (Tunbridge Wells, n.d.), pp. 214–33 Hunter, William. A Sermon Preached on the 29th of July, 1784, Being Appointed a Day of General Thanksgiving, Upon the Re-Establishment of Peace (Worcester, n.d.) Keate, William. A Sermon Preached Upon the Occasion, of the General Thanksgiving, For the Late Peace, July 29th. 1784 (Bath, 1784) Popham, Edward. ‘A Sermon Preached on July 29, 1784: Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving, For the Peace’, in Two Sermons, Preached in the Parish Church of Laycock, Wilts: the Former on February 8, 1782; Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation, for a Public Fast: The Latter on July 29, 1784; Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation, For a General Thanksgiving, For the Peace (Bath, 1784), pp. 19–40 Pretyman, George. A Sermon Preached Before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on Thursday, July 29, 1784: Being the Day Appointed, By His Majesty’s Proclamation, For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1784) Scott, Thomas. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached July 29, 1784, at the Parish Church of Olney, Bucks (Northampton, n.d.) Smallwell, Edward. A Sermon Preached Before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in the Abbey Church, Westminster, on Thursday, July 30, 1784, Being the Day Appointed to be Observed as a Day of General Thanksgiving (Oxford, 1784) Wakefield, Gilbert. A Sermon Preached at Richmond in Surry on July 29th 1784, the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving on Account of the Peace (London, 1784) Walker, George. The Doctrine of Providence, Illustrates and Applied in a Sermon, Preached to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters, at Nottingham, July 29, 1784; Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving, on the Conclusion of the Late Destructive War (London, 1784)

1789 Bowden, James. The King’s Recovery the Joy of His Subjects, Illustrated and Improved in a Sermon, Preached at Lower Tooting, Surrey, April 23, M.DCC.LXXXIX. The Day Appointed for General Thanksgiving (London, 1789) Bromley, Robert. A Sermon Preached at Fitz-Roy Chapel, on Occasion of the General Thanksgiving, Appointed To Be Held on Thursday, the 23d Day Of April, 1789, for His Majesty’s Recovery from the Severe Illness With Which He Had Been Afflicted (London, 1789) Burnaby, Andrew. A Sermon Preached in Greenwich Church, on Thursday, April 23d, 1789; the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving on Account of His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (London, 1789) Camplin, John. The Royal Recovery: a Sermon, Preached Before the Right Worshipful the Mayor, and the Corporation of Bristol, in St. Mark’s Chapel, on Thursday the 23d Of April 1789, the Day of General Thanksgiving (London, n.d.)

366  BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Cooper, Samuel. The Consistency of Man’s Free-Agency, With God’s Fore-Knowledge in the Government of the World, Proved and Illustrated: in a Discourse, Preached in the Parish Church of Great Yarmouth, on Thursday, April the 23d, 1789; Being the Day of General Thanksgiving, For His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (Yarmouth, 1789) Cottingham, John. A Commemoration of Divine Providence; Being the Substance of a Sermon on the Happy Recovery of His Majesty George the Third, Preached in the Chapel of Mile-End New-Town, Stepney, April 23d, 1789 (London, 1789) Cunningham, Peter. A Sermon Preached at Eyam, Derbyshire, on Thursday the 23d of April, 1789, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (Sheffield, 1789) Dawson, Benjamin. The Benefits of Civil Government, a Ground of Praise To God. A Sermon, Preached on Occasion of the Late General Thanksgiving, For the Restoration of His Majesty’s Health, April 23, 1789 (Ipswich, 1789) Formby, Richard. A Sermon Preached at St. George’s Church, Liverpool, on Thursday the 23d of April, 1789. the Day Of Thanksgiving For His Majesty’s Recovery (Bath, 1789) Hayes, Samuel. A Sermon Preached at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, on Thursday, April 23, 1789, the Day of Publick Thanksgiving For His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (London, 1789) Jefferson, John. A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church of St. Anne, Westminster, on Thursday the 23d of April, 1789, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For His Merciful Interposition in Delivering Our Most Gracious Sovereign From a Grievous Illness With Which He Had Been Afflicted (London, 1789) Jobson, Abraham. The Mercy of God To King Hezekiah, To Britons, and King George III. Briefly Considered in a Thanksgiving Sermon Preached on Thursday, April 23d, 1789, at March, in the Isle of Ely (Cambridge, 1789) Lambert, George. Britain’s King Rejoicing in Jehovah’s Salvation. A Sermon, Preached at Kingston Upon Hull, Thursday, April 23, 1789, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving, on His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (Hull, 1789) Lancaster, Thomas. The Christian Duty of Thanksgiving. A Sermon, Preached at Hanworth in the County of Middlesex, on Thursday, April 23, 1789, Being the Day Appointed For a Solemn Thanksgiving To Almighty God, For His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (London, 1789) Leighton, Thomas. Thanksgiving for the King’s Recovery, 1789 (n.p., n.d.) Martin, John. Social Dispositions Recommended, in a Sermon Preached April 23, 1789; the Day of General Thanksgiving (London, 1789) Mead, Henry. God’s Goodness, the Joy and Wonder of His People. A Sermon Preached April 23, 1789, at St. Pancras’ Church (London, n.d.) Milner, John. A Sermon Preached in the Roman Catholic Chapel at Winchester, April 23. 1789. &c. Being the General Thanksgiving Day For His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (London, n.d.) Morgan, Caesar. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of Ely, on Thursday, April 23, 1789, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (Cambridge, 1789) Newton, John. The Great Advent. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard-Street. On April 23, 1789. the Day of General Thanksgiving For the King’s Happy Recovery (London, 1789) Pattenson, John. A Sermon, Preached in Halifax Church, on The Twenty-Third of April, 1789, the Day of Thanksgiving, For His Majesty’s Happy Recovery (Halifax, 1789)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  367

Plumptre, Charles. A Sermon on the Occasion of His Majesty’s Recovery From the Indisposition, With Which It Pleased Almighty God To Afflict Him, Preached in the Parish Church of Mansfield, on Thursday the 23d of April, 1789, Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving To Almighty God (Nottingham, 1789) Porteus, Beilby. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, Before His Majesty, and Both Houses of Parliament, on Thursday, April 23d, 1789, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1789; third edition) Townsend, George. The King’s Recovery, a National Mercy: Or, a Call To Britain’s Gratitude, in the Memento or Review of Former Deliverances, and the Present Providence, in the Restoration of His Majesty To His Family and People. Addressed To the Inhabitants of the British Empire in General, with Those of the Isle of Thanet and Ramsgate, in Particular; Considered in Two Discourses Delivered in Ramsgate, April the 23d 1789. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (Canterbury, 1789) Tremenheere, William. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Madron, in the County of Cornwall, on the Twenty-Third of April, 1789, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For the Recovery of the King From Illness (Exeter, n.d.) Wallett, Abraham. A Sermon, Preached at the Parish Church of Clare, in the County of Suffolk, on the Day of Thanksgiving, April 23, 1789, For the Recovery of His Majesty (Bury St Edmunds, 1789)

1797 Agutter, William. Deliverance From Enemies, a Ground For Thanksgiving. A Sermon, Preached on the Day of General Thanksgiving, December 19th, 1797, in the Chapel of the Asylum for Female Orphans (London, 1798) Benson, Martin. A Sermon, Preached in Tunbridge-Wells Chapel, on Occasion of Reading the Prayer of Thanksgiving, For the Late Victory (London, 1797) Black, John. ‘A Sermon, Preached at Otley, on the 19th. December, 1797; Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving, On Account of Our Naval Victories’, in Political Calumny Refuted: Addressed to the Inhabitants of Woodbridge, Containing, an Extract of a Sermon, Preached at Butley, on the Fast-Day, 1793: A Sermon, Preached at Otley, on the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving, on Account of Our Naval Victories: and Solitary Musings, (In Verse) on the Being of a God, Providence, and the French Revolution (Ipswich, n.d.), pp. 11–21 Clapham, Samuel. A Sermon, Preached at Great Ouseborne, on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1797, Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty For a General Thanksgiving, to Almighty God, For Our Naval Victories (Leeds, n.d.) Clarke, James Stanier. ‘A Sermon Preached at Park Street Chapel, Grosvenor Square, December 19, 1797. Being the Day Appointed to Return Public Thanks For the Naval Victories of the Present War’, in Naval Sermons Preached On Board His Majesty’s Ship The Impetueux in the Western Squadron, During Its Services Off Brest: To Which is Added a Thanksgiving Sermon For Naval Victories; Preached at Park-Street Chapel, Grosvenor Square, Dec. 19. M,DCC,XCVII (London, 1798), pp. 197–220 Fleming, Alexander. The Duty of Considering the Importance of National Benefits: A Sermon, Preached in the Church of Hamilton, on Tuesday the 19th of December, 1797, Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty To Be Observed as a National Thanksgiving For the Many Signal Naval Victories Obtained Over the Enemies of This Country, During the Present War (Glasgow, 1798)

368  BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Goode, William. Mercies in Judgment: A Sermon Preached on the Day of General Thanksgiving, December 19, 1797, in the Parish Church of St. Andrew, Wardrobe, and St. Ann, Black Friers, London (London, 1797) Gordon, Adam. Due Sense of Divine Favour, a Test of Christian Confidence. A Sermon Delivered to a Country Congregation, on the 19th of December, 1797, The Day Appointed by Royal Authority for a General Thanksgiving, to Almighty God, for the Late Signal Victory of His Majesty’s Fleets Over Those of the Enemy (London, 1798) Halloran, Laurence-Hynes. A Sermon For the 19th Day of December, 1797, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving To Almighty God, For the Signal Victories Obtained By His Majesty’s Arms, in Three Great Naval Engagements, Over the Respective Belligerent Powers, United Against This Country (London, n.d.) Hardy, Richard. A Sermon Preached Before the University of Cambridge, on Tuesday, Dec.19, 1797, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (Cambridge, 1798) Hewlett, John. The Duty of Thanksgiving. A Sermon, Preached at the Foundling-Hospital December 19, 1797. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (n.p., 1798) Hodgson, Christopher. A Sermon on Gratitude Towards God, Preached in the Parish Churches of Castor and Marholm, in the County of Northampton, on Tuesday the 19th Day of December, 1797, Being the Day Appointed By Royal Proclamation for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Many Signal and Important Victories, Which His Divine Providence Hath Vouchsafed To His Majesty’s Fleets, in the Course of the Present War (Peterborough, 1798) Huntington, William. A Watchword and Warning From the Walls of Zion; A Sermon Delivered at Providence Chapel, on Tuesday, Dec. 19. 1797, Being the Day Appointed For Public Thanksgiving (London, 1798) Hurn, William. ‘The Divine Government a Ground of Rejoicing at All Times’, in Two Sermons, Preached in Substance at Debenham, In Suffolk, the Former on Tuesday, December 19, 1797, Being the Day Set Apart for a General Thanksgiving for Naval Victories Obtained in the Present War; and the Latter on Wednesday, March 7, 1798. Being the Day Appointed For a General Fast (Ipswich, 1798), pp. 3–36 Jobson, Abraham. The Divine Government Considered As the Hope of Britons, in a Thanksgiving Sermon Preached on Tuesday, December 19, 1797, at March in the Isle of Ely (Cambridge, 1797) Lloyd, David. England’s Privileges: A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached in the Diocese of Hereford, on Tuesday, December 19, 1797 (Hereford, 1797) Mavor, William. The Duty Of Thanksgiving for National Blessings; A Sermon, Preached on Tuesday, December 19, 1797, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (Oxford, 1798) Nesfield, William. ‘[Sermon I]’, in Two Sermons Preached at Chester Le Street, the First on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1797, the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving; the Second on Wednesday, the 8th of March, 1798, the Day Appointed For A General Fast (Durham, n.d.), pp. 1–16 Newton, John. Motives to Humiliation and Praise. A Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard-Street, on December 19, 1797, the Day of General Thanksgiving, to Almighty God, for Our Late Naval Victories (London, 1798) Pretyman, George. A Sermon, Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, Before His Majesty, and Both Houses of Parliament, on Tuesday, December 19th, 1797; Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1798) Robinson, John. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached on the 19th of December, 1797. Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty’s Royal Proclamation, to Return Thanks to the Almighty, for the Great Naval Victories Obtained in the Course of the Present War (London, 1798)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  369

Wilton, William. Victory Over Sin the True Triumph of a Christian. A Sermon, Preached in the Parish Churches of Upper and Lower Swell, on Tuesday, December 19, 1797: Being the Day Appointed, For a General Thanksgiving (Evesham, 1798)

1798 January (Ireland) O’Beirne, Thomas. A Sermon Preached Before His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, and Both Houses of Parliament, on Tuesday the 16th January, 1798, Being the Day Appointed by His Excellency for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Many Signal and Important Victories Which His Divine Providence Hath Vouchsafed to His Majesty’s Fleets in the Course of the Present War (Dublin, 1798; second edition)

November Abdy, William. A Sermon on the Occasion of the General Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 29, 1798. Preached at the Unanimous Request of the Corps of Loyal Volunteers, of Saint John, Southwark, at Their Parish Church, On Sunday, December 23d (London, n.d.) Anonymous. England’s Causes for Thankfulness. A Sermon, Preached on the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving, November 1798. By a Curate in the Country (York, n.d.) Anonymous. Motives for Thankfulness: A Sermon, Preached in the County of Durham, on Thursday, November 29th. 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Newcastle upon Tyne, n.d.) Anonymous. A New Year’s Gift to the Good People of England, Being a Sermon, or Something Like a Sermon, in Defence of the Present War: Preached on the Day of Public Thanksgiving, by Polemophilus Brown, Curate of P-n (n.p., 1798) Black, Alex. National Blessings Considered and Improved, in a Sermon, Preached on Thursday, November 29. 1798 (Edinburgh, 1798) Booth, John. A Sermon, Preached at the Chapel of Wibsey, on the Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (Huddersfield, n.d.) Bowen, Thomas. The Efficacy of Courage in a Good Cause. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, Sheriffs, the Common Council of the City of London, the City Officers, the Honourable the Artillery Company, and the Temple Bar and St. Paul’s District Military Association, on Thursday, the Twenty-Ninth of November, 1798, Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty, to be Observed as a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Late Glorious Victory Obtained by His Majesty’s Ships of War, Under the Command of Rear Admiral Lord Nelson of the Nile, Over the French Fleet, and For Other Recent and Signal Successes (London, 1798) Bromley, Robert. A Sermon, Preached at Fitzroy Chapel, in London: on Thursday the 29th. Day of November, 1798, (Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the Late Glorious Victory Obtained Over the French Fleet, by His Majesty’s Ships of War Commanded by Rear Admiral Lord Nelson of the Nile.) (London, 1798) Buckner, John. A Sermon, Preached at the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, Before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a Public Thanksgiving (London, 1798) Clarke, Thomas Brooke. Proofs of Providence and Divine Protection. A Sermon, Preached at Grosvenor Chapel, on November 29, 1798. the day of Public Thanksgiving for the Success of His Majesty’s Arms (n.p., n.d.)

370  BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF PRIMARY SOURCES

de Veil, John. National Blessings, a Ground for Thanksgiving. A Sermon, Preached on the Day of General Thanksgiving, November, 29th, 1798, in the Parish-Church of Edgware (London, 1798) Dikes, Thomas. The Effects of Irreligion. A Sermon, Preached at St. John’s Church, Hull, on Thursday, the 29th of November, 1798, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (Hull, 1798) Ewing, Greville. The Duty of Christians to Civil Government: a Sermon, Preached in Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel, Edinburgh, on the 29th November, 1798, Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty for a General Thanksgiving (Edinburgh, 1799) Gardiner, John. A Sermon Delivered at the Octagon Chapel, Bath, on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Bath, 1798) Grinfield, Thomas. The Union of Prayer and Praise, Exemplified; in a Discourse, Preached on Thursday, November 29, 1798. Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving. At the Brethren’s Chapel, in Bristol (Bristol, n.d.) Jackson, William. A Sermon, Preached Before the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, on Thursday, November 29, 1798; Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty’s Proclamation for a General Thanksgiving (Oxford, 1798) Jobson, Abraham. The Conduct of Moses, When Israel Fought with Amalek, Compared with That of Admiral Lord Nelson, in the Battle of the Nile; in a Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached, on Thursday, November 29, 1798, at March, in the Isle of Ely, Before the United Loyal Doddington Association (Cambridge, 1798) King, John. A Sermon, Preached at Witnesham, November 29, 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving on Account of Our Late Victories (Ipswich, n.d.) Knox, William. A Sermon, Preached Before His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, on Thursday, the 29th of November, 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Late Glorious Victory Obtained by Lord Nelson Over the French Fleet, and for the Other Recent Interpositions of His Good Providence Towards the Effectual Deliverance of These Kingdoms from Foreign Invasion and Intestine Commotion (Dublin, 1798) Leigh, William. A Sermon Preached at the Free Church in Bath, November 29th, 1798; Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving for the Success of His Majesty’s Arms (Bath, 1799) Mann, W. A Sermon Preached Before the Gentlemen of the St. George’s Southwark Volunteers, and of the Southwark Volunteer Cavalry, in the Parish Church of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, on Thursday, November 29th, 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (London, n.d.) Martin, John. The Substance of a Sermon Preached at the Meeting House, in Keppel-Street, Bedford -Square: on Thursday, the 29th. of November, 1798; Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (London, 1799) Middleton, Thomas. The Blessing and the Curse: a Sermon, Preached at the Cathedral Church of Norwich, on Thursday, the 29th of November, 1798 the Day of the General Thanksgiving (Norwich, 1798) M’Kechnie, William. Nelson’s Victory, By the Right Hand of the Lord: A Discourse on Exodus XV. 6 (Edinburgh, 1799) Pearce, Samuel. Motives to Gratitude: a Sermon, Delivered to the Baptist Congregation, Meeting in Cannon-Street, Birmingham; on Occasion of the Public Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 29, 1798 (Birmingham, n.d.) Rees, Abraham. The Privileges of Britain. A Sermon, Preached at the Meeting-House in the Old Jewry on Thursday the 29th of November 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (London, 1798)



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES  371

Rennell, Thomas. A Sermon Preached Before the Honourable House of Commons on the 29th of November, 1798, at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, Being the Day of General Thanksgiving For the Success of His Majesty’s Arms (London, 1798) Scott, Tufton. A Sermon Preached in the Chapel in His Majesty’s Dock-yard, at Portsmouth, on Thursday the 29th of November, 1798, Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty’s Royal Proclamation for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Late Glorious Victory Obtained by His Majesty’s Ships of War Under the Command of Rear Admiral Lord Nelson of the Nile (London, 1798) Stillingfleet, James. National Gratitude, Enforced in a Sermon, Preached in the Cathedral Church of Worcester, on Thursday, Nov. 29, 1798, the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, as for Other Signal Interpositions of His Good Providences, so More Particularly for the Great Blessing Vouchsafed to His Majesty’s Arms in the Complete Victory Obtained over the French Fleet, by the Ships Under the Command of Admiral Lord Nelson, on the First of August, off the Mouth of the Nile (Worcester, 1798) Sturges, John. A Sermon, Preached at the Cathedral Church of Winchester, on the 29th of November, 1798, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God (London, n.d.) Tayler, Thomas. A Sermon Preached at the Meeting-House in Carter-Lane, on Thursday, November 29, 1798; Being the Day Appointed for a National Thanksgiving (London, 1798) Taylor, Thomas. Britannia’s Mercies, and Her Duty, Considered in Two Discourses, Delivered in the Methodist Chapel, at Halifax, on Thursday, November 29, 1798, Being a General Thanksgiving Day (Leeds, 1799)

1799 (Québec) Mountain, Jacob. A Sermon Preached at Quebec, on Thursday, January 10th, 1799; Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Québec, 1799) Plessis, Joseph-Octave. (Trans. Henry Joly de Lotbinière). Thanksgiving Sermon for the Victory of Great Britain at the Battle of the Nile. Preached in the Cathedral of Quebec, January 10th. 1799 (Québec, 1906; translation and reprint of the 1799 original)

1802 Abdy, William. A Sermon on Occasion of the General Thanksgiving, for the Peace with France, Holland, and Spain, Preached at Saint John, Southwark, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802, Before the Loyal Volunteers of That Parish, On Delivering Their Colours (London, n.d.) Ackland, Thomas. Performance of Vows, the True Thanksgiving. A Sermon Preached at Christ Church, Surrey, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802, the Day of General Thanksgiving For the Peace; and at Crooked Lane, on Monday, June 21, 1802, Before the Worshippful Company of Fishmongers, Being Their Election Day (London, 1802) Belsham, Thomas. Reflections and Exhortations Adapted to the State of the Times: a Sermon, Preached at Hackney, June 1, 1802; Being the Day Appointed By Proclamation for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for Putting an End to the Late Bloody, Extended and Expensive War (London, 1802) Brewster, John. A Thanksgiving Sermon for the Peace: Preached in the Parish Church of Stockton Upon Tees, June 1, 1802 (Stockton, 1802) Butcher, Edmund. The Only Security for Peace. A Sermon, Preached at the Meeting House of the Protestant Dissenters in Sidmouth, Devonshire, on Tuesday June 1, 1802. Being the Day Appointed for a National Thanksgiving on Account of the Peace Between Great Britain, France, etc. (Exeter, 1802)

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OF PRIMARY SOURCES

Butler, Samuel. The Effects of Peace on the Religious Principle Considered. A Sermon, Preached in the Chapel of Berwick, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802, Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving (Shrewsbury, n.d.) Clarke, John. A Sermon Preached on the Day Appointed for a Public Thanksgiving for the Restoration of Peace: First of June, 1802 (Woodbridge, n.d.) Clayton, John. The Great Mercies of the Lord Bestowed Upon Britain, &c. Acknowledged and Improved: a Sermon, Preached at the King’s Weigh-House, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802; the Day of the General Thanksgiving for Public Peace (London, 1802) Courtenay, Henry. A Sermon, Preached at the Parish Church of Saint George, Hanover Square, on Tuesday, the 1st of June 1802, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (London, 1802) Evans, John. A Sermon Delivered at Worship-Street, on Tuesday the 1st of June, 1802, Being the Day Appointed for Thanksgiving on Account of the Restoration of Peace. To Which is Subjoined the Congratulatory Address of the Protestant Dissenters, on the Return of Peace, Presented to the King, on Tuesday, May 27, Together with His Majesty’s Answer (London, 1802) Garnett, John. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of Winchester, on Tuesday the 1st of June, 1802, Being the Day Appointed to be Observed as a General Thanksgiving For the Restoration of Peace (Winchester, 1802) Hall, Robert. Reflections on War. A Sermon Preached at the Baptist Meeting, Cambridge, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802, Being the Day of Thanksgiving for a General Peace (London, 1825; sixth edition) Majendie, Henry. A Sermon Preached Before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in the Abbey Church of Westminster, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802: Being the Day Appointed By His Majesty’s Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For Putting an End to the Late Bloody, Extended, and Expensive War (London, 1802) Thomas, George. A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church of Wickham, Hants, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802, Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty for a General Thanksgiving, on Account of the Peace (n.p., 1802) Vincent, William. A Sermon, Preached Before the Honourable House of Commons, at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, on Tuesday, June 1, 1802, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (London, 1802) Whitehouse, John. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Armthorpe, Yorkshire, on June 1, 1802, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Doncaster, 1802) Williams, John Henry. A Thanksgiving Sermon For the Peace, Preached June 1, 1802 (London, 1802) Williams, William. The Removal of Judgments a Call to Praise. A Thanksgiving Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of High Wycombe, Bucks, on Tuesday the 1st of June, 1802 (High Wycombe, 1802)

1805 Adkin, Lancaster. The True Dependence and Duty of Man: Being a Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. Andrew, Norwich, upon Thanksgiving Day, Dec. 5th. 1805, for Lord Nelson’s Victory (Cambridge, 1806) Blakeway, John. National Benefits a Call for National Repentance. A Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of St. Mary, Shrewsbury, on Thursday, December 5, 1805, the Day Appointed By His Majesty’s Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Late Signal Victory, Obtained by His Majesty’s Ships of War, Under the Command of the Late Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain (Shrewsbury, n.d.)



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Brichan, David. A Sermon Preached on the Fifth of December, 1805, Appointed by Royal Authority a Day of General Thanksgiving (London, 1806) Bull, Nicholas. A Thanksgiving Sermon, For the Victory of Trafalgar; Preached at the Parish Church of Saffron Walden, on Thursday, December 5, 1805 (London, n.d.) Burges, George. A Discourse Delivered at West Walton, in the County of Norfolk, on Thursday, December 5, 1805, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Wisbech, 1806) Clowes, John. A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church of St. John, Manchester, on Thursday the 5th of December, Being the Day Appointed for a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Late Glorious Victory Obtained Over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain (Manchester, 1805) Colton, Caleb. A Sermon, Preached at St. Peter’s Church, in Tiverton, on Thursday, December 5th 1805, Being the Day Appointed, for a General Thanksgiving (Tiverton, 1805) Dawson, John. England’s Greatness, the Effect of Divine Power and Goodness: a Sermon Preached at the Nether Chapel, Sheffield, on the Day of Thanksgiving, Dec. 5, 1805 (Sheffield, 1805) Gardiner, John. A Tribute to the Memory of Lord Nelson: In a Sermon Preached on the General Thanksgiving-Day, December 5, 1805, in the Octagon-Chapel, Bath (Bath, n.d.) Goode, William. The God of Salvation, a Sermon Preached on the Day of General Thanksgiving, December 5, 1805, and in Aid of the Patriotic Fund, &c. in the Parish Church of St. Andrew Wardrobe, and St. Ann, Blackfriars, London (London, 1805) Hatt, Andrew. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Before the Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Worshipful the Aldermen, the Recorder, the Sheriffs, the Common Council of the City of London, and the Honourable the Artillery Company, on Thursday the Fifth of December, 1805, Being the Day Appointed by His Majesty, to be Observed as a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Late Signal and Important Victory Obtained By His Majesty’s Ships of War Under the Command of the Late Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain (London, 1805) Henshall, Samuel. A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church of St. Mary Stratford, Bow, Middlesex, on Thursday, the 5th of December, 1805, the Day Appointed By His Majesty’s Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Late Signal and Important Victory Obtained By His Majesty’s Ships of War, Under the Command of the Late Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain (London, 1805) Hornby, Geoffrey. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Winwick, on Thursday December 5th, 1805. Being the Day Appointed for a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Late Naval Victories (Manchester, 1806) Horsley, Samuel. The Watchers and the Holy Ones. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Asaph, on Thursday, December 5, 1805, Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Victory Obtained by Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson Over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain Off Cape Trafalgar (London, 1806) O’Beirne, Thomas. A Sermon Preached on the Day of the General Thanksgiving, December 5, 1805, in the Parish Church of Kells (Dublin, 1805) Odell, William. A Sermon. Preached in the Cathedral Church of Limerick, by William Butler Odell, on Thursday the 5th of December, 1805, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving For the Late Glorious Victories Obtained by His Majesty’s Fleets Over the Combined Squadrons of the Enemy (Limerick, 1805) Rutledge, Thomas. God the Defence and Protection of His People. A Thanksgiving Sermon Preached on the 5th of December 1805, on Account of the Glorious Victory Obtained Over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain Off Cape Trafalgar, on the 21st of October Last, Under the Command of the Noble and Gallant Lord Viscount Nelson, Who Fell in the Action, Bravely Fighting For His King and Country (London, 1806)

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Simpson, Thomas. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Stroud, Glocestershire, on Thursday, December 5, 1805, the Day of Public Thanksgiving For the Victory Off Trafalgar (Stroud, n.d.) Smalpage, Samuel. The Duty of Thanksgiving: a Sermon, Preached at Whitkirk, Near Leeds, on Thursday, December 5th, 1805, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Leeds, 1805) Stevenson, Thomas. A Sermon, Preached at St. John’s Church, Blackburn, Lancashire, on Thursday December 5 1805, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Glorious and Important Victories, Obtained By His Majesty’s Arms Over the United Fleets of France and Spain, on th[e] 21st of October, and 4th of November Last (Blackburn, 1805) Stonard, John. A Sermon, Preached at the Parish Church of Chertsey, in Surrey, on the 5th of December, 1805, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Chertsey, 1806) Warner, Richard. National Blessings Reasons for National Gratitude: a Sermon Preached at Saint James’s Church, Bath, December 5, 1805. The Day of General Thanksgiving. ... To Which are Prefixed Animadversions on Two Sermons, Just Published, by the Rev. E. Poulter, Prebendary of Winchester. And a Character of the Late Right Hon. W. Pitt (Bath, 1806) Wood, Robert. A Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, on Thursday, December 5, 1805, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Nottingham, n.d.) Worthington, Hugh. A Sermon, Delivered at Salter’s Hall, on Thursday, December 5, 1805, Being the Day Appointed for Public Thanksgiving on Account of the Late Signal Victory Obtained by the British Fleet, Under the Command of the Late Vice Admiral Lord Nelson, Over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain (London, n.d.) Young, Robert. A Sermon Preached in the Scots Church, London Wall, on Thursday, Dec. 5, 1805, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (London, 1805)

1814 January Anonymous. A Sermon, Preached to Two Country Congregations, on Thursday, the Thirteenth of January, 1814, the Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Late Victories (Mansfield, n.d.) Arundel, John. National Mercies Recorded. A Sermon, Preached at Whitby, on the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving, January 13, 1814 (London, 1814) Barker, Samuel. ‘The Manifold Mercies, and the Visibly Recent Interpositions of Divine Providence; Exemplified as a General Cause for Devout Gratitude, and Ardent Praise. A Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of Herringfleet, in the County of Suffolk, on Thursday, the 13th Day of January, 1814, Being the Day Appointed by Royal Authority, for Public Thanksgiving’, in Two Sermons &c (n.p., n.d.), pp. 19–47 Bates, George. Causes For, and Duties Connected With National Thanksgiving. A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, on January 13, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For the General Thanksgiving, For the Signal Successes Obtained By the Arms of His Majesty, and of the Allies (London, 1814) Blakeney, L. A Sermon, For the 13th January, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1814)



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Burns, Robert. Illustrations of the Divine Government, Particularly in Reference to Late Events. A Sermon Preached in the Low Church of Paisley, on Thursday Dec. 2, 1813; Being the Day Appointed by the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, to be Observed as a Public Thanksgiving Throughout Their Bounds; and on Thursday Jan. 13, 1814; Being the Day Appointed by the Prince Regent, as a General Thanksgiving For the Late Successes of Great Britain and Her Allies (Paisley, 1814) Clowes, John. A Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of St. John, Manchester, on Thursday the 13th of January, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Late Extraordinary Successes of His Majesty’s Arms, and Those of His Allies (Manchester, 1814) Courtney, John. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Sanderstead, Surrey, on Thursday, January 13, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1814) Lancaster, Thomas. The Great Things God Has Done For Us, a Call For National Gratitude. A Sermon, Preached at Merton Surrey, on Thursday, the 13th of January 1814; Being the Day Appointed by Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Late Brilliant Successes of His Majesty’s Arms, and Those of His Allies, Against the Common Enemy (London, 1814) Mavor, William. ‘Thanksgiving Sermon. January 13, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance; Being Three Sermons, on Recent Public Occasions (London, 1814), pp. 17–34 Owen, Edward. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Mortlake, in the County of Surry, on the 13th of January 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1814) Pearson, Hugh. A Sermon Preached in St. Martin’s Church, Oxford, on Thursday, January 13, 1814, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Oxford, 1814) Smith, James. Evidences of a Special Divine Providence Attending the Late Signal Successes Obtained Over the Enemy. A Sermon, Preached on the 13th January 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a National Thanksgiving: and Published, at the Particular Request of a Number of the Hearers (Paisley, 1814) Tooke, William. A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Worshipful the Aldermen, the Recorder, the Sheriffs, the Common Council of the City of London, and the City Officers, on Thursday, the Thirteenth of January, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (London, 1814) Wainewright, Latham. The Constitution in Church and State; a Sermon, Preached in the Parish Church of Great Brickhill, on the 13th of January 1814, Being the Day Appointed by the Prince Regent for a General Thanksgiving (London, 1814) Walsh, John. A Sermon Preached on the Day of Thanksgiving, Thursday, January 13, 1814 (Dublin, 1814)

April (Québec) Somerville, James. The Greatness and the Happiness of a People Briefly Considered. A Discourse Delivered in the Scotch Church at Montreal, on the 21st of April Last, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Montréal, 1814) Spark, Alexander. A Sermon, Preached in the Scotch Church, in the City of Quebec, on Thursday the 21st April, 1814, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Québec, 1814)

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June (Upper Canada) Strachan, John. A Sermon, Preached at York, Upper Canada, on the Third of June, Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (Montréal, 1814)

July Belsham, Thomas. The Prospect of Perpetual and Universal Peace: a Thanksgiving Sermon For the Conclusion of Peace With France, Preached at Essex-Street Chapel, July 3, 1814 (London, 1814) Clowes, John. ‘Sermon I’, in Two Sermons, Preached in the Parish Church of St. John, Manchester. The First, on Thursday the 7th of July, 1814, Being the Day Appointed for a Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the Restoration of Peace. And the Second, on the Sunday Following (Manchester, n.d.), pp. 4–22 Davis, H. A Sermon, Prepared For the Day of Public Thanksgiving, July 7th, 1814, on the Restoration of Peace With France and Her Allies (Banbury, n.d.) Evans, John. Peace the Real Interest of Every Human Being. An Address, Delivered at Brighton, on Thursday, July 7, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For Thanksgiving on the Re-Establishment of Peace. To Which is Subjoined, the Address of the Protestant Dissenting Ministers of the Three Denominations ... Presented to the Prince Regent on the Restoration of Peace, Together With His Reply on the Occasion (London, 1814) Gisborne, Thomas. A Sermon Preached in the Church of Barton Under Needwood, in the County of Stafford, on July 7th, 1814. Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving on the Restoration of Peace (London, 1814) Hewett, Thomas. ‘Sermon I’ [1814], in Two Sermons on the Occasions of the Public Thanksgiving For Peace, in the Years 1815 and 1816: the Former Having Been Composed in the Prospective Contemplation of a Future One (London, 1816), pp. 5–33 Hodgson, John. A Sermon Preached in the Church of Jarrow, and in the Chapel of Heworth, in the County of Durham, on July 7, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For Public Thanksgiving For the Peace Concluded Between Great Britain, and France and Her Allies (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1814) Langdon, Thomas. God Maketh Wars to Cease. A Sermon Preached at Leeds, July 7th, 1814, the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Restoration of Peace. To Which is Added, a Tribute of Respect to the Memory of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox; Delivered at the Close of a Sermon, the Sabbath After His Death (Leeds, n.d.) Law, George. A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul, London, Before His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and Both Houses of Parliament, on Thursday, July 7, 1814; Being the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving (London, 1814) Manning, Henry. ‘Sermon I’, in Three Sermons; Preached on the Late Thanksgiving Day For the Peace, July 7th, 1814, at St. Peter’s Church, Thetford: on the Assize Day, August 6th, 1805, at the Cathedral of Norwich: on the Commemoration of Sir Richard Fulmerstone, November 12th, 1809, at St. Mary’s Church, Thetford (Thetford, 1814), pp. 1–17 Mavor, William. ‘Thanksgiving Sermon on the Restoration of Peace. July 7, 1814’, in The Fruits of Perseverance; Being Three Sermons, on Recent Public Occasions (London, 1814), pp. 35–51 Overton, John. England’s Glory and Duty: A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church of St. Crux, in the City of York, July 7th, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving (York, n.d.) Palmer, William. A Sermon on the Day of General Thanksgiving, July 7th, 1814; to Which is Added, an Appendix on the Opening of the Seals, Rev. vi (Buckingham, 1814)



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Sharpe, Joseph. A Sermon, Preached at the Old Church, Macclesfield, July the 7th, 1814, the Day of General Thanksgiving For the Peace (Macclesfield, 1814) Skeeles, George. The Recent Events in France Considered. A Sermon Preached on July 7, 1814, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Blessed Restoration of Peace (Bury St Edmunds, n.d.) Vaughan, Edward. The Lesson of Our Times. A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. Martin, Leicester, on Thursday, July 7, Being the Day of General Thanksgiving for Peace (Oxford, 1814) Watson, Richard. A Sermon, Preached at the Methodist Chapel, Wakefield, and at the Old Chapel, Leeds, on Thursday, the Seventh Day of July, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For the Restoration of Peace (Leeds, 1814)

1816 January Alison, Archibald. A Discourse Preached in the Episcopal Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh, Jan. 18, 1816; Being the Day Appointed by the Prince Regent for a Thanksgiving For Peace (Edinburgh, 1816) Anonymous. The Parallel; Nebuchadnezzar and N. Buonaparte; a Sermon, Preached (On the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving,) in a Parish Church, Bordering upon Torbay, Where Buonoparte Was Some Time Detained, After His Surrender, in the Bellerophon Man of War, - Before His Deportation to the Island of St. Helena (Exeter, n.d.) Chalmers, Thomas. Thoughts on Universal Peace: a Sermon, Delivered on Thursday, January 18, 1816, the Day of National Thanksgiving For the Restoration of Peace (Glasgow, 1816) Collins, Jeremiah. A Sermon, Preached at Probus-Church, on the 18th of Jan. 1816, Being the Thanksgiving Day For the Late Peace (Truro, 1816) Crane, Charles. ‘God’s Mercies to Our Country’: A Motive to Fear Him and Serve Him in Truth. A Sermon Preached in the Church of New Brentford, Middlesex, on Thursday, Jan. 18, 1816. Being the Day Appointed by Royal Proclamation For a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, For His Great Goodness in Putting an End to the War in Which We Were Engaged Against France (London, 1816) Hewett, Thomas. ‘Sermon II’ [1816], in Two Sermons on the Occasions of the Public Thanksgiving For Peace, in the Years 1815 and 1816: the Former Having Been Composed in the Prospective Contemplation of a Future One (London, 1816), pp. 35–67 Howley, William. A Sermon Preached on Thursday, January 18, 1816, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving, When the Eagles Taken at Waterloo Were Deposited in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall (London, 1816) Jervis, Thomas. God the Author of Peace. A Sermon Preached in the Dissenting Chapel, at Mill-Hill, in Leeds, on Thursday, January 18, MDCCCXVI, Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving, on the Conclusion of a General Peace (London, 1816) Knapp, Henry. The Origin and Termination of the Late Warfare with France, Considered in a Sermon Preached in the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft, London, January 18, 1816, Being the Day Appointed For a Public Thanksgiving on Account of the Peace (London, 1816) Milner, John. A Discourse Delivered in the Roman Catholic Chapel of St. Chad, ChadwellStreet, Birmingham, on January the 18th, 1816, Being the Day Appointed For a General Thanksgiving For the Peace (Birmingham, n.d.)

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June (Upper Canada) Bethune, John. A Sermon, Preached at Brockville, Upper Canada, on the 18th Day of June, 1816, Being a Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for His Great Goodness in Putting an End to the War in Which We Were Engaged Against France (Montréal, 1816)

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Index Abdy, William  24, 89, 148, 190, 193, 200, 249, 298 Acres, Joseph  126, 208, 281, 298 Adams, Amos  39, 153, 168, 172, 220, 265, 281, 298 Adams, John  103, 133, 157, 168, 180, 298 Adkin, Lancaster  161, 165, 298 Agincourt, battle of (1415)  33, 160, 165 Agutter, William  54, 76, 141, 143, 144, 178, 184, 245, 273, 298 Aix la Chapelle, treaty of (1748)  135, 202, d’Alembert, Jean-Baptiste le Rond  257 Alison, Archibald  73, 79, 96, 263, 286, 290, 298 Allen, John  49, 62, 105, 106, 107, 122, 253, 298 Allen, Richard  88, 119, 211, 276, 298 Alsop, Vincent  38, 45, 57, 98, 99, 124, 139, 187, 193, 263, 298 American Revolutionary War  40, 129, 141, 169–70, 180, 182, 189, 191, 196, 210, 218, 224–9, 295; see also American under thanksgiving days Amiens, treaty of (1802)  201 Anglicanism  125, 134, 138, 231–237, 239–40, 296; see also Protestant unity under national unity, Anglican responses under Union of England and Scotland Anglican preachers  3, 36–7, 296, 330 Anne (queen)  45–6 and n.53, 71, 83–4, 89, 105, 109, 111, 118, 122, 125–8, 131, 133–4, 137, 152, 154, 187, 188, 193, 200, 201–3, 218, 241, 263, 264, 279 Apthorp, East  60, 172, 194, 211, 221, 222, 281, 282–3, 298 Armada, Spanish (1588)  33, 45, 59, 78, 160 Arundel, John  69 and n.37, 149, 247, 298 Arwaker, Edmund  26–7, 298 atheism  see infidelity Atterbury, Lewis  20, 29, 81, 89, 93, 110, 130, 255, 299 Austrian Succession, war of the (1740-8)  66, 188–9, 197, 206, 249 Backhouse, William  66, 195, 211, 225, 299 Baker, Samuel  106, 200–1, 252, 265, 299 Ball, Nathaniel  69, 74, 135, 163, 169, 197, 211, 219, 254, 299 Barker, Samuel  35, 127, 132, 194, 288, 299

Barr, John  92, 108, 245, 299 Barton, Samuel  34, 70, 74, 188, 299 Bates, George  42, 203, 211, 299 Bates, John  88, 120, 247, 274, 275, 276, 299 Bean, Charles  29, 107, 112, 247, 252, 275, 299 Bear, William  188, 191, 193, 194, 299 Belsham, Thomas  46, 105, 141, 143, 190, 193, 198, 200, 240, 265, 272, 284, 285, 299 Bennet, Philip  66, 299 Bennet, William  94, 180,189, 191, 225, 240, 299 Benson, George  76, 95, 155, 216, 245, 249, 300 Benson, Martin  158, 167, 300 Bethune, John  144, 280, 300 Billingsly, Samuel  51, 85, 98, 201, 300 Birmingham 148 Bisset, John  182, 183 n.30, 202, 300 Black, Alex  52, 143, 146, 214, 300 Black, John  29, 119, 170, 175, 286, 300 Blackburn, John  72, 99, 113–14, 212, 224, 300 Blakeney, Lawrence  28, 72, 300 Blakeway, John  61, 67, 104, 141, 146, 165, 178, 300 Blenheim, battle of (1704)  38–39, 45, 50, 66, 83, 152, 153, 160, 163, 165, 167, 168, 172, 173, 241, 279 Blennerhaysett, Thomas  21, 72, 99, 102, 113, 127, 129, 202, 300 Booth, John  75, 142, 145, 170, 210, 271, 300 Borfet, Abiel  29, 37, 115–16, 124, 235, 255, 300 Bowden, James  20, 57, 128, 137, 300 Bowden, John  127–8, 130, 300 Bowen, Thomas  49, 62, 164, 172–3, 177, 224, 272, 300 Bradbury, Thomas  55, 118, 128, 172, 271, 301 Bradford, John  95, 99, 102, 301 Brady, Nicholas  34, 39, 77, 89, 96, 120, 131, 163, 182, 185, 193, 194, 195, 290, 301 Brewster, John  105, 148, 236, 256, 301 Brewster, Richard  131, 219, 223, 232, 288, 301 Brichan, David  28, 70, 166, 177, 268, 301 Bromesgrove, Samuel  33, 44, 45, 152, 163, 218, 239, 243, 301 Bromley, Robert  157, 301 Browne, Simon  53, 58, 93, 99, 127, 135, 213, 239, 252, 301 Buckminster, Joseph  227 n.82, 229, 301

388  INDEX Buckner, John  48, 81, 96, 143, 147, 157, 165, 254, 301 Bull, Nicholas  165, 261, 301 Burges, George  80, 261, 301 Burnaby, Andrew  40, 74, 94, 213–14, 215, 225, 302 Burnet, Gilbert  62, 66, 73, 97, 101, 103, 107, 160, 167, 170, 186, 187, 201, 207, 208, 213, 218, 233, 246, 270–1, 273, 278, 287, 302 Burns, Robert  23, 223, 249, 302 Burton, John  54, 302 Butcher, Edmund  97, 302 Butler, Samuel  33, 69, 212, 302 Byles, Mather  39, 45, 60, 129, 132, 155, 282, 302 Caesar, John  265–6, 302 Camplin, John  84, 126, 245, 302 Canada  3, 22, 36, 39, 50, 73, 79, 141, 144, 159, 201, 203, 214, 218–23, 226, 257, 270, 281–2, 286 Cappe, Newcome  169–70, 196, 225, 303 Carr, George  64, 112, 303 Carter, Benjamin  86, 236, 303 Carthage  142, 220 Castelfranc, Gideon  40, 95, 128, 136, 303 Chalmers, Thomas  194, 285, 303 Chandler, Edward  52, 57, 65, 139, 201, 203, 232, 303 Chandler, Samuel  43, 192, 287, 303 Chapman, Richard  42, 90, 112, 117, 137, 183, 195, 232, 234, 261, 303 charity  178–80 and n.16, 289 Churchill, John  see Marlborough, 1st Duke of Church of England  see Anglicanism, Anglican preachers Civil Wars, British (1642-49)  123, 138, 139, 275 Clapham, Samuel  25, 116, 143, 147, 185, 187, 188, 303 Clarke, Edward  66, 131, 218, 303 Clarke, James  44, 45, 103, 156, 159, 303 Clarke, John  142, 171, 303 Clarke, Samuel  42, 49, 62, 64, 87, 102, 103, 131, 168, 201, 248 and n.55, 303 Clarke, Thomas  272, 303 Clayton, John  21, 148, 198, 241–2, 245, 254, 303 Clerke, Samuel  70, 97, 99, 244, 269, 304 Clowes, John  35, 63, 85, 150, 210, 304 Cocks, Robert  61, 304 Collinges, John  54, 109, 117, 122, 213, 237–8, 241, 244, 246, 304 Collins, Jeremiah  74, 86, 304

Colton, Caleb  77, 170, 266, 304 Comber, Thomas  45, 107, 178, 195, 196, 198, 232, 304 commerce  6, 9, 63, 75–6, 90, 130, 136, 142, 153, 157, 158, 167, 182, 183–4, 205–17, 236, 282, 295; see also costs of war and commercial resilience under warfare, commercial benefits under peace, Britain under national identity economic theory  209–14 evangelical benefits of  215–16, 222–3 Connecticut  39, 45, 282 constitution  see British constitution under political theory Conway, George  70, 304 Conybeare, John  287, 304 Cooper, Samuel  71, 304 Corbin, William  21, 44, 63, 79, 116, 264, 304 Cornish, Joseph  210, 238, 304 Cottingham, John  57, 67, 117, 283, 304 Courtenay, Henry  150, 190, 304 Courtney, John  72, 226, 265, 305 Cowper, Charles  95, 98, 100, 121, 156, 188, 208, 305 Crane, Charles  232, 266, 305 Craner, Thomas  88, 199, 215, 240, 242, 305 Crécy, battle of (1346)  160, 165 Cruso, Timothy  88, 124, 133, 250, 305 Culloden, battle of (1746)  62, 162 Cumberland, Duke of, William Augustus, Prince  154, 162 Cumings, Henry  228, 305 Cunningham, Peter  122, 305 Curteis, Thomas  106, 110, 305 Davidson, Robert  120, 157, 216, 274, 276, 289, 305 Davis, George  36, 61, 136, 175, 181, 200, 305 Davis, Harry  21, 142, 258, 305 Dawson, Benjamin  64, 92, 144, 305 Dawson, John  24 n.63, 144, 182, 211, 245, 255, 261, 305 Day, Henry  93, 98, 269, 305 Dayrell, Richard  67, 305 debt  see costs of war under warfare de Veil, John  145, 158–9, 290, 305 Delany, Patrick  126, 200, 305 Dent, Giles  83, 247, 305 Diderot, Denis  257 Dikes, Thomas  21, 143, 256, 306 dissenting preachers  3 and n.2, 38, 40–1, 296, 330 dissent (religious)  36, 40–1, 104, 138–9, 148, 231, 234–6, 237–43, 296; see also Protestant



unity under national unity, dissenting responses under Union of England and Scotland Doddridge, Philip  155, 206, 219, 306 Doughty, John  62, 117, 306 Drummond, Robert  53, 181, 211, 306 Dubourdieu, John  71, 172, 246, 266, 306 Duffield, George  228, 306 Dujon, Patrick  248, 276, 306 Duncombe, John  76, 216, 219, 306 Dupont, John  100, 217, 232, 306 East Indies  see Indies Edzard, J.E.  89, 242, 306 Elizabeth I  33, 45, 154, 157–8, 187, 246 Ellis, William  225, 306 Elstob, William  42, 186, 306 empire  2, 6, 9, 44, 47, 53, 165, 167, 205, 214, 218–26, 295 concerns about  223–6 England’s Causes for Thankfulness. A Sermon [1798]  152, 257, 271 Evans, John (Baptist minister)  41, 97, 170, 177, 193, 194, 196, 249, 285, 307 Evans, John (Presbyterian minister )  50, 83, 105, 121, 154, 171, 262, 263, 306 Ewing, Greville  111, 140, 183, 307 Farmer, Hugh  43, 55, 122, 188, 307 Farmerie, William  77, 157, 307 Farrol, George  238, 307 Fiddes, Richard  71, 307 Finch, Robert  265, 307 Fisher, William  71, 98, 112 and n.74, 239, 241, 307 Flanders  see Netherlands Flavell, John  36, 55, 63, 241, 244, 307 Fleetwood, William  28, 107, 117, 118, 128, 168, 202 and n.103, 307 Fleming, Alexander  36, 142, 307 Fletcher, William  37, 219, 281, 307 Forster, Nicholas  37, 252, 307 Forster, Thomas  37, 307 Fortescue, James  128, 132, 153, 179, 223, 282, 308 Foster, Thomas  88, 126, 218, 308 Fothergill, George  135, 159, 308 Fothergill, Thomas  40, 47, 66, 76, 157, 191, 193, 215, 308 Fowler, Edward  125, 161, 173, 266 and n.27, 308 Foxcroft, Thomas  24, 78, 155, 203, 220, 308 France  5, 7, 9, 24, 31, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 50, 67, 68, 69, 71–2, 79, 87, 105, 107, 109,

INDEX  389

111, 119, 120, 123–4, 130, 140, 150, 153, 158, 164, 165, 167–9, 171–2, 181, 185, 191, 201–3, 218–20, 222, 224, 250–9, 284–5; see also French Revolution, Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XIV, Napoleon, and anti-French sentiment under national identity Francis I  275 Francis, John  184, 308 freemasonry 147 free-thinking  see infidelity Freke, Thomas  38, 96, 121, 187, 240, 244, 248, 271, 274, 308 French Revolution  2, 55, 72–73, 114, 124, 140–50, 168-9, 241–2, 255, 256–8, 265, 271, 295 French Revolutionary wars  35, 68, 79, 119, 170, 172, 182, 190, 254–5; see also Nile (battle of ) Frontenac, Fort, battle of (1758)  160 Gallaway, William  64, 177, 308 Gardiner, James  54, 125, 134, 268, 308 Gardiner, John  115, 156, 288, 308 Garmston, Shadrach  113, 308 Garnett, John  157, 178, 222, 273, 308 George I  48, 51, 71, 84, 85, 89, 98, 109–10, 112, 118, 126–8, 134–5, 137, 139–40, 152, 154, 182–3, 187, 188, 201, 218, 239, 244, 252 George II  84, 126, 135–6, 154, 155, 187–9, 218–20, 277 George III  37, 45, 57, 64, 84, 89, 101, 117, 121, 122, 126–8, 136–7, 148, 154, 188, 219, 222, 229, 243, 245, 283 Gerard, Alexander  87, 186, 212, 215, 308 Gibbon, Edward  257 Gibson, Edmund  122, 184, 309 Gilbert, John  112, 309 Gilbert, Robert  119 and n.15, 309 Gisborne, Thomas  24, 309 Goddard, Peter  86, 119, 152, 224, 309 Goddard, Thomas  49, 309 Goldwin, William  46, 122, 183, 309 Good, Thomas  197, 199, 309 Goode, William  24 n.61, 41, 51, 79, 146, 149, 159, 171, 207, 256, 261, 290, 309 Goodwin, Nathaniel  77, 130, 216, 244, 286, 309 Gordon, Adam  41, 72, 144, 145, 185, 236, 272, 309 Grant, John  54, 210, 232, 263, 274, 276, 309 Gratitude to God ... A Sermon (1746)  175, 202, 209, 277 Gregory, Francis  109, 181, 187, 194, 212, 235, 246, 309

390  INDEX Grinfield, Thomas  224, 309 Gunpowder Plot (1605)  1, 59, 78, 137 Hall, Robert  146, 176, 180, 196, 197, 309 Hall, Thomas  88, 310 Halley, George  36, 73, 101, 108, 123, 310 Halloran, Laurence-Hynes  3 n.3, 310 Hanoverian succession  39, 48, 49, 51, 98, 109–10, 118, 122, 128, 138, 139–40, 242, 249, 252 Harding, Nathaniel  93, 100, 310 Hardy, Richard  55, 66, 74, 174, 284, 310 Hare, Francis  130, 152, 310 Harris, Samuel  93, 168, 261, 310 Harris, Thomas  208, 213, 310 Harrison, Thomas  86 and n.111, 310 Harvest, George  52, 95, 121, 245, 289, 310 Hatt, Andrew  159, 214, 310 Hawtayne, William  21, 48, 84, 122, 123, 130, 140, 310 Hayes, Samuel  37, 77, 217, 310 Henry V  33 Henry, William  78, 87, 158, 169, 187, 190, 198, 207, 210, 213, 222, 270, 279, 281, 288, 311 Henshall, Samuel  177, 311 Hewett, Thomas  169, 190, 210, 226, 266, 272, 280, 285, 311 Hewlett, John  33, 44, 311 Hickman, Charles  101, 106, 311 Higgins, Francis  49, 117, 123, 218, 311 Hitchin, Edward  104, 206, 211, 245, 254, 311 Hobbes, Thomas  93–4 Hochstet, battle of (1703)  160 Hodgson, Christopher  147, 148, 254, 311 Hodgson, John  23, 141, 272, 311 Holland  see Netherlands Hooper, George  45, 89, 94, 138, 176, 188, 190, 194, 199, 217, 224, 311 Hornby, Geoffrey  203, 213, 284, 311 Horsley, Samuel  67, 170, 265, 311 Hort, Josiah  26, 116, 200, 264, 311 Hough, John  50, 183, 252, 311, Hough, Nathaniel  79, 102, 206, 312 Howe, John  53, 94, 177, 194, 195, 212, 238, 312 Howley, William  106, 271, 312 Hughes, Obadiah  79, 126, 312 Hunter, William  132, 214, 312 Huntington, William  23, 25, 129, 144–5, 146, 312 Hutchinson, Francis  120, 233, 235, 275, 276, 279, 312 identity  see national identity Indies  208, 213, 215, 218, 219, 221, 222

infidelity (religious)  144 and n.105, 250, 254, 255–9, 271–2, 296 Irish rebellion (1798)  149–50, 279–90 Israel  33, 70, 74, 228–9, 278 comparing British leaders to leaders of  50, 51, 71, 83–4, 89, 124, 140, 154, 164, 229 comparing the French to the enemies of  50, 83, 85, 262–4, 270–1 equating Britain with  48–52, 53–4, 76, 80–90, 120–1, 126, 129, 132, 133, 140, 154, 155, 162, 168, 184–5, 195, 216, 243, 252, 253, 289, 294 Jackson, William  57, 169, 312 Jacob, Joseph  40, 153, 239, 244, 312 Jacobite Rebellion (1715)  39, 51, 85, 86, 98, 104, 108, 110, 112, 135, 138–9, 201, 238, 241, 249, 252–3; see also Stuart pretenders Jacobite Rebellion (1745)  49, 62, 63–4, 86–7, 88, 93, 102–3, 112, 117, 118, 122, 140, 154, 162, 180, 192, 209, 219, 249, 253, 273, 277–8; see also Culloden (battle of ), Stuart pretenders James VI/I  194 James VII/II  39, 78, 108, 250–1, 269, 279 Jane, William  37, 67, 312 Jefferson, Jacob  122, 136, 199, 213, 312 Jefferson, John  77, 105, 312 Jenings, John  51, 118, 249, 312 Jenks, Benjamin  27, 94, 124, 194, 196, 312 Jephson, Alexander  79, 161, 201, 266, 279, 313 Jervis, Thomas  56, 65, 176, 181, 190, 313 Jobson, Abraham  85, 132, 190, 207, 222, 313 Johnson, Christopher  29, 83, 90, 195, 313 Johnson, James  66, 172, 313 Keate, William  180, 191, 225, 313 Keith, George  38, 71, 240, 241, 313 Kennedy, Gilbert  103, 112–13, 238, 245, 313 Kennett, White  25, 35–6, 45, 65, 80, 117, 125, 139, 313 Kennicott, Benjamin  189, 199, 208, 270, 289, 313 Kerrich, Samuel  119, 162, 253, 313 Kiddell, John  35, 163, 206, 212, 313 King, Arnold  113, 140, 313 King, John  63, 155, 178, 313 King, William  35, 154, 157, 177, 251, 278, 279, 314 Knaggs, Thomas  33, 37, 55, 80, 122, 131, 164, 171, 178, 235, 251, 314 Knapp, Henry  71, 103, 145–6, 166, 258, 314 Knox, William  47, 141, 144, 146, 153, 258, 314



Lacy, Benjamin  68, 133, 232, 234, 314 Lamb, Charles  101, 155, 186, 237, 274, 275, 314 Lambert, George  45, 57, 117, 132, 136, 226 and n.79, 314 Lambert, Ralph  96, 154, 205, 264, 314 Lancaster, Thomas  26, 68, 166, 258, 262, 286, 314 Lane, William  78, 105, 314 Langdon, Thomas  26 and n.73, 65, 170, 176, 198, 314 Latham, Ebenezer  46, 278, 314 Law, William  94, 109, 125, 138, 199, 314 Lee, Richard  124, 133, 192, 246, 314 Leigh, William  173, 262, 289, 315 Leighton, Thomas  101, 128, 137, 226, 234, 245, 315 Leipzig, battle of (1813)  179, liberty  see under political theory Lille, siege of (1708)  160 Lloyd, David  186, 272, 315 Lobb, Stephen  286, 315 Locke, John  92, 93–4, 109 Louis XIV  146, 154, 198, 201, 203, 224, 252, 261–6, 267 Louis XV  224, 253 Louis XVI  141–2, 171 Louisbourg, Fort, and battle of (1758)  160, 202–3, 218–19 Loveling, Benjamin  39, 67, 76, 125, 131, 172, 196, 215, 224, 233, 235, 261, 281, 315 Low Countries  see Netherlands Lower Canada  see Canada Lowthion, Samuel  43, 70, 121, 136, 193, 197, 289, 315 Loyalty to King George. A Sermon (1716)  100, 140, 154 Lucas, Richard  35, 38, 52, 75, 97, 100, 104, 120, 130, 131, 133, 137–8, 161, 167, 208, 232, 237, 315 Luddites 148–9 Mackqueen, John  37, 56, 73, 116, 125, 152, 183, 185, 263, 315 Madden, John  278, 315 Maddox, Isaac  121, 253, 287, 315 Majendie, Henry  77, 256, 315 Malplaquet (or Blaregnies), battle of (1709) 160 Mann, William  25, 175, 272, 315 Manning, Henry  67, 175, 265, 267, 315 Manningham, Thomas  186, 233, 237, 248, 274, 275, 276, 315 Marlborough, 1st Duke of, John Churchill,

INDEX  391

General  50, 56, 61, 154, 163–4, 202, 203, 265 Marshall, Nathaniel  233, 316 Marston, William  56, 58, 118, 316 Martin, John  41, 91, 167, 170, 183, 203, 206, 216, 243, 258, 316 Mary I  246, 251 Mary II  34, 80, 109, 111, 188, 213, 250 Massachusetts  3, 24, 33, 36, 39, 60, 172, 176, 203, 218-19, 220–1, 222, 228–9, 265, 268 Masters, Thomas  78, 79 n.77, 243, 252, 276, 316 Mavor, William  48, 72, 77, 124, 145, 146, 147, 170, 184, 236, 265, 271, 272, 285, 290, 316 Mayhew, Jonathan  153, 158, 220, 223, 282, 316 Mays, Christopher  101, 103, 187, 277, 316 Mead, Matthew  23, 55, 250, 316 Mead, Norman  210, 316 Mellen, John  36, 176, 220–1, 268, 270, 316 Methodism  233–4, 240, 249 Middleton, Thomas  55, 159, 316 Milbourne, Luke  27, 83, 129, 167, 197, 198–9, 235, 317 Mills, George  125, 183, 266, 317 Milner, John (Presbyterian minister)  119 and n.14, 239, 242, 253, 278, 317 Milner, John (Roman Catholic priest)  137, 183, 222, 283, 317 Minden, battle of (1759)  160 ministries (government)  127–32, 294 M’Kechnie, William  29, 49, 168, 177, 200, 316 monarchs  see names of individual monarchs (eg.: Anne), and monarchy under political theory Moody, James  80, 81 n.85, 108, 140, 317 Mountain, Jacob  22, 24, 73, 145, 159, 168, 221, 257, 317 Murray, John  227 n.82, 229, 317 mutinies 149 Namur, battle of (1695)  160 Napoleon  63, 71–2, 73, 79, 127, 172, 191–2, 198, 261–3, 265–6, 267, 271–2, 285 invasion of Russia  68–69, 226, 262 Napoleonic wars  35, 40, 119, 149, 171–2, 182, 190, 211, 254–5; see also Trafalgar, Waterloo (battles of ) national identity  4–10, 43–7, 230; see also Britain under providence, and equating Britain with under Israel African  see slave trade

392  INDEX American  227–9, 280, 295 anti-French sentiment and  6, 85, 102, 125, 142, 260– 73, 281–2, 289, 296 British  286–91, 295, 296 commerce and  190–1, 215–17, government and  95–97,101–3, 104–7, 123, patriotism  5, 7–8, 42, 44, 96, 104, 121, 123, 128, 129, 136, 185, 287–8 sinfulness and  53–55, 58, 174, 225 war and  151, 156–9, 160–2, 286, 288, 290 indigenous peoples (North America)  215, 222–3, 270, 273, 280–3 conversion to Christianity  281; see also evangelical benefits under commerce Irish 278–80 Scottish 273–8 national unity  116–124, 136–9, 237, 240–3, 294–5 Protestant unity  246–9, 296 navy  see British Navy under warfare Neale, Walter  81, 93, 317 Nelson, Hiratio, Admiral  164–6, 173, 179 Nesfield, William  29, 42, 56, 64, 178, 181, 256, 317 Netherlands  158, 172, 186, 203, 205–6, 213, 218 Newcome, Peter  270, 317 Newman, Thomas  41, 50, 278, 317 Newton, John  23, 27, 46 and n.54, 68, 87, 145, 181, 217, 234, 256, 284, 317 A New Year’s Gift to the Good People of England (1798) 292–4 Niagara, Fort, battle of (1759)  160 Nicholetts, Charles  44, 105, 197, 240, 251, 269, 318 Nichols, Nicholas  72, 95, 215, 277, 318 Nile, battle of (1798)  61, 85, 154, 160, 164–5, 173, 207, 224, 262 Nine Years’ War (1688-97)  68; see also Namur (battle of ) Norman, John  54, 63, 96, 119, 253, 318 Norris, Richard  66, 163, 318 obedience  see right of resistance under political theory O’Beirne, Thomas  80, 90, 142, 144, 157, 257, 318 occasional conformity  234–6 Odell, William  150, 152, 172, 318 Oldfield, Joshua  120, 275, 318 Olliffe, John  108, 133, 243, 250, 280, 318 Osgood, David  227 n.82, 228, 318

Oudenard, battle of (1708)  160 Overton, John  132, 169, 258, 266, 272, 318 Owen, Edward  86, 318 Page, Thomas  110, 208, 318 Paget, Simon  56, 64, 74, 94, 175, 194, 318 Paine, Thomas  144–5, 293 Palmer, William  191, 265, 267, 318 Paris, treaty of (1783)  218, 221, 227 Parkhurst, John  27, 110, 318 parliament  see under political theory Patrick, Simon  65, 82, 102, 186, 318 patriotism  see British under national identity Pattenson, John  217, 318 Payne, John  24 n. 61, 212, 318 peace  24, 30, 31, 38, 39–40, 44, 66, 152, 162, 183, 184, 189, 192–204, 295 commercial benefits of  192–3, 196–8, 211, 226 concerns about  198–204, 295 treaties  2, 30, 40, 109, 112, 133, 135, 142, 152, 171, 176, 177–8, 181, 192–3, 195–6, 197–204, 210, 221, 224–6, 227, 270, 273, 282, 284–5; see also specific treaties (eg.: Aix la Chapelle) Pead, Deuel  83, 107, 120, 234, 247, 251, 252, 267, 269, 274, 277, 280, 319 Pearce, Samuel  55, 144, 148, 171, 177, 319 Pearson, Hugh  149, 162, 179, 191, 201, 211, 319 Pearson, William  84, 319 Peck, Samuel  118, 250, 319 Pennington, John  84, 102, 154, 319 Perse, William  84, 109, 118, 130, 161, 183, 264, 319 Piers, Henry  84, 102, 135, 249, 319 Piggott, John  55, 78, 107, 153, 268, 319 Pitt (or Duquesne), Fort, battle of (1758)  160 Pitt, William (the elder)  131–2 Pitt, William (the younger)  129, 132 Plessis, Joseph-Octave  141–2, 143, 222, 257, 263, 319 Plumptre, Charles  39, 47, 319 Pocock, Thomas  110, 139, 320 Poitiers, battle of (1356)  160 political parties  115–19, 132–40, 199, 294 Tories  109, 112, 118, 127–8, 133–40, 201–2 Whigs  109–110, 118, 126, 129, 133–40, 199 political theory  92–114, 294 British constitution  94–7, 100–8, 111, 123, 147–8, 232, 237, 242, 252, 265, 286–7, 294 just war  166–73 laws  95, 96, 97, 100, 103–6, 108–9, 111, 112, 148, 181–182, 251, 268



liberty  38, 45, 95–97, 99–100, 102–8, 111, 112–13, 127, 139, 141, 142, 144–6, 168–9, 171–2, 175, 182, 183–4, 198, 206, 212, 214, 227–9, 245, 24, 265, 268, 284, 286–7, 289, 294 misgovernment 106–8 monarchy  94, 95–102, 106–7, 111, 113–14, 139–40 parliament  98, 100–101, 108, property  95–6, 106, 108, 168, 175, 182, 184, 268, 286 religious liberty  106, 206, 213, 234, 243–6, 249, 259, 289; see also Toleration Act right of resistance  109–14, 137–8, 139–40 Pooley, Giles  46, 319 Pope, Michael  117, 201, 238, 241, 320 Pop-Gun plot  148 and n.127 Popham, Edward  40, 217, 320 Porteus, Beilby  57–8, 61, 69, 89, 320 pretenders  see Stuart pretenders Pretyman, George  24, 33, 61, 80, 155, 189, 254, 256, 272, 289, 320 Prideaux, Humphrey  36, 152, 234, 252, 268, 320 Priestley, Joseph  257; see also Priestley Riots Priestley Riots (1791)  148 Prince, Thomas  203, 218, 223, 320 property  see under political theory providence  30, 34, 43, 47, 49–55, 59–91, 100, 195, 262, 264 Britain and  75–90, 156–7, 219, 225–6, 289–90, 294 government and  70–75, 126, 131, human agency and  61–2, 64–7, 69–70 nature and  67–9, 73–4, 75–7 war and  35, 66, 67–9, 78–9, 82–3, 118, 164, 172–3, 290 Québec  see Canada Québec (or Plains of Abraham), battle of (1759)  39, 160, 163, 165, 219–20, 270 Ramillies, battle of (1706)  160 Reader, Simon  43 and n.42, 130, 189, 195, 221, 239, 282, 320 The Rebellion of Sheba. A Sermon (1716) 85, 89, 98, 127, 138, 201, 238 Rees, Abraham  21, 54, 75–6, 156, 206, 214, 215, 221, 242, 320 Rennell, Thomas  61, 73, 144, 146, 155, 168, 178, 256, 320 resistance  see right of resistance under political theory Revolution of 1688–1689  78, 93, 98, 101, 109, 111, 113, 117, 133, 139–40, 269, 278, 287

INDEX  393

Reynolds, Thomas  23, 62, 153, 168, 172, 176, 203, 206, 244, 276, 320 Rich, Edward-Pickering  154, 320 Richardson, John  41, 88, 136, 242, 281, 320 Richardson, Robert  154, 171, 321 Richmond, Richard  31, 66, 180, 189, 200, 321 Rivers, Thomas  194, 321 Robinson, John  142, 237, 321 Roby, William  51, 112, 126, 286, 321 Rodgers, John  227, 321 Roman Catholicism  6, 9, 137, 183, 222, 284–5 anti-Catholicism  6, 78, 83, 102, 104, 120, 123, 125, 128, 133, 137, 139, 168–9, 235, 246, 249–55, 256, 259, 265, 270–1, 272, 278–9, 296; see also comparing the French to the enemies of under Israel arbitrary power and  62–3, 107–8, 168, 250–3 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques  257 Rutledge, Thomas  51, 116, 150, 321 Ryswick, treaty of (1697)  200, 203 Sacheverell, Henry  137–8 and n.81, 140 Sandercock, Edward  161, 189, 190, 199, 209, 213, 224, 321 Sanders, Henry  121, 321 Scott, Thomas (Anglican curate)  21, 115, 180, 321 Scott, Thomas (Congregational minister)  35, 162, 207, 321 Scott, Tufton  143, 206, 257, 321 Secker, Thomas  135, 162, 199, 255, 321 A Sermon Preach’d in a Country Church (1689)  207, 239 A Sermon Preached in ... the City of Exon (1696)  239, 251, 269, 280 A Sermon Preached to Two Country Congregations [1814]  23, 148, 211 sermons  2–4, 11–30 eighteenth-century  13–14, 17–20 motives for publication of  18, 20–1, 26–9 printed 15–30 differences with oral delivery  15–26 thanksgiving-day  10, 19–30; Anglican, percentage of  3; cost  30 and n.89; dissenting, percentage of  3 and n.2; size  29–30 and n.88 Protestant worship and  12–13 thanksgiving-day  10, 19–32, 130, 292–4 biblical texts of  31, 47–52, 53–4, 227–9, 331–2 Seven Years’ War (1756-63)  31, 40, 66, 78–79, 86, 110, 119, 128, 152, 153, 162, 163, 172,

394  INDEX 180, 182, 189, 193, 197, 202, 207, 219–21, 223, 254, 268, 270; see also Frontenac, Louisbourg, Minden, Niagara, Pitt, Québec, Ticonderoga (battles of ) Sharp, John  63, 87, 321 Sharpe, Joseph  54, 290, 321 Sherlock, Thomas  104, 135, 139, 255, 321 Sherlock, William  266, 322 Shower, John  43, 212, 246, 251, 267, 322 Simmons, Thomas  39, 84, 98, 138, 322 Simpson, Thomas  42, 54, 96, 123, 165, 173, 207, 322 sinfulness  see British under national identity Skeeles, George  71, 146, 257, 289, 322 Slater, Samuel  38, 57, 62, 263, 322 slave trade  283–285 Smallwell, Edward  197, 322 Smalpage, Samuel  179, 203, 322 Smedley, Jonathan  152, 236, 287, 322 Smith, Elisha  134, 139, 322 Smith, James  68, 79, 192, 322 Smith, John  25, 83, 191, 197, 221, 322 Smith, Thomas  75, 322 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts  27, 223, 281 Somerville, James  286, 322 Spademan, John  241, 263, 322 Spain  40, 158, 165, 172, 203, 218, Spanish Succession, war of the (1701– 1714)  49, 65, 68, 104, 153, 203; see also Blenheim, Hochstet, Malplaquet, Oudenard, Ramillies, Vigo Bay (battles of ) Spark, Alexander  50, 53, 69, 226, 271, 323 Standen, Joseph  26, 323 Stanhope, George  166, 205, 323 Stanhope, Michael  235, 265, 323 Stead, William  132, 181, 189, 197, 209, 221, 323 Stennett, Joseph (the elder)  82, 83, 104–5, 118, 123, 168, 203, 241, 261, 323 Stennett, Joseph (the younger)  68, 86, 199 and n.93, 202, 278, 323 Stephens, Henry  56, 76, 171, 184, 195, 232, 323 Stephens, William  247, 251, 323 Stevenson, Thomas  50, 158, 288, 323 Stevenson, William  277, 323 Stillingfleet, James  117, 142, 145, 155, 257, 323 Stonard, John  77, 147, 156, 222, 288, 323 Stone, George  131, 324 Strachan, John  72, 141 and n.94, 143, 147, 181, 191, 201, 209, 210, 226, 263, 279, 280, 289, 324 Strype, John  83, 85, 324

Stuart pretenders  39, 51, 85, 108, 119, 122, 124, 128, 139–40, 202, 239, 277–8 Sturges, John  161, 171, 184, 207, 237, 324 Swanne, John  25, 251, 269, 324 Swift, Thomas  129, 134, 248, 324 Swynfen, John  20, 324 Sykes, Arthur  93, 101, 135, 324 Synge, Richard  108, 201, 324 Talbot, William  49, 79, 99, 269, 324 taxes  see costs of war under warfare Tayler, Thomas  49, 62, 119, 147, 149, 152, 178, 206, 324 Taylor, Christopher  104, 119, 269, 324 Taylor, Thomas (Anglican vicar)  59, 66, 324 Taylor, Thomas (Methodist minister)  55, 88, 217, 240, 241, 284, 324 Test Act (1678)  234, 239 thanksgiving days  xiv–xviii, 1–2, 31–47, 55–8, 130 American (1783)  227–9 and n.82 behaviour during  55–8 dates xiv–xviii government’s role in enacting  2, 32, 36–7 liturgy  2, 32 and n.4, 41, 243 occasions, in general  xiv–xviii, 1–2 and n.2 origins of  32–4 participation in  40–7 and n.53 and 54, 55–58, 199, 236, 242–3 purposes of  32–47, 59, 63–4 Thomas, George  65, 186, 209, 324 Ticonderoga, Fort, battle of (1759)  160 Tillotson, John  25, 34, 61, 67, 117, 123, 152, 250, 264, 325 Todd, Hugh  120, 248, 274, 325 toleration  see religious liberty under political theory Toleration Act (1689)  237–8, 244 Tomlyns, John  98, 325 Tooke, William  40, 67, 169, 195, 265, 325 Tory  see under political parties Townley, James  175, 288, 325 Townsend, George  57, 82, 88, 100, 128, 136, 283, 325 trade  see commerce Trafalgar, battle of (1805)  41, 50, 54, 56, 77, 85, 90, 152–3, 155, 159, 160, 165–6, 173, 179, 207 Travers, John  174, 193, 278–9, 325 Trelawny, Jonathan  46, 53, 61, 325 Tremenheere, William  57, 105, 127, 214, 325 Trimnell, Charles  103, 171, 193, 325 Tullie, George  99, 325

INDEX  395



Union of England and Scotland (1707)  88–9, 119–20, 149, 210, 211, 269, 271, 273–7, 279 Anglican responses to  233, 248 dissenting responses to  240, 247–8 unity  see national unity Upper Canada  see Canada Utrecht, Treaty of (1713)  201–3 Vaughan, Edward  20, 258, 284, 325 Vaughan, Thomas  219, 264, 278, 326 Vigo Bay, battle of (1702)  160 Vincent, William  104, 111, 148, 272, 326 Voltaire (Arouet, François-Marie)  257 Wainewright, Latham  234, 255, 326 Wake, William  70, 73, 11, 267, 326 Wakefield, Gilbert  158, 225, 283, 289, 326 Walker, George  69, 97, 102, 129, 132, 224, 225, 280, 326 Walker, Robert  78, 155, 212, 281, 326 Walkington, Edward  38, 326 Wallett, Abraham  28, 326 Wallin, Benjamin  21, 23, 57, 202–3, 206, 208, 219, 326 Walsh, John  70, 97, 326 Warburton, William  81, 86, 100, 103, 105, 186, 224, 233, 249, 254, 255, 281, 326 Ward, Joseph  192, 326 Ward, William  267, 326 Warden, John  52, 279, 327 warfare  38–9, 55, 151–92, 196, 204, 295; see also specific battles and wars (eg.: American Revolutionary War), and war under providence, and Britain under national identity British Navy  155–9, 164–6, 207–9 commercial resilience during  205–9, 214 costs of war commercial  180, 190–2, 215–16, 295 debt  182, 188–90, 210, 226, 227, 295 human  175–81, 295 taxes  180–1, 182–90, 196–8, 200, 295 criticisms of  169–70, 174, 175, 185, 188–92 heroism and  160–6 Warner, Richard  28, 42, 166, 174, 327 Waterland, Daniel  253, 327 Waterloo, battle of (1815)  160 Watson, Richard  196, 216, 327 Watts, Thomas  80, 93, 106, 107, 111, 133, 236, 250, 269, 327 Welton, Richard  49, 81, 158, 195, 327 West Indies  see Indies Whig  see under political parties

Whitehouse, John  63, 144, 146, 171–2, 257, 327 Whiting, Charles  37, 327 Whittel, John  208, 262, 327 Wilder, John  73, 83, 118, 164, 327 Willard, Joseph  228, 327 William III  34, 35, 38, 71,80, 83, 89, 98, 107, 109, 111, 118, 124–5, 139, 154, 187, 188, 194, 200, 213, 227, 241, 250, 263, 264, 269, 279 assassination plot against (1696)  35, 38, 118, 251, 269 Williams, Charles  264, 327 Williams, Daniel  40, 87, 118, 154, 171, 191, 242, 246, 261, 277, 327 Williams, Griffith  83, 254, 271, 327 Williams, John  176, 328 Williams, William  51, 142, 273, 328 Willis, Richard  121, 134, 235–6, 246, 252, 328 Wilson, William  108, 244, 251, 269, 328 Wilton, William  146, 328 Wingfield, Thomas  278, 328 Winter, Richard  131, 180, 270, 328 Withers, John  85, 118, 238, 241, 328 Wolfe, James, General  163 Wood, Robert  41, 328 Wood, William  20, 25, 162, 185, 253, 277, 278, 287, 328 Woodcock, Josiah  76, 275, 328 Woodroffe, Benjamin  45, 218, 223, 224, 328 Woodward, Josiah  36, 111, 262, 328 Woodward, Samuel  33, 176, 268, 270, 282, 328 Worthington, Hugh  56, 179, 328 Wright, Robert  47, 53, 182, 329 Wright, Samuel  48, 112, 123, 134, 135, 137, 138, 187, 215, 238, 244, 248, 329 Wright, Thomas  94, 210, 221, 329 Wyvill, Christopher  27, 94, 158, 167, 176, 184, 329 Young, Robert  23, 329