Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century 900417155X, 9789004171558

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Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century

Preaching, Sermon and Cultural Change in the Long Eighteenth Century Edited by

Joris van Eijnatten

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009

This book is printed on acid-free paper. On the cover: Preaching at the Herrnhutter community of Zeist in the Dutch Republic. Engraving by Abraham Jacobsz Hulk, 1782. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, the Netherlands (BMH g2797c). The print was originally included in William Hurd, Oude en tegenwoordige staat en geschiedenis van alle godsdiensten van den schepping af tot op den tegenwoordige tijd (7 vols.; Amsterdam 1781-1791). A Herrnhutter (Moravian) community was established in Zeist in the Dutch Republic around the middle of the eighteenth century. Committed to upholding the universal priesthood of all believers, the Herrnhutters had no use for a pulpit. The preacher spoke from behind a simple table in a sober, white-washed church, where women sat on one side and the men on the other. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Preaching, sermon, and cultural change in the long eighteenth century / edited by Joris van Eijnatten. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17155-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Preaching--History--18th century. I. Eijnatten, Joris van. BV4207.P73 2008 251.009’033--dc22 2008036975

ISBN 978 90 04 17155 8 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface.................................................................................................. vii List of Contributors ............................................................................. xv I: Survey Varieties of Sermon: A Survey of Preaching in the Long Eighteenth Century.............................................................3 O.C. Edwards, Jr. II: Foundation The Theology of the Sermon in the Eighteenth Century.......................57 Alexander Bitzel The Art of Preaching ............................................................................95 Françoise Deconinck-Brossard III: Transformation The Classical Sermon .........................................................................133 Thomas Worcester Pietism and Revival ............................................................................173 Jonathan Strom The Enlightenment Sermon: Towards Practical Religion and a Sacred National Community ......................................219 Pasi Ihalainen IV: Communication On Sermons and Daily Life ................................................................263 Sabine Holtz From Embodying the Rules to Embodying Belief: On Eighteenth-Century Pulpit Delivery in England, Germany and the Netherlands............................................................313 Herman Roodenburg Getting the Message: Towards a Cultural History of the Sermon ........................................................................343 Joris van Eijnatten Index ..................................................................................................389

PREFACE

There has been considerable development in historical research into sermons since the 1980s. The field has expanded to such an extent that sermons have now been examined from almost every conceivable point of view, including literary, Jewish, church, political, social, cultural, conceptual, and even economic history. Sermon research has touched on a wide range of topics, from rhetoric, gender, eschatology, funeral rites and mysticism to festivities, practical theology, theatre, propaganda, political culture, domestic life and missions – to mention but a few. From a somewhat narrow specialism within the domains of church history and literary history, sermon research has become the subject of interdisciplinary research. Sermons are now widely recognized as an indispensable historical source, because of their importance as a means of communication, the wealth of subjects they broach and the sheer quantities in which they appeared in print. Much has been written on the historical sermon in general and the eighteenth-century sermon in particular. The most important recent literature has been integrated into this book, one aim of which is to demonstrate the dynamic turn sermon research has taken internationally. As the fourth volume in Brill’s series A New History of the Sermon, this study examines the sermon during the ‘long’ eighteenth century – the era between, say, Bossuet and Schleiermacher. It offers a broad outline of the history of preaching in this period and an overview of the research that has been done over the past three decades. The study takes a thematic approach, rather like the volume on the medieval sermon edited by Carolyn Muessig.1 However, where Muessig’s Preacher, sermon and audience in the Middle Ages was structured according to new areas of sermon research (with chapters on preaching in relation to, amongst others, rhetoric, performance, art, and audience), this study looks at different aspects of the sermon. The thematic approach to some extent limits the degree of fragmentation inherent in approaches that put more emphasis on chronological, confessional or geographical divisions. Inevitably the reader will find, 1 Carolyn Muessig ed., Preacher, sermon and audience in the Middle Ages (A new history of the sermon, 3) (Leiden Boston: Brill, 2002).

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as a consequence, that various historically important preachers (as, for example, John Tillotson) or movements (such as Pietism) are discussed from different points of view in various chapters. But the focus on several broader themes will hopefully allow a general overview of the sermon’s development between about 1670 and 1815. The themes dealt with in this study have been grouped under three headings. Firstly, attention is given to the sermon’s ‘Foundation’: the theology of the eighteenth-century sermon and instructions given to preachers by the writers of homiletic textbooks. Theoretical and prescriptive literature suggested the standards by which the ‘everyday’ practice of sermongiving ought to be judged. The way ideals were reflected in practice is treated in the second section, on ‘Transformation’, which examines three important currents in the long eighteenth century: (Neo-)Classicism, Pietism, and the Enlightenment. Each of these contributed to the fact that in the course of 150-odd years the sermon thoroughly changed. The Classicist current, partly inspired by the rhetoric of antiquity, called for a reconsideration of language and a reorientation on ethics; in doing so it set a standard for eighteenth-century homiletics, thus becoming ‘classical’ itself. The Pietist (and revivalist) current attempted to refocus the sermon on what most preachers would have recognised as its core business: the effective, moral and spiritual regeneration of individual men and women. The Enlightenment current took seriously the eighteenth-century revaluation of “reason” and the “secular” – notoriously elusive concepts which are probably best studied in and through concrete texts such as the sermon. The third section of this volume, on ‘Communication’, addresses the sermon as a means of disseminating and transmitting ideas and values. It offers different perspectives on the methods and effects of preaching. The section includes chapters on the way sermons reflected daily life, on delivery as a means of reaching congregations, and on how and why audiences responded to preaching. In terms of chronology, this study follows on the volume edited by Larissa Taylor although it does not exactly pick up where Preachers and people left off.2 The seventeenth-century sermon still deserves to be discussed in a separate volume. Nevertheless, Preaching, sermon and cultural change in the long eighteenth century does occasionally refer to the period before the long eighteenth century, a time that witnessed the consolidation

2 Larissa Taylor ed., Preachers and people in the reformations and early modern period (A new history of the sermon 2) (Boston; Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001).

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of both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. The authors of the present volume need to make clear how and why the sermon developed as it did, at a time when established orthodoxies were losing their grip (or loosening their hold) on the Christian population of Europe. Because of the thematic approach, this book is not organised along geographical lines, unlike Taylor’s Preachers and people, which focused explicitly on national contexts. Each of the nine chapters combines a clear thematic focus with a broad geographical perspective. Although a certain bias may be noticed towards Central and North-Western Europe, different authors also treat the Nordic, Southern European and Northern American contexts, either in the text itself or by referring to the pertinent literature in the footnotes. In this way, much literature in languages other than English (such as Swedish and Dutch) has been made accessible to a wider audience. The volume begins with a chapter on ‘Varieties of Sermon’ by O.C. Edwards. His outline of different kinds of sermons in the period studied also acts as a survey of the literature on the long eighteenth century, thus providing a helpful introduction to the other chapters. Edwards’s ‘Varieties of Sermon’ deals in part with styles of preaching. It emphasises the continuity of older styles while noting the changes that occurred. It is important to remember that Baroque sermons, such as the Spanish ‘concetto’, the German ‘emblematic’ and the Puritan ‘plain style’ sermons, were still regularly held in the eighteenth century. They would not have been the brunt of so much criticism if they had not been popular among large sections of the church-going public. Edwards also reviews newer preaching styles, such as the French Neo-Classicist style of Bossuet, the Anglican preaching of Tillotson, the evangelistic sermons of the eighteenth-century ‘awakenings’ as well as those of Lutheran Pietism. Much of the first chapter is, for obvious reasons, concerned with the Sunday sermon. But it also pays due attention to other varieties of preaching, such as sermons delivered on saints’ days, funeral sermons in different national contexts, sermons for civic occasions (including Calvinist ‘jeremiads’), and a host of minor types of sermon. Taking into account the most important recent literature, Edwards’s chapter provides us with a glimpse of the extraordinary diversity of the world of the eighteenth-century sermon. The first section, ‘Foundation’, opens with a seminal chapter by Alexander Bitzel on the theology of the eighteenth-century sermon. Concentrating on Germany, the chapter first discusses the theological basis of the sermon as it had been re-established during the Reformation (Luther) and Counter-Reformation (the Council of Trent). This allows Bitzel to put

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into perspective the Pietist theology of Philipp Jakob Spener, August Hermann Francke and Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, as well as the theology of later Lutheran Orthodoxy. The latter group includes such important eighteenth-century thinkers as Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten and Johann Lorenz von Mosheim. In this chapter’s careful analysis, other theologies and theologians are discussed as well. Bitzel’s account culminates, on the Protestant side, in eighteenth-century ‘Neology’, the fascinating mixture of traditional theology and new-fangled Enlightenment that characterises much German thought of the time; in this chapter it is illustrated by, among others, Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem. Bitzel concludes this part of his chapter with a revaluation of post-Enlightened theology, including the revival of traditional orthodoxy and the work of Schleiermacher. In discussing Catholic theology, Bitzel shifts his focus to French Neo-Classicism and the Catholic Enlightenment in Central Europe. As Bitzel explains, little research has been done on the theology of the sermon; his chapter, especially translated for this volume by courtesy of the publisher, will hopefully encourage new research into this important topic in other national contexts. Françoise Deconinck-Brossard’s chapter on ‘The art of preaching’ is no less foundational. Organised according to the five elements of classical rhetoric – invention, arrangement, expression or style, memory, and pronunciation – the chapter provides a detailed discussion of eighteenthcentury artes praedicandi in France and England. Deconinck-Brossard explains which rules and techniques the textbooks expected preachers to apply to their sermons. The prescriptive literature suggests, for example, that subject matter could be derived from commonplace books (inventio). Preachers were advised to choose appropriate passages from the Bible and explain the context in which these occurred (dispositio). They were also expected to follow rules and recommendations regarding style (elocutio), memorisation (memoria) and delivery ( pronuntiatio: this latter aspect is developed at greater length in Herman Roodenburg’s chapter on action in the pulpit). Interestingly, where Bitzel ascertains that the Protestant and Catholic theologies of the sermon were quite distinct, Deconinck-Brossard concludes that French and English artes praedicandi did not differ very much. In this respect, at least, geographical and confessional divides were, apparently, irrelevant. Bitzel’s chapter on theology and Deconinck-Brossard’s on the art of preaching demonstrate in different ways the relevance of this volume’s thematic and comparative approach. The next three chapters, which together constitute the section on ‘Transformation’, deal with several important general developments that

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took place during the long eighteenth century. The first chapter, by Thomas Worcester, discusses the ‘Classical sermon’, a model of the sermon that would be widely used – at least by the intellectual elite of the time – as a standard by which to judge preaching in general. The Classical sermon emphasised such things as ethics and language, arguably two aspects of oral and written discourse that were central to eighteenth-century thought. In order to make clear how the Classical (or Neo-Classical) sermon differed from the Baroque preaching of the early seventeenth century, Worcester first examines the sermons of Jean-Pierre Camus. The latter affords a fine illustration of a style of preaching that borders on the concetto or metaphysical, as discussed by Edwards in the introductory chapter, but without the extravagance to which that genre was prone. Worcester then contrasts the sermons of Camus with close analyses of sermons by three very influential preachers, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Louis Bourdaloue, and John Tillotson. He shows that ‘language in service of good morals’ was, indeed, characteristic of sermons and preaching in the long eighteenth century. ‘Pietism and Revival’, the subject of Jonathan Strom’s chapter, represents a second key eighteenth-century transformation. Strom stresses two things in particular: first, that sermons were central to the activities of Pietists and Revivalists, and second, that they were above all concerned with a preaching that was effective. At the same time, he urges us not to underestimate the degree of continuity between Orthodoxy and Pietism, and to heed the fact that Pietists launched a successful ‘media campaign’ in both word and print. They first constructed the image of a supposedly obsolete Orthodoxy that still influences present-day historiography. Several well-known theologians reappear in this chapter, including Spener, Francke and Zinzendorf. Strom, however, approaches them from a different angle than either Edwards or Bitzel. Strom examines the place of the sermon in the larger social and cultural context of late seventeenth-century Germany, and the way traditional preaching was challenged by individuals and groups who were interested most in the effects of preaching rather than the mere fact that sermons were duly delivered. Apart from the mainstream Pietists, Strom also examines radical Pietists like Gottfried Arnold. He then moves on to discuss the revivalist movement in Britain and North America, noting the differences and similarities with related currents in Central Europe. Pietists and Revivalists skilfully used new means of communication, argues Strom, drawing attention to accounts about the success of their own preaching. The same could probably be said for those preachers who

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reckoned themselves part of a ‘moderate’ Enlightenment. They are the subject of Pasi Ihalainen’s chapter on ‘The Enlightenment Sermon’. In a broad overview that covers a variety of confessions, Ihalainen shows that religion and Enlightenment are hardly antithetical. He makes his point in particular in a section on the political sermon – one of the many species of sermon treated also in the introductory chapter to this volume. The political sermon played a significant role, as Ihalainen says, in ‘registering, sanctifying, reinforcing and sometimes producing changes in the contemporary worldview’. In passing, Ihalainen offers a number of criteria that could be used to gauge the degree of ‘enlightedness’, so to speak, of the theologically more progressive, eighteenth-century sermon. In what is the most varied chapter in this volume in terms of geographical scope, Ihalainen ranges from Sweden to France and from Prussia to England to illustrate his point that the Enlightenment sermon dynamically contributed to ‘more modern conceptions of the national community’. In her ‘On Sermons and Daily Life’, which opens the third section (on ‘Communication’), Sabine Holtz makes an observation that is important to the kind of thematic and comparative approach taken in this volume. When comparing confessions, she observes, it is not so much the differences between doctrines and church organization that ought to be taken note of, but the relative value attached to them. Thus, Lutherans and Calvinists set great store by preaching, but Holtz remarks that sermons grew more important in the Catholic world as well. Holtz’s chapter examines the way daily life was reflected in sermons and how they referred to daily life. Her main focus is on Central Europe. How did sermons function in the state churches of the long eighteenth century? Which views of the social order, marriage, household, work, wealth, and of authority, were transmitted through the sermon? What did sermons have to say on youth and old age? Like the following chapters in this section on ‘Communication’, this one too has a distinct slant towards socio-cultural history and the methodologies of the social sciences. Holtz’s chapter, not published elsewhere, was translated for this volume to allow an English-reading audience to access her original approach to the sermon. Herman Roodenburg’s ‘From Embodying the Rules to Embodying Belief ’ looks at another aspect of communication: the delivery of sermons. Roodenburg is not so much concerned with artes praedicandi in the way Deconinck-Brossard deals with prescriptive literature. His aim is to reconstruct the ‘repertoire’ of the preacher’s action in the pulpit. He argues that attention to the manner of delivery grew steadily in importance during the eighteenth century. He illustrates his case by examining the

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reception of the work of Michel le Faucheur in England, Germany and the Netherlands. In England, the elocutionary movement echoed but also adapted Le Faucheur’s revaluation of action and delivery. Well-known preachers and public speakers like James Fordyce, Thomas Sheridan and Hugh Blair began to stress the affective power of oratory and the orator’s personal sensibility. Interestingly, this led to a reassessment of Methodist preaching, for which the production of heart-felt discourse had been a core business. Such ideas also appeared among continental writers, including Johann Ludwig Ewald in Germany and Johannes Clarisse in the Netherlands. In order to communicate effectively, the preacher needed to embody ‘belief in his voice, eyes, hands, arms and the whole body’. In ‘Getting the Message’, Joris van Eijnatten shifts the perspective from the preacher to the audience. The vast majority of the literature is either concerned with sermon texts or the preachers who delivered them or had them published. But how did the congregation or audience respond to the sermon? One way of looking at audience response is a method in communication studies called the ‘uses and gratifications approach’. The intentions of the message’s producer (the preacher) and the content of his message (the sermon) are of secondary importance in this approach; central is the way audiences receive the message. By studying so-called ego documents such as diaries, travel accounts and letters, it is possible to examine responses of members of the audience. Hearers actively selected those portions of the message they considered relevant to their personal life, interpreting the sermon in individual ways by using their own frame of reference rather than the producer’s. Ranging through Italy, France, the Netherlands, Britain and the American colonies, Van Eijnatten shows how motives for attendance vary; they could be cognitive and affective, or they could follow from a wish to develop or reaffirm personal and social identities. In this sense, motives for audience attendance correspond with the threefold aim of classical rhetoric: docere, to teach or persuade the intellect; delectare, to delight the mind; and movere, to touch the emotions. If this volume makes clear that the previous decades have begun to open up the field of sermon research to other disciplines than church history or the history of literature, it also demonstrates that there is still much work to be done. Studies on the sermon in eighteenth-century literature, on the sermon and oral culture, on sermons and missions, and on the preacher, would greatly enrich the field; the same applies to sermons by women, sermons by lay preachers, and non-Western sermons. The various chapters published in this volume themselves contain numerous suggestions for further research to be undertaken, both in fleshing out these and other

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themes and in expanding comparative dimensions. Above all, this volume makes a clear case in favour of a thematic and comparative angle in sermon research, rather than the more traditional confessional and geographical approach. I am greatly indebted to the authors who helped to write this book. It is due to their hard work and devotion that this study is as rich and diverse as it is. I hope it will inspire other researchers to further develop research into sermons during the long eighteenth century. Joris van Eijnatten.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Alexander Bitzel, Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, Institut für Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Universität Hamburg, Germany. Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, Head of the Department of Anglo-American Studies, Professor of Eighteenth-Century English Studies, Université Paris 10, France. O.C. Edwards, Jr., former President and Dean and Professor Emeritus of Preaching, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois, and author of A History of Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004). Joris van Eijnatten, Professor of Cultural History, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Sabine Holtz, Professor at the Department of Philosophy and History, University of Tübingen, and researcher at the Landesarchivdirektion Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Pasi Ihalainen, Acting Professor of General History, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He is the author of Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden: Brill, 2005). Herman Roodenburg holds a chair in Historical Anthropology at V U University Amsterdam and is a researcher at the Amsterdam Meertens Institute. Jonathan Strom, Associate Professor of Church History and Acting Associate Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs, Chandler School of Theology, Emory University. Thomas Worcester is an Associate Professor of History at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He is the author of Seventeenth-Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997), and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

PART I

SURVEY

VARIETIES OF SERMON: A SURVEY OF PREACHING IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY O.C. Edwards, Jr. Introduction In view of the many different kinds of sermons preached in the ‘long eighteenth century’, it may be more accurate to speak of them as varieties than as genres. If ‘genre’ is construed in its most technical sense as Gattung, it is doubtful that each of the different types of sermons preached during the period can be described critically in a way that distinguishes it from all the others. While some of the varieties have their form or dispositio as their identifying element, for others it may be content, or the occasion on which it was preached, or something else entirely. All of which is to say that there was an abundant variety of sermons preached in the eighteenth century. Perhaps the most basic distinction that must be made is that between Sunday preaching and what was done the rest of the week. Each faith community had its own basic approaches to preaching at the Sunday assembly for worship. For instance, many in the Calvinist tradition—both continental and English and American Puritan—preached exegetical homilies on consecutive passages of a book of the Bible, and often did so several times on a Sunday, turning to a different biblical book each time. Lutherans, on the other hand, based their proclamation on one of the readings appointed in the lectionary for that day (what they called the ‘pericopes’). European Roman Catholics used a sermon form derived from the revival of classical rhetoric in the Renaissance, as did also English Anglicans and Protestant Dissenters, although for the Roman Catholics, the major sermon of the day was often delivered at a separate service on Sunday afternoon rather than at the morning Mass. During the week there were other gatherings of the communities for the ongoing round of worship. Those who followed the church year had major feasts to celebrate that usually fell between Sundays, with Christmas, the Epiphany, and the Ascension being the most important ones (Easter, of course, falls on a Sunday). There were seasons during which preaching was often done, notably Advent and Lent. And there were the heroes of the faith, the saints, whose days were commemorated. For Roman Catholics

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the greatest of these were those devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Calvinists had additional biblical homilies during the week, often under the rubric of ‘lectures’. Following the first awakenings in England and America, evangelistic sermons were preached day in and day out. Pietists could call for renewal at weekday services. All traditions recognized the need for regular catechesis of the faithful. Pastoral guidance was also given at all rites of passage: baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The arrivals and departures of clergy were major events in the lives of the communities that were marked by special words from the pulpit. There were also occasions in which the church consecrated the life of the political community by appropriate prayers and preaching. Reformed churches, for instance, would recognize the chastening hand of God in disasters that overtook them and hold days of prayer and fasting to call for repentance. Then, when the danger passed, there would be days of thanksgiving. Other civic events, such as elections, were also occasions of solemn supplication and proclamation for the Puritans in New England. Various occasions called for state sermons in European churches, and special traditions were developed for preaching at the courts of monarchs. Finally, to do justice to the many varieties of preaching in the long eighteenth century, we must recognize particular ways of developing a sermon popular at the time. Clergy of each faith tradition had their own ways of preaching, and the ways of a given tradition were not always the same from one geographical area to another. From the point of view of style, varieties of sermon include European concetto, Spanish gerundianismo, and Catholic and Lutheran emblematic sermons. There is no way to treat such variety adequately in this chapter. That is partly because doing so would take so much space, but also because there is much more scholarly literature on some of these types of preaching than on others. What follows, then, is like many early maps: it gives the overall shape with more or less accuracy and is much more detailed in some areas than others. For all the many changes that occurred during the eighteenth century, most varieties of sermons had deep roots in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consequently, this account to some extent considers scholarly literature on the earlier period.1 1 The volume previous to this one, Larissa Taylor ed., Preachers and people in the reformations and early modern period (Boston, Leiden, 2003), largely treated the sixteenth century, so that there is something of a gap between both volumes. A brief overview of the ‘long eighteenth century’ may be found in Joris van Eijnatten, ‘Reaching Audiences. Sermons and Oratory in Europe, 1660–1800’, in: Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett eds., The Cambridge History of Christianity. Vol. VII: Enlightenment, Revolution, and Reawakening (1660–1815) (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 128–146.

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Sunday and Weekday Sermons Roman Catholic Preaching To begin to get a grasp on the luxuriant variety of the Sunday sermon, it will help to make a basic distinction, that between Catholic and Protestant preaching. It must be admitted here, though, that this distinction is not absolute, since each tradition influenced the other – sometimes in great detail. The study of Catholic preaching in the eighteenth century must begin with looking at that of the seventeenth, since many of its elements continued into the later period or influenced new directions. The preaching style of that period, along with the style of the other arts, was called Baroque by disdainful critics of a later generation. Speaking of ‘nineteenth century Protestant scholars unsympathetic to the floridity and extravagance’ of Spanish religious Baroque, Hilary Dansey Smith wrote: It would appear that, whereas it is quite legitimate for a poet, dramatist, or novelist to aim at admiratio through the cunning development of tropes and fine-sounding phrases, the preacher must always be a severe and plain speaker whose message is simple and unchanging.

The term ‘Baroque’ is derived from a Portuguese noun meaning a pearl of an irregular shape, indicating a classicism that had gone awry. That style in all the arts owed much of its popularity to the Roman Catholic Church, which, in the spirit of the Council of Trent, wanted art that would engage the masses at a direct and emotional level. Thus it focused more on touching feelings than it did on communicating thought and information. In doing so, it disturbed the regularities of the classicism of the Renaissance, and thus was considered vulgar by some aesthetes.2 One of the best approaches to Baroque preaching is to look at the variety of its dispositiones. Smith compiled a list of the rhetorical structures used in Spanish sermons from this period that will serve for most Catholic preaching at the time. First he considers a sermón de un (solo) tema, which can best be described as the thematic sermon of the High Middle Ages adapted to the structure of a classical oration, with its four parts of propositio, narratio, confirmatio, and peroratio. In the first two of these, the text (Latin: thema, Spanish: tema) is announced, divine aid is implored, a prothema may be developed to give latecomers time to arrive, and the division

2 This issue is addressed by Hilary Dansey Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age: A Study of Some Preachers of the Reign of Philip III (Oxford, 1978), pp. 1–2.

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of the sermon into the points to be made is announced. The confirmation then is the body of the sermon in which the points are made. These points are recapitulated in the peroration along with a final exhortation to the congregation.3 The second sermon structure used was that of the homilía, the form coming down from patristic times in which the preacher gives a verse-byverse interpretation and application of a passage of scripture. That is followed by the paradoxon, ‘a sermon which weaves together, or contrasts with one another, a Gospel text and an Autoridad (which may be from the Epistle of the Day, or from the Breviary)’.4 An example of this form uses Matt. 6:16 as its theme and Gen. 3:19 and Joel 2:12–13 as prothemes; the three are taken as a continuous passage that treats of the human condition and its remedy. In the exordium the Genesis passage is identified as natural law, representing the Father; that from Joel as written law, representing the Son; and that from Matthew as the law of grace, representing the Holy Spirit. The three passages of scripture are treated in the scholastic manner by which propositions are derived from each and then confirmed by the citation of authorities (auctoritates). The last structure is the panegyrico, a form equally useful for preaching on saints’ days and at important funerals. In some ways, though, this is not a different form, because it can use the outline of either a sermón de un tema or a paradoxon, but not, however, that of a homilía. Smith discusses three types of sermon illustration used in Spanish sermons of the period: exemplum, comparación, and concepto predicable.5 Exempla are a device from medieval thematic sermons, and comparisons will be discussed elsewhere below. Here it will be enough to look at the concepto predicable and another device Smith examines later, the emblem, to get an idea of what made Baroque preaching unique. Both conceits6 and emblems are also used in the creative literature of the period and in the preaching of Spain, Italy, France, and England.7 There are also Lutheran emblematic sermons.

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Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age, pp. 46–52. Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age, pp. 53–54. 5 Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age, p. 69. 6 The English equivalent of concepto. The Italian word is concetto. 7 In addition to their treatments in Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age, conceits and emblems are discussed widely. See especially Albrecht Beutel, “Katholische Predigt der Neuzeit,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. XXVII (Berlin, New York, 1977), pp. 270–272, and Peter Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory 1598–1650: A Study in Themes and Styles with a Descriptive Catalog of Printed Texts (Cambridge, 1980), passim. 4

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Preaching of this sort is also called ‘witty’ and ‘metaphysical’ in English. It is witty not in the sense that it is either lively minded or humorous, but because it displays a ‘felicitous perception or expression of associations between ideas or words not usually connected, such as produce an amusing surprise,’8 although with the sermons devout delight is more the aim than amusing surprise. The description of this preaching as metaphysical derives from Samuel Johnson’s application of this adjective to much of the poetry of the period; the poetry reflects the same taste, and, indeed, some of the preachers, such as John Donne, were also poets. Conceits are comparisons in which like is compared to unlike – and even the unlikely. It is the surprise of discovering likeness where it was assumed that none exists that keeps the hearer alert and open to spiritual truths that had come to seem dull from their very familiarity. The audiences for such sermons could be assumed to be well instructed in the faith, so the strategy of such a device is to renew interest in what had become ordinary. As Smith says, ‘A comparación becomes a concepto when a good deal remains ‘between the lines’ and the reader, or hearer, is challenged to pick up a perceptual clue by himself, with a sense of discovery’.9 This is the sort of thing that is better illustrated than described. In his French Pulpit Oratory 1598–1650, Bayley gives an excellent example in a sermon by Etienne Molinier (died 1650) preached at the consecration of a painting of the Pietà. He begins by citing Pliny’s description of the triumphal procession given Pompey for his victories in Asia in which it is said that there was carried before his chariot an image of him that was decorated with pearls. The preacher claims that the painting is an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, because she too was covered with the pearls that were her tears. Bayley explains: Beneath the mention of the pearl there lie not only reminiscences of the ‘pearl of great price’ (Matthew xiii, 45) but theories about the way pearls are formed in oysters by dew, and about the pearl/tear ambiguity in the interpretation of dreams.10

While in many of these sermons such things would be explained, here their familiarity is taken for granted. Instead, the preacher goes on to pile detail upon detail, allusion upon allusion:

8 9 10

Webster’s New International Dictionary (Unabridged), 2nd ed., s.v. ‘wit,’ definition 9. Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age, p. 82. Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory, p. 96.

8

o.c. edwards, jr . Larmes qui furent autant de perles que les Anges remasserent, & que nous deuons recueillir pour en fair vn carquant à nostre col, vne plaque à nostre poitrine, vne couronne à nostre deuotion. Les perles s’engendrent de la rosée du Ciel, la Vierge est vn ciel animé, et les larmes vne diuine rosée, d’ou naissent en nos coeurs les perles de mille sainctes pensées.11

The other rhetorical device of the Baroque period to which attention needs to be called is the emblem. During this time it became popular to publish books on each of the pages of which were three things: a motto, a symbolic picture, and a set of verses called an epigram that explained the emblem. An example of the way one of these worked is a ‘picture of a beehive in a helmet, together with the motto Ex bello pax and the explanatory epigram, [which] means that the weapons of war may be turned into the weapons of peace’.12 Apparently the emblems were not always used effectively in preaching. Smith says that the emblems are supposed to be very subtle: ‘the true emblem is essentially enigmatic and composed of a set of secret relations which at first puzzle the beholder’.13 Yet, he says, preachers were often so eager to extract all the teaching they could from an emblem that they, in effect, beat it to death, depriving it of all its subtlety. Bayley shows how the way such elements were used changed over the half century he discusses. At first there were some preachers whose prose was very poetic at a time when there were others who cultivated a plain style. This was followed by a time when preachers were devoted to the use of reference books that collected anecdotes, illustrations, and analogies. ‘Very often a sermon is built up by the indiscriminate heaping together of undigested material culled from these reference works and the preacher’s own commonplace-book’; the products of this process he labels ‘thesaurus sermons’.14 The next style, associated with Jean-Pierre Camus (1584– 1652), he calls ‘catenary prose’ because it involves what Jean Descrains called an enchaînement des images, ‘the nonchalant linking together of strings of analogies, allusions, anecdotes, scriptural figures and quotations’.15 This style was designed to replace the verbosity of the thesaurus sermons with an aesthetic brevity. 11

Quoted in Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory, p. 95. The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 5th ed., Margaret Drabble ed. (Oxford, 1985), s.v. ‘emblem book,’ p. 315. 13 Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age, p. 109. 14 Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory, p. 78. 15 Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory, p. 85. On Camus, see Jean Descrains ed., Jean Pierre Camus, Homélies des états généraux (1614–1615) (Geneva, 1970); Thomas Worcester, Seventeenth-Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus (Berlin [etc.], 1997). 12

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In reaction to Camus’ proposals, Molinier, whose sermon is quoted above, insisted that rhetoric was needed to instruct and persuade, and so he embedded his devices in passages of consecutive writing. Thus his alternative was the sort of conceptist style witnessed above in the extract from his sermon. Bayley calls the final movement he discusses ‘orchestrated’ prose; it recognizes that preaching is motivated behavior and that to achieve its ends it must employ all available tools in a coordinated manner. ‘The particular quality of this sort of prose,’ according to Bayley, who says that it developed among French Protestants before it spread to Catholics, ‘is often due to a combination of delicate but firm allusion and the use of classical rhetorical figures’.16 It was inevitable that eventually so intense a preaching style as the Baroque would go to seed, which brings us to the eighteenth century. In preaching, as in many other activities, a movement will begin with fresh inspiration and appear to carry all before it, only to be followed by a time when imitators try to repeat the movement’s success by copying its techniques rather than being motivated by its ideals. And at its best Baroque preaching was susceptible to parody. The parody finally came in a picaresque novel by José Francisco de Isla (1706–1781), a Spanish Jesuit. The Historia del Famoso Predicador Fray Gerundio de Companazas, which first appeared in 1758, tells of the career of what Isla calls ‘a preaching Don Quixote’, a mendicant friar who practiced the reigning style of preaching.17 As a result, such homiletical histrionics came to be called Gerundianismo. Isla himself was highly regarded as a preacher; seven volumes of his sermons were published, and Queen Maria Barbara sought him as her confessor. Equally at home in the cloister and the court, he personified the sophistication for which Jesuits are famous. Thus he could be the popular author of a number of satires and a respected preacher, theologian, and biblical scholar at the same time. The friars parodied by Isla were so well established that his satire of them was probably one of the reasons the Jesuits were expelled from Spain; it certainly was the major reason for his exile. Isla’s critique of the excesses of Baroque preaching, however, did not extend as far as that of Spanish Jansenists of the late eighteenth century because he and his fellow members of the Society of Jesus were so much a

16

Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory, p. 98. For a recent appraisal of the book, see Rebecca Haidt, Seduction and Sacrilege. Rhetorical Power in Fray Gerundio de Campazas (Lewisburg, 2002). 17

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part of the system whose excesses he parodies. While these Jansenists were related to the seventeenth-century movement from which they draw their name, they were more pastoral and practical than their French predecessors, and more concerned with pedagogy. They disagreed with the Jesuits over the relative authority of the pope and bishops, and in the controversy revived many of the issues brought up during the Reformation.18 Not surprisingly, Spanish Jansenists had very different ideas about preaching. They asked if it were to be based on a free interpretation of scripture or it had to conform to the theological system of Thomas Aquinas. What was the relative importance of sacraments and preaching? If, in the Tridentine theory, the only purpose of preaching was to teach correct doctrine, the role of rhetoric was to pave the way for the grace that enabled hearers to accept the teaching and act on the basis of it. Thus scholastic theology was linked to the rhetoric of Aristotle. Against this, the Jansenists believed that eloquence was the ransom for sin, necessitated by the weakness of human nature. Indeed, preaching was not so much speaking about God as it was God speaking through the preacher. This conflict about the nature and purpose of preaching has been studied by Joél Saugnieux in Les jansénistes et la renouveau de la prédication dans l’Espagne de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Saugnieux was less interested in a literary analysis of the contrasting types of sermons favored by the Jesuits and Jansenists than in a theological and historical perspective on their controversy, so he says little about the kind of preaching either group would have offered as an alternative to Gerundianismo.19 He concludes that, while the Jansenists wished to go further in the way of reform, their own involvement in the higher echelons of Spanish society kept them from going as far as Erasmus had recommended. The whole problem, as Saugnieux sees it, went back to the Counter Reformation, which was afraid to reconsider the content of preaching, so Catholic preachers could only reform it by polishing up their style. It was this that led to the extremes seen in the Gerundios.20 Although these trends continued to influence Catholic preaching in one country or another throughout the eighteenth century, an alternative form of proclamation had already become well developed in France before the

18 For an overview and bibliography, see William Doyle, Jansenism. Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution (s.l., 2000). 19 Joél Saugnieux, Les jansénistes et la renouveau de la prédication dans l’Espagne de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Lyon, 1976), pp. 1–6. 20 Joél Saugnieux, Les jansénistes et la renouveau de la prédication, pp. 335–343.

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seventeenth century was over. It returned to the fonts of classical rhetoric, but remembered that it was speech in service of the gospel, so that it recognized that it was to be the voice of Jesus in the world and thus should speak as he did, simply and naturally. This French school is perhaps best represented in Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), Bishop of Meaux. Bossuet certainly loved Cicero, Tacitus, Lucretius, and Sallust, but even more he loved Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Tertullian. Unlike the first two of these, however, he did not preach exegetical homilies. For his ordinary sermons he came closer to what modern Americans call a topical sermon, but was in fact also following much of the pattern of the sermon on one thema as it evolved from the preaching of the friars in the high Middle Ages.21 In the first part he would state his text and then move on to announce the subject he would treat under that banner. This first part of his exordium would culminate in a request for divine assistance to himself and his hearers, generally in the form of a ‘Hail Mary’. The second part of the exordium was the partition or division of classical oratory in which he announced the points that he was going to make. This development normally consisted of two or three points, each of which was often subdivided. From this he would move on to the practical implications for the lives of Christians of the thesis he had advanced, often contrasting what those would be for faithful believers to what they would be for others. The conclusion was generally a short exhortation to those who heard him to live in accordance with the truth proclaimed.22 Anglican and Other English Preaching While it might seem more natural to turn next to either Lutheran or Reformed preaching, the developments in England were similar to those among Roman Catholics, and two of the most important influences on the preaching of continental Protestants during the Enlightenment were Bossuet and Tillotson. There was a good bit of similarity between the preaching of the two, so it makes sense to look at the English development next. As noted above, the sermons of English metaphysical preachers such

21 For later developments in France, see John McManners, “Sermons”, in: Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France Volume 2: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion (Oxford, 1999) pp. 58–78. 22 Philippe Selier ed., Bossuet: Sermons, Nouveaux Classiques Larousse (Paris, 1975), p. 10.

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as Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne were much like those of the Roman Catholic Baroque period. In England, however, there is a distinct time gap between Baroque and Enlightenment or Latitudinarian preaching, as it is called there: the period of the Commonwealth (1642–60). A number of influences have been used to account for this change in preaching style, including the influence of French Neoclassicism, but, while there were cross-fertilizations, there were also significant differences in the temperaments of the two countries that would render a simple importation impossible.23 The founding of the Royal Society is another influence posited, and a number of the people were involved both in founding the society and in preaching, but the two movements were probably products of the same social forces. The change seems to be, more than anything else, one of those instances when the world went to bed with one taste and awoke with another. The great exemplar of the new taste was John Tillotson, who became Archbishop of Canterbury after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ when William and Mary replaced James II on the throne in 1689. His ideal was to preach in the ordinary speech of ‘gentlemen’ at the time, and he wished to avoid anything either dramatic or poetic, hoping to convince by nothing other than the reasonableness of his thought. Yet he was more concerned that his thought be clear than that it be profound. The structure of his sermons has been described by James Downey: He usually begins a discourse with a short proem which seeks to introduce his subject, impress its high seriousness upon his hearers, and prejudice them in his favour. As though outlining a problem in logic, he makes every sentence count; there are no embellishments and no redundant phrases. In turn he considers the several divisions into which his subject logically falls. There is no peroration; no impassioned pleading with sinners; no final ‘call.’ When the argument is concluded, the counsel for the Prosecution rests his case.24

It can be seen that the structure of one of his sermons was very similar to that of one of Bossuet’s, the main difference being between Bossuet’s

23 For parallel develoments elsewhere, cf. P.J. Schuffel, ‘From minister to sacred orator: Homiletics and rhetoric in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century Dutch Republic’, in: Arie-Jan Gelderblom et al eds., The Low Countries as a crossroads of religious beliefs (Leiden, 2004), pp. 221–245. 24 James Downey, The Eighteenth Century Pulpit: A Study of the Sermons of Butler, Berkeley, Secker, Sterne, Whitfield, and Wesley (Oxford, 1969). For the whole period, see O.C. Edwards, A History of Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004), pp. 391–425. For the theology of the period, see Rolf Lessenich, Elements of Pulpit Oratory in EighteenthCentury England (1660–1800) (Cologne and Vienna, 1972).

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restrained Gallic passion and Tillotson’s phlegmatic British rationality. While it is hard for most people today to think his sermons could have been anything other than dull, the fact remains that at the time they sold far more copies than classics of English literature from the period that are read today with great veneration and enjoyment. Indeed, many of their authors imitated Tillotson’s prose style. The preaching style that competed with the metaphysical school (composed largely of what later came to be called Anglo-Catholics) and that dominated the Commonwealth period was the Puritan plain style – a variety of sermon that was still read (and preached) until well into the eighteenth century. Before the Restoration of the monarchy the Puritans were members of the Church of England who were devoted enough to the theology of Calvin to wish to reshape the established church in the pattern of Geneva.25 An aspect of that was their ideal of preaching exegetical homilies on successive passages from a biblical book. They thought the English way of doing that was to follow the model set forth by one of their divines, William Perkins (1558–1602), in The Arte of Prophesying : 1. To read the Text distinctly out of the canonicall scripture. 2. To give the sense and understanding of it being read by the scripture itself. 3. To collect a few and profitable points of doctrine out of the naturall sense. 4. To applie (if he have the gift) the doctrine rightly collected to the manners of men in a simple and plain speech.26

This formula, commonly referred to as ‘Understanding, Doctrines, and Uses’, has been admirably summarized by Perry Miller: The Puritan sermon quotes the text and ‘opens’ it as briefly as possible, expounding circumstances and contexts, explaining its grammatical meanings, reducing its tropes and schemata to prose, and setting forth its logical implications; the sermon then proclaims in a flat, indicative sentence the ‘doctrine’ contained in the text or logically deduced from it, and proceeds to the first proof. Reason follows reason, with no other transition than a period

25 After the Restoration, they became Dissenters in England, forming the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Independent Churches. Those who emigrated to America remained Puritans, later forming the Congregational Church, and began to lose some of their distinctive beliefs around the time of the Revolution. 26 Ian Breward ed., The Works of William Perkins, Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics (Appleford, Abingdon [Berkshire], 1970) III, p. 349. The form of seventeenthcentury spelling followed is that of Teresa Toulouse, The Arte of Prophesying: New England Sermons and the Shaping of Belief (Athens, 1987), p. 20.

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o.c. edwards, jr . and a number; after the last proof is stated there follow the uses or applications, also in numbered sequence, and the sermon ends when there is nothing more to be said.27

Another variety of sermon developed in England is the evangelistic sermon that achieved such prominence during the Methodist revival of the Evangelical Awakening, beginning in 1739.28 This grew out of the ‘religions of the heart’ movement beginning in the seventeenth century that appears to have been a pan-European, ecumenical, and even interfaith recovery of the affective aspect of the religious dynamic.29 Many of the conventions of the later revivalist movement appeared in the meetings Scottish and Irish Calvinists had to prepare for receiving Holy Communion as early as the reign of Charles I. These were developed through the Welsh revivals in the early eighteenth century and picked up by John Wesley (1703–1791) and George Whitefield (1714–1770) who took the movement into England with startling effects. While Wesley, imitating the Church of England’s Book of Homilies, used published sermons as the chief medium for teaching the theological system of the movement he founded, these sermons do not necessarily give a clear picture of what his live preaching was like, since most of them were written for publication rather than for oral delivery. The surprising aspect of the published sermons is that they follow in the tradition and form of the sermons of Tillotson in that they are closely reasoned theological arguments. One does not gain from reading them a sense of how such sermons could have moved so many people to conversion. Yet Wesley’s diaries record how emotionally aroused both he and his hearers were when he preached. That there was some such additional element is suggested by an unsympathetic eyewitness, the litterateur Horace Walpole. In a letter he writes: Wondrous clean, but as evidently an actor as Garrick. He spoke his sermon, but so fast and with so little accent, that I am sure he has often uttered it, for it was like a lesson. There were parts and eloquence in it; but toward the end he exalted his voice, and acted very vulgar enthusiasm; decried learning, and told stories.30 27 Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 332–333. 28 Edwards, A History of Preaching, 426–450. 29 Ted A. Campbell, The Religion of the Heart: A Study of European Religious Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Columbia, 1991). 30 W.S. Lewis et al, eds., Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with John Chute et al., The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence (New Haven, 1973) XXXV, pp. 118–119.

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Certainly there must have been some emotional power to his preaching, since when he died after fifty-two years of such preaching there were 70,000 members of his movement and he had constantly purged the rolls to eliminate dead wood. It is hard to imagine someone more different from Wesley than his on-and-off colleague George Whitefield. Again, his sermons followed the Neoclassical outline associated with Tillotson, but what filled in the outline could not have been more different. His content was not the tight arguments of Wesley, but was calculated in every respect to communicate with people at the level of their most powerful emotions. He had extraordinary gifts: his voice could be heard by larger audiences than any addressed before modern means of amplification, it was capable of a range of emotional expression that was the envy of actors, he also could use his face and body to communicate these feelings, and he had great skill as a raconteur in bringing to life biblical scenes and other illustrative material. Horton Davies has made a long list of the techniques of popular speakers he employed.31 Enumerating these traits, however, is not so much to explain his ability as to demonstrate that he had a genius for moving public address. This description of evangelistic preaching shows that its essence was not in its form but in its content, not in its style but in its purpose. Perhaps its only formal difference from that of a sermon by Tillotson would be its ending with an invitation for those present to accept the gospel and be saved. Lutheran Preaching after Luther It is one of the ironies of church history that Lutherans, who derived such a high doctrine of preaching from their founder, did not seek to imitate his own style of proclamation. Yet the reason they have not is obvious. Luther had a contempt of method as such and thus had a style that was inimitable, a style that has been called ‘heroic’. Yet his close associate Melanchthon was involved in the renaissance revival of classical rhetoric and it was he rather than the Reformer who was influential on later preaching.32 In one 31 Horton Davies, From Watts and Wesley to Maurice, 1690–1850, vol. 3 of Worship and Theology in England (Princeton, 1961), pp. 162–223. 32 This treatment of Lutheran preaching is mainly based on Yngve Brilioth, A Brief History of Preaching, trans. Karl E. Mattson, The Preacher’s Paperback Library (Philadelphia, 1965), pp. 118–141. Old gives summaries of a number of sermons from the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy in Hughes Oliphant Old, The reading and preaching of the Scriptures in the worship of the Christian Church. Vol. 4, The age of the Reformation (Grand Rapids (MI), Cambridge, 2002), pp. 369–408.

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matter, however, the teaching and example of Luther were followed: the setting of the sermon in the liturgy of the church. This setting involved following the liturgical calendar with its cycle of epistle and gospel readings (the pericopes, as they were called). While exegetical homilies could be preached on weekdays, sermons on one of the pericopes were called for at the main service (Hochamt) on Sunday. During the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy or Scholasticism, the basic shape of the sermon followed the recommendations laid down by a Dutch Reformed theologian who was active in Marburg, Andreas Gerhard of Ypres (Hyperius, 1511–1564).33 According to his scheme, the parts of the sermon were: The reading of scripture Invocation (invocatio) Introduction (exordium) Announcement of subject and division (propositio et divisio) Treatment of the subject (confirmatio) Argumentation (confutatio) Conclusion (conclusio)

As Brilioth notes, ‘This basic scheme has very obvious points of contact with the divisions which we met in the medieval artes’, and even more with the sermon on one thema preached by contemporary Roman Catholics. A major difference, though, is that, while the Catholic sermons were on one verse, Lutherans typically exegeted the entire pericope. Hyperius also derived from 2 Timothy 3:16–17 and Romans 15:4 his usus quintuplex of Scripture. From this quintuple use (teaching, rebuttal, training, correction, and comfort) Lutherans developed their fivefold application: ‘if possible, every sermon ought to draw out of every text this whole series of applications’.34 One way in which Lutherans elaborated the pattern of Hyperius was a function of their devotion to the pericopes. Since they were going to be exegeting the same passage on a given Sunday in the liturgical calendar that they had all the previous years, there was a danger of repetitiveness. The way they developed to avoid that was to introduce variety in the exordium. The extremes to which this could be carried can be seen in the Hodegeticum of John Benedict Carpzov the Younger in which the author 33 Andreas Hyperius, De formandis concionibus sacris: seu de interpretatione scriptuarum populari (Marburg, 1553). This work was translated into English shortly after its publication. 34 Brilioth, Brief History of Preaching, p. 126.

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presents a hundred different outlines for sermons on the same text, but the variation comes in the exordium, which was often longer than the interpretation of the pericope. Another way in which Lutheran preaching of the period resembled Roman Catholic Baroque preaching was in its use of emblems. Brilioth illustrates the extremes to which this method of development could be taken by referring to a Saxon court preacher [who] is said to have preached through a whole year on ‘God’s Tower,’ alluding to well-known buildings with towers in Dresden and using three divisions: God’s Powder Tower, God’s Castle Tower, and God’s Cross Tower.35

In a comparison between a Roman Catholic and a Lutheran funeral sermon, both from the seventeenth century, Johann Anselm Steiger has pointed to the difference in the way that the two traditions used emblems. The Catholic preacher used the emblem of the sunflower as a symbol of courage, consistent with his greater emphasis on the virtues of classical antiquity than biblical ones, but the Lutheran staunchly saw it as a symbol of fides, basing his interpretation on the recognition of Christ as the Sun of Righteousness.36 The period in which Lutheran Orthodoxy began was during the Thirty Years War between the some three hundred Catholic and Protestant petty states of the Holy Roman Empire, most of which were German speaking. While it started out as a religious tug-of-war, it ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 as a less disguised struggle for political power. Yet its drawing of a religious line of demarcation prompted the hardening of theological positions, which, on the Protestant side, resulted in the Lutheran Scholasticism discussed above. Another movement that appeared at the same time and that was in some ways a response to the same historical situation was the German manifestation of Pietism.37 The so-called Father of this movement, Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705), diverged from the theological position of Luther in his understanding of where the problem lay. For the Reformer, the problem was in knowing that he had been justified. For Spener, living 150 years later, it had to do with the effects of 35

Brilioth, Brief History of Preaching, p. 130. Johan Anselm Steiger, “Oratio funebris versus Homilia Consolatoria: Ein exemplarischer Vergleich zwischen einer römisch-katholischen Trauerrede und einer lutherischen Leichenpredigt”, in Birgit Boge and Rolf Georg Bogner eds., Oratio Funebris. Die katholische Leichenpredigt der frühen Neuzeit, Zwölf Studien, Chloe: Beiheft zum Daphnis 30 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1999), p. 121. 37 Edwards, History of Preaching, pp. 840–846. 36

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justification on the lives of the elect. If one had truly been reborn, should not that be obvious in one’s life? Justification was obviously sola gratia and not earned by good works, but, if it had truly occurred, would not it inevitably result in good works as the obvious fruit of grace? Spener’s preaching of his conviction had such widespread effects that it led to his being called ‘the second Luther’. His ideal was that ‘sermons should be so prepared by all that their purpose (faith and its fruits) may be achieved by the hearers in the greatest possible degree’.38 Yet those who would expect that his promotion of his views from the pulpit would be either sentimental or emotionally manipulative are in for a surprise. He had, after all, spent most of his life in the courts of the small principalities of the empire and was eminently respectable. He also was learned; he had earned his doctorate and expected an academic career. And he never stressed a conversion experience, not having had one himself. Nor does a description of the way he preached lead one to anticipate that his faith would have the power to move mountains. To begin with, his sermons were very long, up to four times the duration of the half-hour efforts of his contemporaries. Another place he disagreed with Luther was about always preaching from the pericopes. Doing that would cause one to overlook many important passages, especially those from passages in the epistles that deal with personal faith. As Jonathan Strom points out in his chapter on pietism and revival,39 Spener also had great objections to the rhetorical ostentation of Scholastic preaching (causing him at one point to evoke the antagonism of Johann Benedikt Carpzov (1639–1699) at a time when he badly needed allies). He said: Many preachers are more concerned to have the introduction shape up well and transitions to be effective, to have an outline that is artful and yet sufficiently concealed, and to have all the parts handled precisely according to the rules of oratory and suitably embellished, than they are concerned that the materials be chosen and by God’s grace developed in such a way that the hearers may profit from the sermon in life and death.40

To achieve this effect, Spener did not believe he had to change the form of the sermon. All his preaching was expository rather than topical,

38 Peter C. Erb ed., Pietists: Selected Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 1983), 47. This is the sixth point in Spener’s Pia Desideria. For the life of Spener see K. James Stein, Philip Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch (Chicago, 1986). 39 Jonathan Strom, ‘Pietism and Revival’, infra. 40 Erb ed., Pietists, 47.

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and involved a minute analysis of the text. He began by stating what the passage was about and then took four steps in the body of the sermon: (1) explaining the truth of the passage, (2) refuting misunderstandings of it, (3) applying it to the lives of his hearers with suggestions for the improvement of their lives, and (4) a concluding word of comfort. There was little here of the ‘enthusiasm’ so feared by contemporary British sermon critics, yet Spener’s ideas took hold and, as noted above, had tremendous influence. One of his disciples, but a very different sort of person, was August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), who spent most of his ministry at the University of Halle. There he showed an extraordinary ability to translate ideals into programs by founding a wide variety of institutions. Unlike Spener, Francke did undergo a conversion experience and he came to expect it as normative for others. His thoughts on preaching were expressed in a letter to a friend in which he undertook to tell him how a faithful minister, who earnestly desires to save and to edify his hearers, to gain sinners unto Christ, and to inflame their hearts with a growing love to their Savior, may best adapt his preaching to these excellent purposes.41

His method involved informing his congregation of the difference between the saved and unsaved and of the criteria by which they could tell the state they were in. They also need to know what Christ can do for them and be moved to accept that. Then too they need to be taught how to live in accordance with their state. Prayer was an important component of the life of the converted. Others were self-denial and avoiding worldliness. Good Christian literature should be recommended. But Francke, unlike Spener, did not think that a lot of time should be spent in explanation of a sermon’s biblical text; people only need to know what the real meaning of the passage is. But to preach effectively this way pastors must have a deep love for Christ and the flock of Christ, a love expressed in deed as well as word. If they have that, their sermons will grow out of their prayer life. With Spener’s emphasis on conversion, Pietistic preaching took on the form that has characterized most evangelistic preaching since. John Wesley’s preaching was greatly influenced by that of German Pietism as that was mediated to him through one of its leaders, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760). Another influence on Lutheran preaching in Germany, parallel to Pietism, was the Enlightenment. Just before the last 41 August Hermann Francke, “A Letter to a Friend Concerning the Most Useful Way of Preaching,” in Erb ed., Pietists, p. 117.

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quarter of the eighteenth century the Enlightenment began to question the authority and popularity of both Lutheran Orthodoxy and its preaching method. The Enlightenment, which appeared in Germany in a predominantly moderate form, reshaped theological thought and, with it, both the form and the content of sermons. The movement has been studied by Reinhard Krause in Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung (1770–1805).42 It can be understood through the leading homiletical textbook of the period, Über die Nutzbarkeit des Predigtamtes und deren Beförderung by Johann Joachim Spalding.43 As Krause points out, this work was intended for two audiences. First, it was aimed at the world at large (and literate German society in particular) to convince this skeptical audience that even in those enlightened times the ministry of preaching still had value. He saw two ways in which it did. The first was to provide for the eternal welfare of those who heard it, ‘die Zubereitung menschlicher Seelen zu einer ewigen Wohlfart’.44 This reference to eternal (ewigen) salvation shows the intention of the Lutheran Enlightenment to be faithfully Christian. But what the group to which Spalding belonged, the Neologe or neologists, regarded as Christian belief was a far cry from the teachings of either the Reformers or the Pietists. Instead of justification by faith, they saw the essence of the Christian life to be in the ethical improvement of the individual and society by those who hoped to achieve eternal bliss (Gottseligkeit). This was a Christianity that had outgrown its religious quarrels, its intolerance, and its superstition. The second intention, then, was this encouragement of right behavior, both in the personal lives of those who heard it and in their efforts for the improvement of human society. The preacher was to lead hearers to the way prescribed by Jesus the crucified Son of God, but the emphasis was on that way, rather than on Jesus’ self-offering on the cross and its meaning for human beings.45 The second purpose of the book was to be a how-to-do-it manual for clergy aspiring to preach neological sermons. The main thing was to help them see that they were not to argue abstract scholarly concepts from the pulpit, but were to bring the truth as near as possible to the thought world 42 Reinhard Krause, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung (1770–1805), Arbeiten zur Theologie, 2nd series vol. 5 (Stuttgart, 1965). 43 Johann Joachim Spalding, Über die Nutzbarkeit des Predigtamtes und deren Beförderung, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1791). 44 Spalding, Über die Nutzbarkeit des Predigtamtes, p. 102, quoted in Krause, Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung, p. 21. 45 Krause, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung, p. 25.

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of their normal audience, causing them to have great and fruitful thoughts. They needed to help people see how their Christianity was connected to the duties of their calling and their various relations on earth. This is to say that Spalding was less interested in worship, devotion, and piety than in social outreach. As Pasi Ihalainen confirms in his contribution to the present volume,46 Spalding was a German Enlightenment preacher for whom the important matter was the implications of a practical piety for domestic, community, and political life.47 Another way of saying all this is that the preaching Spalding recommended had a good bit in common with that of Tillotson, whose sermons had been translated into German by Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693–1755) in 1728.48 Spalding’s understanding of preaching came under sharp attack two years after it was published from no less a thinker than Johann Gottfried Herder (1744– 1803),49 but it was Spalding’s method that was followed for many years afterwards.50 Reformed Preaching For the moment it is enough to say that for the most part Reformed preaching continued in the pattern of Calvin’s homilies in which he exegeted continuous passages from biblical books. Over the years the passages interpreted got shorter and shorter, so that at times a good Reformed sermon would have much in common with the Catholic sermon on one thema. And eventually the Enlightenment began to affect even Calvinist thought. This evolution will be examined below in the consideration of Dutch funeral sermons. We should note at this point a characteristic of Reformed preaching, at least in the northern Netherlands: sermons on the Heidelberg Catechism. The ‘national’ Synod of Dort (1618–1619) had determined that preachers should treat the whole Catechism every year, so that on Sundays they normally held Bible sermons in the morning and Catechism sermons in the afternoon. The Catechism itself was conveniently divided into 52 sections or ‘Sundays’, so that each week the minister had a prescribed topic on which to preach.51

46

See Pasi Ihalainen, ‘The Enlightenment Sermon’, infra. Krause, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung, p. 27. 48 Krause, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung, p. 15. 49 Johann Gottfried Herder, Fünfzehn Provinzialblättern an Prediger (Leipzig, 1774). 50 Krause, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung, pp. 29–34. 51 W. Verboom, De catechese van de Reformatie en de Nadere Reformatie (Amsterdam, 1986). 47

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Sermons for Saints’ Days The first thing to be said is that much of the evolution of preaching on Sundays described above applies to that which was done on week days as well. Thus the distinctions to be made between Sunday and weekday preaching will often be matters of purpose or occasion rather than of form. An important variety of mid-week preaching for Roman Catholics was that done on the days of the church calendar devoted to remembering individuals who had been officially recognized by the church as saints. The significance of this genre is indicated by the number of sermons for such occasions that were published individually. The library of one monastery just north of Vienna contains 1,321 of these.52 They are catalogued in a volume edited by Werner Welzig that also lists the saints preached about; the brotherhoods and student groups before whom some of the sermons were preached; the preachers; their themae ; occasions on which they were preached (e.g., jubilees of vows, first vows, and professions of religious, and dedications); the churches in which they were delivered; places they were printed and published; and printers and publishers. This is an invaluable resource for anyone who wishes to do research in the area. Welzig has analyzed the way these sermons achieved their purpose in an essay appended to the catalog about amplification in Baroque preaching on the saints. For his analysis he looks at three sermons preached by the famous Viennese court preacher, Abraham a Santa Clara (born as Johann Ulrich Megerle, 1644–1709). One sermon dealt with Catherine of Alexandria, whose cult was widespread, even if her historicity is not well attested. Another paid tribute to St. Leopold and the third to ‘good King Wenceslas’, as the English Christmas carol calls him. The sermon for Leopold was preached on his feast day at the chapel of the royal palace in Vienna in the presence of the reigning monarch, who shared the name of the saint. That for Wenceslas was delivered before the association of students from Bohemia at the University of Vienna in the church of Abraham’s order, the Discalced Augustinians. Naming The three means the Baroque preachers used to ‘amplify’ or develop these sermons to which Welzig calls attention are name giving (nominatio), 52

Walter Welzig et al eds., Lobrede: Katalog deutschsprachiger Heiligenpredigten in Einzeldrucken aus den Beständen der Stiftsbibliothek Klosterneuburg, Sitzungsberichte Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosphische-Historische Klasse 518 (Vienna, 1989).

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comparison (comparatio), and distribution (distributio). Welzig calls the treatment of names, nicknames, and titles one of our elemental experiences and says that the most concise and impressive possibility of praise or blame lies in naming.53 Baroque preachers made ample use of this topos, following the New Testament example of Jesus, who said, ‘Tu es Petrus et super hanc petrum …’ (Matt. 16:18). The introduction was the best place to use this figure; indeed it was considered a fault in the saint’s day sermons of the time if the use of the name in the beginning did not shape the body of the sermon. Two examples of the way naming works can be seen in Abraham’s sermons on Wenceslas and Leopold, the first using the name in the thema and the second in the exordium. The sermon for the feast of Wenceslas takes its text from the Vulgate of Dan. 3:26 (in the Song of the Three Children), ‘Your name is glorious’. The etymological meaning of Wenceslas is ‘more praise’, and in the liturgy at which the sermon was preached the dedication (Widmung) of Wenzel Norbert Oktavian Khinsky, Count of Wchinitz und Tettau (1642–1719) occurred. Thus it happened that in the saint (Wenceslas) and in the dedicatee (Wenzel) God is praised. It is a matter of common experience that some of the best and some of the worst people receive the same name, a point that Abraham illustrated with examples from Roman, German, and Slavic history. He then ended the introduction with the question, ‘Was aber hat der hl. Wenceslaus, für einen name verdienet?’54 He decides that the best nickname for Wenceslas is ‘Victoriosus’, ‘Sieghaffte’, ‘Triumphant’. This naming freed the expectation that the biblical word and the historical series built up, and thus it functioned as a hinge for the sermon. How could this young man slain by his brother be triumphant? In this way Abraham set his congregation up for this apparently inappropriate epithet. In the sermon for St. Leopold’s Day, Abraham changed the name of a place rather than a person, calling Klosterneuburg ‘Klosterheiligburg’, thus invoking Bethel (Gen. 28:19, vere locus iste sanctus est) and the burning bush (Ex. 3:5, locus […] in quo stas, terra sancta est).55 This allows Abraham to place himself last in a series of imaginary speakers who praise Leopold, culminating with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus the entire introduction is an accumulation of name giving and interpretation. Abraham picks up on Jesus’ words to Nathan, ‘Here is truly an Israelite’ ( John 1:47), saying that 53 54 55

Welzig, Lobrede, p. 761. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 764. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 767.

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Leopold is a true Austrian ‘in whom there is no deceit’. This giving of a name to Leopold is the sermon’s first and central act of praise: everything that follows grows out of that. Having established him as a victor in the introduction, Abraham devotes the body of his sermon to showing the four things over which he triumphed: himself, the temptations of the world, the powers of evil, and outside enemies (thus placing political enemies in the climactic position). That Leopold is the true Austrian is shown by his coat of arms, his name, and where he was.56 Thus Abraham in his sermon on Leopold demonstrated the wisdom of the rhetoricians that the use of naming is one of the primary tools in the chest of the speaker. Comparison ‘They’ or ‘One’ (man) is the subject of the sentence with which Abraham a Santa Clara begins his sermon on St. Catherine. ‘They’ talk, write, or shout about women. Thus he takes as his thema Mark 4:39: Tace, ‘Peace! Be still!’ and connects that with Prov. 31:10: ‘A capable (Lat.: fortem, Ger.: starckes)57 wife who can find?’ The opinion that man has of women is that they are frivolous and impudent. Abraham then sets against these prejudicial views a list of women that includes the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, and Catherine of Alexandria along with others of the same type. This list earns a glance at the views that man and Solomon (in Proverbs) have of women. The body of the sermon examines six such views that need testing against this list of women saints, the assumptions that women are: unsuitable for studying and teaching, vain, eager for admiration, mad about men, inconstant, and prickly. This sermon, then, is built on comparatio – in this case a contrast of a like with an unlike. Two other forms of comparison were popular with Baroque preachers: that with a similar figure and that with an example. Comparing one figure with another like it occurs in Abraham’s sermon about St. Wenceslas. In relation to the good king’s victory over self, the preacher tells the story of Jesus’ cursing the fig tree (Feige) and, with a pun possible only in German, says that God does not like cowardly (feige) men58 and proves the point by the story of the way that Gideon purged the cowards from his army before the battle with the Midianites, concluding that the worst enemy anyone has is that in one’s own breast. This is followed by another comparison of a like with a like figure. The strength 56 57 58

Welzig, Lobrede, p. 770. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 773. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 777.

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of Wenceslas is compared with that of Samson. Samson’s strength was great, as could be seen in the way he killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, caught 300 foxes with one hand,59 pulled a lion apart with his bare hands, and tore the city gates of Gaza off their hinges and carried them off on his shoulder. Then Abraham uses Delilah to prove that Wenceslas was stronger even than Samson because he was victorious over himself while Samson was not. In the last part of the first section of the Wenceslas sermon, Abraham lists five comparisons of the saint with biblical figures: Wenceslas’s strength is like that of Balaam with the ass, Gideon with the wheat in the winepress, David with the harp, Tobias with the fish, and Peter in prison. The third sort of comparison is with an example, as when Wenceslas is compared with Samson in regard to strength or in the sermon about Catherine, where Solomon’s proverbial remark is an example of prejudice against women.60 The paradigmatic qualities of Samson and Solomon are named and assessed. In the sermon about him, Leopold’s compassion is compared to that of one who celebrated his jubilee under Leo X, the famous Duke Amadeus of Savoy, and to that of the ancestor of the Hapsburgs, Rudolf I. Abraham had Leopold make his own the words of Rudolf in quoting Jesus, ‘let the poor come to me’, and having him say that he was head of Austria for the benefit of the country’s feet, its poor, thus adding an element of imitatio Christi. Amadeus was exemplary in the way he responded to a guest who was an avid hunter and asked to be shown the duke’s hounds. He showed him 200 poor people he fed every day, saying that they were the dogs with which he daily hunted the kingdom of heaven. This is followed by an exemplum about a Roman jeweler who gave great banquets that were served on silver dishes. When a dish was emptied, the jeweler would astonish his guests by throwing it through a window by the table into the Tiber. He had a net stretched across the river and, when it was pulled in, he not only recovered his dishes but also harvested the fish attracted by the food left on them. Leopold similarly astonished his guests by his alms to the poor for which God rewarded him with a high rate of interest.61 In the sermon about Catherine, Abraham notes that, while 1 Tim. 2:12 says that no woman is to teach or have authority over a man, women have actually studied and taught, with Catherine herself as an example, when 59 60 61

Along the way Abraham calls Delilah a Fuchs-Schweif f : Welzig, Lobrede, p. 778. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 780. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 785.

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she had a dispute with the pagan philosophers; she brought them from idols to the worship of God. He then compares her to the woman on the tower of Thebez in Judg. 9:50–54 who killed Abimelech by throwing the upper stone of a hand mill at him. The king asked his armor bearer to dispatch him so that it could not be said that a woman had killed him. The preacher’s comment was that, just as a woman had broken the brains62 of Abimelech, so Catherine had broken those of the philosophers. Distribution Thus far we have not faced the question of how these saint’s day sermons represent the holiness of the saint honored. To do so we must recognize how the standards of Baroque rhetoric differ from those of today in everyday speech and in scholarly writing, where the contemporary standard is ‘naturalness’. For Baroque attitudes one can look at Pius Manzador (1706– 1774), a preacher who has thirty-seven sermons included in the catalog of Welzig’s volume. Born in Vienna, he became superior general of the Order of Barnabites, was made a bishop, and then promoted to a larger see.63 In the beginning of his book Unterschiedliche Ehrenreden (1765)64 he lamented the low quality of preaching about saints at the time, saying that could be remedied by using the two most effective means of amplification: description and distribution. His own interest was in the latter. He said there were four forms of distribution: according to category (Gattung), according to pieces or parts, according to persons, and according to human nature in its different powers.65 He thought distribution worked, not by a flood of words or of information, but – as in all effective amplification – by moving the heart and winning its assent around inflaming love and zeal for the beloved. This can be seen in operation in Abraham’s Wenceslas sermon where Samson was an example of strength but the king was even stronger because he was victorious over himself.66 It is only in the very last sentences that we finally find anything about the saint himself. This leaves the impression that only a fraction of Wenceslas’s conquest has been mentioned. The preacher claimed the saint had obeyed all the commandments in every 62 ‘Das Hirn zerbrochen,’ translating the Vulgate’s fregit cerebrum: Welzig, Lobrede, p. 788. 63 Welzig, Lobrede, p. 790. 64 Pius Manzador, Unterschiedliche Ehrenreden (Vienna, 1765). 65 E.g., instead of saying ‘the soul,’ say ‘the understanding,’ ‘the memory’, or ‘the will’. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 791. 66 Welzig, Lobrede, p. 792.

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detail except the command to love one’s neighbor. But then he hastens to explain that here ‘his neighbor’ means ‘his body’, which has been greatly tormented by his asceticism: his fasts, his nightly prayers, his going to the church barefooted through the snow, his wearing a hair shirt. Through this demonstration that the strength of Wenceslas is greater than that of Samson, Abraham invites each of his hearers to join the king in gaining victory over self. A final observation can be made of Abraham’s distributive use of human nature. It can be seen in the middle section of his sermon on Leopold in which three stories are used to show that the saint was pater pauperum.67 There he said that Leopold’s compassion had nine manifestations: the saint’s eyes, ears, hands, arms, mouth, tongue, feet, shoulders, and heart. He goes on to show how Leopold used each of those parts of his body in the expression of his compassion. Welzig says that, while such descriptions may offend modern ears, they were a standard part of Baroque rhetoric, as when Goethe in describing Gretchen used the figure of enumeratio partium. Manzador said distribution is an instrument of description and that description is only successful through the means of distribution.68 Such distribution through the use of bodily parts leads to a consideration of the ‘anatomy’ of anything, including virtue. It is description per omnia corporis membris distributa. There are two senses in which Baroque preaching can be called an ‘anatomy of virtue’. First, such preaching shows both in general and distributed to the individual parts what the saint is and is capable of. This makes ‘anatomy’ the oeconomia of the entire sermon. But it is also an anatomy in the sense of representing virtue as a body, bringing actual virtuous deeds near to the hearers. True, Baroque saint’s day sermons were preached to praise the virtue of the saints, but the main reason that was done was to move those who heard them to imitate the saints in Godly living. Funeral Sermons Funeral sermons have a good bit in common with those for saints’ days since they often praised the virtue of the deceased and some of them even shared the rhetorical genre of panegyric with them. Our detailed knowledge of them is limited to those for persons of social eminence because it 67 68

Welzig, Lobrede, p. 793. Welzig, Lobrede, p. 794.

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is based on published sermons and the expense of publication was restricted to the prominent (and only the elite could afford to commission a sermon in the first place). A good bit of scholarly attention has been paid to this genre of occasional preaching, both Catholic and Protestant, which is fortunate because it allows comparisons to be made, and both what the two traditions have in common and how they differ can be instructive. Catholic Bossuet is even better known for the orations he delivered at the funerals of a number of the most elite people in France during his life than he is for his Sunday preaching. For these his outline was still very much like that of the sermon on one thema, with adaptation to the occasion. One of the main structural differences is that in his funeral sermons Bossuet omitted the recitation of the Ave Maria for divine assistance. In the half-century before Bossuet delivered his first, funeral orations combined four elements in various mixtures: lamentation over the departed, eulogy, instruction on Christian faith and morals, and observations on the problems of the day.69 All of these elements appeared in one combination or another in the orations of Bossuet, with aspects of the panegyric form of the classical epideictic speech adapted when eulogy was the intention.70 Even then there were differences. Not all of the elements of the classical form were included, and the ones that were included were used more as a way of teaching the congregation about faith and morals than the simple praise of famous persons. Another major difference to be noted is that the funeral sermons are almost twice as long as the others.71 In his chapter on the classical sermon, Thomas Worcester offers a close reading of a number of Bossuet’s sermons and funeral orations.72 Until recently most scholars regarded funeral sermons as an exclusively Protestant phenomenon in the German-speaking world because not many Catholic ones were found in the library catalogues of universities in 69 Jacques Truchet ed., Bossuet: Oraisons funèbres (Paris, 1961), pp. vi–xix. For a summary of several of Bossuet’s sermons see Old, Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures IV, pp. 474–497. While Old’s preferences for lectio continua expositions of biblical books and for Protestantism in general and Calvinism in particular over Roman Catholicism color his account, he does offer a lot of information in an easily accessible form. 70 As noted above, the Spanish panegyric could have the form of a sermon on one thema. 71 The seven sermons in the volume edited by Sellier averaged around twenty-three printed pages while the ten orations edited by Truchet averaged around 41 pages of roughly the same size, although there was more introductory material to the latter. 72 Thomas Worcester, “The Classical Sermon”, infra.

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Protestant areas and there had been banns at the time on the publication of such sermons without the permission of the local bishop. The fact that Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and others were producing great Catholic funeral sermons in France, however, prompted scholars to make a closer investigation of the matter. Soon they found rules for such sermons in the leading rhetorical handbooks and began to search libraries in Catholic regions. Even there the job was not as simple as one might expect because catalogues were not always complete and also because the secularization that occurred in many areas had resulted in the destruction of printed sermons as unworthy of enlightened attention. That meant that scholarship in this field had a lot of catching up to do, but its success in the effort is evidenced in the recent publication of a catalogue of sermons and a collection of twelve essays edited by Birgit Borge and Rolf Georg Bosner.73 The catalogue lists 469 individual Catholic funeral sermons published between 1576 and 1799 to be found in the libraries of Klosterneuburg and Eichstädt University. The catalogue, though not as extensive as that of saints’ day sermons assembled by Welzig, is a scholarly apparatus that should greatly assist further research in the field. One of the essays that is particularly relevant to our purposes is the contribution of Johann Anselm Steiger, which compares the sermon preached for the funeral of an important Catholic prelate with that offered at the obsequies of a distinguished Lutheran leader. Both of these seventeenthcentury sermons were preached by respected theologians.74 The Jesuit Wolfgang Fuchs in 1647 spoke at the funeral of Anselm Casimir, Prince Archbishop of Mainz, while Johann Gerhard, Superintendent in Heldburg, in 1614 did the honors for Melchior Bischoff, General Superintendent of Coburg, a well-known theologian, author, hymn writer, and composer. The two sermons, both published soon after delivery, had much in common, sharing conventions of the day. Both contained Latin quotations that were then paraphrased, both had a well-thought-out seven-point structure, and both followed a rhetorical schema of explicatio and applicatio. But there were great differences. Thus, while they both cite biblical texts, Gerhard exegeted his (2 Corinthians 5:1–10) carefully and took from it theological themes of resurrection, judgment, and entrance of the faithful into their heavenly home, thus giving the bereaved eschatological comfort. 73

Borge and Bosner eds., Oratio Funebris (see above, n. 37). Steiger, “Oratio Panegyrica versus Homilia Consolatoria”, in Borge and Bosner, Oratio Funebris, pp. 103–130. 74

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Fuchs preached from Proverbs 24:5 (Vulgate), Vir sapiens fortis est et vir doctus robustus et validus, and wove from it, as he said, a garland of praise for the deceased – but praise for the virtues of classical paganism rather than those of Christianity, praise that focused on Casimir’s political rule rather than his archiepiscopal ministry. Steiger finds the address of Fuchs more of an expression of regret at Casimir’s death than a sermon, dealing as it did more with his secular power and gifts than with his pastoral duties.75 While much could have been learned about the differences between Catholic and Lutheran funeral sermons by comparing examples, this effort fails to help us do so. First, the sermons studied antedate the eighteenth century, and represent Lutheran homiletical practices of an earlier period. How that preaching changed in the eighteenth century has been noted above, and a very similar evolution will be observed below in Dutch Reformed preaching. And a sermon for the funeral of a Prince Archbishop can hardly be taken as characteristic of Catholic eulogies for deceased prelates, as some of Bossuet’s funeral orations, e.g., make clear. The editors of the volume, however, did publish a conclusion that was largely the results of their analysis of their catalogue of published Catholic funeral sermons from German-speaking territory.76 They point out that although these sermons reflect a part of the richly differentiated spectra of Catholic funeral writings, thus far little use of them has been made in scholarly writing. Such writings include published funeral sermons in German; published Latin university memorial addresses (Abdankungen); and individual sermons published with epicedia or collections of epicedia, copper engravings of the deceased, inscriptions, and descriptions of the funeral celebrations. The editors admit that to modern tastes many of these sermons seem theologically and rhetorically overblown and offer little concrete data about the lives of the deceased or their family history. In contrast to the Lutheran funeral sermons of the time, they are likely to be sermons on one thema rather than exegetical homilies on whole passages. These Leichenpredigten were not delivered exclusively at the funeral; a number of other services could be held, especially masses. Of the sermons catalogued, 70–85% were preached on these other occasions.77 The number of printed sermons occasioned by the death of a given individual is an indication of the status 75

Steiger, “Oratio Panegyrica”, pp. 106–107. Boge and Bogner, “Katholische Leichepredigten des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts: Einige vorläufige Thesen zur Geschichte der Produktion und Distribution einer Gattung der religiösen Gebrauchslitterature der frühen Neuzeit” in Borge and Bosner, Oratio Funebris, pp. 317–340. 77 Boge and Bogner, “Katholische Leichepredigten”, pp. 17–19. 76

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of that person; e.g., eleven of the catalogued sermons were for the death of Kaiser Leopold I. All of the preachers of the sermons studied were men who represented the Catholic intelligentsia. They preached in German and were mostly from Southern Germany and Austria. Only a small number of the preachers were secular clergy; 85% were religious and more than half of those were Jesuits.78 Over three-quarters of the departed for whom we have funeral sermons were men. The few women memorialized in this way were either of the nobility or superiors of religious orders (or both), or the wives of prominent men. Almost two-thirds of the men commemorated were nobles and two-fifths of the nobles were also superiors, religious, or pastors. One third of the men were clergy not of the nobility, indicating that men from the middle, artisan, or farming class who joined an order moved up the social ladder. The tiny number of sermons for lay members of the middle class were all for men who held important military, government, or academic positions.79 Although the earliest funeral sermon the editors found was delivered in 1576, 75% of the total number were preached in the eighteenth century, and two-thirds of those are from the first half of the century. These data show what a valuable resource such sermons can be for historians. Lutheran The Lutheran tradition of funeral sermons was shaped by the Reformer himself with his 1519 sermon on ‘Preparing to Die’, his funeral sermon for the Elector Frederic the Wise in 1525, and his two funeral sermons for Duke John, the Elector of Saxony, in 1532.80 In the introduction to the first sermon for Duke John, he said: My dear friends, since this misfortune has happened to our beloved sovereign prince, and the habit and custom of holding funeral masses for the dead and funeral processions when they are buried has ceased, we nevertheless do not wish to allow this service of worship to be omitted, in order that we may preach God’s Word to the praise of God and the betterment of the people.81 78

Boge and Bogner, “Katholische Leichepredigten”, pp. 319–320. Boge and Bogner, “Katholische Leichepredigten”, pp. 329–332. 80 What follows is based on Rudolf Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene? Leichenpredigten als multidisziplinäre Quelle, Marburger Personalschriften-Forschungen 10 (Sigmaringen, 1990). 81 John W. Doberstein ed. and trans., Luther’s Works, vol. 51: Sermons I (Philadelphia, 1959), 231. 79

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Instead of having funeral rites like those of Catholics that centered on the deceased – their accomplishments in life and their future hopes – Lutheran obsequies would be concerned with interpreting the Bible for the consolation, instruction, and edification of the living to build up their faith. It was only in the second half of the sixteenth century that biographical information about the deceased came to be inserted into funeral sermons. By the seventeenth century death scenes became an important feature. When these sermons were published, they had detailed title pages with dedications, and other matter was added, such as a speech by a lay colleague of the departed expressing the thanks of the family to the mourners (Parentatio) and the dirges (Epicedia) of friends. Woodcuts of the deceased were incorporated, and even notes on the funeral music. For an alumnus of a university or a distinguished gymnasium, a Programma Academicum (laudatio funebris) could be included as well. Thus printed funeral sermons became impressive tributes to the deceased and it is their publication, of course, that makes it possible for us to study the sermons. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the language in which these appeared changed from Latin to German.82 In the first phase of their history, Lutheran funeral sermons were used as a vehicle for the success of the Reformation, but in their third and last phase they show the secularization that occurred as a result of the Enlightenment. Along the way there developed a critique of the institution of funeral sermons. Those in Latin, for instance, showed a dependence on pagan classical models. The Parentation (Abdankung, resignation) came to replace the sermon in its original function in some places, at times degenerating into a panegyric. The sermons themselves did not escape the faults of the period; they became swelled with citations of florilegia and catenas, showing off the erudition of the preacher while revealing a preoccupation with the worldly status of the departed. It is therefore not surprising that Leichen-predigten came to be called Lügenpredigten. Ironically, Spener, whose ordinary sermons ran to a couple of hours, wanted to limit funeral sermons to half an hour to resist this tendency to make them means of giving status to the deceased rather than proclaiming God’s Word to the mourners. With the change of taste reflected in this critique, the publication of funeral sermons became unfashionable by the middle of the eighteenth century; but, as Sabine Holtz points out in her contribution on sermons and daily life, this variety of sermon did not cease entirely.83 Earlier, though, 82

Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene?, p. 12. Sabine Holz, “On sermons and daily life”, infra; also Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene?, pp. 13–14. 83

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when such sermons were written to be edifying literature and there was a taste for that kind of reading, a number of collections of published funeral sermons were assembled in the libraries of members of the nobility, clergy, and others, with the result that around a quarter-million such sermons have survived.84 Dutch Reformed In the Dutch Republic, funeral sermons traditionally took the form of the usual exegetical homilies with just a short sketch of the life of the deceased at the end of the application, but in the course of the eighteenth century the amount of biblical interpretation diminished considerably.85 At first it was feared that praising the departed might sound too much like what was called ‘papist saint veneration’, but funeral sermons came more and more to be accepted and the university custom of the oratio funebris grew common. As in Germany, those for the burial of high dignitaries in the church and civil life were published, but the total number of such volumes is relatively small. Factors such as the theological position and social status of a cleric influenced the decision about whether the sermon should be published. A sermon for the death rites of a cleric began with an introduction that announced the text that was followed by its divisio and its interpretation. Then came an application of the text to the life of the deceased. The departed minister was compared to a prophet or some other biblical figure, and Heb. 13:7 and Isa. 57:2 were favorite texts.86 The point of departure for these sermons was the personal religious merit of the cleric, so it was easy to suggest that the departed awaited greater bliss in the afterlife than the ordinary believer. The biographical sketch in the application was seldom longer than a page when it appeared in print. After information about the cleric’s origins and ministry, there was usually an extensive deathbed scene complete with last words, which often depicted the departed as anxious because he was uncertain of his state of grace. This was taken as evidence of his sincerity, and also as an a fortiori warning to the less holy. Towards the end of our period, however, these scenes became more modest and rational.87 84

Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene?, pp. 20–21. Jelle Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand. De invloed van de Verlichting op de in het Nederlands uitgegeven preken van 1750 tot 1800, Bibliotheca Bibliographica Neerlandica 34 (Nieuwkoop, 1997), pp. 189–190. 86 Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, p. 192. 87 Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 191–196. 85

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Funeral sermons were also published for political figures, especially for leading ones and members of the nobility. Most of the Dutch ones from the last half of the eighteenth century were for the stadhouder William IV, who died unexpectedly in 1751.88 A relation of William III, he was appointed hereditary stadhouder in all the provinces of the Republic. His appointment brought to a close a restless political period that began with the threat of a French invasion of the Republic and ended with a popular uprising, the so-called doelistenoproer. Much had been expected of William by his supporters, but they were disappointed because the old ruling class remained in the saddle, so his popularity declined quickly. His death, however, was totally unexpected and sent such a shock through the country that memorial services were held throughout it. This happened not only in the public church that had ties to the House of Orange, but in the churches of dissenters as well. Many of the sermons took Old Testament texts about the deaths of kings, reflecting the comparison of the nation with Israel that was so common among Calvinists during this period. There were not as many sermons preached when his wife died, because she was English and less popular, and had much less political authority.89 Printed funeral sermons have also come down for members of the nobility not of the House of Orange, local or colonial administrators, and even foreign rulers such as Frederick V of Denmark and Frederick the Great. They were only sporadically published for ordinary people: a child, a woman, a housewife, a merchant, an elder or a regent – who were often related to the preacher himself.90 Sermons on Civic Occasions There are a number of types of such sermons and they have been widely studied because of their relevance to political history. A good place to begin looking at them is Puritan New England. There an assumption was made that the church was composed of those elected to salvation, such election usually having become effective through a response to a sermon, that response itself having been enabled by the election. That did not mean, however, that those in the community who had not yet had that experience did not attend church. Where else could they hear the sermon through

88 89 90

More on the stadhouder in the following section, ‘Sermons on Civic Occasions’. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 196–201. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 201–204.

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which election would be mediated? And it was assumed that those who had risked the perils of the Atlantic to get there had done so precisely because they either had already undergone the experience or desired it with all their hearts. That being the case, there was no need for the political organization to provide for the inclusion of pluralistic elements of the community; there were none. All had arrived there precisely because they were enlisted in what they called the ‘errand into the wilderness’.91 Indeed, only those who could give evidence of their election were allowed to vote. That did not mean, however, that the Puritans could be at ease in Zion. They lived in a harsh environment and were exposed to many dangers, and many died there. The way they understood that was to assume that such perils were signs of divine disfavor because of the sins of the people. To be elected was not the same as being impeccable; it meant rather that the ultimate outcome was not in doubt. Besides, not all had yet experienced election and it could not be assumed that all ever would do so. Disaster was God’s way of warning God’s people that, unless they repented and changed their ways, they were in danger. This does not mean that the elect could become reprobate. Rather, it means that the Puritans thought in terms of two covenants, one of grace that was eternal and another, a federated covenant, that could be revoked by God if the people did not keep it. The New Englanders responded to their awareness that such times of danger would come the way they responded to everything else. As Harry Stout has said: ‘Sermons were delivered at every significant event in the life of communities.’ In New England there would be no competing voices and rituals, and the sermon would become as important for social meaning as for religious enlightenment. It not only interpreted God’s plan of redemption and told the people how they must live as a church but also defined and legitimated the meaning of their lives as citizen and magistrate, superior and inferior, soldier, parent, child and laborer. Sermons were authority incarnate.92

When painful experience suggested that the people were straying from the covenant, either the civil or the religious authority would call a fast day for all the people to come to the meetinghouse and pray that God would show through the sermon of the minister what had caused the divine displeasure. 91

An allusion to Matt. 11:7, ‘What went ye out into the wilderness to see?’ King James Version (although Puritans more often used the Geneva Bible). 92 Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York, 1986), p. 23.

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When, in time, the crisis passed, the people were called back together to offer thanks that the destructive hand of God had been stayed. There was also another civic occasion when sermons were offered in New England, the only regularly appointed time of prayer and preaching other than Sunday and weekday lectures, and this was the annual day when those eligible to vote chose their representatives to the assembly and the legislators nominated members of the Governor’s Council. On that election day in Boston one of the local ministers was chosen to address the magistrates, the deputies, and the clergy. His theme was inevitably to restate the terms of God’s covenant with the nation.93 Of these three types of civic sermons, that for fast days has received the most scholarly attention. Partly that may be due to the skill of someone in labeling it a ‘jeremiad’, suggesting thus that it resembled the oracles of that notable prophet of doom, Jeremiah.94 The hermeneutical basis for such sermons was a covenantal theology that saw the Puritan venture into the new world as a modern parallel to the Exodus, and themselves as God’s new Israel. Such a view did not originate in America, but had been for sometime the way that English and other Christians understood themselves, whether they had a reforming or a conforming attitude toward the established church. In Elizabethan times it was a commonplace that the Deity’s ‘great mercies toward us Englishmen above many other nations make his judgments more heavy’ because ‘we are like unto the children of Israel’; that England enjoyed God’s favor but had no guarantee of keeping it, because the people, like the old Israelites, had ‘rewarded the Lord evil for good’; that although God had ‘tied himself to this whole nation’, the nation had broken faith with him, so that he had with it the same controversy he had prosecuted against Israel.95 93 Examples of election day sermons may be seen in Michael Warner ed., American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr. Library of America 108 (New York, 1999), pp. 119–150, 151–171, 468–489. A fast day sermon by Cotton Mather at the time of the controversy over witches in Salem, Massachusetts may be found on pp. 195–214. The volume also contains a sermon preached by his father Increase Mather at the execution of a murderer (pp. 1721–94). 94 Sacvan Bercovitch, The American Jeremiad (Madison, 1978) pointed out that, as threatening as the sermons were, they were actually reassuring, reminding those who heard them of a glorious past, the spirit of which could be reawakened. Later scholars, however, have felt that Bercovitch, and Perry Miller after him, exaggerated the extent to which the New England Puritans regarded themselves as in a unique relation with God. They regarded themselves as simply one Israel among many others, the ‘others’ being European Calvinists who used the same vocabulary. See Melvin B. Endy, “Just War, Holy War, and Millenialism in Revolutionary America,” in The William and Mary Quarterly 42 (1985), pp. 3–14, n. 23. 95 Michael Mcgiffert, “God’s Controversy with Jacobean England”, in The American Historical Review 88 (1983), pp. 1152–1153. The internal quotations are from three late sixteenth-century British sermons.

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Michael Mcgiffert has argued that this analogy changed from being seen as between Israel and England to being understood as between Israel and the Puritans in New England. The significant shift, according to him, began to occur in 1608 when John Downame, a Calvinist who fit comfortably into the Church of England, published the first major Protestant commentary on Hosea.96 The format of the commentary forced him to do what no one had bothered to do before, define the exact nature of the covenant that God had with England. Since no one claimed that all the English had been elected to salvation, God’s covenant with them had to be a covenant of works rather than a covenant of grace. The logic of this did not force Downame himself to suggest that the sins of the English were egregious enough for God to revoke the covenant with them, but, as events moved toward the accession of Charles I and the primacy of William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury when conditions would become unbearable for God’s elect children in England, the logic of Downame’s distinction began to force some Puritans in the direction of civil war and others to migrate to New England where they could live in a covenant of grace. Scholars today think, however, that Mcgiffert overestimates the sense of uniqueness that he ascribes to American Puritans, since most European Calvinists had a similar idea of understanding their country as Israel.97 Further, in the Puritan sermons in question, when ‘covenant’ is mentioned (as it seldom is), it usually refers simply to a pledge by the spiritual leaders of a group of people that they will live according to God’s rules. Many American church historians of the period of the Revolution attribute support for it from the Puritan clergy to a secularization of their thought, but Harry Stout has pointed out that they could do so because they have read only the published sermons of these preachers. Yet, he shows, 85% of these were occasional sermons for fast, election, and militia days, given only a few times a year, while the much more frequent Sunday sermons during all this period, which exist mostly in manuscript form, still express the same covenant theology with its classic Calvinist themes of sin, salvation, and service that are found in the preaching of Reformed churches 96 John Downame, Lectures upon the Four First Chapters of the Prophecy of Hosea (London, 1608). 97 See for Sweden e.g. Nils Ekedahl, Det svenska Israel: myt och retorik i Haquin Spegels predikokonst (Uppsala, 1999) (Studia rhetorica Upsaliensia); Nils Ekedahl, “Forkunnelse fran predikstolen: Trosformedling och kommunikation fran predikstolen – tidigmoderna perspektiv”, in: Kyrkohistorisk Arsskrift 2002, pp. 21–55. For the Dutch Republic: Cornelis Huisman, Neerlands Israël: het natiebesef der traditioneel-gereformeerden in de achttiende eeuw (Utrecht, 1983); Roelof Bisschop, Sions vorst en volk: het tweede-Israëlidee als theocratisch concept in de Gereformeerde kerk van de Republiek tussen ca. 1650 en ca. 1750 (Veenendaal, 1993); and the literature cited elsewehere in this article.

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in other countries at the time. The occasional sermons presuppose that theological framework and work out its implications for the occasions upon which they were preached.98 Indeed, it was the taken-for-granted quality of that theology that made it possible for the Puritans to adjust so quickly to the changes going on in the world about them. Once we recognize and acknowledge the enduring hold of concepts like the covenant, Sola Scriptura (scripture alone), and providential mission on pulpit discourse and the public imagination, it is easier to understand the ease with which most New Englanders accepted the Revolution and its republican principles.99

One of the terms that some historians have used to describe the theological significance these preachers gave the war is ‘millennial’.100 Stout is willing to use the term, but he shows that the way others use it greatly overstates the case. The Puritan preachers rarely spoke of the end of the world, and when they did so, their words contained no detailed timetable, no countdown to eternity. Covenant theology was still the basis of their interpretations, and they expected to see a parallel between their experience and that of biblical Israel more than the end of history.101 The central focus of millennial rhetoric in the Revolution was less the attack on Antichrist than the actual shape of the coming kingdom. America was not the new heavens and the new earth – there were still sinners existing alongside the saints. But it came closer to the future perfect state than any previous society.102

After the Revolution one President of the United States tried to extend New England fast days with their accompanying sermons to the country as a whole. There had been a call from the Continental Congress for fast days every spring from 1775 until the end of the war and thus the New England states no longer called their own. The first President, Washington, did proclaim two days of thanksgiving, but none of fasting. Thus it remained for his successor John Adams, good New Englander that he was, to decide that confession was good for the national soul. He called for May 9, 1798 and April 25, 1799 to be set aside for this purpose. Much to 98

Stout, New England Soul, pp. 6–7, 282–311. Stout, New England Soul, p. 8. 100 Endy, “Just War, Holy War”, points out the inaccuracy of this term as it is interpreted by those historians. 101 Stout, New England Soul, pp. 7–8, 306–09. 102 Stout, New England Soul, p. 307. 99

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his surprise, the idea met with great opposition from the parts of the country that were not accustomed to the New England Puritan tradition. It was claimed that the provisions of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution for freedom of religion and speech militated against it. Adams’ successor, Thomas Jefferson from Virginia, said there is ‘a wall of separation between Church and State’.103 After that, only one other President dared call for a national day of fast, James Madison at the beginning of the War of 1812, but his call also met with great opposition, and that was the end of the national jeremiad in America.104 The New England Puritans were not the only people to set aside fast days. The Dutch Republic did so from its very beginning (1572–1609). This is not surprising because the public church there was also in the Reformed tradition of Calvinism. While the Dutch fast days were originally called for during a time of crisis, beginning with 1713 (and thus covering most of our period) they became regular annual events. It was always a political authority, usually the States General, who called for the fast, although the clergy were legally obligated to hold it, and to preach sermons on appropriate texts for the occasion. After 1713, however, the proclamations contained an assessment of the political, social, and moral welfare of the Republic. From near the beginning, Protestant dissenters from the public church also observed the ritual, and, over time, they were officially invited to do so by the local authorities. These included Arminians, Lutherans, and Mennonites; even Jews were included sometimes and eventually even Roman Catholics. This description of Dutch fast days is based on an article by Peter van Rooden in which he traces the development of the sense of ‘nation’ that is revealed in fast day sermons over the years.105 In doing so, he also compares and contrasts the Dutch fast day sermons with those of the New England Puritans. Like many of the scholars who have contributed to the literature of the history of preaching, Van Rooden is not primarily concerned with Christian proclamation as such but with what 103 Andrew H. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (20 vols.; Washington, 1905) XVI, 281–282. 104 Charles Ellis Dickson, “Jeremiads in the New American Republic: The Case of National Fasts in the John Adams Administration”, in The New England Quarterly 60 (1987), pp. 187–207. 105 Peter van Rooden, “Public Orders into Moral Communities: Fast and Thanksgiving Sermons in the Dutch Republic and New England” in Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory eds. Retribution, Repentance, and Reconciliation: Papers Read at the 2002 Summer Meeting and the 203 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY, 2004), pp. 218–239.

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a study of sermons can reveal about something else, in this case, with the developing sense of nationalism in the Dutch Republic and New England. To follow van Rooden’s argument, it is necessary to know what he means by nationalism. He says that it is part political programme, part social imaginary. It is the political notion that the nation-state, the organization of socially free, legally equal, and culturally related citizens, is the only legitimate form of political authority. The social imaginary focuses upon this notion of being a community of free and equal men, who constitute themselves by being morally committed to each other and their community.106

He further specifies that ‘when this notion of politics as the creation of a moral community is heavily determined by religious language’, he will call it religious nationalism. In the beginning, Dutch fast sermons called upon those who heard them to repent of their sins. In the 1750s, however, there was a shift in which it was assumed that citizens have an obligation to the state to behave morally. After that the proclamations of the fast called upon the citizens not to repent so much as to reform. The new understanding of nation involved in this shift can be seen in the use of the word for nation itself, vaderland. At first, it was used in the state proclamations of the fast days, but not by the clergy in their fast day sermons. At that stage, public imagination had not yet come to integrate civil and political duties with the religious one. By the 1780s, though, the transition was complete not only in the sermons of the ministers of the public church, but in those of the Protestant dissenters as well.107 An example of the shift from Calvinist to Enlightenment thought can be seen in a sermon preached by Joachim Mobachius (1699–1790) in 1760: as his predecessors had done, he connected God’s punishment with all sorts of disasters – wars, floods, earthquakes, cattle diseases, etc. – but when he told his congregation what they should do, he did not tell them they should repent but instead indulged in general Protestant moralizing. The transition was complete when, not 106

Rooden, “Public Orders into Moral Communities”, p. 219. The period immediately prior to that studied by van Rooden is the subject of Roelof Bisschop’s dissertation, Sions vorst en volk (see above, n. 98). During that period, he says, it was not the Republic but the Reformed Church throughout the world, or, in some parties, the church of all ages and places, that was considered to be the Second Israel, yet he sees this position moving toward that described by van Rooden at the end of the period (pp. 263–265). The precise vocabulary of the movement he describes he attributes to the official translation of the Bible into Dutch at the beginning of the period studied. 107

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much later, Johan Frederik Scheffer (1744–1808) shocked the world by denying any connection between worship and good fortune.108 Van Rooden sees a similar transition in the New England fast and thanksgiving day sermons, but the great difference he notes is that the shift was complete in the Dutch Republic before its political upheavals in 1780s and 1790s, while in America, it was ‘part and parcel of the Revolution’.109 In accounting for the difference, Van Rooden points out that study of the Dutch situation can illuminate the American one. While in the eighteenth century there were far more and far richer people in the Netherlands than in New England, over two centuries later, the situation is reversed. This results in a much more extensive literature about the American than the European situation, one so vast that generalizations are difficult. ‘A focus on fast day sermons and the comparison with the Dutch Republic enables one to cut through many of the American discussions and to place them in context.’ He says that in neither case was pietism, in the sense of ‘a stress on the importance of the personal appropriation of religious doctrines,’ enough to cause the transition from an emphasis on repentance to one on reform.110 In Holland pietism was in the background both before and after the shift, and in New England there had been a recognition from the beginning of an obligation to the public order alongside that of the need for conversion. Nor does millennialism seem to account for the change, as much as some scholars had made of its importance in New England (a view consistent with what Stout said on the subject). One difference that did exist was that the future did not look the same to the Dutch and the Puritans. As much more populous and richer as the Netherlands were, things had been going steadily downhill for them from the time of their war with the French at the beginning of the century, which caused them to attribute their decline to their moral failures and to launch upon a program of national reform. The New Englanders, on the other hand, were more successful in their military operations and considered their enemies rather than themselves to be depraved. The main difference between the two was the way that a sense of themselves as a moral community had been inculcated in the Dutch by its ruling group and the national days of prayer, while such a sense did not arise in the Americans until it emerged suddenly at the time of the Revolution. On the basis of this analysis Van Rooden challenges the thesis of those who have seen 108 109 110

Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 206–207. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, p. 227. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, p. 233.

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American Revolutionary consciousness arising as a function of the Great Awakening and indeed questions that there was such an awakening. Yet he also denies that it was a result of a progressive secularization of the country. He is rather of the opinion that with this shift in consciousness the way to produce Christianity socially was no longer the established religion but rather religious nationalism. To put it starkly, before the end of the eighteenth century, general sin was an occasion for collective rituals of repentance. Since then particular sins have been a motive or justifications for projects by the state or for the actions of social movements. The discursive change in the conceptual relation between power and piety transformed penance into reform.111

Another sort of sermons on a civic occasion were the state sermons preached by eminent clergy of the national church to either the monarch or the legislative body of the country or both together at the invitation of that audience. Three sets of these sermons, those delivered in England, the Netherlands, and Sweden, have been studied by Pasi Ihalainen.112 Just these three countries were chosen because they were on the way to becoming distinct nation states; most of those who made up their populations were Protestant; they had constitutions as free as any in the eighteenth century; and each had a high rate of literacy, a relatively free press, and a brisk book trade – conditions that permitted an interested and informed discussion of ideas. There were four times a year when state sermons could have been preached appropriately in England: (1) the anniversary of the execution of King Charles I on January 30, 1649, (2) that of the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II on May 29, 1660, (3) a double commemoration on November 5 of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot against James I in 1605 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when James II was rejected because of his Roman Catholicism and William of Orange was invited in replace him, and (4) the anniversary of the accession of the reigning sovereign. These were all ‘Red-Letter Days’ in the calendar of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and were observed until 1859 when Queen Victoria cancelled the order she had given at the beginning of her reign for the observance of the first three.113 111

Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, p. 239. Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch, and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 109 (Leiden and Boston, 2005). 113 W.K. Lowther Clarke, “The Calendar”, in W.K. Lowther Clarke ed., Liturgy and Worship: A Companion to the Prayer Books of the Anglican Communion (London, 1932), 112

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During the eighteenth century there could have been observance of all these days in parish churches and cathedrals, but what made sermons preached on those days ‘state sermons’ was their being preached before the sovereign and one of the Houses of Parliament. Since, however, Parliament was usually not in session for any of these days except January 30, more sermons were preached and printed for that day than any other. The service for the House of Lords was held in Westminster Abbey and that for the House of Commons in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, next door. Although these January services were held at the beginning of the parliamentary session, they were not necessarily well attended; the journals of the two Houses show that only their Speakers and a few other members may have attended. It was the publication of a sermon that gave it national significance. That being the case, being invited to preach was a great honor, and only very learned clergy were asked. Since bishops were members of the House of Lords, one of them preached to that chamber, while the House of Commons heard a doctor of divinity who was usually a don at one of the ancient universities.114 In neither case was anyone invited to preach much more than once. Official publication of the sermon came as a result of a vote of the relevant House to thank the preacher and approve the printing. Such a vote was not inevitable; there are several recorded instances of refusal. And there was a case in 1722 when Commons expunged its thanks to a preacher from the records after discovering the contents of his sermon. The preacher had been a High Church Tory who advocated royal supremacy against the parliamentarian sympathies of the Whig majority of the members.115 Since the Republic of the Seven United Provinces,116 or the Dutch Republic, as it is sometimes called, did not have a strong central government but was instead a union of seven independent states, it did not have a national legislature like the English Parliament or the Swedish Riksdag, and thus lacked a deliberative body before whom state sermons could be preached. In practice, however, the Reformed church was the public church p. 216. Since the 1662 book, issued shortly after the Restoration, is still the official prayer book of the Church of England, the commemoration of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 was added to the observance on November 5 after the accession of William and Mary. Under James I there had also been a commemoration of his escape from the conspiracy of the Gowrie brothers, but it does not appear in the calendar of the 1662 Prayer Book. 114 Contrary to American usage where the doctor of divinity degree is usually honorary, in Britain it is a very high earned degree. 115 This treatment of English state sermons is based on Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined, pp. 31–49. 116 The seven United Provinces were Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen, and Overijssel.

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of the Republic, and the States General issued the annual call for fast day sermons noted above in the report of Van Rooden’s study. While the English state sermons preached before Parliament were on occasions when the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer called for services, Ihalainen does not treat the parochial observance of these days as occasions when state sermons were preached. But since there was no national venue for showing that the Republic was a confessional state with a public church, he is able to point to particular pulpits from which the sermons could be considered state sermons. Particularly in a forum like the Great Church of the Hague, sermons preached on political occasions were subject to control by members of the House of Orange, the States General, the Council of State, the States of Holland, and at least the magistrates of the city.117

Which seems to be saying that these were state sermons de facto if not de jure. There being in the Netherlands nothing like the parliamentary authorization of printing, the publication of Dutch state sermons was usually at the initiative of the preacher, and most often appeared in a retrospective collection of their author’s sermons. Thus they often did not come out until long after they were delivered, and they could have been edited extensively in preparation for publication. For studying changes in the understanding of ‘nation’, however, Ihalainen finds it more advantageous to look at sermons published individually in pamphlet form the year they were delivered and generally dedicated to the political authority. These had normally been preached for extraordinary national celebrations that were largely political in content, especially when the service was attended by representatives of the States or by local regents. The call for such observances generally laid down guidelines for the sermons connected with them. The particular group of pamphlet sermons at which the author looks consists of those preached at national days of celebration, including prayer days, or commemorations of major events in the family of Orange. The head of the House of Orange was stadhouder for as many of the provinces as appointed him – a sort of hereditary civil servant who was a central figure and for some a national symbol in the Republic. These sermons were given at a wide variety of gatherings ranging from those at the Great Church of the Hague to those in small rural churches. These occasions most resembled those on which state sermons were preached in England 117

Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined, p. 51.

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and Sweden when the stadhouder himself was present, especially when representatives of the States accompanied him. What makes all of these state sermons is their containing in either their text, preface, or dedication indication that the occasion was called for by major political figures who may also have been involved in their publication. Sermons so published were subject to both political and ecclesiastical censorship, the ecclesiastical censorship based on the standards of the Church Order (Kerken-ordeninge) of the Reformed Church as applied to the work in question by a theological faculty, a synod, or local classis.118 While at the beginning all these sermons supported the status quo, drawing on the Dutch Israel motif, during the eighty years of the Patriotic Period, many sermons were published that were quite outspoken. One preacher, for instance, criticized the stadhouder in his presence.119 The most important state sermons preached in Sweden in the eighteenth century were those given at the opening and closing sessions of the Diet (Riksdag). Other occasions for them occurred at royal births, weddings, and funerals, when peace treaties were signed, or, after 1748, in celebrations of the Royal Order on the birthday of King Frederick I. The death of King Charles XII in 1719 was the end of the Age of Absolutism in Sweden and the beginning of the Age of Liberty, which lasted through most of the century. The Riksdag at the time was composed of representatives of the four Estates that made up the society: nobility, clergy, burghers, and peasants. The four Estates met separately, each with its own chamber and speaker, and a proposal had to be passed by three of the four to be enacted. The nobility were by far the largest group and the clergy were the smallest Estate, having only fifty members, bishops and clergy from each diocese. Riksdag services were ordered by the king and council, who also nominated the preacher. In practice, it was generally the clerical Estate that chose the preacher, but king and council had the right to overrule their choice. In any case, the preacher was a member of the clergy of the state Lutheran church to which almost all Swedes belonged. Even the biblical text of the sermon was subject to government control, but this designation of the text did not determine what the preacher said about it. There were, however, more restrictions on the kinds of things the bishop could say than his Dutch and English counterparts had to cope with.

118 119

Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined, pp. 49–69. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 212–213.

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‘Above all, Swedish Lutheran preaching had to be strictly orthodox, biblical, cautious, compact and simple, aiming at the advancement of belief ’.120 It also had to be simple enough for ordinary people to understand, and had to be circumspect in discussing worldly matters. Content was not controlled, however, by the sort of special liturgies used for state sermons in England or by the content of the declarations of prayer days as Dutch state sermons were. Before 1726 the Riksdag services for the nobility were held separately from those for the other Estates, but after that they were held for the king and all four Estates together at the Great Church of Stockholm.121 And, unlike those for the British Parliament, these were scrupulously attended. Up until the late 1760s there was strict state censorship over all printing, so all state sermons published echoed the correct party line. One of the main reasons for printing the sermons was so that the lower clergy could repeat their perspective and thus form the attitudes of the citizenry in ways acceptable to the establishment. Even then, not all state sermons were published until the 1740s; those dealing exclusively with religious matters and not adequately encouraging appropriate patriotic feelings were not considered worth the expense of printing.122 How closely the purposes of the Swedish Riksdag sermon coincided with those of English and Dutch state sermons is apparent in the following summary: Like their English and Dutch equivalents, eighteenth-century Riksdag sermons represent not just religious preaching but also a highly institutionalized form of political speaking, in which the speaker made use of his theoretical education in theology and his practical knowledge of politics to define the fatherland and nation and its official politico-religious values in a manner appropriate to the occasion. His formulations of political values could not follow simply from his personal understanding of political reality but had to reflect generally held conceptions – not only among the clerical Estate but also among the political elite at large.123

As the subtitle of Ihalainen’s book indicates, he studied the state sermons of the three countries to trace changing perceptions in national identity, seeing a shift from the time that was phrased in a largely theological vocabulary to one when it was expressed in thoughts forms from the 120

Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined, p. 76. There was a period of almost twenty years beginning in 1739 that these services were held in the Hall of State of the royal palace because of the poor health of the king. 122 Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined, p. 69–85. 123 Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined, p. 71. 121

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Enlightenment. While some earlier scholars have thought the shift to Enlightenment language indicated a secularization of thought, Ihalainen says: It will be argued in this book that the transformation from early modern religious national identities towards more modern, increasingly secular national identities took place also within the genre of Protestant state sermons. It was possible for the clerics to give innovative meaning to the concepts of nation and fatherland within a traditional form of discourse, by providing old terminology with new meanings or by introducing entirely new elements of the language of nation borrowed from the more secular language of politics.124

While the author’s analysis of how this happened is thorough and insightful, it again leads us far away from issues of homiletical genres in themselves and need not be summarized here. Other Varieties of Preaching In Dutch preaching of our era there are many additional varieties of sermons that have been studied by different scholars. These include charity sermons (which were common in England),125 or such varieties of preaching as sermons by women,126 or sermons on the passions127 or the afterlife.128 Catechism sermons on the Ten Commandments are a treasure trove for information on early modern values;129 other sermons offer insight into 124

Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined, p. 14. Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, “Sermons sur les oeuvres charitables au dix-huitième siècle”, in C. d’Haussy ed., Le Sermon anglais (Paris, 1982), pp. 91–121; Donna T. Andrew, “On Reading Charity Sermons: Eighteenth-Century Anglican Solicitation and Exhortation”, in: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 43 (1992), pp. 581–591. 126 Cf. Mia Haggblom, “Den Heliga Svagheten: Handlingsmonster bland predikande kvinnor i det Svenska riket under 1700-Talets senare halft”, in Historisk Tidskrift for Finland 91 (2006), pp. 101–138; Vicki Tolar Collins, “Walking in Light, Walking in Darkness. The Story of Women’s Changing Rhetorical Space in Early Methodism’, in Rhetoric Review 14 (1996), 336–354; Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers & pilgrims. Female preaching in America, 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill [etc.]: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Rebecca Larson, Daughters of light: Quaker women preaching and prophesying in the colonies and abroad, 1700–1775 (New York, 1999); Jane Donawerth, “Poaching on Men’s Philosophies of Rhetoric: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Rhetorical Theory by Women”, in Philosophy and Rhetoric 33 (2000), 243–258. 127 Alan Brinton, “The Passions as Subject Matter in Early Eighteenth-Century British Sermons”, in Rhetorica 10 (1992), pp. 51–69. 128 Gerrit Vanden Bosch, Hemel, hel en vagevuur. Preken over het hiernamaals in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden tijdens de 17de en 18de eeuw (Leuven, 1991). 129 A.Th. van Deursen, Rust niet voordat gy ze van buiten kunt. De tien geboden in de 17e eeuw (s.l., 2004). 125

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ideas on such diverse topics as children,130 women,131 marriage,132 the family,133 poverty and wealth,134 rhetoric,135 sickness,136 hell,137 and the devil.138 The most extensive list of genres, however, is that studied by Jelle Bosma in his comprehensive study of Dutch preaching in the second half of the eighteenth century. While sermons like those he treats were undoubtedly preached in other countries, they have not been studied in the same way, so the wisest thing to do at this point seems to be to summarize what he has to say. Political Preaching While the state sermons just discussed were political preaching, there were other sermons on political issues that were not state sermons according to the definition of Ihalainen. During the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, the Republic was disturbed by widespread civil unrest during the so-called Patriot Revolt. For a long time the status quo had been regarded as holy for all denominations, but a stagnant economy as a result of a disastrous downhill war with England prompted resistance to the stadhouder William V. Different groups reacted differently to the Patriot Revolt. The 130 Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, “Representations of Children in the Sermons of Philip Doddridge”, in Diana Wood ed., The Church and Childhood: Studies in Church History 31 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 379–389. 131 Katelijne Rotsaert, Tussen Eva en Maria: de vrouw volgens de predikanten van de 17de en 18de eeuw (Aartrijke, 1992). 132 Eileen Theresa Dugan, Images of marriage and family life in Nördlingen: Moral preaching and devotional literature, 1589–1712 (Ann Arbor, 1988); Michael P. Winship, “Behold the Bridegroom Cometh! Marital Imagery in Massachusetts Preaching, 1630–1730”, in Early American Literature 27 (1992), pp. 170–184; Hans Storme, Die trouwen wilt voorsichtelijck. Predikanten en moralisten over de voorbereiding op het huwelijk in de Vlaamse bisdommen (17e-18e eeuw) (Leuven, 1992). 133 Larry Wolff, “Parents and Children in the Sermons of Père Bourdaloue: A Jesuit Perspective on the Early Modern Family”, in Christopher Chapple ed., The Jesuit Tradition in Education and Missions (University of Scranton Press, 1993), pp. 81–94. 134 Steven Hennion en Hans Storme, “Door het oog van de naald. Predikanten over rijkdom en sociale ongelijkheid in de achttiende eeuw”, in Trajecta 2 (1993) 228–244. 135 Ann Matheson, Theories of rhetoric in the 18th-century Scottish sermon (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter, 1995). 136 An Vandenberghe, “Ziekte en genezing in de katholieke predikatie van de Zuidelijke Nederlanden in de achttiende en de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw”, in Trajecta 14 (2005), pp. 387–417. 137 Wolfgang Sommer, “Der Untergang der Hölle: Zu den Wandlungen des theologischen Höllenbildes in der lutherischen Theologie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts”, in Wolfgang Sommer ed., Politik, Theologie und Frömmigkeit im Luthertum der Frühen Neuzeit: Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 74 (Göttingen, 1999), pp. 177–205. 138 Christine Van de Steene, Satan en zijn trawanten volgens de achttiende-eeuwse predikatie (Aartrijke, 1991).

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House of Orange drew many supporters from among the orthodox members of the public church, but many Calvinists and the dissenters also favored the Patriots’ cause. Many sermons preached before synodical councils were published and these tended to be more ‘enlightened’ than those that had been preached before; they were, in effect, opinionated lectures. While the theme of the Dutch Israel continued to be invoked, its content in the sermons of liberals was greatly changed, with a nationalization of the concept and references to the ‘God of Freedom’. Not surprisingly in the circumstances, many sermons were published anonymously in 1782–1783.139 Before Church Councils As the previous paragraph indicates, clergy preached before church as well as political councils. After 1618–19, when the only ‘national’ synod held during the Dutch Republic took place, provincial synods became annual events (although Holland had two a year, with one in the north and the other in the south). The synods usually lasted about a week and had opening and closing services at which the sermons were preached. The most popular preachers at these were outspokenly orthodox professors, some of whom were invited a number of times. That being the case, it is only to be expected that their sermons would favor the religious status quo. When public opinion began to change, sermons shifted to more neutral subjects such as the influence of worship on the fortunes of the people. Under this influence of the Enlightenment, religious tolerance became the guiding principle of the church. While this description refers to the public church, dissenters and some overseas churches also opened their synods with a sermon.140 Commemoration Sermons, Jubilee Speeches, History Lectures Sermons were preached at significant milestones in the ministry of clergy: at their installation in a new ministry, at their departure, the Jubilee of a professor, the installation of a new organ, or the introduction of a new metrical Psalter (Psalmberijming). History lectures were another genre. It was customary for clergy to be inducted when they began their ministry in a new place and a colleague from the congregation or classis preached a special induction sermon after the new minister had given an entrance sermon. In sermons for the arrival and departure of ministers, parallels 139 140

Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 245–250. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 213–215.

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were drawn between the cleric and biblical prophets, priests, or apostles who made similar transitions. An ideal picture of the preacher was sketched in which there appeared such adjectives as gentle, friendly, and submissive. When one considers the total number of such sermons that were preached, the quantity that was published is not extremely large, suggesting that their publication was not a high priority for people with money. This was as true for dissenters as for clergy of the public church.141 A jubilee was celebrated at a special service when a minister had served with distinction for a long time, generally to mark a twenty-fifth, fortieth, or fiftieth anniversary in the post. A special sermon (often called a ‘thanksgiving’ or ‘jubilee’ sermon) could be published to serve as a daily reminder of the preacher. These normally were one to two hundred pages, yet one of these of almost three hundred went into a second edition. A favorite text for such sermons was Psalm 71:17, ‘O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds’, which was applied to the preacher’s life. In many the preachers went on for some length to protest their simplicity and humility, although clergy in orthodox circles tended to be more realistic. Some of the clergy published a number of their other sermons along with the one for the occasion, always ‘at the request of friends’.142 Another occasion for special sermons was the consecration of a new church. This was a more important event in smaller towns than in larger ones. These sermons took such appropriate texts as 1 Kings 8 and Ezra 6, reports of the consecrations of the first and second Temples. In all churches, orthodox or enlightened, churchgoing stood above all others as a necessary Christian duty. Although the suitability of organ music in church had been debated earlier, it was widely accepted in the eighteenth century, and there were services for their consecration both in the public church and in dissenting churches. Most of the sermons preached at these services dealt with the way that the use of organs in worship was not only permitted but even obligatory. All denominations also felt the need to develop hymns. In the Reformed church they had used a rhymed Psalter since the time of the Reformation, but it had become hopelessly outdated – although some dissenters continued to use it. In 1773 an official States Psalter was introduced into the ruling church; dissenters had already accepted a new metrical Psalter. Special sermons were preached at the introduction of these, comparing them with the old and praising the new.143 Because care 141 142 143

Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 216–218. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 218–223. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 224–226.

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for the poor was handled by the diaconate, there were jubilees of the houses established for that purpose as well as for orphanages, and sermons preached at some of these events spoke of the benefits provided for the ‘clients’ of these institutions, urging them to express gratitude.144 For important state events, for which the House of Orange furnished an inexhaustible source, there were sermons, some of which were published. Such events were the installation of William V as stadhouder and his marriage a year later to Wilhelmina of Prussia. A special sort of commemorative event was the so-called ‘history sermon’ given at important secular events such as the centennial of a war or of the beginning of the Reformation in a certain area. In the eighteenth century such historical sermons seem to have become increasingly popular. As any other sermon, the historical sermon had an introduction, an explanation of the text, and an application that usually offered a broad exposition of the event being commemorated. Hence the published form of historical sermons was much longer than the two-hour speech that was delivered orally, extending as long as 200 pages and filling in what data could not be squeezed into the sermon. Such lectures served almost as much of a political as a religious purpose. Most of those in the last half of the eighteenth century were over the bicentennial of the Dutch Revolt and dealt with the important events in it, especially with the founding of the public church. Lutherans had history lectures for the two-hundred-fiftieth of the Augsburg Confession. Such lectures really dealt as much with the present as the past.145 Preaching with a Specific Ecclesiastical Theme Sermons were preached on feast days in the church year such as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and New Year’s Day. When one thinks that, in the early period of the Reformation, keeping such feasts was considered pagan or popish, the number of Christmas and Easter sermons published in the eighteenth century, especially toward the end, is astonishing. Most of their authors were senior clergy; only one sermon was by someone aged fifty while sixty preached by septuagenarians have come down to us. Sometimes a group of sermons for Passiontide by various preachers were bundled together to take the reader through the events step by step. Many fewer Christmas sermons were published. A number of feast day sermons were translated from German. A favorite theme for New Year sermons was memento mori.146 144 145 146

Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, p. 228. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 229–232. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 232–233.

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Baptism was normally performed at the end of a church service rather than at a separate service with a sermon of its own, the exception being those of members of the House of Orange, for which the sermons were published. The Eucharist was administered four times a year. Prior to each of the celebrations there were special services, and the sermons for some of them were published. Great thought was given to preparation for Holy Communion, and extensive collections of sermons to assist in that preparation were published. Some of those dealt with the ‘heretical’ understanding of the rite held by other churches. There were also catechetical sermons to prepare the young for adult participation in the church.147 Sermons from Regions Overseas Because the Netherlands was a seafaring nation with possessions overseas, its religious life stretched out from its home territory. There were sermons for seamen, traders, and planters, and some of them were published. Some of these sermons were from nearby countries where there were extensive groups of Mennonites. Others sermons were preached at services held in embassies. No single theme has been identified as common to these, but they help one to see that both church life and rhetoric were much the same in the colonies as they were at home. In some of the colonies, there were churches of other traditions that predated the arrival of the Dutch, so in theory the Dutch churches were only for the use of their own members.148 Ad Status Sermons As the Enlightenment proceeded and the desire to change behavior displaced correct theology as the aim of preaching, there came to be more and more concern with the skills of communication. With that went tailoring sermons to their target audiences: common people, farmers, soldiers, sailors, Christian husbands, young men and young women, old people, serious Christians, and children. Again, some of these sermons were published. They were almost ethical handbooks focused on the circumstances and the needs of the audience for whom they were intended, as these were understood by the preachers. Thus sermons were preached to sailors about rebelliousness, desertion, drunkenness, cursing, and swearing, farmers

147 148

Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 233–237. Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 239–240.

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were exhorted to diligence, while good Christians, on the other hand, were addressed about respectability and wandering from the pathway.149 Epilogue This completes the map of the territory we have been exploring. While there are no notations that ‘here be anthropophages’, the map is undoubtedly more complete in some areas than others – and more accurate! But the general shape is probably pretty well on target. It enables us to see that there was much in common between the preaching of various churches and for various occasions, reflecting the culture of the time. But there were also many and important differences. To change the metaphor, what we see are variations on themes. The variety and that which is in common have produced some lovely late Baroque counterpoint. Still, to change the metaphor yet again, just the surface has been scratched. While we are greatly in debt to the scholars whose work we have surveyed, much more remains to be done. The following chapters indicate the main directions sermon research has taken in recent years, while they open up new territories to explore.

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Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand, pp. 241–242.

PART II

FOUNDATION

THE THEOLOGY OF THE SERMON IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Alexander Bitzel* 1. Introduction Since the time of the apostles, the church has occupied itself with these theological questions: What is a sermon? What is its purpose? What is it able to accomplish? Under what circumstances can a sermon reach its potential? Within a homiletic discussion that distinguishes between fundamental and formal homiletics, the theology of the sermon is oriented towards fundamental homiletics. Nevertheless, formal homiletics – especially the question of how a sermon should convey what the preacher wants to say – is always bound up with theological decisions. Methodologically, it is important in an investigation of the theologies of the sermon to derive them not only from homiletic tracts, but also from the practice of preaching. Indeed practice often has a hermeneutic advantage over theory. Sometimes it reinforces the theoretical positions, while at other times it opposes them. In both cases the results of practice must be brought to bear in order to clarify a theology of the sermon. This chapter will attempt as far as possible to view theory and practice together in the period under investigation. In terms of the history of the sermon, the eighteenth century is still not very well researched. Hence clear typologies and categorizations are often scarcely possible. At any rate, typologies are never more than a heuristic medium, which cannot obscure the fact that the theologians in question are independent personalities who did not merely repeat what they had learned, but instead appropriated it productively and in new syntheses made it their own. A good example is the selection of people and sources. The selection of sources can seem a little haphazard. It follows the rough outlines of theological history, but it has its limitations. This chapter focuses on Germanspeaking areas. They are of particular interest, as decisive theological

* Translated by Charlotte Masemann.

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developments of European church history – the Reformation above all, but also Pietism – had their beginnings here. The German-speaking regions also played a very particular role (at least in the Protestant areas) in the context of the Enlightenment, which one could term, at a stretch, a WestEuropean phenomenon. There a synthesis of Enlightenment and theology took shape that noticeably stands out from developments in the rest of Europe, and which gave impulse and direction to the development of church and theology in Europe, and not merely in Protestant areas. In Western Europe, and particularly in France, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment was in certain cases opposed to church and theology. On occasion it was even accompanied by explicit enmity towards the church, which provoked a vigorous defensive reaction on the part of the church. In German-speaking areas matters developed differently. In the eighteenth century there developed a synthesis of Enlightenment and theology, whose full flowering can be summed up in the term Neology.1 This link between theology and Enlightenment was strongly criticized in conservative religious circles. Nevertheless it gained a foothold in the areas of German-speaking Protestantism and was able to influence even conservative theologians to some extent through osmosis. Catholicism followed a somewhat different course, with both individual theologians and elements of the hierarchical leadership opening themselves up to Enlightenment ideas.2 Moreover, German Catholicism of the 18th century was quite open to input from abroad, and did not create a theological synthesis comparable to the protestant Neology. German Catholicism can thus be seen as a mirror of developments throughout Europe. 2. Historical Starting Point 2.1 The Theology of the Sermon According to the Confessional Writings of the Reformation Martin Luther saw the sermon as God’s quintessential medium of salvation.3 According to his point of view, a sermon was not a speech about holy 1

Albrecht Beutel, “Aufklärung II. Theologisch-kirchlich”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 1 (Tübingen 1998), pp. 941–948, at pp. 945–946. 2 See Dieter Breuer ed., Die Aufklärung in den deutschsprachigen katholischen Ländern 1750–1800: Kulturelle Ausgleichsprozesse im Spiegel von Bibliotheken in Luzern, Eichstätt und Klosterneuburg (Paderborn, 2001). 3 See Alfred Niebergall, “Luthers Auffassung von der Predigt nach De Servo Arbitrio”, in Reformation und Gegenwart (Marburger Theologische Studien 6) (Marburg, 1968), pp. 83–109.

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things or the contents of faith, but a speech that reached into the life of its audience. A sermon can become verbum efficax, an efficacious word, which moves, realigns and reconstitutes men.4 Both Lutherans and members of the Reformed Church followed this view of sermons. The central confessional document of Lutheran Protestantism, the Confessio Augustana of 1530, has this to say concerning the office of preaching: in order “to obtain faith, God established the office of preaching, to give the Gospel and sacraments, through which he awakens faith where and when he wishes, as the means that gives the Holy Spirit, in those who hear the Gospel”.5 When he preaches, a preacher places himself in the service of the preaching office. He speaks in the hope that God might need his words. Wherever God’s word rings out, something new will be created, according to the example of Genesis 1:3–30. Righteous men are made out of sinful ones (meaning those who are far from God) through the word of God in the sermon. The righteous live with God in harmony and unison. This new creation, just like the creation of the universe, is a creatio ex nihilo. By his very nature man is – at least according to the fundamental assumption of Reformation anthropology – an enemy of God. He bears within himself the impulse of acting in competition with God. He wants to manage without God in his own life, and contests God’s divinity. At the very least he wishes to engage with God at the same level (see Genesis 3:4–6). In contrast to man’s assessment, however, this ambition does not lead him to freedom and autonomy, but rather into enslavement to his impulses, desires and moods; to dependence on others; to turning in upon himself; and, finally, to death. The sermon intervenes in this disastrous course of events, rending man from self-destruction and placing him in an entirely new condition: the condition of faith. Faith can be understood as an intact relationship with God. On the other hand, sin, as the opposite of faith, is a broken relationship with God. During his life man will lose his faith repeatedly. His nature struggles against the intervention of God and leads him to fall back into the condition of sin. Thus man cannot be helped with one single sermon. He must repeatedly expose himself to sermons, in order to allow his faith to be

4 Martin Luther, Eyn kleyn unterricht, was man ynn den Euangelijs suchen und gewartten soll (1522) (Weimarer Ausgabe 10.I.1) (Weimar 1910), pp. 8–18, at pp. 11–12; Martin Luther, Eine Predigt, dass man Kinder zur Schulen halten solle (1530) (Bonner Ausgabe 4) (Bonn 1926), pp. 144–178, at p. 150. 5 Confessio Augustana, in Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche 5th ed. (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 31–137, at p. 58.

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renewed and to overcome his natural tendency towards distance from God. For this reason, a central place was reserved for the sermon in the religious services of the Reformation. When a sermon was not going to be preached or was not possible, then Christians should simply not assemble, as Luther wrote in Von Ordnung Gottesdiensts in der Gemeinde (1523).6 According to the Reformers, the sermon is the primary place in which God reached out to his people. The sermon deals with what is most important.Th e Protestant sermon is thus not a speech like any other. A central confessional document from the Reformed church, the Confessio Helvetica posterior, put together by Heinrich Bullinger (1505–1575),7 summarizes this view of the sermon in the following pithy phrase: Praedicatio verbi dei est verbum dei (the preaching of the word of God is the word of God).8 The verb est is crucial. A sermon is not automatically the word of God, but becomes it when the spirit of God is bound to what is said in the pulpit. When this alliance between spirit and word occurs, the words of the sermon are no longer the words of man, but are rather the efficacious or newly creating word of God. In the area of the Protestant churches the sermon is soteriologially understood. The heirs of Luther and Zwingli all knew about the potential of preaching and thus laid heavy emphasis on its practice.9 The age of confessionalism is for this reason a high water mark in the history of the Christian sermon.10 With the expenditure of a great deal of rhetoric, a homiletic level was reached that has since then seldom been achieved.11 6 Martin Luther, Von Ordnung Gottesdiensts in der Gemeine (1523) (Bonner Ausgabe 2) (Bonn 1925), pp. 424–426, at p. 424. 7 See Emidio Campi, “Bullinger, Heinrich, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed. Vol. 1 (Tübingen 1998), pp. 1858–1859. 8 See Gottfried W. Locher, “PRAEDICATIO VERBI DEI EST VERBUM DEI. Heinrich Bullinger zwischen Luther und Zwingli. Ein Beitrag zu seiner Theologie”, in Gottfried W. Locher, Huldrych Zwingli in neuer Sicht. Zehn Beiträge zur Theologie der Zürcher Reformation (Zürich/Stuttgart, 1969), pp. 275–287. 9 See Johann Gerhard as an example of this, LOCI THEOLOGICI VI.XXIII, ed. F. Frank (Leipzig, 1885), pp. 164 and 177. 10 See Wolfgang Sommer, Gottesfurcht und Fürstenherrschaft. Studien zum Obrigkeitsverständnis Johann Arndts und lutherischer Hofprediger zur Zeit der altprotestantischen Orthodoxie (Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 41) (Göttingen, 1988), p. 14. 11 Indeed, confessional polemic was a principal characteristic of Lutheran and Reformedorthodox sermons, according to Gottfried Bitter; see Gottfried Bitter and Martina Splonskowski in “Predigt VII. Katholische Predigt der Neuzeit”, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Vol. 27 (Berlin/New York 1997), pp. 262–296, at pp. 263–265. This judgement is however not accurate. The preachers of the later sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries recognized that conflict with the alternative versions of truth presented by their theological opponents was an important mission of preaching, but this was never their

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2.2 The Theology of the Sermon According to the Decrees of the Council of Trent (1545–1563) The Roman Catholic Church, which is the part of western Christendom that did not participate in the Lutheran or Swiss Reformation, has a completely different understanding of the sermon. Only a few catholic theologians developed a mystagogical understanding of the sermon through the conflict with Reformation theology.12 At the Council of Trent (1545–1563), where the foundation stone of the Roman Catholic confession was being laid,13 there arose a theology of the sermon quite divergent from that of the Protestants. The decrees of the Council of Trent that have to do with preaching spend a great deal of effort on regulation, stipulating where and when preaching has to occur, who is allowed to preach, how the vocation to be a preacher works, and so on. Episcopal oversight over preaching is particularly precisely regulated. Behind this juridical regulation lies the attempt to avoid, under all circumstances, the penetration of Protestant preachers into Roman Catholic congregations. The sermon itself was defined as an instruction of the things that the congregation should know in view of their salvation. The sermon also had the responsibility of exhorting and of propagating the good characteristics which are to be followed, if one wishes to avoid eternal damnation in hell and participate in the heavenly Glory of God.14 central focus. Concerning the theme of confessional polemic in the age of Lutheran Orthodoxy, see Alexander Bitzel, “Seelsorge und Streit. Johann Gerhards Bibliothek als Spiegel seines theologischen Selbstverständnisses”, in Kerygma und Dogma 48 (2002), pp. 133–146. 12 See Corrie E. Norman, “The Social History of Preaching: Italy”, in Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period, ed. Larissa Taylor, A New History of the Sermon 2 (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2001), pp. 125–191, at pp. 149–151. 13 Hubert Jedin, Der Abschluss des Trienter Konzils 1562/63 Ein Rückblick nach vier Jahrhunderten (Katholisches Leben und Kämpfen im Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung 21) (Münster, 1963), p. 75, speaks in a restrained manner about an “act of self-awareness and self-renewal of the church”; Klaus Ganzer, “Trient 3) Konzil”, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3rd ed., X, pp. 225–232, at p. 231, shows a more strongly articulated awareness that the Council of Trent was about the constitution of Roman Catholic confessionalism. 14 See “Decretum secundum publicatum in eadem quinta sessione super lectione et praedicatione, 11”, in Stephanus Ehses ed., Concilii Tridentini actorum pars altera acta post sessionem tertiam usque ad concilium bononiam translatum (Concilium Tridentinum diariorum, actorum, epistolarum, tractatuum nova collectio IV) (Freiburg 1964), pp. 241–243, at p. 242. The decree is quite clear that the bishop has to make sure that the position of preacher can be set up for all cathedral and collegiate churches; the munus praecipuum of bishops is the sermon; priests were obliged to preach on all Sundays and feast days; the study of the Gospel for the purpose of preparing sermons was given precedence over its study for scholastic purposes.

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Teaching and admonition are thus the central tasks of preaching. The sermon does not have a sacramental character. It is not a soteriologically relevant phenomenon. According to the conception of the council of Trent, the Eucharist is the central event of salvation in the Mass, providing for the forgiveness of sins and energizing the believer.15 Preaching, by comparison, is merely an “indispensable medium for the internalization of the new Roman Catholic edifice of teaching.” It has the purpose of instructing the already existing congregation according to the Holy Word and the laws of God.16 Thus the congregation is not initially constituted through the sermon, in contrast to the case in Protestant sermon theology.17 The members of a roman-catholic congregation are merely informed and instructed through a sermon. Just as with Protestant theologians, this theological view of the sermon is based on a specific anthropology and doctrine of grace. According to the Roman Catholic conception, a baptized person is no longer entirely a sinner. He thus is no longer living in opposition to God. Rather, with baptism he becomes a participant in the gratia prima, from which he retains a lasting quality. The baptized person thus carries the kernel of the intact relationship with God, as well as of moral good, within him. The relationship with God must only be helped along and developed with the assistance of the gratia subsequens. It does not constantly have to be reestablished ex nihilo against strong opposition. For the person who has been given the gratia prima and, according to the Roman Catholic point of view, is thus qualified to have an intact relationship with God, the sermon must only provide stimuli and encouragement to help him progress on his chosen path. With respect to the theological assessment of the sermon, therefore, both of the major western confessions differ from each other significantly. This disparity has lasted in principle to this day. Nevertheless, in eighteenthcentury sermon theology there occurred in certain senses a noticeable narrowing of the gap between the two confessional camps, as will shortly become clear. 15 See “Doctrina et canones de sanctissimo missae sacrificio, publicati in sessione sexta, cap. I & II”, in Stephanus Ehses ed., Concilii Tridentini actorum pars quinta complectens acta ad praeparandum concilium, et sessiones anni 1562 a prima (XVII) ad sextam (XXII) (Concilium Tridentinum diariorum, actorum, epistolarum, tractatuum nova collectio IIX) (Freiburg 1964), 959–960. 16 Bitter and Splonskowski, Predigt, p. 267. 17 See Luther’s work, based on Jacob 1:18, concerning the church as a creatura verbi in Martin Luther, Resolutiones Lutherianae super propositionibus suis Lipsiae disputatis (1519) (Weimarer Ausgabe 2) (Weimar 1884), pp. 388–435, at p. 430.

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3. Protestant Theology of the Sermon in the Eighteenth Century Lutheran sermon theory of the seventeenth century is strongly characterized by the concept of the efficacia verbi divini (the efficacy of the divine Word). It continues the legacy of the Reformation uninterrupted. The Lutheran sermon of the seventeenth century tries to translate the basic insights of its sermon theology into praxis. The rhetorical effort expended by the preacher at the pulpit serves the purpose of rousing the emotions of the audience. By doing so it tries make them receptive to the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ has promised to give. The sermon is understood as a tool that prepares the way for the spirit of God and as a medium for the transmission of this spirit. When the spirit of God joins with the words of the sermon it takes up residence, according to John 14:23, in the hearts of the listeners, and then the sermon has fulfilled its purpose. 3.1 Pietism At the end of the seventeenth century, Pietism emerged within the Lutheran church as a movement for the renewal of the church and of piety.18 It was one of many movements in Europe at that time which tried to reform church life. Pietism regarded itself as a continuation of the Reformation. It wished to help in the removal of the deficiencies in religious life.19 This also applied to the domain of preaching. The manifesto of German Lutheran Pietism are the Pia desideria, which appeared in 1675, written by Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705), at that time pastor and provost (Senior) in Frankfurt (Main). In this work Spener views the meaning of the sermon in a very traditional way. Along with Romans 1:16, he recognizes that the sermon is the most outstanding medium through which God builds his congregation20 and through which he acts as the people’s saviour.21 For Spener, the sermon is “the divine hand that offers grace and reaches out to the believer since the word itself awakens faith through the Holy Spirit”.22

18 See Martin Brecht, “Einleitung”, in Geschichte des Pietismus, Band 1 Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Brecht (Göttingen, 1993), pp. 1–10. 19 See Philipp Jakob Spener, Pia desideria: Oder Hertzliches Verlangen/Nach Gottgefälliger Besserung der wahren Evangelischen Kirchen/sampt einigen dahin einfältig abzweckenden Christlichen Vorschlägen (Frankfurt/Main, 1680; repr. Hildesheim, 1979), pp. 92–93. 20 Spener, Pia desideria, p. 149. 21 Spener, Pia desideria, pp. 47, 150. 22 Spener, Pia desideria, p. 47.

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It is incontestable for Spener that a preacher is only able to preach God’s saving word when the Holy Spirit accompanies his sermon. Thus at first glance there appears to be no difference between the way that Spener and his fellow Pietists theologically assessed the sermon, and the way that Reformation theology did. Nevertheless, Spener demands a renewal of religious preaching. According to him it was in a shocking state. One of its chief problems was that controversialist or polemical theology was running wild in the pulpit.23 Another problem was the lack of piety, that is to say inappropriate lifestyles on the part of the preachers. In this context one can observe an important renewal with Spener. As a theologian in the Protestant tradition, he stood fundamentally by the conviction of western Christendom, developed in the antidonatist conflict of the fourth century, that the quality and state of he who administers the sacraments and the Word of God – the latter being the underlying sacrament of all others according to Protestant theology – did not have an influence on its efficacy, which is ensured by God himself and would be bestowed now and forever. A preacher’s way of life can of course influence the believability of his sermon, whether negatively or positively, and this point was not overlooked by Reformation and post-Reformation theology. Thus Spener’s innovation is not his discussion of the lifestyles of preachers, but rather his message of their desirable rebirth. He demands this expressly in his Pia desideria. It is precisely because preachers have a deep responsibility for the spiritual life of their congregations that Spener wants them “to be true Christians as much as possible and to have divine wisdom so that they may also carefully guide others on the path of the Lord”.24 Behind this demand stands Spener’s conviction that only a converted preacher can bring about conversions, just as only a reborn preacher can engender other rebirths. Spener answers the question that arises from this, namely how a preacher can be reborn, with the demand that any preacher should let the Word of God penetrate his heart.25 Spener suggests a fundamental renewal of the daily praxis pietatis in order to make this successful. This renewal is the primary substance of the Pia desideria. Spener expects it to result in a substantial improvement in the religious situation. He expects that the church “might be restored to a more splendid state”.26

23 24 25 26

Spener, Pia desideria, pp. 139–140. Spener, Pia desideria, pp. 125–126. Spener, Pia desideria, p. 54. Spener, Pia desideria, p. 94.

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The renewal of the church is meant to take place “through a conscious effort to bring the Word of God more abundantly among us”.27 This is because “The more abundantly the word lives among us, the more we will manage to achieve faith and its fruits”.28 According to Spener’s view, the media for spreading the Word of God are the sermon, public church assemblies and private Bible readings, that is to say prayer meetings at private homes, at which Biblical texts are discussed under the leadership of a pastor or someone with theological training.29 While Luther and his successors saw the church service, Bible readings and discussion with other Christians about matters of belief (mutuum colloquium) as paths that led equally to engagement with the Word of God,30 Spener made special pleading for a stronger establishment of opportunities for discussion (collegia pietatis), and thus for the formation of a mutuum colloquium fratrum sororumque.31 He saw here an important place where the Word of God can fortify the inner person in order to improve his way of life. In the case of a preacher, the mutuum colloquium fratrum sororumque helps to make his preaching more effective.32 Spener in this way gives methodical instructions for pneumatic preaching, or preaching that leads to salvation.33 On the surface Spener clings to the fundamental Protestant conviction of the inalienability of the spirit of God, and thus to the belief that every successful sermon is a gift of God’s grace. Spener also seems to adhere to the fundamental division between preaching and preacher. However, he does search for practical ways to have a positive influence on, indeed to increase, the effectiveness and thus the pneumatic quality of the sermon. Spener particularly wishes to promote the fruits of faith – that is good works – by means of the sermon. Sermons should be arranged so that “their purpose, namely faith and its fruits, can be furthered as much as possible among their audience”.34 Accordingly, Spener’s method of preaching had

27

Spener, Pia desideria, p. 94. Spener, Pia desideria, p. 95. 29 Spener, Pia desideria, pp. 96–98. 30 Martin Luther, Schmalkaldische Artikel III.IV, in Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche 5th ed. (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 405–468, at p. 449. 31 See Martin Brecht, “Philipp Jakob Spener, sein Programm und dessen Auswirkungen”, in Geschichte des Pietismus 1 (see above, n. 18), pp. 279–389, at pp. 295–299. 32 Spener, Pia desideria (see above, n. 19), p. 144. 33 Another method of increasing the devoutness of preachers is for them to live an ascetic life, as Spener already demands for theology students in: Spener, Pia desideria, pp. 135–137; this ascetic lifestyle would then serve as an example to the congregation when the pastor was in office, according to Spener, Pia desideria, pp. 133–134. 34 Spener, Pia desideria, p. 149. 28

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a tendency towards moral exhortation and ethical instruction (paraenesis). The theological emphasis thus shifted away from trying to establish faith anew through the sermon, towards encouraging the faithful to good works of justice. The tendency of the following Pietist preaching towards a simple, applicable interpretation of Biblical texts, and its thematic alignment towards decision, conversion and rebirth as well as its strong pull towards ethical instruction – particularly noticeable in the work of the Glaucha preacher August Hermann Francke (1663–1727)35 – are ultimately related to the fundamental theological assumption that faith is no longer a gift a person has to receive over and over again. Faith is rather seen as something that is more or less in the possession of each person who has had a conversion experience. As a result, sermons help to deepen and strengthen one’s faith. They help to keep converted believers on the way of sanctification. The Pietism of Spener and his successors constitutes a Lutheran modernization movement. It drew its impulse from its own time, learned from its epoch, suited itself to the needs of people and attempted to update the Lutheran tradition in a plausible manner. People in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had a strong need to verify faith empirically and to be able to comprehend it. The contribution of Pietism was ensuring this verification through a good mode of living. This point of view became very popular. The theology of the sermon remained more or less traditional, but gradually shifted its coordinates in the direction of the moralization of preaching. The Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine (Moravian Church) presents an entirely different way in which Lutheran Pietism played itself out. It arises from a religious revival among Bohemian and Moravian exiles in Upper Silesia, who finally found a new home in the Upper Lusatia estates Berthelsdorf and Herrnhut of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760). There they founded the renewed Brüder-Unität as a congregation of revivalists.36 Together with Johann Andreas Rothe (1688–1758), the pastor of Herrnhut, Zinzendorf tried to consolidate this colony that was interested in personal salvation. It remained within the Lutheran church of

35 See Erhard Peschke ed., Die frühen Katechismuspredigten August Hermann Franckes 1693–1695 (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Pietismus 28) (Göttingen, 1992). 36 See Dietrich Meyer, Zinzendorf und die Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine 1700–2000 (Kleine Reihe V&R 4019) (Göttingen, 2000), pp. 19–24; Dietrich Meyer, “Brüder-Unität II. Erneuerte Brüder-Unität”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 4th ed., Vol. 1 (Tübingen 1998), pp. 1792–1796, at p. 1792.

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Saxony as an ecclesiola in ecclesia (a concept of Spener), although it developed a pronouncedly peculiar and individual religious atmosphere. An escalating rivalry with Halle, which in the beginning formed a model for the brothers, led to a break in 1733. As a result the soteriological zeal that was characteristic of Halle Pietism disappeared in Herrnhut.37 Zinzendorf rediscovered Luther’s insight that a person need not prepare the way for conversion and deliverance through lengthy struggles with penance, but rather that both were given to him entirely without preconditions by Christ at the moment of a conversion carried out by the Holy Spirit. Thus in Herrnhut there occurred a recovery of Reformation theology and devoutness under the altered conditions of the eighteenth century. This new appropriation is reflected also in Zinzendorf ’s theology and practice of preaching, which are significantly closer to those of the Reformation than to those of Pietism. In a speech Zinzendorf gave 1746 in London he identifies preachers with the servants sent out by the king in Matthew 22:2–3 in order to summon guests to his son’s wedding. The servants do this on the instruction of a congregation that is already in unio with Christ, looking forward to new participants.38 Adding further souls to the community of Christ is the task of the sermon,39 which does so “by dealing with nothing other than Christ and by making the bridegroom tangible to these souls”.40 The sermon thus fulfils its goal, as outlined in 1 Corinthians 2:2, exclusively in its depiction of the nature, words and gifts of Christ. If the Holy Spirit accompanies this rendering of Jesus, the audience of the sermon – according to Zinzendorf – will recognize Jesus as saviour and will be enfolded into community with him.41 Consequently, no appeals for penance or moral improvement should issue from the pulpit, but rather the story of Christ that has the power to awaken faith and to lead the new believer into the community with Christ. The preacher serves this calling of Christ. He, the preacher, hopes – and here lies a further link to Reformation homiletics – that his word becomes the efficacious, calling word of God and will lead new participants to the congregation.42 The joy that fills a soul dedicated 37

Meyer, “Brüder-Unität”, 1792. Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, “Dritte Rede”, in Neun Oeffentliche Reden über wichtige in die Religion einschlagende Materien, gehalten zu London in Fetterlane-Capelle Anno 1746 (s. l. [1746]; repr. Hildesheim, 1963), pp. 43–61, at p. 60. 39 See especially Zinzendorf, “Dritte Rede”, pp. 44–47. 40 Zinzendorf, “Dritte Rede”, p. 50. 41 Zinzendorf, “Dritte Rede”, p. 52. 42 Zinzendorf points out that the Spirit of God can inspire men to the community of Christ without a sermon as well, in “Dritten Rede”, pp. 52–56. 38

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to Christ makes it unsusceptible to the temptations of the world.43 According to Zinzendorf moral improvement arises out of this joy and not out of a struggle with penance or as a result of being terrified by the consequences of too great a love of the world. Moreover the moral improvement is not accompanied by the notion of a superior justification, nor is it linked to the moral degradation of those who do not (yet) belong to the congregation. In a speech he gave in 1748,44 Zinzendorf characterizes a successful sermon as a sharing of Christ’s reconciliation, through which the heart of a person is made totally new. Christ’s meritum (atonement and reconciliation) can be shared in many ways. The sermon can be written on a torn piece of paper used by a shopkeeper to wrap his wares.45 A maid can also act as a preacher, “who is perhaps also a musical person, and who sits on her step and sings a verse to pass the time”. If this verse pierces the heart of a person passing by and makes him recognize Christ as his saviour, “the words of such a musical maid are then the Gospel, and she is their angel”.46 This passage is a clear contradiction of Spener’s position that only a converted soul can convert souls. The only thing that is of crucial importance for Zinzendorf is that Christ and no other is preached to the people: “Thus the deeds of Christ are the treasure, and the description and telling of this treasure are the means of calling forth and kindling faith, so that the blessedness of man and all of secular and eternal wellbeing are there simultaneously”.47 Also in this speech it is the Holy Spirit that is the exclusive agent of man’s conversion: The Saviour beckons to us, the Holy Spirit is there for that purpose in this entire world, and even if there is only the slightest desire in a soul, he makes that moment an opportunity, and brings a syllable, or a word, or a line of the Gospel, i.e., earth-moving and salvation-bringing truths to the heart of that same man, without his having to do anything, without preparation, and makes a blessed heart out of him, among us.48

43

Zinzendorf, “Dritte Rede”, p. 58. Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, “Der zwölfte Discurs”, in Ein und zwanzig Discurse über die Augspurgische Konfession gehalten vom 15. Dec. 1747 bis zum 3. Mart. 1748. denen Seminariis Theologicis Fratrum zum Besten aufgefaßt (s.l. [1746], repr. Hildesheim, 1963), pp. 220–230. 45 Zinzendorf, “Der zwölfte Discurs”, pp. 224–225. 46 Zinzendorf, “Der zwölfte Discurs”, p. 225. 47 Zinzendorf, “Der zwölfte Discurs”, p. 226. 48 Zinzendorf, “Der zwölfte Discurs”, p. 227. 44

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The polemic remark against the struggle of penance in the tradition of Halle Pietism is obvious here. Zinzendorf ’s theological view of the sermon is in accord with the tradition of the Reformation. If the spirit of God – he states – accompanies a sermon, it radically changes people’s lives. The preacher takes part in the work of the Holy Spirit, but he does not set it into motion with his own power. His activity is nevertheless indispensable, since he has something to say that is unfathomable. People are dependent on the service of the preacher, in order to experience the salvation through Christ.49 Questions of moral improvement are not the primary focus of preaching. 3.2 Later Lutheran Orthodoxy Later Lutheran Orthodoxy is understood as that theological current that further developed the classical orthodox Lutheran dogma of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and – to the extent that this was possible without damaging the existing body of teachings – encompassed a more or less cautious modernization. The late Orthodoxy of the eighteenth century was characterized neither by a rigid adherence to inherited theological positions, nor by being a niche phenomenon. Just as Pietism, it took in the spiritual influences of its time, in particular the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Late Lutheran Orthodoxy was the theological mainstream within the Lutheran church in Germany until approximately 1750. Ostensibly, the preaching of later Orthodoxy differed from that of Pietism in many ways. It was a very erudite type of preaching. In addition, it put a great emphasis on controversial issues. Both characteristics illustrate the close ties of this type of preaching to its classical Lutheran roots. However, the controversialist culture of later Orthodoxy from time to time led to osmosis-phenomena, in the course of which the positions of theological opponents flowed into one’s own teaching and practice. Processes of this type had the effect of making one later Orthodox theologian more Pietistic, while another would have a stronger tendency towards rationalism. Thus the theological spectrum of later Orthodoxy was broad. 49

Zinzendorf, “Der zwölfte Discurs”, p. 228; Gottfried Clemens’ “Vorrede” summarizes Zinzendorf ’s homiletic request in [Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf ], Auszüge aus des Seligen Ordinarii der Evangelischen Brüder-Kirche sowol ungedruckten als gedruckten Reden über biblische Texte, ed. Gottfried Clemens (Barby, 1763), pp. a2r-c7v, at p. b1r: “Just as the witness of Jesus is the Spirit, the quintessence of all prophesying and the entire revelation of God among men, Revelation 19:10, and just as Moses and all the prophets bore witness to this Jesus, that in his name forgiveness of all sins should occur for all those who believe in him, thus the blessed man attempts in all his discourse and meditations to make each person aware of this spirit of the scriptures”.

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Common to all representatives of this type of theology was their adherence to the traditional Lutheran dogma. Late Orthodoxy updated Lutheran sermon theology, emphasizing the soteriological dimension of the sermon. In many ways it realized this central belief in its practice of preaching. Of course, later Orthodox sermons were different from those of their predecessors in the seventeenth century. Practitioners of later Orthodoxy were not repristinators. Not a single one of them remained uninfluenced by his own time. In general terms, a rationalizing tendency is peculiar to late Orthodox theologians. To a certain extent they all shared the fundamental thesis of eighteenth-century rationalism that faith is substantially affected by human reason, and that one should demonstrate the correctness and relevance of the content of his preaching in a rational way. Besides this they handed down the positions of Reformation and post-Reformation theologians. Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten (1706–1757)50 for example, professor of theology at Halle, defined the most important task of the preacher in his posthumously published Evangelische Glaubenslehre (1759–60) as “the preaching of the revealed order of salvation”.51 Moreover, drawing on John 8:31–32.47, John 10:27 and 14:23, he held that the sermon was “the internal acceptance and observance of the approaching revelation of God in Holy Scripture, the agreement of the soul with Holy Scripture, the actual marker and item of differentiation of the true members of the church”. For Baumgarten, the sermon was the place where decisions were made for the membership of the church and for people’s salvation. Accordingly he wrote concerning the sermon in a Sunday service: The ultimate goal consists of the honouring and worshipping of God, which are furthered in two ways through the office of teaching during the service. 1. Through making the perfection of God known and by indicating the best way to worship him. 2. Through the arrangement and collection of people into the community of God.52

In the context of the worship of God, the sermon serves “to further the blessedness of the people, since it operated as one of the tools of God”.53

50 See Martin Schloemann, “Baumgarten, Siegmund Jacob”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 1 (Tübingen 1997), pp. 1180–1181. 51 Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten, Evangelische Glaubenslehre, ed. Johann Salomon Semler (Halle, 1760) III, p. 620. 52 Baumgarten, Evangelische Glaubenslehre, pp. 634–635. 53 Baumgarten, Evangelische Glaubenslehre, p. 635.

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The doxology, the gathering of the congregation of God, and individual salvation and justification were thus those things that Baumgarten wanted to occur during a sermon. The soteriological potential of the sermon was beyond question for him. In close agreement with Reformation teachings on the office of the preacher, Baumgarten writes that God wants to assemble his people on earth with the help of preachers and not directly by himself.54 Because of this, one of the most important duties of the preacher is to do his work very carefully.55 The sermon is the very center of the life of the congregation. It lets “the audience know that God is willing and able to help them on their spiritual pilgrimage, and to accompany all usage of the office of preaching during services with saving grace”.56 This is a classic Reformation view of a preacher’s task. The sermon is seen as a medium of salvation. Despite all the innovations Baumgarten introduces into his theology,57 in this respect tradition is upheld. At first glance, late orthodox preachers preached exactly the same way their forbears in the seventeenth century did. A closer comparison shows, however, that rational argumentation played a much more important role in later orthodox sermons than had previously been the case. Thus later orthodox theologians and preachers laid heavy emphasis on psychological and historical plausibility. For example, in a collection of sermons given by the Lutheran churchman Johann Jakob Eisenlohr (1655–1736) and published in Karlsruhe in 1740, the editor Christoph Peter Eisenlohr, one of the author’s sons, wrote that it is tremendously foolish of man not to take care of the lamentable state of his own soul and realize that for his salvation he is totally dependent on God’s grace.58 On the other hand, the person who is clever and sensible will reach out for God’s grace and will be blessed. The following sermons aim to lead people to the recognition of the means by which they can achieve their own salvation.59 The foreword ends, while referring to Luke 10:38–42, with the plea: “O rational soul! What do you

54 Baumgarten, Evangelische Glaubenslehre, p. 635. Concerning the orthodox Lutheran understanding of the office, see Alexander Bitzel, Anfechtung und Trost bei Sigismund Scherertz. Ein lutherischer Theologe im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte Niedersachsens 38) (Göttingen, 2002), pp. 43–49. 55 Baumgarten, Glaubenslehre, pp. 635–637. 56 Baumgarten, Glaubenslehre, p. 639. 57 See Martin Schloemann, Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten. System und Geschichte in der Theologie des Übergangs zum Neuprotestantismus, (Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 26) (Göttingen, 1974). 58 Christoph Peter Eisenlohr, “Vorrede”, in Johann Jakob Eisenlohr, XLI. geistliche Betrachtungen/deren jede einen Biblischen Haupt=Spruch zum Grunde hat, ed. C. P. Eisenlohr (Karlsruhe, 1740), pp. )()(1v-)()(8r, at p. )()(2v. 59 Eisenlohr, XLI. geistliche Betrachtungen, p. )()(7v.

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wish to do now? Would you prefer eternal death or eternal life? Choose what your own good sense tells you, choose the better part along with Mary, and your Jesus will reach out the open arms of his grace to you”.60 This appeal to rational insight makes the influence of the Enlightenment obvious. On the other hand, the reference to the biblical tradition, as well as the statement that man must reach out for the grace of God, shows that the classical Lutheran dogma is still very much alive. According to C. P. Eisenlohr’s point of view, the task of a sermon is to make clear that faith in salvation through Christ is the best and most plausible belief a man can have. If a preacher is able to convey this in a successful way, then faith will awaken among his audience. The sermons of J. J. Eisenlohr that follow are formally traditional. But they are also imbued with the spirit of the rationalizing eighteenth century. In terms of their theological and doctrinal content they are anchored in the classical Lutheran dogma. However, they differ significantly from the Lutheran sermons of the seventeenth century in so far as they try to convince their listeners in a rational way. Nevertheless, they have the ambition of developing soteriological potential. To conceive the sermon as an occasion where salvation can occur – the shibboleth, so to speak, of Protestant sermon theology – is a basic belief of the university teacher Baumgarten as well as of the preachers J. J. and C. P. Eisenlohr. Christoph Weißenborn (died 1700), who himself was not a preacher, but an adjunct (docent) in the faculty of philosophy at Jena University and later head of a school in Eisenberg,61 also refers to the sotetiological impact a sermon can have. Weißenborn had studied theology in Jena where his uncle Johann Weißenborn (1644–1700), member of the church council in Eisenach, was professor. His cousin Jesaja Friedrich Weißenborn (1673–1750), pastor at St. Michael’s church in Jena, introduced him to the practice of preaching. In his quite successful book62 Kirchen=Redner Christoph Weißenborn defined the task of a preacher, according to 1 Corinthians 2:1–4, as to bring the congregation close to the word of God, “not with high-flown words, not with human, but with divine wisdom and with proof of the spirit and its power”.63 Theologically 60

Eisenlohr, XLI. geistliche Betrachtungen, p. )()(8r. See Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal=Lexikon aller Wissenschaften und Künste 54 (Halle 1732–1754, repr. Graz 1998), p. 1281. 62 Along with the first edition in 1704, there is evidence of editions from 1711 and 1714. 63 Johann Weißenborn, Gründlich=unterrichteter Kirchen=Redner welcher die Haupt=Regeln der geistlichen Beredsamkeit vom Anfang bis zum Ende nach der Methode der berühmtesten Prediger durch deutliche Fragen und Antwort beybringet/mit nützlichen Exempeln erleutert (Jena, 1704), p. 2. 61

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it was out of the question for Weißenborn that spirit of God itself infused the preacher with the ability to give a sermon capable of causing salvation, “in order to further the worship of the triune God”.64 Weißenborn presents a very traditional view of the soteriological impact a sermon can have. Just as traditional is his doxological definition of the goal of the sermon. 3.3 Johann Lorenz von Mosheim Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693–1755), a professor at Helmstedt University and later at Göttingen University, is generally viewed as the father of modern homiletics.65 It is beyond the scope of this essay to explore further how justified this assessment is. It is certainly true, however, that Mosheim gave a specific flavour to the homiletics of his time. In his posthumously published Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, Mosheim asserts that “everyone who recognizes the teaching of Christ needs instruction and admonition”.66 The sermon, the locus for instruction and admonition, is thus indispensable for a Christian congregation, because it arouses faith. The faith awoken through the sermon is not the spiritual possession of people, but must be given new life and sustenance through regular preaching. Faith is not stable, but is rather a dynamic matter that perpetually needs shoring up. Because very few Christians, according to Mosheim, are in the position to instruct or uplift themselves; because owning a Bible is no guarantee of reading it; and finally because individual instruction is not affordable – public preaching is essential for the congregation of Jesus Christ. Mosheim saw private collegia biblica as no alternative. They have their place and their meaning, but do not make preaching to the congregation superfluous.67 Mosheim judged the practice of preaching in his own time to be in a lamentable condition. He demanded that it be renewed. In so doing, he acknowledged that each epoch needed its own style of preaching. A classical, timeless style of preaching could not exist, because humans did not remain the same.68 Mosheim accepted the Pietist form of preaching, 64

Weißenborn, Gründlich=unterrichteter Kirchen=Redner, pp. 2–3. Karl Heussi, Johann Lorenz Mosheim. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchengeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1906), pp. 106–121; Martin Peters, Der Bahnbrecher der modernen Predigt, Johann Lorenz Mosheim, in seinen homiletischen Anschauungen gewürdigt (Leipzig, 1910); Albrecht Beutel, “Mosheim, Johann Lorenz v.”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 5 (Tübingen 2002), pp. 1546–1547. 66 Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, ed. Christian Ernst von Windheim (Erlangen, 1763; repr. Waltrop, 1998), p. 23. 67 Mosheim, Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, pp. 22–24. 68 Mosheim, Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, p. 40. 65

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and followed it in his own reform of preaching. It was always important to him that no theological strutting should take place in the pulpit.69 Sermons should have a simple and clear language in order to do what they can do according to Reformation belief: to awaken faith and to renew the lives of their hearers.70 Mosheim’s innovation dealt first of all with the formal side of the sermon. His sermon theology stuck closely to the traditional paths of Reformation theology. In this way he was not at all innovative. 3.4 The In-between Theologians: Christian August Crusius The theologians of the eighteenth century do not perhaps lend themselves as easily to categorization into schools as those of other periods do. In general terms, one can of course classify one eighteenth-century theologian as a Pietist and another as a member of the late Orthodox school. When one is dealing with individual theologians, however, these classifications are only approximate. There is scarcely a late Orthodox preacher who remained untouched by Pietism. By the same token, the Pietists passed on the orthodox tradition. Theologians like the Leipzig professor Christian August Crusius (1715–1775) fell between these traditions.71 On the one hand he was influenced by the theology of Johannes Coccejus (1603– 1669) and the Württemberg Pietist Johann Albrecht Bengel (1687–1752), but on the other hand he wished to extend orthodox dogma72 and stood in opposition to the Enlightenment biblical theology of Johann August Ernesti (1707–1781). In this way Crusius was a typical phenomenon of his age. He himself fostered a didactic and theologizing sermon style based on rational arguments, and rejected abstract theology just as vigorously as excessive rhetorical ornamentation.73 Theologically, Crusius held the classic Reformation view that a sermon mediated the Holy Spirit to the audience, if it pleased God, and made their lives new again. Thus he began his Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen with the following prayer: 69

See Inge Mager, “Zu Johann Lorenz von Mosheims theologischer Biographie”, in Johann Lorenz Mosheim (1693–1755) Theologie im Spannungsfeld von Philosophie, Philologie und Geschichte, ed. M. Mulsow et al., (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 77) (Wiesbaden, 1997), pp. 277–295, at p. 285. 70 Mosheim, Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, p. 7. 71 See Gert Röwenstrunk, “Crusius, Christian August”, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Vol. 8 (Berlin/New York 1981), pp. 242–244. 72 See Christian August Crusius, Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen (Leipzig, 1753), pp. 59–60, where Crusius admits his belief in the orthodox Lutheran doctrine of inspiration. 73 Crusius, Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen, pp. *8v-**1r.

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I ask your mercy, heavenly Father, for this work that I have undertaken that is inadequate to your glory, that you may lay your blessing upon it in order to make the hearts of your children true, and to fill with all abundance those who are subject to the exercise of your mercy, and who are close to the kingdom of heaven – to draw them closer to you, and on the other hand to make the souls of those new who have gone astray, whether they are distracted by vanity or do not yet know you, or who indeed blaspheme against that which they know not – pay attention and improve them.74

It is a fact for Crusius that the Holy Spirit alone can make men new.75 Whoever does not withdraw from the effect of the spirit begins to “feel the power of the divine word”.76 Crusius takes the same approach to the preacher as does 1 Corinthians 3:6–7 – and here again he is consistent with the Reformation tradition – that a sermon can only prepare the ground for the effects of the spirit of God that one hopes and prays for: We unworthy teachers can contribute nothing, other than teaching God’s word as the word of God, and we do this very thing not as if we are actors in and of ourselves, but rather in this way, that all praise is due to God, and that we merely plant or water, and indeed neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything without God, who grants that things may prosper.77

Crusius was very much a product of his own age and longed to bring the experience of faith into being.78 His sermons are characterized by rational arguments of historicity, as well as by psychologizing details, moral appeals, and dogmatic contents. Crusius’ sermon theology is classic Reformation: the practice of his preaching reveals him to be equally influenced by Pietism and the Enlightenment. 3.5 The Theological Enlightenment The theological Enlightenment in German-speaking areas occupied itself with establishing a new relationship between revelation and reason. For its adherents, the only thing that was true was that which was rationally comprehensible. Accordingly a rational critique of revelation and of all the teachings in the church was undertaken. Biblical traditions were stripped of all content that could not be made rationally plausible. The theologians of the Enlightenment tended to distance themselves from the Trinitarian

74 75 76 77 78

Crusius, Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen, p. **3v. Crusius, Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen, pp. 61–63. Crusius, Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen, p. 62. Crusius, Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen, p. **3v. Crusius, Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen, p. 44.

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concept of God, as well as from traditional Christology. To a fully realized Enlightenment theology, Jesus counted no longer as Saviour (Soter), but rather only as the ideal teacher of virtue and wisdom. Biblical miracle tales were either entirely retired or explained away rationalistically. People attempted to correct the factual errors of biblical authors, as well as contradiction within the biblical tradition. The goal of the biblical Enlightenment was to establish a rational worship of God by putting aside the dogmatic ecclesiastical tradition, and thus creating a Christian theology appropriate to the age. The loss of meaning in doctrine was compensated for by a heavier emphasis on ethics. Altogether Enlightenment theology led to an ethicization of western Christendom that continues to this very day. All interest was focused on the function of religion practical for life. The deeper theological dimensions of life were lost.79 Enlightenment theology in Germany began in a measured manner, with fewer radical departures from tradition than elsewhere in Europe. The German synthesis of Enlightenment and theological tradition in its fully-realized form was known as Neology. In Germany the Enlightenment discreetly penetrated the Lutheran church. Mosheim was one of its trailblazers. Late Orthodoxy and Pietism also had a part in this development. One of the first declared Enlightenment theologians in Germany was Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem (1709–1789). This leading theologian of the principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel showed himself in his expert theological publications to be a thinker who was entirely enmeshed in the spirit of the Enlightenment. His sermons, while revealing somewhat of an Enlightenment tendency, are nevertheless firmly rooted in tradition. One observes this clearly in a sermon entitled Die selige Erleuchtung der Welt durch Christum.80 It has a recognizably Enlightenment tone. Jerusalem historicizes in this sermon very strongly in his attempts to portray the point in time of the coming of Jesus as the best and most rational. He ascribes the spread of the Gospel to God’s Providence, introduces proofs for God and the immortality of the soul, quantifies the inspiration of the world through Christ, demands a review of church doctrine for all that was irrational, obscure and superstitious, and deals in a detailed manner with Jesus’ teachings on ethics, which he interprets as an instrument of God that serves to “make all of humankind happy”.81 79 See Reinhard Krause, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung (1770–1805), (Arbeiten zur Theologie II/5) (Stuttgart, 1965). 80 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem, Sammlung einiger Predigten (2nd ed., Braunschweig, 1756), pp. 1–56. 81 Jerusalem, Sammlung einiger Predigten, p. 32.

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On the other hand, Jerusalem takes the necessity of a supernatural revelation as a starting point, since only something of this kind is able to teach people the true concepts of God, his Providence and the nature of the soul. Likewise Jerusalem expresses himself in an orthodox manner on Jesus’ role in reconciliation, as well as on original sin, whose consequences are overcome by the satisfaction (satisfactio) of Christ. The sermon shows Jerusalem to be a theologian in between tradition and Enlightenment, but always with a clear tendency away from dogmatic tradition and towards positions consistent with an Enlightenment and rationalist theology. Jerusalem’s sermons are reminiscent of those of Mosheim, with whom he had many connections. In the foreword to his Zweyte Sammlung einiger Predigten, Jerusalem expresses a fundamentally traditional understanding of the sermon. He reports that the sermons that he published there were “listened to not without blessing and edification”.82 He hopes that they will also be rich in blessing in printed form, and will help to increase “the glory of God and the living recognition of his truths”.83 Nevertheless Jerusalem counted on the following: “since the divine truths have their own light and inner strength, without having to borrow from the words and the order in which people present them, those who feel the importance of these truths become able to bear each type of presentation easily without offence”.84 In this cliché of modesty, Jerusalem does nothing less than release the close ties that have traditionally bound the actions of God and the word of the sermon.85 The words of the sermon are no longer the bearer of the acts of God, but rather just their accompaniment. The occurrence of the sermon is indeed, as before, a location in which an encounter with God can take place; God can, however, also work past the words of the sermon. The sermon loses its character as the central means of salvation. The sermon’s audience, as well as its preacher, are no longer dependent on the concrete word of the preacher in order to be able to experience God’s power and redemption. This can occur in spite of a possibly incompetent sermon. This release of the originally closely connected ties between the words of the sermon and salvation characterize the further development of Enlightenment sermon theology.

82 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem, Zweyte Sammlung einiger Predigten (2nd ed.; Braunschweig, 1756), pp. *4v-*5r. 83 Jerusalem, Zweyte Sammlung einiger Predigten, p. *5r. 84 Jerusalem, Zweyte Sammlung einiger Predigten, pp. *4r-*4v. 85 See Gerhard Ebeling, Luther. Einführung in sein Denken (4h ed.; Tübingen, 1981), p. 119.

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The neological sermon took on a very particular character in the second half of the eighteenth century. It oriented itself very strongly towards ethics; its tendency was strongly argumentative; it caused traditional dogmatic content to gradually fade into the background; and it stripped itself of rhetorical ornamentation. Texts functioned mainly only as sources for key words for monothematic discussions, and the fundamental orientation of sermons became moralistic and utilitarian. The basic thesis of sermons can be put thus: if it is possible to make the worth and usefulness of the Christian religion plausible to the audience, then one will win these people over to Christianity and keep them there. Johann Joachim Spalding (1714–1804) expresses this connection in his later writing Religion eine Angelegenheit des Menschen (1799) in the following manner: “The rational and important good of a faith in a higher being must be urgently revealed to human souls through their own thoughts and feelings, before it can take hold with true inclination”.86 The fully developed Enlightenment sermon is one-dimensional. Its emphasis on counsel for living allowed premises to reach the light of day that differed sharply from those of the Reformation. This resulted in an upheaval of the entire theological tectonic system in many aspects of Lutheran theology in the eighteenth century. The sermon bid farewell to itself as a soteriological phenomenon and developed into a source of information, instruction and admonition. The theological premise for this was a radical departure from Reformation anthropology. Enlightenment preachers did not regard the human any longer as a justified sinner, who had to rely continually throughout his life on the audible and absolving word of God presented in sermons. Rather he appeared to Enlightenment theologians as a creature capable of doing good deeds. This optimistic view of human nature went hand in hand with a steadfast belief in perfectibility and was the premise of many ambitious education projects in the Age of Enlightenment.87 This faith in the ability of humans to become moral beings by means of reason and their own efforts led to the defining of the sermon as an instrument of education, which was meant to support the general pedagogical project of the Enlightenment. Stripped of all its pneumatic qualities, the sermon became one speech among many. Its particular

86 Johann Joachim Spalding, Religion eine Angelegenheit des Menschen, ed. Wolfgang Erich Müller (Darmstadt, 1997), p. 108. 87 See Hanno Schmitt ed., Visionäre Lebensklugheit. Johann Heinrich Campe in seiner Zeit (1746–1818) (Wiesbaden, 1996).

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characteristic no longer consisted in its radical renewal of its listeners, but rather only that it was given from the pulpit. Only its position within the service differentiated it from other types of speeches. One Enlightenment preacher who took this route was Wilhelm Abraham Teller (1734–1804), a theology professor at Helmstedt University and later member of the consistory and provost in Berlin.88 In the foreword to the first volume of his Predigten und Reden he notes that two of the following texts go back to discussions in which he had been given the task of preparing “a popular argument” concerning a specific theme.89 Teller expressly welcomed a task of this kind, because, as he put it, “[it is] an opportunity which one should use according to one’s judgement, and when one has the certainty to have at least one listener who is served just at that time”.90 These were two noticeable problems in Enlightenment homiletics. On the one hand, turning away from the traditional order of texts resulted in an embarrassment of riches in terms of what one could choose from to preach about. On the other hand, the Enlightenment sermon did not seem to entice all too many people into the church. Teller acknowledged that the point of his activities as a preacher involved recommending to people “a good spirit or sensibility, using the written word to remember and to apply diligently to their behaviour”.91 For Teller, sermons were all about the transmission of morals. Biblical texts were sayings that made ethical directives more memorable, and nothing more. Teller discusses the task of the preacher more specifically in several different introductory sermons. He does this with the curious intention of making the congregations respect the preachers who are being introduced to them, or at least to ensure that the congregations did not regard their preachers as lazy; this is of course very informative about the local situation at the time. Thus the most important job of the preacher was, according to Teller, to give “instruction in religion”92 while he was in the pulpit, in his interaction with youth and in his pastoral care. In concrete terms this meant that the goal in instructing youth was “to incline their hearts early towards 88 See Angela Nüsseler, Dogmatik fürs Volk: Wilhelm Abraham Teller als populärer Aufklärungstheologe, (Münchner theologische Beiträge 4) (München, 1999); Albrecht Beutel, “Teller, 2. Wilhelm Abraham”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 8 (Tübingen 2005), pp. 103–104. 89 Wilhelm Abraham Teller, Predigten und Reden bey besonderen Veranlaßungen gehalten nebst einigen sogenannten Homilien 1 (Berlin/Libau, 1787), p. IV. 90 Teller, Predigten und Reden, pp. IV–V. 91 Teller, Predigten und Reden, pp. V–VI. 92 Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 4.

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good”.93 In his visits to people’s houses the job of the preacher was to utter “rebukes and admonitions”94 and to “help married couples with their differences and to prevent dissipation between male and female servants”.95 In the pulpit one was supposed to ensure that “the Word of Christ put order into your inclinations and desires; that you accept it with true approbation, bring it into practice and arrange your entire set of beliefs according to it”.96 The work of a preacher is, according to Teller, “suited to all those for whom serving others is joyous and rich in blessing”97 because this work “consists of imparting altogether good, consecrating and reassuring teaching, in urging towards that which serves peace and in warning against that which makes one unhappy and wretched, in consoling each repentant awareness of one’s own offences, each bitter loss, each of life’s troubles until the final struggle of death”.98 This description of the preacher’s series of duties seems at first glance quite traditional, but must be understood entirely in the Enlightenment sense, as Teller makes plain in a sermon on Colossians 3:16. There he discusses how the word of Christ should dwell abundantly within the congregation, and that the preacher must take care that this is so. The word of Christ means here – and in this Teller shows his Enlightenment side – not merely the word of the cross of Christ but rather all the words of Jesus, as they are preserved in the Gospels, and indeed especially including his reproofs and his ethical instructions.99 The business of the preacher not only involves the “instructions of Christianity”,100 but also paying attention to whether the word bears fruit and the congregation makes ethical progress, since “as long as the ignorant becomes no wiser, the reckless no steadier, the depraved no better, and each continues unattended on his usual path, then just this long only lip service is being paid to good teaching, and in no way is there a dwelling, a place prepared for it in us”.101 Merely to be touched by a sermon is meaningless to Teller. It is much more important to him that people translate this experience of having been

93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 6. Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 7. Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 8. Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 24. Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 10. Teller, Predigten und Reden, pp. 10–11. Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 23. Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 24. Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 25.

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touched into ethical action. Only when this happens does the word dwell in the congregation and is the congregation truly alive. Teller urges his readers that “you not wait only for domestic morning and evening prayers, but rather also make evident during the day the fundamental beliefs which are to constitute our constant reverence of God”.102 Thus a preacher is, according to Teller, a teacher of virtue and a watchman over behaviour and behavioural progress in the congregation. It is naturally assumed that he must live a blameless life. Preaching from the pulpit is theologically closely linked to the transmission of virtue and morality. Josias Friedrich Christian Löffler (1752–1816)103 was, similarly to Teller with whom he had close contact, indebted to the theological Enlightenment. Before he became a general superintendent and member of the consistory in 1788 in Gotha, Löffler occupied the positions of theology professor and superintendent in Frankfurt (Oder). In the foreword to a collection of his sermons, he sees the job of preachers quite generally as the “the furthering of religiosity among people in order to keep public order and peace”.104 In the first instance, Löffler thought that preaching had a great deal to do with moral instruction. The state of public behaviour stands and falls with the religiosity of the people. In order to make Christian faith newly plausible, Löffler demands that the tradition has to be freed from all “error and superstition”. Löffler is convinced that each religion “that does not think and that does not dare to clean out errors that have crept in, and usages that have become aimless, bears the seeds of its own destruction in itself, which sooner or later must germinate”.105 Consequently the preacher must take care “to develop the correct and comprehensible concepts of the religion; to reduce the causes for contempt towards ecclesiastical institutions through clearing away everything that outraged reason; and to further the valuing of faith and ethics through the presentation of the rationality of the former and the indispensability of the latter”.106 Thus Löffler’s programme involved a departure from supposedly dogmatic obscurantism and irrationality. These were classic Enlightenment demands. It was also typically Enlightenment of him not to preach biblical texts, but rather to use them only as a stimulus for religious speeches. Thus

102

Teller, Predigten und Reden, p. 27. See Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (Berlin 1884) XIX, pp. 106–107. 104 Josias Friedrich Christian Löffler, Predigten mit Rücksicht auf die Begebenheiten und den Geist des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters (Gotha, 1795), p. VI. 105 Löffler, Predigten, p. X. 106 Löffler, Predigten, pp. XI–XII. 103

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Löffler planned, in a Pentecost sermon concerning John 3:16–21 “to speak about the value of inspiration in religion”.107 He assured his readers: I will make an effort to make this value itself clear; and then to speak about the reasons for which from time to time this value cares to become known even in our own age. Both provide enough material for further consideration, and offer foundations for our judgements and actions.108

Löffler understood his speech as purely informative and ethically instructive. He could not imagine that a sermon could not only deal with inspiration, but could also cause it. The fundamental biblical and Reformation thesis that a sermon does what it says and says what it does, if this is pleasing to God, is absent from Löffler’s thinking. One can state positively that the Lutheran sermon of the Enlightenment was consequently aimed towards its audience, oriented towards the concrete situation within the congregation and dealt with contemporary questions.109 This development became more pronounced near the end of the eighteenth century and led to aberrations. Thus in an Advent sermon about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1–11) the theologian Georg Conrad Horst (1769–1832) is preaching about the theft of wood (since the people of Jerusalem broke palm-leaves to welcome Jesus). The text about the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:41–52) allowed Johann Friedrich Conrad Hille (1745-?) to exhort parents to stimulate a desire for learning in their children. Others preached on Easter Sunday about the advantages of rising early, and on Easter Monday about going for walks and so on.110 Sermons of this sort exclusively provided information, advice and exhortation. The intent of the preachers was to counteract the enormous loss of meaning in ecclesiastical preaching, by trying to prove the societal and practical relevance of the biblical tradition.111 Enlightenment preachers did not see or did not take into account that the consequence of these attempts to win back lost territory was a dilution not only of the sermon but also of theological considerations about it.

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Löffler, Predigten, p. 5. Löffler, Predigten, p. 5. 109 See Christian-Erdmann Schott, “Akkommodation – Das homiletische Programm der Aufklärung”, in Vestigia Bibliae 3 (1981), pp. 49–69. 110 All references from: Paul Graff, Geschichte der Auflörung der alten gottesdienstlichen Formen in der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands 2 Vols. (Göttingen, 1937–39) II, pp. 124–129. 111 Schott, “Akkommodation” (see above, n. 112). 108

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Homiletics of the later Enlightenment made a decisive break with Reformation theology. In the usual practice of making biblical stories into jumping off points for sermons one can, however, recognize a dim reflection of the orientation towards scripture demanded by the Reformation. Nonetheless, biblical stories are no longer seriously dealt with and fully explained. The sermon was no longer theologically considered as a potential verbum efficax. The thought that the word of God is capable of creating something totally new through a sermon was entirely foreign to the Enlightenment preachers. 3.6 The Biblical and Enlightenment Sermons of Johann Ludwig Ewald The oeuvre of Johann Ludwig Ewald (1748–1822) stands as a rebuttal to the theology and the sermon of the Enlightenment. As a Calvinist, Ewald was a pastor in Offenbach, a court preacher and general superintendent in Detmold, a preacher and professor in Bremen, a professor in Heidelberg, and member of the ministerial and ecclesiastical councils in Karlsruhe.112 Along with Matthias Claudius (1740–1815), Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) and others, he belonged to a group of theologians who stood in critical opposition to the raging rationalization of theology and the sermon of their time. They tried to oppose this development by bringing the mystery and reality of a God that could not be rationally calculated back to legitimacy. A new awareness arose with them that a sermon could be more than a lecture about religious, moral or practical themes. They had the idea that something could occur in the pulpit, that in the pulpit something could be activated that was in a position to reach into the lives of the listeners and alter those lives significantly. Ewald recast the Reformation understanding of the sermon in his 1784 publication Ueber Predigerbildung, Kirchengesang und Art zu predigen.113 To him, a sermon was more than moral instruction or theological information concerning a specific subject. It had the task of awakening the love of Christ in its listeners. If this was successful, the sermon edified. Ewald understood edification as follows:

112 See Johann Anselm Steiger, Johann Ludwig Ewald (1748–1822). Rettung eines theologischen Zeitgenossen (Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 62) (Göttingen, 1996); Hans Martin Kirn, Deutsche Spätaufklärung und Pietismus, (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Pietismus 34) (Göttingen, 1998). 113 Johann Ludwig Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung und Predigerbetragen, Zweites Heft: Ueber Predigerbildung, Kirchengesang und Art zu predigen. Erfahrungen, Bemerkungen und Wünsche (Lemgo, 1784).

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alexander bitzel A person is edified when the mass of his belief, his love, his religious knowledge or religious feelings is increased; when he approaches the goal towards which religion is meant to lead. A preacher has edified if he has, through his sermon, caused belief to be added to the belief of his listeners; love added to love; and new things brought to their knowledge and feeling of religion; or if he has made that which was already there better ordered, more firmly based or more enlivened.114

A successful sermon thus affects the entire person and not merely his rationality or emotionality. It is “just as little inspiration alone as emotion alone” and is effective in making “a divine truth more alive and in bringing it nearer”.115 Ewald continues the classical Reformation understanding of the sermon, according to which a successful sermon renews the life of its listeners in all its aspects. Thus Ewald recoils from the emotional onedimensionality of many of his contemporaries. Ewald does not couple moral progress directly with the success of a sermon: One hundred times can a man be edified, really edified; one hundred times can true religious feelings and decisions be aroused in him; or something new be added to the sum of his religious knowledge, without him being improved even once. Edification and improvement are like the seed and the harvest.116

An effective sermon thus does not necessarily lead to people becoming more moral. The connection between the sermon and moral progress that was typical of Enlightenment homiletics was again severed by Ewald, before the background of Reformation anthropology. The righteous one was for him always also a sinner. With the parable of the sower and the seed from Matthew 13:3–9 – a method of biblical verification that was typical for Ewald – he sees the soul of the man who listened to the sermon as a four-fold field, on which the seed of the sermon falls, but only part of it may sprout, and sometimes not at all.117 Formally speaking, a sermon must “be clear, it must have interest, and it must be memorable”.118 With his emphasis on a sermon’s interest, Ewald affirms the Pietist assertion that only a person who is born again can

114 115 116 117 118

Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 58. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 59. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 63. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, pp. 63–64. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 74.

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achieve something with his sermons. Whoever has no interest in what he is saying – Ewald writes – cannot convince someone else of it.119 It is important to Ewald that the rational message and the awakening of effect always go hand in hand. For this he refers back to the classical pattern of explicatio and then applicatio, as was specified in the sermon of the seventeenth century. The preacher must always influence the entire person and in so doing be aware that “light and warmth are inseparable”.120 Ewald repristinizes neither the homiletics of the Reformation nor of the postReformation era. Thus he knew that biblical references had lost some of their plausibility with his contemporaries. A preacher should leave aside references to Scripture.121 He should rather try to bring the Gospel close to people by using a narrative path that involved the people in what he was saying and thus “awaken faith and love for Christ, just as the Bible awakens it – not through a demonstration that everything that does us good is at his command, but by means of the most meaningful examples that show that he loves people, and that everything good that happens to us, he has commanded”.122 Mutatis mutandis Ewald regained in this way the biblical homiletic of Luther and his successors,123 whose dicta probantia (references to Scripture) also had the goal of involving the listeners of their sermons in the world of the text of the Bible. Certainly common to them all is the conviction that the biblical word is more than something philosophical, and that it is suited to making the lives of men new again. Ewald was steadfast against the rationalism of his age: Everything has to do with reason, and nothing to do with the Bible anymore; everything has to do with demonstrating advantage and disadvantage, and nothing to do with the Word of Jesus and his messengers anymore; this I consider to be unworthy of a Christian preacher, and especially because of the sketchiest method that has ever existed anywhere. A Christian preacher is there for one thing, and that is not to talk about wisdom, philosophy, moral reasoning, wonderful though they all may be – rather, he is there to preach the revelation of God contained in the Bible.124

This is important to Ewald, because “Christianity is something other than human reason: and Christian morals something apart from moral

119 120 121 122 123 124

Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 84. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 90. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, pp. 179–180. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 185. See Steiger, Ewald (see above, n. 115), pp. 240–277. Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, pp. 180–181.

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reasoning, because they rest on completely different foundations and lead to completely different heights”.125 3.7 Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher’s New Conception of Homiletics Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834), certainly one of the most important Protestant theologians,126 presented, among other things, a new conception of homiletics. In his famous Reden Über die Religion an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern, published in 1799, he defines the preacher as a religious virtuoso, who at first makes pneumatically inspired voyages through the universe, from which he gains a view of the universe and a taste for the eternal. Then the preacher transmits both view and taste in a religious communication with his listeners. He draws them into his own world of experience, so that “when he returns from his wanderings through the universe into himself, his heart and those of each [of his hearers] are at the same location of that very feeling”.127 It is significant that Schleiermacher talks of “religious communication” rather than of sermons. This is consistent with his view of the experience of inspiration. According to Schleiermacher, the observation of the universe leads powerfully to this pronouncement. Thus, the stronger the emotions experienced, the stronger the urge to transmit them to other people. Religious emotions, caused by the spirit of God, are necessarily very intense and thus push one automatically into the mode of communication.128 A person who is disposed towards communication functions as a priest. Through this he shows other Christians that he has at his disposal the utmost receptivity to the universe, and as a consequence of this, a gift for communication, realized in his sermons. The preacher presents his experiences and emotions in this type of communication-sermon. In so doing he uses the art of rhetoric to paint a tableau for his listeners, which has the effect of activating the religious province in the souls of those listeners129 and thus leading them to God. The homiletic presentations of the preacher – this is a conception that

125

Ewald, Ueber Predigerbeschäftigung, p. 182. Eberhard Jüngel, “Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 7 (Tübingen 2004), pp. 904–919, at p. 904. 127 Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Über die Religion. Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern (1799) (Hamburg, 1958), p. 101. 128 Schleiermacher, Über die Religion, p. 99. 129 See Kurt Nowak, Schleiermacher Leben, Werk und Wirkung (Göttingen, 2002), pp. 101–103. 126

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makes Schleiermacher’s inclination towards Herrnhut clear – strengthen and edify the listeners of the sermon. Religious communications are able to reach into the lives of all who hear them. Thus a sermon is a speech that has the potential to change the lives of its listeners. The Reformation view that a successful sermon has an experiential and conversion effect is also apparent with Schleiermacher. The congregation is the product of the sermon. It is the multitude in which the preacher’s spark has taken hold.130 The sermon is the very instrument that renews the congregation over and over again. The congregation is thus reliant upon “religious communications that are always new, and thus upon individuals who communicate religiously in a new way”.131 In line with Reformation theology, Schleiermacher thinks of the congregation as a creatura verbi. In his Glaubenslehre (1821/22), which Karl Nowak considers “the classic dogma of modern Lutheran theology”,132 Schleiermacher also gives the preacher the task of furthering the salvation of the congregation. Schleiermacher writes: “to develop the way that faith arises along with its content, in other words to show that Jesus has a perfection lacking sin, and that in the congregation founded by him there is a communication of that same thing”133 – this is part of the job of the preacher. He is supposed to have an effect on the “development of the awareness of grace”; the dominance of the flesh over the spirit, sin and its accompanying wretchedness “are to be overcome through a strengthening of spiritual power, through reception into the powerfulness of the awareness of God of Christ. The change in these conditions is the essence of redemption”.134 Although touches of the Reformation appear in the sermon theology of the Reden from time to time, definite traces of Pietism and Enlightenment are apparent in the sermon theology of the Glaubenslehre, especially within specific discussions concerning the moral basis of sermons. Schleiermacher gave ambitious sermons that were complex in their argumentation.135 130 Wolfgang Trillhaas, Schleiermachers Predigt und das homiletische Problem (Leipzig, 1933), p. 7. 131 Christoph Meier-Dörken, Die Theologie der frühen Predigten Schleiermachers (Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann 45) (Berlin/New York, 1988), pp. 15–16. 132 Nowak, Schleiermacher (see above, n. 133), p. 277. 133 Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt (1830/31) (Berlin/New York, 71960), § 88,2. 134 Trillhaas, Predigt (see above, n. 134), p. 12. 135 See Hans Urner, “Schleiermacher als Prediger”, in Friedrich Schleiermacher, Predigten, ed. Hans Urner (Göttingen, 1969), pp. 9–20, at p. 19.

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He was not a preacher of the people. Instead he had a “strong affinity for the society of notables, for politicians, officials, military men and the learned”.136 Schleiermacher’s sermons are rhetorically polished. Even when he uses few illustrations and examples, these are vivid. As a person, however, Schleiermacher remains a shadowy figure in his sermons. He certainly shares experiences of faith, but he does not take his own person as his theme and tells no anecdotes about his own life, because he understood himself as a medium for the communication of a metapersonal awareness of God. Schleiermacher’s homiletic reworkings have had an effect on theological discussion up the present day. Drawing from Reformation sermon theology, he integrated ideas from the Pietists, Hermhut and the Enlightenment, as well as critics of the Enlightenment. This can be described, at somewhat of a stretch, as a brilliant synthesis of Protestant sermon history of the eighteenth century. 4. Roman Catholic Sermon Theology in the Eighteenth Century From the Council of Trent on, the Roman Catholic sermon meant admonition, encouragement and the strengthening of the congregation on their path to God. It is moreover an act of preparation for the central event of salvation in the service, the Eucharist. This Tridentine version of the sermon was spread throughout the Catholic world by the reform orders of the sixteenth century, namely the Capuchins, the Oratory of St. Philip, Theatines, Barnabites, Jesuits, and Ursulines.137 Almost all Roman Catholic theologians of the eighteenth century adhered to the view of the sermon as sketched out above. 4.1 The Extension of the Baroque Sermon Until 1750 German-speaking Catholicism was, as will become apparent, always open to influences from predominantly Catholic lands such as Italy or France, and it preserved Baroque pulpit rhetoric well into the eighteenth century.138 The emblematic sermon, well-known among the sermons of the

136

Nowak, Schleiermacher (see above, n. 133), p. 212. Bitter and Splonskowski, “Predigt” (see above, n. 11), p. 267. 138 See Ralf-Georg Bogner, “Predigt V. Katholische Kirche seit der Reformation”, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3rd ed., Vol. 8 (Freiburg/Basel/Rom/Wien 2006), pp. 530–532, at p. 531. 137

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late sixteenth and the entire seventeenth century, remained most popular. Preachers took great care with vividness and variety. The Augustine hermit Abraham a Sancta Clara (1644–1709), an author as well as preacher in Vienna on Sundays and feast days, was a master of the vivid sermon.139 This type of sermon was meant to have an emotional effect and to transmit the Gospel by means of exciting emotions. Thus far there is a certain similarity here with Protestant homiletics. Theological differences remain nevertheless: Abraham a Sancta Clara did not want to awaken faith in his listeners. He wished to support and accompany them on their path of belief with the aid of illustrations. 4.2 The New Conception of the Sermon in France in the Late Seventeenth Century The late seventeenth century brought reform to the sermon in France. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Catholic church was victorious and without rivals. Non-Catholics were persecuted by means of an effective state apparatus of repression, were forced to convert or were exiled.140 Sermon reform took place within a Roman Catholic church complicit in this repression. Efforts towards a national church, prominent in France since the Middle Ages, had a positive and beneficial influence on attempts at reform.141 They gave the French church certain freedoms from the central Roman curia and made a reform dynamic possible that would have developed less well elsewhere. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), priest, scholar, Bishop of Condom, educator of the Dauphin from 1671 to 1682, and finally Bishop of Meaux and member of the Académie Française,142 was one of the first proponents of sermon reform. The main goal of reform was to free the

139 See Abraham a Sancta Clara, Etwas für Alle/das ist/Kleine kurtze Beschreibung allerley Stands-Ambts- und Gewerbs-Persohnen, mit beygeruckter sittlichen Lehre und biblischen Concepten (Nürnberg/Würzburg/Wien, 1699–1711); Abraham a Sancta Clara, Neueröffnete Welt-Galleria: worinnen sehr curios und begnügt unter die Augen kommen allerley Aufzüg und Kleidungen unterschiedlicher Stande und Nationen (Nürnberg, 1703). Abraham’s sermons are distinguished by oratorical perfection of art, a vernacular language, plays on word associations and sounds, emblems and a host of rhetorical figures. 140 See for example Martin Mulsow, Die drei Ringe. Toleranz und clandestine Gelehrsamkeit bei Mathurin Veyssière La Croze (1661–1739) (Hallesche Beiträge zur Europäischen Aufklärung 16) (Tübingen, 2001), pp. 10–29. 141 See Irene Dingel, “Gallikanismus”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 3 (Tübingen 2000), pp. 459–460. 142 See Jacques Le Brun, “Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne”, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Vol. 7 (Berlin/New York 1981), pp. 88–93.

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sermon from Baroque affectation. Formally speaking Bossuet’s sermons were quite traditional. Their language, however, is characterized by clarity, simplicity and discreet rhetorical touches. Loyal to his king and a bitter enemy of Protestantism, Bossuet was a ready representative of the aspirations of the national church. At the same time, he knew that he was bound to uphold the Council of Trent. Its decrees were sacrosanct to him, and he saw each alteration of church dogma as an indication of heresy. Bossuet made this exact accusation against the Protestants. According to him, they had altered age-old church dogma and had thus manoeuvred themselves into a heretical position.143 Thus Bossuet was not innovative with respect to the theology of the sermon. His demands concerning a new language of the sermon were not accompanied by a new accentuation on traditional Roman Catholic theology. The Jesuit Blaise Gisbert (1657–1731), a professor of rhetoric and a preacher, took the same line as Bossuet. In his work on homiletics that appeared in 1714 he also asked for a sermon rhetoric that could manage without exaggerated pathos and over-ornamentation of language. His homiletics were translated into German and edited by Johann Valentin Kornrumpff (1709–1740), a school rector from Querfurt. Kornrumpff described the task of the sermon in the foreword to his translation as “lighting a divine fire in the sinner in order to inflame him towards works of blessedness”.144 The sermon should have the effect that “the sinner should go within himself, understand himself, be touched, do penance, believe in the Gospel and carry out good works”.145 The paranetic aspect is dominant here. Kornrumpff’s foreword advocates a more important role for the sermon in the service.146 Following the Catholic tradition, and in contrast to the Reformation view, the sermon is not characterized as the soteriologically central event or indeed even the constituent element of the service. No less typical of the Roman Catholic position is Kornrumpff ’s gradualistic understanding of grace, in which he positions the sermon

143

See Owen Chadwick, From Bossuet to Newman (2nd ed.; Cambridge et al., 1987), pp. 1–20. 144 Blasius Gisbert, Die Christliche Beredsamkeit, nach ihrem Jnnerlichen Wesen, und Jn der Ausübung vorgestellet, trans. Johann Valentin Kornrumpff (Leipzig, 1740). 145 Kornrumpff, “Vorrede”, in: Gisbert, Beredsamkeit (see above, n. 148), pp. (6r-) (7v, here: p. )(7r.) 146 Kornrumpff, “Vorrede”, in: Gisbert, Beredsamkeit, pp. (6r-)(6v.)

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according to its function and concludes that its power does not consist of the absolution of its audience, but only an encouragement to greater moral integrity.147 Gisbert himself sees the task, function and possibility of the sermon in exactly this way. He described what a sermon can and should achieve: A person must recognize good and evil; he must be able to use this recognition to love the one and hate the other. See, this is according to his nature. And this is also the way that God serves men, when he enlightens them and moves them by means of his grace. He shows them first the good, and drives them on to grasp the same for themselves. Oh, if only every preacher would learn his own guilt from the Great Preacher!148

Gisbert’s position is tied on one hand to Tridentine dogma and on the other hand to the Enlightenment. The sermon as means for the audience to understand, as an instrument of moral improvement, corresponds to the decrees of the Council of Trent. Wanting to reach this improvement, primarily on the path of introspection and recognition, forms part of the Enlightenment programme. For Gisbert, the mark of a good sermon is not only that it shows the right path, but also that it has a lasting influence on its listeners towards taking up that path, and does so both by means of rational arguments and by controlled rousing of effect. In this manner sermon rhetoric, in Gisbert’s view, was no different from that of secular speech rhetoric. Both wished to affect their listeners rationally and effectively, encouraging them towards action or lack of action.149 Gisbert did not see that a sermon could have an entirely different kind of effect, namely a soteriological one, which did not merely lead men morally, but also drew them out of their old lives and moved them towards a new life. Roman Catholic tradition and Enlightenment combined to form a strange brew within him. The sermon reform that took place at the end of the seventeenth century in France dealt with the sermon as speech. Theologically it added no new touches. Formal homiletics were spring-cleaned, Baroque bombast rejected. The decrees of the Council of Trent that were relevant to sermon theology remained mainly in effect, and the Catholic conception of the sermon remained well-established.

147 148 149

Kornrumpff, “Vorrede”, in: Gisbert, Beredsamkeit, p. (6v.). Gisbert, Beredsamkeit (see above, n. 148), p. 21. Gisbert, Beredsamkeit, pp. 14–15.

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French homiletics took effect in German-speaking Catholicism from the middle of the eighteenth century. The Benedictine Rudolph Graser (1728–1787), professor of poetics in the monastery of Kremsmünster, and later curate and priest in various places, was a proponent of this sermon reform initiated in France. Graser was renowned as a preacher. In 1779 he was named as a member of the Bayerische Gesellschaft zur Pflege der geistlichen Beredsamkeit in Munich.150 He came to know first hand the new homiletics on a trip he took as a student to Paris. In his handbook on homiletics he did not differentiate between spiritual and secular rhetoric.151 He promoted clear and unartificial language and saw the primary goal of the sermon as moral instruction.152 The Benedictine Maurus Lindemayer underlined this in his foreword to Graser’s book, when he wrote “that a sermon must first be simple, just as the Gospel, for all its grandeur, is quite artless and simple”.153 Lindemayer advised against both exaggerated pathos154 and the Protestant idea that there can be an identification between the words of the sermon and the word of God: “For the word of God is nothing other than God himself speaking, but is in no way any word that the preacher utters concerning the word of God”.155 Lindemayer saw the goal of the sermon as the improvement of life.156 4.3 The Catholic Enlightenment The Roman Catholic sermon in the Enlightenment context differed only in nuance from its Protestant counterpart. One can scarcely distinguish confessional identities. Practical help with living, advice on coping with day to day life and admonitions towards living a moral life stand at the centre of the sermon for both traditions. The Benedictine Frank Stephan Rautenstrauch (1734–1785)157 was one of the most important Roman Catholic theologians of the Enlightenment. Sometime abbot of the monastery of Braunau (Brevnov) near Prague, he

150

See Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 49 (Berlin 1904), pp. 508–509. Rudolph Graser, Praktische Beredsamkeit der christlichen Kanzel, in Regeln, Exempeln, und vollständigen Mustern, ed. P. Maurus Lindemayr (2nd ed.; Augsburg, 1774), p. 2. 152 Graser, Praktische Beredsamkeit, p. 2. 153 Maurus Lindemayr, “Vorrede”, in Graser, Praktische Beredsamkeit (see above, n. 155), pp. XIV–XXXI, at p. XVI. 154 Lindemayr, “Vorrede”, p. XXVII. 155 Lindemayr, “Vorrede”, pp. XXVII–XXVIII. 156 Lindemayr, “Vorrede”, p. XXIX. 157 See Klaus Fitschen, “Rautenstrauch, Franz Stephan”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 7 (Tübingen 2004), p. 68. 151

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became director of the theological faculty in Vienna, where he introduced fundamental reforms to the study of theology. According to him, priests should be educators first and foremost. Rautenstrauch understood the moral girding of the audience as the goal of the sermon. The sermon should serve “to lead the congregation towards a God-fearing life”.158 As a prominent theologian involved in the appointment of university teachers of pastoral theology, Rautenstrauch had an enormous influence on homiletics in the Habsburg Empire. Franz Christian Pittroff (1739– 1814),159 a theologian at the University of Prague, and Franz Giftschütz (1748–1788),160 a professor in Vienna, were homileticians who followed his teachings. Just like Rautenstrauch, they wanted preachers to have an effect on the raising of the ethical standards of their listeners. In addition, Johann Michael Sailer (1751–1832), one of the most distinguished Roman Catholic theologians of his time, professor of dogma at Ingolstadt and Dillingen, and then Bishop of Regensburg,161 proposed in his early works on pastoral theology that the sermon should demand virtue.162 Roman Catholic theologians of the Enlightenment provide no contrast in terms of sermon theology to the undertakings of the sixteenth century, unlike what we find among Protestants. The reason for this lies in the fact that the Council of Trent had already defined the main goal of the sermon as the furthering of virtue and morality. 5. Conclusion At the beginning of the time period under consideration, there was still a clear difference between the Lutheran/Calvinist and the Roman Catholic theology of the sermon. This went back to the fundamental decisions taken in the age of the Reformation. In the second half of the eighteenth century, in the wake of the Enlightenment, both confessional camps began to draw closer in terms of sermon theology. Both saw the sermon as an instrument

158 Quoted in Paul Wehrle, Orientierung am Hörer. Die Predigtlehre unter dem Einfluss des Aufklärungsprozesses (Studien zur Praktischen Theologie 8) (Zürich/Einsiedeln/Köln, 1975), p. 43. 159 Wehrle, Orientierung am Hörer, pp. 78–104. 160 Wehrle, Orientierung am Hörer, pp. 104–131. 161 See Hubert Wolf, “Sailer, Johann Michael”, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., Vol. 7 (Tübingen 2004), pp. 744–745. 162 See Wehrle, Orientierung (see above, n. 162), p. 64.

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of moral preparation for its listeners. On the Protestant side, particularly with Schleiermacher, there was a new orientation in sermon theology that spread effectively. One must not forget, however, that Protestant theology speaks with many voices. Apart from Schleiermacher, many other lines of tradition were active and remained influential on homiletics. The confessional sermon of the nineteenth century was influenced less by Schleiermacher than by the tradition of theologians critical of the Enlightenment. On the Roman Catholic side as well, the nineteenth century brought innovations to the theology of the sermon.

THE ART OF PREACHING Françoise Deconinck-Brossard Eighteenth-century reflection on the art of preaching was conveyed not only in treatises or lectures on the eloquence of the pulpit usually targeted at students reading rhetoric or divinity, but also in poetry, diaries, memoirs and correspondence. By a kind of Chinese box effect – or mise en abîme, even some sermons, usually addressing clerical audiences, also self-reflectingly dealt with homiletics. Such discussions implied that the craftsmanship of preaching can be learned, like any other form of discourse. Prescriptive literature on pulpit oratory therefore dealt, to a greater or lesser degree, with the five elements of classical rhetoric, namely invention, arrangement, expression or style, memory, and pronunciation – inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronuntiatio.1 As one of the few surveys of neoclassic English homiletics has underlined, ‘any attempt at completeness’ in a ‘systematic survey’ of eighteenth-century artes praedicandi ‘would be doomed to failure […]’, so that ‘we must limit ourselves to a representative selection’,2 even in this age of computerised bibliography and online databases.3 One may wonder whether Catholic and Protestant tractates 1

Cicero, De Inventione I.vii.9, ed. G. Achard (Paris, 1994), p. 64. Rolf P. Lessenich, Elements of Pulpit Oratory in Eighteenth-century England (1660– 1800) (Köln, Wien, 1972), p. 20. 3 Although James Downey modestly claimed that his list did ‘not purport to be exhaustive’, his bibliography of ‘the major treatises on preaching published in Great Britain in the eighteenth century’ (i.e. 1700–1800) is a good starting point: The Eighteenth Century Pulpit: A Study of the Sermons of Butler, Berkeley, Secker, Sterne, Whitefield and Wesley (Oxford, 1969), pp. 230–233. Lessenich’s ‘selected bibliography of primary sources’, pp. 237–252 has no separate entry for preaching manuals. The list compiled by Harry Caplan and Henry H. King, “Pulpit Eloquence: A List of Doctrinal and Historical Studies in English”, in Speech Monographs 22 (Special Issue, 1955), 23–37 includes publications on both sides of the Atlantic, translations, primary and secondary sources on rhetoric in general and pulpit oratory in particular. See also their “Latin Tractates on Preaching: A Book-List”, in Harvard Theological Review 42 (1949), pp. 190– 206, “Dutch Treatises on Preaching: A List of Books and Articles”, in Speech Monographs 21:4 (November 1954), 235–247, “French Tractates on Preaching; A Book-list”, in Quarterly Journal of Speech 36 (1950), pp. 296–325 (unverified), “Italian Treatises on Preaching; A Book-list”, in Speech Monographs 16 (1949), pp. 243–252 (unverified), and “Spanish Tractates on Preaching: A Book-list”, in Speech Monographs 17 (1950), pp. 16–70 (unverified). For Spain see Joël Saugnieux, “Ouvrages de rhétorique”, pp. 404–406 in Les Jansénistes et le renouveau de la prédication dans l’Espagne de la seconde moitié du XVIIIè siècle (Lyon, 1976). 2

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in England and France prescribed similar rules, whether genre prevailed over denomination and nationality, and how preaching textbooks characterized the specificity of pulpit eloquence. 1. Invention Many eighteenth-century English-speaking authors had no qualms about the answer to the first question. As the first systematic course of lectures on rhetoric published in the eighteenth century argued, ‘In the eloquence of the Pulpit, it is, that England seems to stand alone, with manifest unrivaled Superiority’.4 John Lawson (1708/9–1759), renowned preacher and professor of divinity, proceeded to apply the prevailing politico-religious ideology to pulpit literature: ‘The great Liberty allowed by the Laws […] may have contributed to produce this good Effect’.5 Logically enough, he concluded that French Protestants preached better than their Catholic counterparts: ‘the Writers in that Language, of the reformed Religion, although perhaps in other Respects inferior, do yet excel the Catholick Preachers herein; they are more instructive and rational’.6 Protestant and Catholic preachers on both sides of the Channel shared a common heritage of thorough training in classical rhetoric. It should therefore come as no surprise that the imitation of ancient orators was highly recommended. The approach has rightly been characterised as ‘neoclassic’.7 John Lawson emphatically underlined the need to learn from literary imitation, which ‘being a great and compendious Method of arriving at eloquence, deserveth indeed distinct Consideration’.8 This method was divided into two parts, ‘Study and Practice’.9 The first stage consisted in reading carefully ‘the Works of the most eminent Speakers’, though ‘not

The interesting bibliography in Bernard Beugnot, Les Muses classiques, essai de bibliographie rhétorique et poétique 1610–1716 (Paris, 1996), pp. 102–110 and pp. 167–171 provides references to works published in France and the rest of Europe between 1600 and 1718. Cf. Marc Fumaroli, L’ Âge de l’éloquence: Rhétorique et “res literaria” de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique (Paris, 1980), pp. 750–799. 4 John Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory. Delivered in Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin, 1758), p. 95. The book went through four editions in Dublin (from 1758 to 1760) and London (1759). A facsimile edition was published in 1972 with an introduction by E. Neal Claussen and Karl R. Wallace (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1972). 5 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, pp. 96–97. 6 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 98. 7 Lessenich, Elements of Pulpit Oratory, passim. 8 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 108. 9 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 14.

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slightly or transiently, nor so meerly to apprehend the Sense, but with Care, Intentness, Assiduity; with an Earnestness nearly equal to that of Writing’.10 The latter part of the sentence quoted the authority of Quintilian (‘legendum est p[a]ene ad scribendi sollicitudinem’).11 Like many of his contemporaries, Lawson repeatedly referred to Cicero and Quintilian as ‘the greatest Masters of Rhetorick’.12 As pulpit eloquence belonged to the art of oratory, the ideal preacher was expected to be thoroughly acquainted with the standard textbooks of ancient rhetoric, both ‘heathen’ and Christian. The works of St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine were ‘valuable for Eloquence as well as Piety’.13 However essential the classical tradition may have been, it had to be supplemented by critical knowledge from the best modern orators. One may easily imagine the young preacher reading the works of his predecessors with a pen in his hand, in order to follow Lawson’s imperative advice: Make yourself master of their Subject. Observe the method they have chosen. Follow them through every Transition. Attend to their Reasoning. Take Notice, of the Address with which they prepare Things; how they guard against Prejudices, prevent or solve Objections; how they paint, move, amplify, contract; where abound in Images and Figures, where assume a plain simple Stile: Penetrate into the several Reasons for this Variety. Having arrived thus far, learn to distinguish the Genius of each Speaker.14

Discourse analysis thus dealt with both style and content, matter and manner. Therefore the reading list compiled by the Independent minister Philip Doddridge for his students at the Northampton Academy commented on the language and arguments of the sermons under review.15 His bibliography included the names of many seventeenth-century preachers also mentioned in the guidelines drafted by the dean of Magdalene College, Cambridge:16 not only archbishop John Tillotson (1630–1694), whose influence on eighteenth-century English preaching cannot be exaggerated,

10

Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 14. Institutio Oratoria, book X, § 20. 12 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 148. 13 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 358. 14 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 14. 15 Philip Doddridge (1702–1751), Lectures on Preaching and the Several Branches of the Ministerial Office: Including the Characters of the most Celebrated Ministers among Dissenters, and in the Establishment, published posthumously in Works, ed. Edward Williams (Leeds, 1802–5), vol. V. For convenience purposes a later edition (London, 1821) will be quoted hereafter. 16 Daniel Waterland, Advice to a Young Student. With a Method of Study for the First Four Years (Oxford, 1730; 2nd ed. 1755). 11

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for he was almost universally regarded as ‘one of the best models’17 of preachers, but also Robert South (1634–1716), John Norris (1657–1712), bishop Thomas Sprat (1635–1713), the Jacobite bishop and conspirator Francis Atterbury (1663–1732), and bishop Edward Stillingfleet (1635– 1699). Hugh Blair (1718–1800), a prominent preacher and Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at Edinburgh University, suggested that the names of French orators be added to this canon of English homiletics: ‘Among the French Protestant divines, Saurin is the most distinguished. […] Among the Roman Catholics, the most eminent are, Bourdaloue and Massillon’.18 Students were advised to keep commonplace books into which they could copy excerpts from what that they read or heard, as the dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin recalled: ‘The mention of Quotations puts me in mind of Common-place Books, which have been long in use by industrious young Divines, and I hear do still continue so’.19 Indeed, this method of collecting quotations, themes and commonly received ideas (loci communes or topoi) under ‘heads’ or topics had been part of the scholastic curriculum since the Renaissance at least.20 Humanists like Erasmus considered them as aids to memory that would help structure thought and expression in various situations, including pulpit oratory: They generally are Extracts of Theological and Moral Sentences drawn from Ecclesiastical and other Authors, reduced under proper Heads, usually begun, and perhaps finished while the Collectors were young in the Church, as being intended for Materials or Nurseries to stock future Sermons.21

Such a notebook would be one of the best preacher’s assistants, all the more so as the divisions of a sermon were then usually referred to as ‘heads’. Indeed, a manuscript now held at Dr. Williams’s Library in London

17 Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (London, 1783; 3rd ed. 1787) II, p. 328. 18 Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres II, p. 323, referring to the Jesuit Louis Bourdaloue, sometimes known as ‘preacher to the king, and king of preachers’ (1632– 1704), the Oratorian Jean-Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742), and the Huguenot minister Jacques Saurin (1677–1730) who preached at the Walloon church in London. 19 Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Enter’d in Holy Orders (Dublin, 1720; 2nd ed. London, 1721), p. 22. 20 Richard Yeo, “John Locke’s ‘New Method’ of Commonplacing: Managing Memory and Information”, in Eighteenth-Century Thought 2 (2004), 1–38, [last consulted 18 August 2006]. 21 Swift, A Letter to a Young Gentleman, pp. 22–23.

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provides a good example of a preacher’s commonplace book.22 It was probably compiled by Thomas Collins, a Presbyterian minister educated at the Taunton Academy, who worked at Templecombe (Somerset) from 1718 to c.1734, was a co-pastor at Ilminster (Somerset) from 1725 to c.1735, then preached at Bridport (Dorset) from 1734/5 to c.1762/4, and died in 1765.23 The book applies the Lockean method of commonplacing. A table of contents subdivides alphabetical order into the combination of the first letter with the first vowel in the word, so that Glastonbury, Grace, and Gal[atians] all come under Ga,24 and ‘Sermons’ are to be found under Se. The book, which also served as a preaching calendar scattered on different pages under the alphabetical entries for Biblical texts, covers the whole of Collins’s preaching career.25 That probably explains why the pages do not follow the alphabetical order: once a page had been filled, another one was begun wherever there was some empty space. So Se starts on three discontinuous pages,26 and H follows A, for instance. Hence the use of the table of contents. The book includes excerpts, definitions and summaries of various works, ideas, concepts or issues, and recurrently quotes the Huguenot historian Paul de Rapin, Joseph Butler’s sermons and Analogy of Religion,27 the whig bishop of Bristol John Conybeare, together with Gilbert Burnet’s exposition of the Thirty-nine articles28 and his ars praedicandi, Discourse of the Pastoral Care.29 The eclecticism of this non-conformist minister’s reading list is noteworthy, since it included seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglican bishops and Continental authors. Thomas Collins’s commonplace book is dated 1773, and may have been passed on to one Lionel Browne, whose name is inscribed on the flyleaves at the beginning and end of the book, for him to use as a notebook in his turn. Indeed, it had been traditionally assumed that such private

22 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119. I owe special thanks to the staff of Dr. Williams’s Library, Durham University Library, and Durham Cathedral Library for their unfailing help over the years. 23 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, card catalogue of non-conformist ministers, card n° 1195 [last consulted 16 September 2005]. 24 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, p. 53. 25 The earliest preaching date that I have found after a cursory examination of the manuscript is 1719. 26 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, pp. 32, 113 and 127. 27 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, especially pp. 140, 150 and passim. 28 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, e.g. p. 147. 29 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, p. 148.

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compilations of commonly accepted knowledge could be transferred from one reader to another.30 One may therefore wonder whether the entry entitled ‘Various Extracts from Various Authors’, written in a different hand, with its own separate pagination, was Lionel Browne’s completion of Thomas Collins’s notebook.31 The authors quoted there included not only classical poets like Horace and Virgil and reference works like the ‘incomparable […] Univers[al] Hist[ory]’,32 but also contained long summaries, mostly in shorthand, of Francis Hutcheson’s System of Moral Philosophy, and again a medley of excerpts from non-conformist, Anglican, and Continental literature: Richard Baxter’s Saints’ Everlasting Rest (1650), Edward Chandler’s sermons, Locke’s philosophy, and Charles Rollin’s Lettres.33 While preachers were encouraged to memorise words and ideas thanks to their commonplace books, they were warned against slavish imitation of their predecessors. Pupils at the nonconformist Academy at Northampton were given the same advice as Cambridge students: Take brief notes of the sermons you hear. Review them in your retirement. Transcribe them, and add memorandums of your own thoughts and reflections upon them as you go along. Painting and carving are learnt by imitation, and by observing the defects as well as the beauties of great masters.34

In the context of the Horatian ut pictura poesis, and within the framework of the theory of the ‘sister arts’, similar rules applied to painting and pulpit oratory. Imitation derived from critical analysis of the model, and would lead to the development of a personal style. The trite metaphor of the bee, borrowed from Lucretius,35 suggested that originality could result from a new combination of borrowed beauties: You should, like Bees, fly from Flower to Flower, extracting the Juices fittest to be turned into Honey. The severest Criticks allow such amiable Plundering.

30

Yeo, “John Locke’s ‘New Method’ of Commonplacing”, pp. 26–27. London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, facing p. 153 and following pages. 32 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, p. 28. 33 Charles Rollin (1661–1741), De la Manière d’enseigner et d’étudier les belles-lettres, par rapport à l’esprit et au cœur (Paris, 1726–1728), 4 vols. Wilbur Samuel Howell argues that the anonymous translation The Method of Teaching and Studying the Belles Lettres: Or an Introduction to Languages, Poetry, Rhetoric, History, Moral Philosophy, Physicks, &c. (London, 1734) contributed to the appearance of the word ‘belles-lettres’ in the English language: Eighteenth-century British Logic and Rhetoric (Princeton, 1971), p. 533, but the Oxford English Dictionary online quotes an earlier occurrence in 1710. 34 Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, pp. 4–5. 35 Lucretius, De Natura Rerum 3:11: ‘Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant’. 31

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It is true, you may not equal the Merit of any of your Models; but you acquire a new, and become yourself an Original.36

The oxymoron of ‘amiable Plundering’ suggests that the line between licit imitation and immoral plagiarism could be very blurred indeed. Indeed, Doddridge warned his pupils against unacknowledged quotations pilfered verbatim from other sermonizers: ‘Never borrow the Words of others. Use their works in your compositions for hints and thoughts freely, but never transcribe, unless it be as a quotation’.37 Likewise, the Anglican controversialist Joseph Glanvill had already encouraged young preachers to reword any ideas that they might have found in other people’s books: ‘When you make use of any notions you meet in your reading, you should form them according to your own way of expressing, and not tye your self to the words of the Author’.38 Therefore, the commonplace book could be of assistance only for the choice of suitable topics (inventio) or the arrangement of arguments (dispositio), not for expression or style (elocutio). In view of all the evidence of rampant sermon piracy, one may say that the theorists’ advice was not always taken, but the historian should not jump to the oversimplified conclusion that there was a ‘permissive attitude’39 to plagiarism in the eighteenth-century pulpit. Choosing a subject implied consulting ‘those who have written well upon it’, in order to ‘have the fullest, most accurate Survey of it which is possible’.40 One of the useful books in this respect would have been the catalogue of sermons compiled by an almost obscure vicar, Sampson Letsome (1703/04-ca. 1760), first published in 1734 for the benefit of those preachers who might like to find inspiration in their predecessors’ work.41 The data was displayed in table form. Since a sermon always began

36 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 121. Cf. Joseph Glanvill, Essay concerning Preaching: Written for the Direction of a Young Divine; and Useful also for the People, in order to Profitable Hearing (London, 1677), p. 67: ‘They should be digested into your store of thoughts, as the various juyce of flowers is by the industrious Bee’. 37 Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 66. 38 Glanvill, Essay concerning Preaching, p. 67. 39 James Downey, The Eighteenth Century Pulpit, p. 6. 40 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 375. 41 An Index to the Sermons Published since the Restoration, Pointing out the Text in the Order they Lie in the Bible, Shewing the Occasion on Which they were Preached, and Directing to the Volume and Page in Which they Occur (London, 1734). According to Foster’s Alumni Oxonienses, Letsome matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford in February 1722, aged 18, then proceeded B.A. in 1725 and M.A. in 1728. He co-edited the ‘Boyle Lectures’ as A Defence of Natural & Revealed Religion (1739). By the time of the publication of the 1753 edition of the Preacher’s Assistant, he was vicar of Thame in Oxfordshire.

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with a quotation from Scripture, Letsome first sorted the information in order of Biblical texts, from Genesis to Revelation. Then, the major bio-bibliographical data included the preachers’ names and titles, the year of publication of the edition that the author had consulted for his compilation (not necessarily the first edition), and the subject matter or occasion of the sermon under review. A new edition, entitled The Preacher’s Assistant, was published in 1753, in two parts. While the first part was an expansion of the original work, with 13,734 entries, the second volume contained An Historical register of all the authors in the series, containing, in chronological order, a succinct view of their […] works.42 There is much evidence that such a database was used extensively by members of the clergy. One member of the distinguished ecclesiastical Sharp family43 acquired an interleaved copy soon after publication, as evidenced by the inscription on the flyleaf ‘E libris Tho. Sharp Trin. Coll. Cant. 1754’.44 Another interleaved copy has copious manuscript additions of sermons published in the early decades of the nineteenth century.45 Thirty years later, John Cooke, rector of Wentrop, Salop published The Preacher’s Assistant, after the manner of Mr. Letsome.46 Not only did Cooke extend the period of coverage by three decades. He also increased fourfold the amount of references for the earlier period. Indeed, he marked up those references that had been omitted by Letsome with an asterisk. Accordingly, the total number of items amounts to 24,295.47 Interestingly enough, Thomas Collins’s commonplace book

42 I have computerised the 1753 edition: see my electronic article “The Preacher’s Helper: A Computerised Version of Letsome’s Preacher’s Assistant”, Erfurt Electronic Studies in English 8/99, [last consulted 18 August 2006]. 43 The Sharps were an eminent Northern ecclesiastical dynasty: Thomas Sharp Sr. (1693–1758), the younger son of Archbishop John Sharp (1645?–1714), was succeeded in the archdeaconry of Northumberland by his eldest son John (1723–1792) whose brother Thomas (1725–1772), fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, became curate at Bamburgh. 44 I.e. Thomas Sharp Jr.; Durham, Durham University Library, shelfmark Bamburgh M.5.17–18. 45 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, shelfmark 3008.C.1–2. The latest date for these manuscript annotations seems to be 1830 (facing p. 148). 46 John Cooke, The Preacher’s Assistant, after the Manner of Mr. Letsome. Containing a Series of the Texts 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 Authors Alphabetically Arranged under Each Text with the Size, Date, Occasion, and Subject-matter of each Sermon or Discourse (1783). 47 Cooke’s Preacher’s Assistant was computerised in 1988 by the late John Gordon Spaulding, of the University of Vancouver, B.C. I had the privilege to be sent the data on loan in 1992, when I was spending part of my sabbatical leave at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. For a long time, the only way to consult the data

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arranged the catalogue of his sermon library, with more than three hundred titles, in the same way as Cooke’s and Letsome’s: ‘Sermons in Pamphlets on y e following Texts with y e Authors Names, w ch I have’,48 as if the main sorting criterion were the Biblical reference. Even though there was obviously a market for such reference works, they were often criticized by preaching manuals. In Fénelon’s posthumous Dialogues on Eloquence, which remained in manuscript until 1718 (although they had probably been composed between 1677 and 1681), and were translated in 1722 by an English clergyman, William Stevenson,49 interlocutor C condemned the patchwork effect that might result from the hasty consultation of concordances, anthologies, quotation dictionaries, and ready-made collections of texts: All this puts me in mind of a preacher, a friend of mine, who lives, as you have it, from day to day. He does not ponder anything until he is scheduled to preach upon it. Then he closes himself in his study, thumbs his concordances, his Combéfis, his Polyanthea, some sermon books he has bought, and various collections he has made of purple patches wrested from their context and hit upon by good luck.50

was a set of printouts deposited at the Huntington Library. An enhanced edition is now apparently available: John Gordon Spaulding ed., Pulpit Publications 1660–1782 (New York, 1996), 6 vols. 48 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MSS 28.119, p. 32. 49 Dialogues sur l’éloquence en général et celle de la chaire en particulier, avec une lettre écrite à l’Académie française (Paris, 1718); for the best scholarly edition, see [François de Salignac de la Mothe] Fénelon, Œuvres I, ed. Jacques Le Brun (Paris, 1983), pp. 3–87, with notes pp. 1233–1259. Stevenson’s version reappeared in print at Glasgow in 1750 and 1760, and at Leeds in 1808. The translation quoted here is Wilbur Samuel Howell’s edition, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence (Princeton, 1951). 50 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 86, and Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 29 and p. 1246. François Combéfis (1605–1679) had published an eight-volume preacher’s patristic library, Bibliotheca patrum concionatoria (1662). As for the anthology of quotations known as Polyanthea, it had gone through several editions from its original publication in 1507 to the 1660s. The Jesuit André Spanner published his own version in 1701: Polyanthea Sacra, ex universæ sacræ scripturæ utriusque testamenti figuris, symbolis, testimoniis, nec non e selectis patrum, aliorumque authorum, sententiis, eruditis Interpretationibus, Similitudinibus, rarisque Historiis collecta, et copiosis, exquisitisque materiis moralibus de virtutibus et vitiis Pro Concionibus efformandis Adornata, Atque ad communem sacrorum præsertim Oratorum utilitatem in lucem edita ([Paris], 1701), 2 vols., in which topics, or future sermon heads, are arranged in alphabetical order (e.g.: Accedia, adulation, adulterium, aequanimitas, aetas, aeternitas, affectus, agonia christi, ambitio, amicitia & amici, amor, amor dei in nos, amor christi in nos, amor erga deum, amores mali, amor proprius, S. Andreas, Angeli, anima rationalis, animalia, annus, apostolic, aqua, arbor, ascensio christi, avaritia, aula, aurum, auxilium divinum etc.). For each topic, a selection of adequate quotations from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and patristic literature is provided; each quotation being expounded, in Latin of course.

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Fénelon thus objected to the use of commonplaces as an element of invention and disapproved of what the historian Peter Bayley has described as ‘thesaurus sermons’ – seemingly the prevailing genre in France in the former half of the seventeenth century.51 However, thesauri continued to be published throughout the eighteenth century. For instance, William Beveridge (1637–1708), bishop of St Asaph, a high-churchman who also held Calvinistic views on the doctrine of predestination, had compiled a Thesaurus Theologicus that was published posthumously, like most of his other works.52 The four volumes contain outlines of sermons which the author had probably prepared for his future use, but whoever edited them must have known that they would sell well. Indeed, the copy in Durham University library has an autograph inscription by John Sharp,53 who actually referred to the book in the marginal annotations of at least one of his manuscript sermons.54 Beveridge’s sermon outlines are carefully constructed with divisions and subdivisions, many of which are supported by the reference to a quotation, usually from the Bible, but also sometimes from classical Latin and Greek literature. Much later in the century the Unitarian minister William Enfield (1741–1797), tutor of belles-lettres at the Warrington Academy, published a book similarly designed ‘to afford those who compose sermons some assistance in the choice of subjects and texts’.55 The book corresponds exactly to the description in the title: each entry gives an adequate scriptural reference. Similarly the Jesuit Vincent Houdry, who compiled a twenty-volume anthology designed to supply preachers with a complete library of all the reading material they might need, tabled a list of ‘ready-made designs and topics’ fully furnished with appropriate quotations.56 The major difference with its English counterparts

51 Peter Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory 1598–1650: A Study in Themes and Styles, with a Descriptive Catalogue of Printed Texts (Cambridge, 1980). 52 Thesaurus Theologicus: Or, A Complete System of Divinity: Summ’d up in Brief Notes upon Select Places of the Old and New Testament. Wherein The Sacred Text is Reduc’d under proper Heads, Explain’d, and Illustrated with the Opinions and Authorities of the Ancient Fathers, Councils, &c (London, 1710–1711). 53 Durham, Durham University Library, shelfmark Bamburgh C.5.45–48. 54 John Sharp’s manuscript sermons are held in Durham Cathedral Library, reference code: GB-0036-SHS. No. 3 p. 33 quotes from Beveridge’s paraphrase of Biblical quotations about charity to the poor: ‘Not to merit thereby from God. But for his Honour and Glory, Prov. iii. 9. I Cor. X. 31’ (Beveridge, Thesaurus, vol. 2, p. 86). 55 [William Enfield], The Preacher’s Directory; Or a Series of Subjects Proper for Public Discourses, With Texts under Each Head: To Which is Added a Supplement, Containing Select Passages from the Apocrypha (London, 1771), p. vii. 56 La Bibliothèque des Prédicateurs. Tome seizième. Contenant trois tables, Pour faciliter l’usage de tout l’Ouvrage: La Première marque des Desseins & des Matériaux pour tous les

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consisted in the fact that the data was laid out in order to follow the Catholic lectionary for Sundays, as well as for the two preaching seasons of Advent and Lent. Houdry systematically anchored his sermon topics in the lessons for the day. Each subject was illustrated by bilingual excerpts from Scripture and the Fathers, as well as extracts from modern preachers. However, Fénelon’s third dialogue repeated his distaste for detached passages taken out of their contexts.57 The Catholic archbishop of Cambrai shared with Glanvill and his contemporaries a mistrust of the ‘false eloquence’ due to the pedantry of such preachers as would show off their erudition or ‘extort from’ texts ‘that […] which they never intended’.58 Such ostentation was usually condemned as ‘affectation’, in contrast with the plain style that was now being advocated on both sides of the Channel. Besides, far-fetched ‘fooling with’59 the Biblical text amounted to ‘abusing the Word of God’60 – a serious crime, not only in a Protestant background where the principle of sola scriptura prevailed of course, but also in postTridentine Catholicism, since the Counter-Reformation had led, inter alia, to the rediscovery of the ministry of the word. 2. Dispositio As Trim (one of the characters in Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy) well knew, the introductory Scripture quotation was the hallmark of homiletic literature: ‘ ’tis more like a sermon, – for it begins, with a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse; – and then goes on, […] – like a sermon directly’.61 The choice of a suitable ‘text’ was therefore of paramount importance. Lawson recommended that the selection of a short Biblical passage take place as soon as the subject had been decided on, before the composition of the sermon:

Dimanches de l’Année, pour tous les jours du Carême, & pour les Fêtes ou Mysteres de NôtreSeigneur & de Nôtre-Dame. La Seconde marque plusieurs Desseins avec les Matériaux pour des Avents. La Troisième est une Table générale par ordre Alphabétique, pour toutes les matieres de chaque Tome (Lyon, 1721), vol. 16 of La Bibliothèque des prédicateurs, qui contient les principaux sujets de la morale chrétienne, mis par ordre alphabétique (Paris, 1712). 57 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 58, and Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 83. 58 Glanvill, Essay, p. 43. 59 Glanvill, Essay, p. 43. 60 Glanvill, Essay, p. 41. 61 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman ([York], 1760 [sic; 1759]), book 2, chapter 15; eds. Melvyn and Joan New (Gainesville, 1978–1984), p. 138.

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françoise deconinck-brossard When you have thus fixed upon a Subject, your next Care should be, to chuse a proper Text. […] For the Discourse should be the Text unfolded, the Text should be the Discourse in Abstract: They should be as the Seed and Plant; which latter is the Seed drawn out by Nutriment, and organised in its just and full dimensions.62

Long before the word had been coined, intertextuality lay at the core of pulpit eloquence, not only in Protestant churches, but also among Catholic authors of prescriptive literature. In Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, the character designated by the letter A criticizes a fashionable preacher’s sorry choice of an inappropriate text for an Ash Wednesday sermon: When the preacher chose for his text the words, ‘For I have eaten ashes like bread’, ought he to have contented himself merely with finding a verbal affinity between that text and today’s ceremony? Should he not have begun by understanding the true sense of the text before he applied it to his subject?63

Perhaps this is another instance of the possible misuse of concordances! Instead of selecting his text from the lectionary,64 the preacher had superficially linked an inappropriate verse65 with the liturgy of the day. The emphasis on the adequate use of Scripture is thus probably embedded with a concern for the respect of tradition. Indeed, other Catholic commentators also underlined the need to refer to extra-scriptural sources of authority. The famous French Oratorian Bernard Lamy (1640–1715), wrongly associated by his English translators with the Jansenist school of PortRoyal, explained in the final chapter to the 1688 revision of his treatise La Rhétorique ou l’art de parler, originally published in 1675, that preachers should lean on the tradition handed down in the Councils and the Fathers.66 Claude Fleury (1640–1723), the former preceptor to the Princes of Conty, drew up a similar agenda: 62

Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, pp. 372–373. Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 59; Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 4. 64 E.g. Gen. 3:19: ‘for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’. 65 Ps. 102:9 in the Authorised Version. 66 ‘Les principes sur lesquels s’appuient les prédicateurs, ce sont l’Ecriture, la tradition, les passages des conciles et des Pères qui nous ont conservé cette tradition’, p. 524 in Bernard Lamy, La Rhétorique ou l’art de parler, ed. Benoît Timmermans (Paris, 1998). A translation of the first edition appeared in London as early as 1676: The Art of Speaking: Written in French by Messieurs du Port Royal: In Pursuance of a Former Treatise, Intituled, The Art of Thinking. Rendred into English. Subsequent translations were published in 1696 and 1708, while Lamy himself constantly revised his text until his death in 1715. A copy of the 1685 French edition, hence without the chapter on ‘ecclesiastical discourses, or sermons’, was 63

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A Clergy-man ought to […] Catechize, […] To make Familiar Exhortations, accommodated to the Capacity of the Auditours: To hear Confessions, and give Wholsom Advice. A Vertuous and Zealous Priest may do all this, without Reading any thing but the Holy Scripture, the Catechism, the Council, the Instructions of his Ritual, some Sermons of St. Augustin, or other Moral Book of some of the Fathers, which shall happen to fall into his hands. This is that which may be said to be necessary, in the matter of Ecclesiastical Studies.67

Interestingly enough, the translator confessed in the preface to the reader that he had hesitated to give a literal rendering of such an overtly Catholic text, for fear that it might disturb an English audience: [He] Advises his Priest to Read the Trent Catechism, and Council, and Romish Ritual. These and such like Characteristicks of his Communion, I thought once to have accommodated to the English Church; […] But upon second Thoughts, I judged it more suitable with a Translation, to let these Passages go unaltered: Since the Weakest are in no danger of being harmed by them; and the Wiser will only conclude from them, that Custom and Education, in some things are apt to prevail over the Judgements of the most Reasonable Men.68

The adjective ‘reasonable’ conveyed the idea that enlightened readers were expected to set aside any anti-Catholic prejudice in order to recognize the good qualities of the treatise. Remarkable though it may seem, such an open-minded approach was probably not an isolated phenomenon. A vast body of evidence may lead to the conclusion that devotional literature and religious books circulated widely in European ecclesiastical circles, across national borders and denominational frontiers. The links between the Wesley brothers and Continental spirituality have long been documented, for instance, but much more information suggests that Catholic works were not banned at all from English ecclesiastical libraries. After all, tractates on the methodology of preaching dealt with more technical than doctrinal matters. It should therefore come as no surprise to find a copy of Claude Fleury’s treatise, in the original French, in the Sharps’

used in 1748 by Thomas Sharp Jr. at Trinity College, Cambridge (Durham, Durham University Library, shelfmark Bamburgh O.8.46). 67 The History, Choice, and Method of Studies By Monsieur Fleury, Sometime Preceptor to the Princes of Conty, Monsieur D’Vermandois, and to the Dukes of Burgoyne and Anjou, trans. D. Poplar (London, 1695). 68 Fleury, The History, Choice, and Method of Studies, “Preface to the reader”, n.p.

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library.69 To a certain extent, the durability of pulpit oratory prevailed over theological controversies. This may also partly explain why works dating back to the latter half of the seventeenth century still played an influential part all through the eighteenth century. There is evidence, for instance, that a copy of the second edition (1703) of Joseph Glanvill’s Essay concerning preaching, first published in 1678, was used by a Henry Briggs (1687?–1748) and subsequently acquired in 1751 by Thomas Sharp Jr.70 Similarly, the posthumous treatise on the composition of a sermon by the French Protestant minister Jean Claude (1619–1687)71 was still being printed in translation a century after its publication.72 Likewise, The Method of Good Preaching, Being the Advice of a French Reform’d Minister [Philippe Delmé] to his Son [Elias Delmé] was published in English half a century after the former’s death.73 That the translator might have been James Owen, the famous champion of Dissent in Manchester (1654–1706), suggests the possible existence of international religious networks. On both sides of the denominational divide, and on both sides of the Channel, the sermon appeared as a kind of extended commentary on a selected Biblical quotation. It was now ‘universally established’74 to head the sermon with a single verse rather than a longer passage from Scripture. Both Lawson and Lamy observed that such a method had been ‘introduced very late’.75 Fénelon looked back nostalgically to ‘the ancient custom’ of explaining ‘the holy books one after the other’,76 which allowed the preacher to expound on ‘the interconnections of the doctrines of Scripture’,77 instead of choosing a single verse known as ‘the text’.78

69 Claude Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études (Paris, 1675; 1687), in the library of Thomas Sharp Sr. Durham, Durham University Library, shelfmark Bamburgh D.3.54. 70 Durham, Durham University Library, shelfmark Bamburgh N.8.42. 71 Traité de la composition d’un sermon, in Les Œuvres posthumes de Mr. Claude (Amsterdam, 1688) I. 72 Jean Claude, An Essay on the Composition of a Sermon. Translated from the Original French of the Revd. John Claude, Minister of the French Reformed Church at Charenton. With Notes, by Robert Robinson (Cambridge, 1778; 3rd ed. London, 1788). 73 [Philippe Delmé (†1653)], The Method of Good Preaching, Being the Advice of a French Reform’d Minister to his Son. Translated out of French, into English (London, 1701), p. 7. 74 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 373. 75 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 372. 76 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 134. 77 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 133. 78 Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 83.

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However, the Oxford English Dictionary identifies the first instance of this acceptation of the word ‘text’ in 1377, long before the Protestant Reformation, when such sections of Scripture were still cited in Latin.79 Not only did the selected excerpt have to be clearly connected with the occasion on which the sermon was preached, but it was also advisable to keep it short: ‘Chuse out one […] of moderate Length, so as not to puzzle the Attention, or burthen the Memory of the Hearer’.80 Such advice conveys the awareness of the fact that the sermon relies heavily on the audience’s aural memory. Many rules given by tractates on preaching derived from this principle, underlined by Thomas Sharp Sr: The grand Maxim, by which we are to be guided in all those Compositions which are distinguished by the name of Sermons, is this, viz. That they are verbal Instructions, designed to be taken by the ears of the persons instructed, and are not originally formed to be read by their eyes: Therefore, if not understood at first hearing, are good for nothing.81

Even though many eighteenth-century sermons were fully written out and some eventually went into print, the orality of the genre, at the crossroads between literature and oratory,82 was of paramount importance. Whether artes praedicandi dealt with invention, disposition, or elocution, they always emphasized the ephemeral nature of the spoken word, hence the need for clarity and mnemonic devices. Once the Biblical text had been read out, the introduction could explain the context of the quotation. However, Doddridge tried to teach his students at the Northampton Academy that, contrary to a much ingrained preaching habit, contextualisation need not be automatic in the exposition of the theme. Here as elsewhere, the Independent minister advocated variety: How shall the sermon begin? Let it not be always with mentioning the context, though it may sometimes be allowed, or indeed necessary. Use a variety

79 http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50250103?query_type=word&queryword=text &first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=5qbn-7fRY8x-7149&result _place=2 [last consulted 27 September 2006]. 80 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 375. 81 Thomas Sharp, First Discourses on Preaching, Or, Directions Towards Attaining the Best Manner of Discharging the Duties of the Pulpit: Delivered, in Three Visitation-Charges (London, 1757; 3rd ed. 1787), p. 12. 82 I am grateful to Jennifer Farooq for sending me a copy of the paper that she read on “The Eighteenth-Century Sermon in Oral and Literate Culture” at the 2006 conference of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

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françoise deconinck-brossard of exordia; sometimes, by scripture stories; sometimes by quotations and allusions; sometimes, by similes; at others, by a weighty, laconic sentence, and sometimes, fall directly upon your subject, especially when it is so copious that you will be in danger of exceeding the time.83

Of course, the word exordium denotes the classical training that most prospective preachers were given in an age when Latin was still the international language of communication in the Republic of Letters.84 Besides, Doddridge’s recommendations always partook of the baroque85 aesthetics of surprise that suited the needs of oral discourse particularly well. The idea that a sermon lasted for a customary length of time is also noteworthy. There is scattered evidence that as the eighteenth-century went by, the allotted time in England became close to half an hour, whereas in the early seventeenth-century sermons had been twice as long.86 In a critical review of pulpit literature, for instance, Thomas Weales, dean of St. Sepulchre’s, remarked: ‘It is really a penance to listen to a discourse of half an hour long, which proves nothing, and says nothing’.87 Similarly, John Sharp’s preaching register at the beginning of each manuscript shows that, when he timed his sermons, they averaged under thirty minutes. Perhaps the hour-glass in William Hogarth’s famous engraving of The Sleeping Congregation is to be construed as a satirical detail. After the preamble, the preacher was advised to outline the main propositions drawn from the text under distinct heads, and even sometimes to repeat the plan, in order to make the structure of the sermon very clear to the congregation: ‘Give the plan twice, as briefly as possible, and the review. This makes Tillotson so clear. A few moments thus employed are well spent. Let your hearers always perceive where you are; and be upon your guard against long digressions’.88 Thus, repetition, brevity, and

83

Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 55. Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, apologised p. 21 for publishing his lectures in English. 85 Lessenich uses this word when he refers to the sophisticated rhetoric of John Donne or Lancelot Andrewes, in contrast with the post-Restoration ‘neoclassical’ approach: Elements of Pulpit Oratory, p. 1. In view of the recurrent comparisons in artes praedicandi between homiletics and music (see infra), I would like to use the word here in a rather loose acceptation closer to the definition used by musicologists: cf. Marc Fumaroli’s preface to the second edition of Victor-L. Tapié’s Baroque et classicisme (Paris, 1980; 2000). 86 Peter Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory, p. 16. Indeed, Philippe Delmé the elder (†1653) had mentioned ‘the hour allotted’: The Method of Good Preaching, p. 5. 87 Thomas Weales, The Christian Orator Delineated. In Three Parts ([London], 1778), p. 91. 88 Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 51. 84

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conciseness resulted from the perception of preaching as an oral art. The reference to Tillotson firmly placed this recommendation within the framework of the plain method of preaching that had been introduced after the Restoration in 1660. A hundred years later, Hugh Blair looked back on this radical revolution in pulpit oratory: During the period that preceded the restoration of King Charles II. the sermons of the English divines abounded with scholastic casuistical theology […] Upon the Restoration, preaching assumed a more correct and polished form. It became disencumbered from the pedantry and scholastic divisions of the sectaries; but it threw out also their warm and pathetic Addresses, and established itself wholly upon the model of cool reasoning, and rational instruction; […] hence that argumentative manner, bordering on the dry and unpersuasive, which is too generally the character of English Sermons.89

Undeniably, the Restoration marked a watershed in the history of English pulpit literature, with the development of a new taste for ‘plainness of preaching’,90 which implied simplicity of construction and sobriety of style akin to the scientific prose recommended by the Royal Society. The eighteenth-century sermon was characterised by division into fewer parts and subheadings than the elaborate compositions of former Puritan homiletics or metaphysical preachers. Although the theologian and natural philosopher John Wilkins had pioneered the call for plain style, and although his Ecclesiastes, (1646), which had already reached its fifth corrected and enlarged edition in 1669,91 kept being reprinted through the eighteenth century, to a certain extent he still referred to a preaching method that soon became obsolete.92 The complexity of his diagram of the ‘chief parts of a Sermon’ arguably represents the transition from Puritan division and subdivision to the post-Restoration plain style (figure 1).93

89

Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, II, pp. 325–327. Glanvill, Essay, p. 25. 91 John Wilkins, Ecclesiastes, or, A Discourse Concerning the Gift of Preaching as it Fals under the Rules of Art. Shewing the Most Proper Rules and Directions, for Method, Invention, Books, Expression, Whereby a Minister may be Furnished with such Abilities as may Make him a Workman that Needs not to be Ashamed. Very Seasonable for these Times, wherein the Harvest is Great, and the Skilful Labourers but Few (London: 1646). 92 Barbara J. Shapiro argues in John Wilkins 1614–1672: An Intellectual Biography (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1969), p. 72 that Wilkins ‘belongs to the school of sermon construction that divides and subdivides, although he warns against excessive subdivision’. 93 John Wilkins, Ecclesiastes, pp. 5–7. Tabulation marks and bulleted lists have replaced the brackets used by Wilkins’s printer. Barbara J. Shapiro remarks that Wilkins’s ‘formidable looking diagrams’ are ‘really quite simple’: John Wilkins, p. 273. 90

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Strangely enough, French pulpit oratory also underwent a complete transformation in the latter half of the seventeenth century, although the historical context differed considerably. Thus Houdry stated in his preface that the method of sermon composition had changed since the 1650s.94 Indeed, under the influence of Vincent de Paul (1581–1660), whose ‘small method’ of preaching emphasized apostolic simplicity in order to reach even the poorest listener,95 the mannerism, erudition and scholasticism that had infiltrated French Catholic sermons in the first few decades of the seventeenth century gave way to a plainer style. The parallel evolution of pulpit oratory in France and England is so striking that some historians have been tempted to wonder whether the English taste for plain preaching may have been partly influenced by contemporary French homiletics.96 After all, many Royalist clergymen had accompanied Charles II in exile in France, where they would have had the opportunity to sample French classicism. Indeed, in his Directions concerning preachers (1662), Charles II encouraged the new style of preaching.97 Conversely, immigrant Huguenot ministers, especially after the 1685 revocation of the edict of Nantes, brought the Reformed homiletic tradition with them.98 Besides, the widespread circulation of European sermon literature across geographical and denominational borders has already been noticed. There is much evidence that English divines and students in theology were well versed in Continental homiletics. Lawson had copies of Fénelon, Lamy, Le Faucheur99 and Rollin on his bookshelves. Of course,

94

La Bibliothèque des prédicateurs, vol. 1, preface, n.p.: ‘en France […] la méthode de composer des sermons est change, & tout autre qu’elle n’étoit il n’y a pas plus de cinquante ans’. Elsewhere, his definition of ancients and moderns specifies that the turning point was the mid-seventeenth century: ‘le milieu du siècle passé’ vol. 1, p. xj. 95 Vincent de Paul, “Conférence du 20 août 1655”, Entretiens, ed. Pierre Coste (Paris, 1924), vol. 11, pp. 274 and 286, quoted in Bossuet, Sermons: Le Carême du Louvre, ed. Constance Cagnat-Deboeuf (Paris, 2001), p. 9. 96 Liliane Gallet-Blanchard, “La Rhétorique et les rhétoriciens au dix-huitième siècle en Grande-Bretagne: Fondements et fondateurs de la stylistique”, thèse pour le doctorat ès-lettres, dir. Paul-Gabriel Boucé (Université de Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1984), vol. 2, pp. 331–380. 97 A Letter of the Kings most Excellent Majesty, to the Most Reverend Father in God, William Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury. To Which are Adjoyned His Majesties Directions Concerning Preachers ([Dublin]: London, 1662). 98 In Huguenot Heritage: The History and Contribution of the Huguenots in Britain (London and New York: 1985), Robin D. Gwynn underlines both the ‘cross-fertilisation of ideas’ due to the fact that ‘the refugees diffused French thought in England’ (p. 85), and the complex process of assimilation (chapter 10). 99 The treatise by the French Protestant Michel Le Faucheur (1585–1657), Traitté de l’action de l’orateur, ou de la prononciation et du geste (Paris, 1657), had been anonymously

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such a web of mutual influences is not, by far, the only explanation for the development of plain style in post-Restoration England. The fact remains nonetheless that the age of the neoclassic sermon was a very long eighteenth century indeed on both sides of the Channel, from approximately 1660 to 1815. One of the only differences in the rules of composition was that French Catholic preachers had become used to inserting an Ave Maria into the exordium, either before or after the division into points.100 Lamy claimed that the custom had first been introduced in order to differentiate between Catholic and ‘heretical’ sermons,101 which seems to confirm the idea that they were otherwise very similar. Actually, the practice dated back to the sixteenth century and went out of fashion in the late 1680s,102 maybe partly because it made the orator devise an artificial link between his chosen topic and the angelic salutation to the Virgin.103 Like character B in Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, late seventeenth-century polite company praised the skill of an ingenious transition,104 but the spokesman for the author’s viewpoint is interlocutor A, who criticizes the affectation of ‘fine preaching’ in the same terms as many contemporary treatises.

translated as An Essay upon the Action of an Orator; as to his Pronunciation & Gesture. Useful both for Divines and Lawyers, and Necessary for all Young Gentlemen, that Study how to Speak well in Publick. Done out of French (London, [1680?]); the second edition was published with a slightly different title: The Art of Speaking in Publick: or an Essay on the Action of an Orator; as to his Pronunciation and Gesture. Useful in the Senate or Theatre, the Court, the Camp, as well as the Bar and Pulpit (London, 1727; 1750). 100 Lamy, La Rhétorique ou l’art de parler, p. 521: ‘On propose d’abord ce sujet; et pour le traiter comme il le doit être, on demande les lumières du Saint Esprit par l’intercession de la Vierge, qu’on salue en récitant l’Ave Maria. Ensuite on partage son discours en deux ou trois points, auxquels on rapporte tout ce que l’on a à dire. Il y en a qui font ce partage avant l’Ave Maria, après lequel tous commencent à expliquer leur premier point’. 101 Lamy, La Rhétorique ou l’art de parler, p. 521: ‘On remarque qu’on commença de faire cette prière à la naissance des dernières hérésies, pour distinguer les prédications des catholiques d’après les prêches des hérétiques’. In one of his earliest sermons, preached at Metz in 1653, Bossuet had explained the introduction of this ‘pious custom’ as an antiprotestant move: “Panégyrique de Saint Bernard”, in Œuvres oratoires vol. 1, pp. 395–396, quoted in Sermons: Le Carême du Louvre, p. 316. 102 Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 1241, n. 3. However, the custom seems to have survived in manuscript Catholic sermons preached in eighteenth-century colonial Maryland by Jesuit priests who had almost all received their homiletic training at Liège: see Joseph C. Linck, Fully Instructed and Vehemently Influenced: Catholic Preaching in Anglo-Colonial America (Philadelphia, 2002), p. 40. 103 La Bruyère: ‘il n’y a pas si longtemps qu’ils avaient des chutes ou des transitions ingénieuses, quelquefois même si vives et si aiguës qu’elles pouvaient passer pour épigrammes’, § 5 in “De la Chaire”, Les Caractères ou Les Mœurs de ce Siècle (8th ed., 1694), in Œuvres complètes, ed. Julien Brenda (Paris, 1951), p. 437. 104 Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 4; Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 58.

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Where Catholic and Protestant preachers may have parted, however, was in the choice of themes that they dealt with. However, Lawson had reservations about the introduction of anti-Catholic polemics in Englishspeaking sermons: Points of Controversy among Christians should not be altogether shut out from the Pulpit, those especially which subsist between us and the Church of Rome, whose Doctrines are the most grosly erroneous; and besides, involve Danger to the State. But the Treatment of these is difficult. […] Your Arguments should be simple, yet strong; drawn from Scripture, or plain Reason; not embarrassed with historical Deductions, or the Erudition of Quotations, or the Perplexity of numerous Objections and solved; for you do not write to Readers, but speak to be understood. And what is perhaps the hardest Part, you are to preserve the due Mean: […] shew the Heinousness of the Mistakes, without raising Abhorrence of the Mistaken; […] and join the Moderation of a Christian with the Vehemence of an Orator.105

The keyword of ‘moderation’ in this remarkably tolerant passage is in keeping with all the other neoclassic rules about plain preaching. The orality of the genre implied that controversial arguments remain ‘simple’. Even the appeal to reason, combined with the authority of Scripture in a phrase that was typical of the English Enlightenment, was described as ‘plain’. While Lawson was reluctantly prepared to include anti-Catholic controversy in the English pulpit on the grounds that Popery represented a genuine political threat, he hesitated about the relevance of intra-protestant polemic against nonconformists: As to the Articles in Dispute between us and our dissenting Brethren, these, if to be at all admitted; should be reserved for a masterly Hand. In Points of Difference which affect not Essentials, Prudence, as well as Religion, directeth to sweeten and reconcile Mens Spirits on both Sides; […] And most skilful and happy is the Preacher, who can open such Wounds with a Touch so delicate, as to asswage rather than enflame.106

Many denominational differences related to matters that had been referred to since the sixteenth century as adiaphora or ‘indifferent things’. Therefore they needed to be handled with so much sensitivity that they could be regarded as almost incompatible with plain preaching. This is probably the reason why Glanvill felt that ‘the Doctrines that are speculative and nice should be let alone’.107 Simplicity of composition could only apply 105 106 107

Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, pp. 369–370. Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 370. Glanvill, Essay, p. 29.

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to equally simple topics. Glanvill recommended four major subjects: ‘Explications and vindications of the Attributes of God, especially of his Goodness’,108 ‘the Reasonableness of Religion, both in the principles and duties of it’,109 the ‘necessity of an holy life’,110 and ‘Universal Charity’.111 He considered such moral and religious subjects as ‘most sutable to the Exigencies of the Age’.112 However, Lawson and Blair, among others, later remarked on the difficulty of dealing with points of morality, ‘the most trite of all Subjects’.113 Therefore pulpit eloquence required more skilful presentation than forensic oratory – a commonplace idea from La Bruyère to Blair: ‘it is easier to rise to Indifference in Preaching, than in Pleading; more difficult to arrive at Excellence’.114 3. Style The main difference between pulpit oratory and other forms of public discourse lay precisely in the fact that the purpose of a sermon was ‘edification’.115 Plainness of preaching implied simple eloquence, as ‘opposed to affected Rhetorick’.116 Even though the classical definition of literature as a combination of instruction and entertainment (utile dulci) always lurked in the background, neoclassic artes praedicandi often emphasized usefulness more than pleasure. Most rules about style and delivery derived from this basic principle, and aimed at recommending what might be called an anti-rhetorical form of eloquence. Stylistic advice could begin with warnings against the complexity of compound sentences. Thomas Sharp, for instance, recommended that beginners focus on short clauses: ‘Long Sentences, in Sermons, to be avoided as much as possible. They are too large for the swallow of ordinary capacities. But, break them into three or four distinct sentences, and they will all easily be taken down, and all will become food’.117 In a similarly paradoxically anti-Ciceronian approach, Doddridge advocated the use of parataxis 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

Glanvill, Essay, p. 29. Glanvill, Essay, p. 31. Glanvill, Essay, p. 32. Glanvill, Essay, p. 32 [sic; in fact 33]. Glanvill, Essay, p. 29. Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 371. Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 372. Glanvill, Essay, p. 21 [sic; in fact p. 12]. Glanvill, Essay, p. 20. Thomas Sharp, First Discourse on Preaching (London, 1757; 3rd ed. 1787), p. 13.

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rather than hypotaxis: ‘When a sentence grows too long, divide it. Affect not to confound the distinction between different periods and paragraphs by the perpetual use of connecting particles. Encumber not your discourse with the particles, ‘by how much, by so much, for as much as, furthermore, howbeit’, etc’.118 In order to make himself understood, the preacher was also advised to choose adequate syntactic structures, and to write in good continuous prose, without disrupting the natural word order: Never to keep a principal Word in a Sentence at a Distance, if it can be brought out early; or to express it otherwise, Never to leave the Hearer in Suspense to the very End of the Sentence, if you can let him into the meaning of it as you proceed in it. […] I know such-like Dislocations of principal words are common in writers, who use them as ornaments of language. But they do not suit with the style of the Pulpit; in which, I think, it is an universal Rule, that the Sentiment to be conveyed must never be hurt, or impaired, or obscured, for the sake of embellishing the Sentence that conveys it.119

Plain syntax structure would be of no use, however, if the vocabulary did not follow suit. From Glanvill and Fénelon to Swift, Doddridge, and Blair, there was a constant obsession with the need to avoid ‘hard words’, that is to say obscure, obsolete, foreign or rare terms. Given the nature of the English language, this rule implied that monosyllables of Anglo-Saxon origin would prevail over polysyllables derived from French, Latin or Greek roots. Like a modern-day scholar in lexicometry,120 the dean of St Patrick’s claimed that he had sampled the vocabulary used by a young preacher:

118 Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 40. Interestingly enough, the linguist Fiona Crake-Rossette has highlighted the prevalence of parataxis in a corpus of oral and written contemporary English: “Parataxe et connecteurs: Observations sur l’enchaînement des propositions en anglais contemporain”, thèse de doctorat soutenue devant l’université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, dir. Pierre Cotte, 15 December 2003, 2 vols. Her dissertation abstract argues that ‘connecting items are superfluous to the understanding of the text’ and that ‘with fewer words more can in fact be communicated’. Consequently the advice given to French twenty-first century undergraduates in her course on ‘public speaking’ is very similar to Doddridge’s recommendations to prospective preachers at the Northampton Academy, although she encourages students to use discourse markers and coordination in oral presentations: see the course description at [last consulted on 26 December 2006]. 119 Sharp, First Discourse on Preaching, p. 14. 120 As the name implies, lexicometry is a method based on the (computer-assisted) analysis of word frequencies. The standard textbook introduction is to be found in Ludovic Lebart and André Salem, Statistique textuelle (Paris, 1994).

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I have been curious enough to take a List several hundred Words in a Sermon of a new Beginner, which not one of his Hearers among a hundred could possibly understand. […] And upon this Account it is, that among hard Words, I number likewise those which are Peculiar to Divinity as it is a Science; because I observe several Clergymen otherwise little fond of obscure Terms, yet in their Sermons very liberal of all those which they find in Ecclesiastical Writers, as if it were our Duty to understand them; which I am sure it is not. And I defy the greatest Divine to produce any Law either of God or Man, which obliges me to comprehend the meaning of Omniscience, Omnipresence, Ubiquity, Attribute, Beatistic Vision, with a thousand others so frequent in Pulpits, any more than that of Excentrick, Idiosyncracy, Entity and the like!121

The problem with the ecclesiastical terminology satirized by Swift lay in the accumulation of abstract concepts cloaked in words of Latin or Greek origin. Even with such a Romance language as French, interlocutor A in Fénelon’s third dialogue on eloquence summarized the issue in a nutshell: ‘I knew an intelligent woman who said that preachers speak Latin in French’.122 However, Glanvill qualified the idea that Latinisms should always be shunned: You cannot think I intend to condemn all that are borrow’d from the Greek, Latin, or other more modern languages: No, the English is a mixed speech […] I therefore blame not all forreign words, provided common usage hath made them free of our language: […] but to affect outlandish words that have not yet receiv’d the publick stamp, and especially to do it, when the ordinary English will represent the thing as well; These are the hard words I condemn, and this is a vanity I think extreamly reprehensible in a Preacher.123

What mattered here as elsewhere was to keep a happy medium between two extremes, too many or too few Latinate terms. The same rule applied to technical words: ‘the Preacher should not employ more terms of art than need: Yea he should always avoid them, when they are not necessary’.124 Such recommendations viewed the ideal sermon as devoid of any lexical specificity, in order to address every single member of the congregation, without any distinction of class or gender: ‘the first [Fault] is the frequent use of obscure Terms, which by the Women are called Hard Words, and by

121 122 123 124

Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman, pp. 6–7. Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 121; Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 58. Glanvill, Essay, pp. 13–15. Glanvill, Essay, p. 17.

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the better sort of Vulgar, Fine Language’.125 Hence the legends about Tillotson testing his sermons on ‘an illiterate old woman of plain sense, who lived in the house with him’126 and erasing any word that she would not understand. Preaching was an art of communication in which the appropriate discursive register cultivated banality: ‘common Idioms of Speech are oftentimes the most proper and significant; nay, a mean, bald, blunt Expression is sometimes very becoming; a familiar Word or Saying very useful and seasonable’.127 The edification of the hearers implied that the orator level his language on the common lowest denominator, though not to the extent of reaching vulgarity: I observe in some mens Preaching a certain sordidness, which though ignorant people may like as plain, and familiar Preaching; yet ‘tis such a familiarity as begets contempt. […] Plainness is the best Character of Speech, especially in a Sermon, but not that which is Bluntness, this degenerates into sordidness, and rusticity.128

In a very hierarchical society, the perfect preacher had to be aware of ‘the Difference between elaborate Discourses upon important Occasions, delivered to Princes or Parliaments, written with a view of being made Publick, and a plain sermon intended for the Middle or lower Size of People’.129 The sermon as a genre could be divided into many sub-genres, defined not only by subject-matter, but also by social categories of auditors. This may partly explain why Letsome’s catalogue included a list of abbreviations referring to the audience of occasional sermons, preached before the King and/or Queen, the Lords or Commons, the Duke of Marlborough, the Lord Mayor, Convocation, Lord Justices, or the University, but also before blacks, criminals, debtors, free masons, officers, physicians, young persons, Bristol merchants, or the Society of Cutlers.130

125

Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman, p. 6. George Campbell, Lectures on Systematic Theology and Pulpit Eloquence (London, 1807), pp. 304–305, quoted in Lessenich, p. 17. 127 Cuthbert Ellison, What Will this Babler Say, In two Sermons, on Acts xvii. And 18. preach’d in St. Nicholas’s Church, Newcastle, before the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, Sheriff, and Common-Council, November 6 (London, 1748), p. 11. 128 Glanvill, Essay, pp. 77–78. 129 Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman, p. 9. 130 Letsome’s list and use of abbreviations is inconsistent, probably because it was compiled manually, but a query in my version of the Preacher’s Assistant, which was first digitized in the days when computers only read upper-case data transcripts, produced the following results, arranged in alphabetical order: b. physicians, b. prince of w., b.asso.of min., b.so.of cutlers, b.soc.of yg per, bef. an execut., bef. army, bef. cns., bef. criminals, bef. debtors, bef. k. & q., bef. king, bef. l. justices, bef. physicians, bef. qn., bef. 126

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The preacher had to adjust his language to the requirements of each distinct audience. Hence the recurrent idea that young clergymen could practise in country parishes before they started addressing more refined urban congregations. Conversely, the congregation’s duties were not always neglected. Thus, the highly Calvinistic John Edwards devoted the latter part of his second discourse to the manner of attending sermons.131 Reverence, diligence, understanding, faith, humility, patience, application and delight were required from the listeners. Drowsiness or wandering thoughts would hinder their concentration and prevent them from memorizing later what they had heard, in order to practise what had been preached, for ultimately the benefit of sermon attendance was not only edification, but eternal happiness. Taken to extremes in a kind of reductio ad absurdum, prescriptions for plain preaching thus almost defined the impossible task of writing without style. The idea needs qualification. The heated debate that took place in Protestant and Catholic Europe, from the middle of seventeenth century onwards, about the acceptable amount of rhetoric in pulpit oratory132 should not be oversimplified. Critics of ‘fashionable’ eloquence who advocated more ‘evangelical’ or ‘apostolic’ homiletics, like the Portuguese Jesuit Antonio Vieira (1608–1697) or the Capuchin Albert de Paris,133 usually lamented the abuse of rhetoric that changed sermons into entertainment. La Bruyère’s famous aphorism that ‘Christian discourse has become a stage

university, bef.artil.co., bef.brist.merc., bef.d.marlb., bef.debtors, bef.fr.mas., bef. goldsm., bef.great audi., bef.l., bef.l.jan., bef.l.may, bef.l.mayor, bef.merchts., bef.q., bef.queen, bef.university, before blacks, before convoc., before cs., before officers, before parliam., before synod. 131 John Edwards, The Preacher. The Second Part. A Discourse, Shewing, I. What Particular Doctrines ought to be Preached by the Dispensers of the Gospel. II. That these Doctrines are generally neglected, or (which is most usual) preached against. III. What are the Causes of this Neglect and Opposition. IV. What are the Dreadful Consequences hereof. With Continued Advice to Students in Divinity, And to Young Preachers. To which is Annexed, The Hearer: Or a brief Discourse, Shewing what are the Qualifications that are Required in those Persons who would Receive Benefit and Advantage by Hearing the Word Preached (London, 1707), p. 185 and following pages. 132 Jean-Pierre Landry, “Bourdaloue face à la querelle de l’éloquence sacrée”, XVIIe siècle 143 (avril-juin 1984), 133–139, and Jacques Truchet, La Prédication de Bossuet: Etude des Thèmes (Paris, 1960), vol.1, pp. 54–63. The debate was echoed in Bossuet’s sermon on the word of God, first preached in 1661 and re-used in a Lenten sermon in 1665: “Quelle part peut donc avoir l’éloquence dans les discours chrétiens [?]”, Sermon sur la parole de Dieu (extraits), in Sermons: Le Carême du Louvre, p. 303. 133 His treatise, La Véritable manière de prêcher selon l’esprit de l’évangile, was published in 1691.

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performance’,134 and his depiction of the ‘characters’ of urbane preachers are well-known. Beyond social satire, what was at stake was the age-old problem of how to strike a delicate balance between the three aims of rhetoric: instruction (docere), persuasion (movere), and delight (delectare). While ‘evangelical’ theorists like Bourdaloue argued that excessive ornamentation ran the risk of cloaking truth, other orators maintained that a moderate use of rhetoric would enhance the sermon. From an Augustinian approach, eloquence could even be interpreted as a necessary evil that would appeal to the perverted taste of fallen man. Without going to such extremes, many English treatises on the art of preaching recommended a moderate use of rhetoric. Pulpit oratory was not only a medium of communication, but also an art of persuasion: ‘Every Sermon should be a persuasive Oration’.135 It was generally agreed, especially in the former half of the long eighteenth century, that it would be impossible to influence human beings without appealing to their ‘passions’. Even in Britain where the philosophical outlook tended to be more Lockean than Cartesian, the word referred to a wide range of emotional or mental states136 – or, to use a contemporary definition, ‘certain Motions of the Mind depending upon and accompanied with an Agitation of the Spirits’.137 However rational the congregation may have been, they would only be affected by representations of emotions or feelings, as Pope suggested: ‘The ruling Passion conquers Reason still’.138 Therefore plain preaching could not be completely devoid of rhetoric: When setting to work, ask yourselves such questions as these […]. What passions are to be raised, and what figures of speech are to be used? […] What strain of preaching is most suited to the subject in general, and to select parts in particular?139

In a kind of grammar of affections, tropes and figures of speech could thus become figures of passion.140 The orator would represent emotions in such a way as to move the hearers and ‘raise’ their feelings. Far from being 134

La Bruyère, Œuvres complètes, p. 436: ‘Le discours chrétien est devenu un spectacle’. Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres II, p. 304. 136 Descartes, Les Passions de l’âme (Paris, Amsterdam, 1649). 137 John Norris (1657–1711), A Treatise Concerning Christian Prudence: Or the Principles of Practical Wisdom, Fitted to the Use of Human Life, and Design’d for the Better Regulation of it (London, 1710), p. 323. 138 Alexander Pope, Of the Use of Riches, an Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst (London [Edinburgh], 1732 [1733]), l. 9. 139 Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 29. 140 See the catalogue to an exhibition that investigated the aesthetics of affect in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Figures de la passion (Paris, 2001). 135

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superfluous, ornamentation therefore served a purpose, provided moderation tempered quantity: Let not your discourses be too bare, but prudently interspersed with figures. When too many, they are like flowery weeds growing among corn, which render the prospect more pleasing to the eye, but hinder the growth; or like painted glass; yet moderately used, they exhilarate the mind, and fasten on the memory.141

4. Memory Whether the author just cited referred to the preacher’s or the audience’s memory is not obvious. Not only did preaching manuals repeatedly comment on the oral nature of the sermon, but they also debated whether homilists should learn their discourse by heart, in order to avoid the two extremes of extemporisation and ‘Book-utterance’,142 if Lawson’s neologism may be used to describe the habit of reading out from a full script. The latter method was well established in the Church of England. Like Lawson and Burnet, Blair believed this was a British specificity: ‘The practice of reading Sermons, is one of the greatest obstacles to the Eloquence of the Pulpit in Great Britain, where alone this practice prevails’.143 Not all English preachers, however, answered the description. When Doddridge advised students to learn how to distance themselves from their prepared text or to use only brief notes, he was faithful to the long tradition of improvisation in the nonconformist pulpit: Let your delivery be free, that is, above the servile use of notes. Do not read every word, nor be afraid to change a clause, or to add a sentence which may rise suddenly, and be as useful and frequently as graceful as any. To be able to preach without notes raises a man’s character.144

However moderate such advice may have been, extemporaneous delivery still smacked of sectarian ‘enthusiasm’ and recalled the fanaticism of mid-seventeenth century England. Later in the century, the Methodist movement revived the Dissenting tradition of spontaneous delivery. In mainstream churches however, the fully written sermon was the norm, so memorisation represented one possible alternative to reading:

141 142 143 144

Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, pp. 41–42. Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 417. Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres II, p. 321. Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 63.

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There is indeed evidence that the generation of Tillotson were expected to deliver their sermons memoriter, though the practice went out of fashion even before his death.146 Likewise Fénelon’s criticism of the potential drawbacks of such a habit suggests that French Catholic homilists too were used to memorizing their sermons: ‘As long as one preaches by heart and often, one will fall into [the] difficulty’ of overburdening one’s memory.147 5. Delivery Once memorization and improvization had been ruled out, good reading technique had to be developed. First of all, it was essential to read from a fair copy, with characters large enough for the orator to see them from an appropriate distance, and thus give the audience the illusion that he was preaching without notes: his Method was to write the whole Sermon in a large plain Hand, with all the Forms of Margin, Paragraph, marked Page, and the like; […] and when he deliver’d it, by pretending to turn his Face from one Side to the other, he would (in his own Expression) pick up the Lines, and cheat his People by making them believe he had it all by Heart.148

The method had the advantage of allowing the speaker to keep eye contact with the audience, a basic skill in the art of communication, for ‘a single glance thrown to good purpose will strike to the depths of the heart’,149 and a preacher keeping his eyes closed150 makes the listener feel uncomfortable. 145

Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman, p. 15. David D. Brown quotes an anonymous letter sent in March 1753, according to which Dr Maynard, Tillotson’s immediate successor in Lincolns Inn, reported that the Archbishop ‘had always writt every word, before he preached it, but used to gett it by heart, till he found, that it heated his head so much, a day or two before & after he preached, that he was forced to leave it off ’ and the same Dr Maynard also stated ‘that Dr Wake, at the same time Preacher at Grays Inn, one day told him, that he was resolved to preach no longer without book, for everybody has now left it off, even Dr Tillotson’; see “The Text of John Tillotson’s Sermons”, The Library, 5th series, vol. 13 (1958), 27. 147 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 105; Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 44. 148 Swift, A Letter to a Young Gentleman, p. 16. 149 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 105; Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 44. 150 It has now been established that this detail did not actually allude to Bourdaloue: see Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 1249 n. 6 to p. 44. 146

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The most extreme example of this method of reading out from a full script is probably the advertisement by John Trusler, a rather eccentric Church of England clergyman, for a collection of ‘two hundred and fourteen’ engraved sermons imitating cursive handwriting ‘so large as to be read by any eye’.151 He assured prospective buyers, who wished to trick their congregations into believing that they read out their own texts, that such plagiarised documents ‘selected and compiled from the best authors’ were published in a limited edition with ‘only 400 copies of any one sermon’ sold privately without passing through the hands of the booksellers, ‘of course’. That he did find customers is evidenced by the British Library copy of a sermon ‘On domestic happiness’ at the end of which is a preaching calendar suggesting that it was used at least fourteen times.152 Large characters enabled preachers to keep their heads straight and project their voices properly: ‘You will observe some clergymen with their Heads held down from the beginning to the end, within an Inch of the Cushion, to read what is hardly legible; which, besides the untoward Manner, hinders them from making the best Advantage of their Voice’.153 The voice being the main tool of the preacher’s trade, prescriptive literature often gave sensible advice on pronunciation and delivery. Whether the orator chose to improvise or read out a prepared text, he needed to make himself heard properly. Once more, moderation was the key to finding a happy medium between the extremes of ‘excessive loudness in some periods, and […] unfit lowness in others’.154 Of the two faults, the founder of Methodism found that the latter was ‘more disagreeable than the former’.155 Whatever extreme the speaker’s voice was ‘naturally’ inclined to, it had to be corrected in ‘ordinary conversation’: ‘if it be too low, converse with those that are deaf: if too loud, with those who speak too loudly’.156 The headmaster of the Northampton Academy, who was well acquainted with the recent developments in modern science, even advised students to try out their sermons on their friends:

151 John Trusler, A List of Books, Published by the Rev. Dr. Trusler, at the Literary Press, no. 62, Wardour-Street, Soho (London, 1790), p. 10. I am grateful to Rosemary Dixon for informing me that Trusler’s works are available in the Eighteenth Century Collections Online Gale Group database: [accessed on 18 July 2006]. 152 John Trusler, On Domestic Happiness (London, 1785?), p. 16. 153 Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman, p. 17. 154 Glanvill, Essay, pp. 78–79. 155 John Wesley, Directions concerning Pronunciation and Gesture (Bristol, 1749), p. 3. 156 Wesley, Directions concerning Pronunciation and Gesture, p. 3.

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françoise deconinck-brossard We hear not our own voices as others do, nor see that air and manner with which we speak in the light in which they view it. Our friends, therefore, are the best judges. And if they find fault, you are not, while young, to be displeased. […] It is much pleasanter to commend than to blame; and if our friends therefore deny themselves so much as to take this trouble, we ought to be very thankful.157

A critical ear would have been sensitive, not only to adjusting the amount of sound that was produced, but also to the tone of voice. In a trite comparison between eloquence and music,158 preaching manuals emphasized variety: ‘It is a kind of music: all its beauty consists in the variety of its tones as they rise or fall according to the things which they have to express’.159 Lack of monotony suited a variety of styles that corresponded to the classical principle of gradatio: One Part will introduce one another, just at the same time that the Minds of the Audience are prepared to receive it; and what follows will support and fortify that which went before: the more plain and simple Truths will pave the Way to the more abstruse and complex ones; and the Proofs or Illustrations will still raise, one above the other, in a regular and easy Gradation, till the whole Force of Conviction breaks upon the Mind, and now allows you fair Scope to play upon every tender and passionate String, that belongs to the Heart of Man.160

Delivery and style differed from one discursive register to another. It was essential to make a suitable Difference between the Style that is employed in the Pathetic and that which is used in the Didactic. For, one and the same form or construction will not agree equally well with both, any more than one and the same mode of utterance and delivery can be used with equal propriety in both […]. But, neither the didactic nor the pathetic should be continued long at a time. Tedious Instructions dull the attention, and tedious Addresses cloy the mind.161

A preacher had to bear in mind that he was addressing an audience with a limited attention span. Lack of variety or surprise would fail to keep listeners literally or metaphorically awake. Hence the commonplace satire of the

157

Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 65. See my article on “Musique et rhétorique”, Tropismes 8 (1997), 49–67. 159 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 102; Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 40. 160 Sharp, Discourses on Preaching, pp. 15–16; Cf. Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 51 and p. 1250, and Cicero, De oratore book II, 53. 161 Sharp, Discourses on Preaching, pp. 15–16. 158

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sleeping congregation, not only in Hogarth’s engraving, but also in Swift’s sermons,162 and Fénelon’s Dialogues on eloquence.163 The analogy between human emotions and musical instruments, and the need to catch the hearer’s attention led to many comparisons between sermons and concerts. The celebrated Presbyterian preacher James Fordyce, for instance, highlighted the similarity between public speaking and instrumental music: A preacher of real judgment will take care still to blend variety with this uniformity. He will not dwell long on one single string: he will vary the notes and measures frequently; and, if I may so express myself, like some able master of the musical art, touch off sometimes the softest airs, and then on a sudden strike the instrument with a bolder hand. By these means he will keep the publick ear still awake and hold the people’s thoughts in an agreeable agitation all along.164

Movements of the body (actio) harmoniously accompanied vocal modulation: ‘The more the action and the voice appear simple and familiar in the places where you are only seeking to instruct, to report, and to suggest, the better do they prepare for surprise and emotion in those places where they are elevated by sudden enthusiasm’.165 Thus, the aesthetics of surprise applied, not only to invention,166 but also to pronunciation and action. Of course, preachers were advised to tread the path of moderation and find the golden mean between the two extremes of excessive stiffness and unreasonable agitation: ‘Some are mimical, phantastical, and violent in their motions; this is rude and irreverent; others in opposition stand like images, and Preach without any motion at all; this is stupid and unnatural’.167 True to the classical principle of ars celare artem, it was essential to look as natural as possible: ‘If you use art, conceal it so well by imitation that one will take it for nature itself ’.168 When the aesthetics of ‘affect’ gradually gave way to ‘the invention of sentiment’,169 the preacher was recommended to ‘be possessed of ’ the

162 Jonathan Swift, “Upon Sleeping in Church”, Irish Tracts 1720–1723 and Sermons, ed. Louis A. Landa (Oxford, 1968), pp. 210–218. 163 Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 1248, n. 2 to p. 40. 164 James Fordyce, The Eloquence of the Pulpit, An Ordination Sermon: To Which is Added a Charge (Aberdeen, 1752), p. 24. 165 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 102; Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 40. 166 Cf. supra. 167 Glanvill, Essay, p. 79. 168 Howell, Fénelon’s Dialogues on Eloquence, p. 104; Fénelon, Œuvres I, p. 44. 169 See the catalogue to a later exhibition, L’Invention du sentiment: Aux sources du romantisme (Paris, 2002).

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passions that he wanted to ‘excite’.170 The standard justification came from Horace: ‘Si vis me flere, dolendum primum ipsi tibi’.171 The representation of feeling gained so much immediacy that the much-debated issue of extemporisation came back to the fore ‘because it proceedeth directly from the Heart, from a Mind agitated by the same Passions which the Speaker would raise in his Audience’,172 all the more so as the orator would indirectly convey meaning by the ‘natural Eloquence’173 of what would now be called ‘body language’: ‘all strong Passions stamp themselves upon the outward Form. They are visible in the Air of the Countenance, in every Gesture and Motion. The Use or final End of which Constitution is very evident; that our Passions may be communicated’.174 There was no scope for theatrical action in the pulpit. The recurrent idea that the Preacher ‘should be a good Man’175 was more relevant than ever. Just as it takes much practice for a musician to play with apparently effortless grace, so the young preacher had to learn all the necessary techniques in order to improve his delivery. Studying clear diction did not only consist in working on the melody of the sentence, but also in paying attention to the pronunciation of single words: ‘Take care of running your words into one another, and of sucking your breath, or dropping your voice at the end of a sentence. Make pauses in proper, and avoid them in improper places’.176 Doddridge even stressed the crucial role of a distinct articulation of consonants: It is well known, that a piece of writing may be understood, if all the vowels are omitted; but if the vowels are set down and the consonants omitted, nothing can be made of it. Make the experiment upon any sentence, for example: Judge not, that ye be not judged. Take out the vowels, and it will stand thus, jdg nt tht y b nt jdgd; this may readily be made out: but take away the consonants, and nothing can possibly be made of it, ue o a e e o ue. It is the same in speaking as in writing: the vowels make a noise, and thence they have their name, but they discriminate nothing. Many speakers think they are heard if they bellow them out: and so they are; but they are not understood: because the discrimination of words depends upon a distinct articulation of their consonants: for want of considering which, many speakers

170

Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 170. Horace, Ars poetica, ll. 102–103, quoted by Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 170. 172 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 172. 173 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 171. 174 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 171. 175 Lawson, Lectures concerning Oratory, p. 354. 176 Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 61. 171

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spend their breath to little effect. Do justice to every consonant, the vowels will be sure to speak for themselves.177

Interestingly enough, such remarks echoed Doddridge’s observations on the consonantal features of shorthand,178 thus linking the classical art of pronuntiatio with phonetics in particular and the study of language. 6. Conclusion One may conclude that eighteenth-century prescriptive literature about pulpit oratory resulted from careful thought about the nature of discourse. Treatises on the art of preaching had imbibed the classical rhetorical tradition, embraced the ideology of moderation, and developed an aesthetics of surprise in keeping with the oral character of the genre. That may explain why Catholic and Protestant tractates differed little, as the English translator to the French Jesuit Blaise Gisbert suggested: ‘there is no mixture in it of any thing peculiar to the Religion of the Author, excepting in one single Instance of so little Consequence, as not to deserve any notice’.179 Artes praedicandi and preachers’ assistants may still be with us, albeit in a slightly modernised version. On 10 July 2006, up to 4,500 Church of England parishes were disturbed by a computer crisis180 due to a warning by the anti-virus software company Symantec that the desktop publishing package used to choose services, plan Bible readings, and create sermons had been infected by a virus, and that the relevant files should be deleted. It turned out that it was a false alarm, and apparently there is a slight inaccuracy in the story, insofar as Visual Liturgy is designed for liturgical purposes only, so that it will not produce any computer-assisted sermon.181

177

Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, p. 61. See my article on “La sténographie de Philip Doddridge (1702–1751)”, in XVII– XVIII: Bulletin de la Société d’Études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, 12 (juin 1981), pp. 29–43. 179 Blaise Gisbert, Christian Eloquence in Theory and Practice. Made English from the French Original, by Samuel d’Oyley (London, 1718), n.p. 180 http://news.com.com/Symantec+labels+church+software+as+spyware/2100-7355 _ 3-6101859.html [last consulted 4 August 2006]. 181 http://news.com.com/5208-7355_3-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=19939&messa geID=171757&start=0 [last consulted 4 January 2007]. 178

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françoise deconinck-brossard Figure 1. Wilkins’s Ecclesiastes (1646) pp. 5-7.

… the chief parts of a Sermon are these three; Explication Confirmation Application Each of these may be further subdivided and branched out according to this following Analysis. 1

Explication is either of the Text by  Unfolding difficulties in the sense, for which we are to consider  The phrase it selfe according to the  Originall  Translations  The circumstances of the place  Persons  Occasions  Time  Place  Scope or end  Context  The Analogy of faith  Other Parallel or like Scriptures  Distinguishing ambiguous  Words  Phrases  Dividing of the text, which must not be  Needlesse  Obscure  Doctrine deduced from it, by  Clearing their inference  Shewing the latitude of every  Truth  Duty According to their several  Branches  Degrees 

the art of preaching Figure 1. (Cont). 2

Confirmation by  Positive proofs from  Scripture, in  Notionnall truths by  Direct  Affirmation  Negation  evident consequence  Practicall truths by  precepts  examples  Reason to convince, in  Doctrinall points from the nine Topicks  Cause, Effect.  Subject, Adjunct.  Dissentan: Comparats.  Name, Distribution.  Definitions  Practicall truths from the two general heads of  Necessity  Equity  Solution of such doubts and Quæries as are most  Obvious, and  Materiall.

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françoise deconinck-brossard Figure 1. (Cont).

3

Application, which is either  Doctrinall for our information  More generall in some truth to be acknowledged.  Didacticall instruction  Elencticall confutation  More particular of our own estates, to be examined by Marks, which are commonly either  Effects  Properties  Practicall  Reproof, which hath two parts,  Disswasive from  The aggravation of the sin.  Threats denounced.  Judgements executed.  Directive, wherein, concerning  Impediments that hinder.  Means to promote, more  Remote.  Immediate  Consolation by  Promises.  Experience.  Removing of scruples.  Exhortation, to be amplified by  Motives to excite the affections from  Profi t.  Danger.  Means to direct the actions,  Generall.  Speciall.

PART III

TRANSFORMATION

THE CLASSICAL SERMON Thomas Worcester 1. Introduction In an essay entitled “The Classical Sermon and the French Literary Tradition”, W. Pierre Jacoebee argued that what may be termed the ‘classical’ French sermon was developed by late seventeenth-century preachers in response to changing public taste. This evolution included elimination of sources other than Biblical and Patristic literature, a ‘replacement of the teaching of Christian dogma by that of Christian ethics’, and a ‘purification’ of language. The sermon, Jacoebee asserts, ‘attained its classical perfection’ in the works of Mascaron, Fléchier, Massillon, Bossuet, and Bourdaloue.1 It should be noted that by ‘classical’ Jacoebee does not indicate especially frequent citation of the authors of classical antiquity. Indeed, the five French preachers he singles out lived in an age when French orators and writers were increasingly confident in the French language they used as not only equal to but as superior to Latin, Greek, or any other language, ancient or modern. The France of Louis XIV (reign 1643–1715) dominated Europe politically and culturally; French became the international language of courts and the literate elite across Europe. Well-educated persons in that era would have known well the ‘classical’ literature of Greece and Rome, but explicit reference to ancient Greek or Roman texts is not what characterized ‘classical’ sermons. The preachers Jacoebee highlights are ‘classical’ in that they set a standard against which many were subsequently judged, and not solely in France. To some extent, these ‘classical’ preachers also reacted against the ‘Baroque’ preaching of the earlier seventeenth century, an oratory in which abundance rather than concision had been valued, and in which doctrinal abstractions sometimes took pride of place.2 Classical preachers aimed at practical results in ethical decision 1 W. Pierre Jacoebee, “The Classical Sermon and the French Literary Tradition”, in Australian Journal of French Studies 19 (1982), pp. 227–242, at p. 232. 2 On the terms Baroque and classical, see Victor Lucien Tapié, Baroque et classicisme (Paris, 1957), and Peter Bayley, “Resisting the Baroque,” in Seventeenth-Century French Studies 16 (1994), pp. 1–14. Bayley cautions against overstating the difference between classical and Baroque.

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making on the part of their hearers. These preachers may well have used topoi from classical antiquity, such as ‘le juste milieu’ (e.g. Aristotle, Horace), but they were little interested in parading their knowledge of ancient Greece or Rome. They addressed their own era, on its terms, and they embraced an Enlightenment rhetoric of reason, nature, and practical religion. In this essay I shall first briefly examine the oratory of a particularly prolific preacher in early seventeenth-century France: Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus (1584–1652), an extraordinarily prolific exemplar of the Baroque tradition. I shall then turn to sermons of two of the preachers Jacoebee presented as exemplars of the ‘classical’ sermon: Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), and Louis Bourdaloue, S.J. (1632–1704). How their preaching was and was not like that of Camus, and how they did or did not focus on ethical themes (as Jacoebee suggested) I will examine. Some interpreters of Bossuet, in particular, have contrasted him with Camus.3 I shall consider whether a sharp contrast is justified, and I shall also assess how Bossuet and Bourdaloue remained influential as preachers in the eighteenth century, through editions of their published sermons. Finally I shall briefly compare their sermons with their contemporary, John Tillotson (1630–94), an Anglican preacher and archbishop of Canterbury. Tillotson was a kind of English Bossuet, in his style and his influence as a preacher, and in his focus on preaching at court. 2. Camus Bishop of Belley, a small diocese just north of Savoy, between Lyon and Geneva, Camus was a native Parisian, who preached frequently in his diocese but also in Paris. In his own lifetime he published some 400 sermons, and these were but a part of an enormous literary output that included many devout novels and short stories, theological treatises, and practical manuals of piety.4 Camus took pleasure in word plays and in imaginative, unlikely similes and metaphors. While there was a moral component to his

3 See Paul Jacquinet, Des prédicateurs du XVIIe siècle avant Bossuet (Paris, 1863), pp. 84–85; Charles-Emile Freppel, Bossuet et l’éloquence sacré au XVIIe siècle (2 vols.; Paris, 1893) I, pp. 129–132. Jacquinet calls Camus puerile, and Freppel finds in him bad taste. 4 On Camus as preacher and writer, see my Seventeenth-Century Cultural Discourse: France and Preaching of Bishop Camus (Berlin and New York, 1997). See also Jean Descrains, Bibliographie des oeuvres de Jean-Pierre Camus, évêque de Belley (1584–1652) (Paris, 1971).

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discourses—he sought to move his audiences to make good choices and to live good, Christian lives—he was at least as concerned to delight his audiences, and to instruct them in Christian doctrine. He often began his sermons with an exordium that concluded with an Ave Maria, invoking the help of Mary in his preaching, and followed this with a second exordium in which he announced the number of points (and their themes) in the sermon. An excellent example of Camus’ oratory is the octave of sermons he preached for the feast of Corpus Christi in 1617, at the Parisian church of Saint-Merry, sermons published as a book the following year.5 In the first of these eight homilies, Camus highlights the Catholic doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and he contrasts this belief with the errors and the blindness of heretics, who deny such presence. Camus exhorts his audience to weep for such blindness, and to pray that Jesus may remove the ‘cataract’ from the eyes of the erring, the hardness of their hearts, and the murmuring of their mouths.6 To reinforce belief in continuity between the body of Christ in the Eucharist and the body of the Jesus born to Mary at Bethlehem, Camus emphasizes the similarity of the words stable and table. Jesus was born in a stable (estable); if the altar on which the sacrament is celebrated is not an estable it is a table, and altar cloths are made of linen, which is a kind of straw (as in a stable).7 The second homily in the octave continues to focus on the doctrine of the real presence, calling it Catholic Truth (la Vérité Catholique). Camus discourses at length on Old Testament ‘figures’ and anticipations of the Eucharist, such as manna in the desert.8 The Eucharist is the Red Sea of the blood of the Savior, wherein the true Israelite is saved, but the Egyptian sinner is drowned. Those who receive the sacrament ‘worthily’ will ascend by the ‘mystical ladder’ to heaven, while those who do so unworthily will descend by that ladder to hell.9 Often Camus returns in these eight homilies to the question of reception of communion, and he exhorts his hearers to receive frequently and worthily (by going to confession first). Bishop Camus devotes a great deal of time in these discourses to making communion attractive. He compares

5 Jean-Pierre Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques (Paris, 1618). Translations of this and other works are my own unless otherwise indicated. 6 Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques, p. 13. 7 Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques, p. 35. 8 Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques, pp. 44– 45. 9 Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques, pp. 74–75.

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its reception to a kiss from one’s spouse, and he draws in this case of Old Testament analogies on the marital imagery of the Canticle of Canticles. Camus criticizes the practice of attending Mass in order to see and adore the Eucharist, but not to taste it.10 In fact, food and the spiritual life, and food as metaphor and analogy for the spiritual life, are themes to which Camus returns frequently in his preaching. He has what are (and surely must have been in his time) interesting things to say, literal and/or metaphorical, about breasts and breast feeding, milk and wine, fasting and feasting, obesity, salt and sugar, rhubarb, onions, truffles, and garlic.11 Camus is also sensitive to matters of literary taste. He deplores the practice of other preachers who, so as not to offend depraved tastes ( gousts dépravez), ‘abstain’ from including in their sermons good examples that may serve to edify devout souls and confirm them in the faith.12 Camus proceeds to recount various improbable stories regarding the Eucharist: There was a devout gentleman dressed in rich clothing. Though he prostrated himself on the ground when he came upon the Eucharist being brought to the sick (Viaticum), his clothes were in no way soiled. A man mounted on horseback lacked devotion to the Eucharist. He encountered Viaticum carried along the same way as he, but he refused to come down from his horse. But the horse, ‘as reasonable and human as he was unreasonable and brutal’, knelt before the Eucharist.13 Bishop Camus also devoted a good number of his sermons or homilies—interchangeable terms in his usage—to praise of more plausible, historical examples of sanctity. These included Ignatius of Loyola and Charles Borromeo. Archbishop of Milan, Borromeo (1538–84) had been canonized as a saint in 1610. Between 1616 and 1622, Camus preached eight panegyric homilies (homélies panégyriques) on Borromeo, and these were published in 1623. Several of the homilies were preached at the Parisian church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, where a confraternity was 10

Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques, pp. 120–124. See my Seventeenth-Century Cultural Discourse, and my “A Sunday Feast: Alimentary Discourse in the Preaching of Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus”, in Seventeenth-Century French Studies 15 (1993), pp. 99–114. 12 Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques, p. 162. On what was meant by ‘taste’ in the 1600s, see Michael Moriarty, Taste and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge, 1988). Exempla were often a central component of the sermons of late medieval preachers; see, for instance, on Bernardino of Siena, Franco Mormando, The Preacher’s Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1990), pp. 20–21. 13 Camus, Premières homélies eucharistiques, pp. 162–164. 11

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dedicated to Saint Charles. One of the themes Camus develops at length is how Saint Charles, as a preacher, was an ‘evangelical trumpet’ who, like Saint Paul, preached in season and out of season, bringing ‘spiritual nourishment’ to the people.14 Saint Charles adapted his discourses to his audiences, for he knew that just as different animals live on different pastures, it is necessary for the preacher to change his ‘terms, style, and material’ according to his audiences. For if one were to serve grain to eagles and prey to doves, both would die of hunger.15 In Charles Borromeo, Camus lauded a saint imitable above all by other clergy. But in Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus, the bishop of Belley found a saint to be imitated by a broad range of laity and clergy. Between 1611 and 1622 Camus preached 13 homilies on Ignatius; these were published in 1623, the year after his canonization as Saint Ignatius. Camus finds in him ‘a jasper enriched with diverse colors, a meadow, a garden embellished with different flowers, a diamond with several lusters, an image furnished with many traits’, a saint from whom soldiers may learn how to serve in a spiritual as well as a corporal militia, from whom students may learn humility, modesty, and gentleness, a saint from whom priests may learn how to be spiritual physicians, and how to impress their own qualities on souls in their care, just as nurses pass in their milk their own qualities to the bodies of infants.16 3. Bossuet Camus was well into his forties when Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet was born, at Dijon, in 1627. Receiving his early education from the Jesuits in his native city, Bossuet then studied theology in Paris before his priestly ordination in 1652, the year of Camus’ death. As Camus is the outstanding example of a French preacher and bishop in the first half of the seventeenth century, Bossuet is surely that for the latter half of the century. In the 1650s, Bossuet began his priestly ministry in Metz, where his preaching skills were soon noted. In the 1660s, he resided principally in Paris, preached frequently, and attracted favorable attention at court. In 1669 he was named bishop of Condom by Louis XIV; less than two years later the King named Bossuet preceptor to his son, the Dauphin. 14 Camus, Homélies panégyriques de Sainct Charles Borromée (Paris, 1623), pp. 142–144. 15 Camus, Homélies panégyriques de Sainct Charles Borromée, pp. 147–148. 16 Camus, Homélies panégyriques de S. Ignace de Loyola (Lyons, 1623), pp. 157–178.

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In 1671 Bossuet was elected to the French Academy; around this time he also wrote several works in addition to pulpit oratory, including his Discourse on Universal History, and he began his Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture. In 1672, Bossuet resigned from the see of Condom; by 1680 he had completed his efforts to educate the Dauphin, and he was named, in 1681, bishop of Meaux. Meaux was much closer to Paris than the remote Condom, and residence at Meaux allowed him to continue his various activities in Paris and at court. In 1682, Bossuet drafted the Four Articles (on the liberties of the Gallican Church) adopted by the assembly of the clergy of France. Bishop Bossuet continued to preach frequently, and he gained a very high reputation for funeral orations in particular, some of which were published multiple times, during his lifetime and beyond. In the 1690s Bossuet devoted much energy to criticism of the spirituality of the Quietists, especially that of Bishop Fénelon and Madame Guyon. Bossuet died on 12 April 1704.17 Unlike Camus, who seems to have had few unpublished thoughts in his lifetime, Bossuet left many of his sermons in manuscript only. While Bossuet’s funeral orations for prominent people, such as princes and princesses, were often in print shortly after their oral delivery, other types of his pulpit oratory would await posthumous publication.18 What was considered as complete as possible a collection of Bossuet’s sermons was published in an edition of his works that appeared in 1772–88.19 The publisher was Antoine Boudet, in Paris. After examining several of Bossuet’s sermons and funeral orations, I shall return to a prospectus Boudet published in 1769 in search of subscriptions to the forthcoming many-volumed edition of Bossuet. It may provide a window onto how Bossuet was thought to be an attractive author, in the second half of the eighteenth century, many decades after his death. Like Camus, Bossuet sometimes preached panegyrics of the saints, or of those likely to be canonized as saints.20 One of Bossuet’s earliest sermons is 17 Dictionnaire de spiritualité, s.v. “Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne”. For brief summaries of the life of Bossuet, see also Jean Meyer, Bossuet (Paris, 1993), pp. 293–298; Joseph Bergin, Crown, Church and Episcopate under Louis XIV (New Haven, 2004), p. 386; Georges Minois, Bossuet entre Dieu et le Soleil (Paris, 2003), pp. 719–721. 18 For a list of editions through the beginning of the twentieth century, see Victor Verlaque, Bibliographie raisonnée des oeuvres de Bossuet (Paris, 1908). 19 J.-B. Bossuet, Oeuvres de Messire Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (19 vols.; Paris, 1772–1788). 20 See Jacques Truchet, Bossuet panégyriste (Paris, 1962). For a study of the various themes in Bossuet’s pulpit oratory, see Truchet, La prédication de Bossuet: Etude des thèmes (2 vols.; Paris, 1960).

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a panegyric of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, preached at Metz for his feast day, 20 August, in 1653. The recently ordained Bossuet begins by recalling that a ‘pious custom’ was introduced in France in the last century, the custom of beginning one’s preaching by invoking divine assistance through the intercession of Mary. He asserts that there is a similarity (convenance) between preachers and Mary, for the former ‘engender’ Jesus Christ in the souls of the faithful, while Mary engendered him in the flesh. Thus Bossuet invites his audience to pray an Ave Maria with him.21 After this first exordium, Bossuet offers a second exordium, on the cross of Christ, affirming that Saint Bernard was always at the foot of the cross, that is, in his cell he always studied and contemplated the cross, and thus became a perfect Christian.22 Bossuet then proceeds to preach on two points: 1) Saint Bernard taught that the Savior, hanging on the cross, teaches us scorn for the world, a scorn for which Saint Bernard himself provides an admirable example; 2) Saint Bernard preached the cross to his own family, to his monastery, and to everyone, rich and poor, sparing neither princes nor popes. Regarding scorn for the world and the lack of such scorn, Bossuet explains that Bernard understood that the rich of the earth who pass this life in a pleasant dream, imagining that they have many goods, will wake up in eternity, ‘surprised to find their hands empty’.23 Alluding to the war underway in his era between France and Spain, a war that would in fact continue until 1659, Bossuet brings his panegyric of Bernard to a conclusion. He addresses him directly and prays that he beg God to bring peace, for Christian brotherhood has been broken, and Christians, who should be ‘children of peace, have become wolves insatiable for blood’.24 The feast day of Saint Charles Borromeo was 4 November. Like Camus, Bossuet had occasion to preach a panegyric of Borromeo, on his feast, at the Parisian church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie.25 Suggesting that Borromeo is not a model for ordained clergy only, Bossuet states that by baptism all Christians are participants in the priesthood of Christ, and thus all must consecrate themselves to God for a life of sacrifice. He

21 J.-B. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires, critical ed. by Joseph Lebarq, rev. by Charles Urbain and Eugène Levesque (7 vols.; Paris, 1922–1927) I, pp. 395–397. 22 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires I, pp. 397–403. 23 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires I, p. 408. 24 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires I, p. 424. Bernard retained much authority in the early modern period, even among some Protestants. On Calvin and Bernard of Clairvaux, see Dennis Tamburello, Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (Louisville (KY), 1994). 25 This was most likely in 1656; see editor’s note in Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires II, p. 575.

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concludes this exordium with an Ave Maria, asking that Mary may obtain the grace of such consecration for faithful Christians.26 Dividing this discourse into three points, Bossuet devotes the first point to how Borromeo suffered for the sake of the people of his diocese of Milan. For that city was a New Nineveh, ‘drunk in its pleasures, proud in its pomp, blind in its vanities, insatiable in its debaucheries’. But Saint Charles did penance and shed tears for their sins; he became ‘a man of sorrows, a victim who immolates himself for the sins of his people’.27 When plague struck Milan, Borromeo offered his life for the salvation of his people. Leading a procession, his eyes were ‘bathed in tears, his head lowered like a victim destined for death’. But after ‘this great sacrifice’, the heavens were more serene, and God ordered the angel of death to withdraw his arm, and the disease came to an end.28 To Borromeo as an example of sacrifice, Bossuet adds, in his second and third points, Borromeo as example of discipline and charity. Fulminating against ministers of Church and State who opposed his sacred discipline, he ‘fought’ for ecclesiastical discipline, and hoped for martyrdom. But it did not please God that Saint Charles should fall under the hands of his enemies, and thus Borromeo established discipline in order to ‘repress’ iniquity and disorders in the Church.29 At the same time, the heart of Saint Charles, ‘moved by compassion’ (ému par la compassion), led him to give to the poor. He sold his own bed to relieve their needs, for charity is a sacrifice, and it does not content itself with giving from what is superfluous, but from what is necessary.30 Bossuet turns, in his conclusion, to the unacceptable contrast between what Saint Charles did for the poor and the sick, and what his audience does: ‘He scorned contagion and pestilence. Ah! Christians, your brothers languish at your doors, and you leave them be without help and consolations!’31 Bernard of Clairvaux and Charles Borromeo were canonized saints whom Bossuet lauded as exemplars for imitation. In the case of Francis de Sales (1567–1622), who was beatified in 1661 and canonized in 1665, 26

Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires II, p. 576. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires II, pp. 581–583. 28 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires II, pp. 583–584. Seventeenth-century iconography of Saint Charles often highlighted his courage in the face of plague; see Pamela M. Jones, “San Carlo Borromeo and Plague Imagery in Milan and Rome”, in Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500–1800, Gauvin Bailey, Pamela M. Jones, Franco Mormando and Thomas Worcester eds. (Worcester, MA, and Chicago, 2005), pp. 65–96. 29 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires II, pp. 587–589. 30 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires II, p. 592. 31 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires II, p. 593. 27

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Bishop Bossuet preached a panegyric of a holy individual even prior to formal recognition of such holiness by the Church. In 1660, Bossuet preached in Paris on Francis de Sales, before the Sisters of the Visitation; the preacher took as a Scripture text for his discourse John 5:35, ‘He was an ardent and shining light’ (Il était une lumière ardente et luisante).32 Inviting the sisters to pray an Ave Maria with him, Bossuet declares that they all await the ‘glorious day’ when the ‘incomparable merits’ of Francis de Sales are pronounced by the Church. Announcing three points in his homily, Bossuet identifies in Francis exemplary knowledge as a teacher and preacher, authority as a bishop, and conduct as a spiritual director.33 Lauding de Sales as a teacher and preacher, Bossuet compares him to Borromeo, and states that he finds, in recent centuries, two men of extraordinary sanctity, Saint Charles Borromeo and Francis de Sales. While the former ‘awoke’ in the clergy a spirit of piety, the latter ‘restored’ devotion among the people, by bringing devotion back into the midst of the world, and not solely in places of solitude. De Sales taught that one may be saved ‘in the world’, provided that one lives with a ‘spirit of detachment’, and that one may be saved in the midst of riches (parmi les richesses), provided that one gives them away in charity.34 And it is detachment from ambition that is the focus of Bossuet’s second point. De Sales was ‘an ardent and shining light’ in that even though he was a bishop, he distanced himself from seeking further promotion and from maintaining ‘with pomp’ (avec faste) the authority of his rank. Among his virtues were Christian modesty and humility; to make him a bishop, he had had to be forced. His heart was ‘hidden with God’, and he used the power he had to write his Introduction to the Devout Life, a ‘masterpiece of piety and prudence’, a treasure of wise counsels, a book in which souls come to ‘taste with joy’ the gentleness of devotion.35 Jean-Pierre Camus was ordained a bishop by Francis de Sales, in the same year as publication of the Introduction to the Devout Life. Camus became a personal friend and disciple of de Sales, a relationship facilitated

32 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 575–576. De Sales founded this congregation, with Jane de Chantal, in Annecy. For an excellent biography of Francis de Sales, see André Ravier, Un sage et un saint: François de Sales (Paris, 1985). 33 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 576–578. 34 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 580–582. 35 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 585–86. The Introduction to the Devout Life, first published, in French, in 1609, rapidly became a bestseller, and was translated into many languages. See preface by John K. Ryan, to Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, trans. by John K. Ryan (Garden City (NY ), 1972), pp. 12–20.

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by the fact that they were bishops in neighboring dioceses.36 Bossuet, born well after the death of de Sales, had no such personal relationship. Yet Bossuet’s preaching sounds a great deal like that of Camus when he preaches the third point of his homily on de Sales. Bossuet uses rich similes and metaphors, not unlike those of Camus. Bossuet praises the gentleness and charity of Francis de Sales, calling such charity a mother and a nurse who presents her breasts and their milk to her children. Terming spiritual direction a ‘spiritual agriculture’, Bossuet states that the virtue of those who labor with the earth is patience, and in Francis de Sales as a spiritual director one finds ‘invincible’ patience, to which he joined compassion.37 Charity and compassion are also central themes in a sermon Bossuet preached in Paris in 1659, on the ‘eminent dignity’ of the poor in the Church. This sermon is particularly rich with biblical references, especially from the gospel of Luke. Delivering this sermon before the Filles de la Providence, a congregation of women religious devoted to work among prostitutes and other vulnerable women, Bossuet declares that because the world abandons the poor, God takes up their defense and is their protector. Because people scorn their condition, God ‘raises up their dignity’, and because people think that one ‘owes’ the poor nothing, God imposes the necessity of caring for them. In the Church, ‘this house of the poor’, preachers are advocates for the poor.38 After an Ave Maria, and a second exordium in which he emphasizes that those who are first in the world are last in the Church, Bossuet announces three points of his sermon, and he declares that the ‘graces of the New Testament’ belong by right to the poor, and that the rich receive these graces but through the hands of the poor.39 In his first point, Bossuet insists that it is not enough for the rich to assist the poor. The poor are the ‘true citizens’ of the Church; Christ addressed his sermon on the mount (Luke 6) to the poor, and he spoke to the rich but to condemn their pride. In the early Church, if the rich were received, they ‘stripped themselves’ of their riches and placed them at the feet of the apostles, in order to take on the ‘character’ of poverty. It does not suffice to pity ( plaindre) the poor, nor to assist them; we must also

36 After the death of his mentor, Camus helped to promote his beatification. He published a multi-volume work to assist this process: L’Esprit du bienheureux François de Sales (6 vols.; Paris, 1639–1641). 37 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 588–590. 38 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, p. 120. On the Filles de la Providence, see Barbara Diefendorf, From Penitence to Charity: Pious Women and the Catholic Reformation in Paris (Oxford, 2004), pp. 222–226. 39 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 121–122.

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have for them ‘great sentiments of respect’ (de grands sentiments de respect). For the poor are the ‘principal members’ of Jesus Christ and the ‘first born’ of the Church. By serving them we honor ‘the mysterious conduct of divine providence’, which gives them the first places in the Church in such a way that the rich are received but to serve them.40 In this first point of this sermon, the preacher makes clear the secondclass status of the rich in the Church. The second and third points reinforce this theme. Bossuet finds in Jesus the poorest of the poor, humiliated even unto the cross. Jesus wants in his Church only those who bear his mark, that of the poor and the afflicted. The door of the Church is also open to the rich, but on condition that they serve the poor (à condition de les servir). The rich were foreigners (étrangers) to the Church, but the service of the poor ‘naturalizes’ them, and serves to expiate the ‘contagion’ they contracted by their wealth. The rich must share in carrying the burden of the poor, for the rich will appear before the tribunal where they must make account of how they have used their talents and riches.41 Bossuet develops his third point by recalling that Jesus is a monarch who wore a crown of thorns, and thus it is among the poor and the suffering that resides the majesty of his spiritual kingdom. And Bossuet concludes with an exhortation to the rich to enter into contact with the poor (entrez en commerce avec les pauvres), and give to them your temporal goods, lest you be deprived of spiritual benedictions. Those who look with faith upon the poor will see in them Jesus Christ; they will see ‘the citizens of his kingdom, the inheritors of his promises, the distributors of his graces, the true children of his Church, the first members of his mystical body’.42 Most of Bossuet’s sermons were delivered before elite audiences, indeed many before the court, sometimes in the presence of Louis XIV himself. In addressing the Filles de la Providence, the preacher spared few words in exalting the status of the poor and in exhorting his hearers to serve the poor. But did Bossuet preach with the same ardor, and develop similar points of view, before the court? What kind of religion did he preach to the French monarch, a monarch who held the title of Most Christian King? The Lenten sermons Bossuet preached at the Louvre in 1662 are a good

40 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 123–127. On Bossuet’s theology of providence, and its dependence on Augustine and Aquinas, see Gérard Ferreyrolles, “Histoire et finalité: sur les origines du discours providentialiste au XVIIe siècle,” in Seventeenth-Century French Studies 23 (2001), pp. 1–14. 41 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 128–132. 42 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires III, pp. 132–135.

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example of his court sermons; I shall examine in particular his discourse for Palm Sunday 1662, on the duties of kings. Taking as his Scripture text Matthew 21 on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, Bossuet stresses, in his first exordium, that Jesus was a king, but one who scorned worldly glory; and so we must learn ‘to strip ourselves of ambition and to scorn the grandeurs of the world’. But, Bossuet continues, as it is no easy task (ce n’est pas une entreprise médiocre) to preach such a truth before the court, the help of the Blessed Virgin may be sought with an Ave Maria.43 In his second exordium, Bossuet explains that Jesus Christ reigns as king throughout the universe, but he established Christian kings to be the ‘principal instruments’ of his power. Addressing Louis XIV, Bossuet tells him that the gospel in the Most Christian King’s hands gives him more authority than his scepter does.44 Bossuet both exalts kings and cautions them at length about their duties and their dependence on God. Citing Proverbs 8:15, ‘Through me kings reign’ (Per me reges regnant), Bossuet states that the choice of who is king is ‘an effect’ of God’s providence, for the king of the world does not permit anyone to take command without his ‘particular commission.’ Thus a wise king will humbly confess to God that God is his protector, and it is God who makes the people obey the king’s laws. The king should know that he is God’s image, and that the power of God is active in him.45 Knowing that they are images of God may not always have promoted humility among kings, but Bossuet is quick to turn his attention to the duties of kings. Kings must not permit anything ‘outside the boundaries of Christian justice’. And they must themselves not violate the laws of which they are the protectors. Like other men, the ‘great of the earth’ must combat their passions, and more than other men, they must combat misuse of their power. They must fear God’s judgments of their actions.46

43 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, pp. 356–357. For an excellent study of Bossuet’s 1662 Lenten sermons, see Jean-Pierre Landry and Catherine Costentin, Sermons, Carême du Louvre: Bossuet (Paris, 2002). On Bossuet’s efforts, in the 1662 Palm Sunday sermon, to call the king and his court to repentance, see Georges Couton, La chair et l’âme: Louis XIV entre ses maîtresses et Bossuet (Grenoble, 1995), pp. 47–51. For a more general introduction to Bossuet and the court, see Jean-Claude Boyer and Sylvain Kerspern, “Bossuet et la cour”, in Bossuet Miroir du Grand Siècle, ed. Musée Bossuet Ville de Meaux (Paris, 2004), pp. 113–139. 44 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, pp. 358–359. 45 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, pp. 360–362. On how early modern Europeans imagined the relationship of royal power to divine power, see Paul Kléber Monod, The Power of Kings: Monarchy and Religion in Europe, 1589–1715 (New Haven, 1999). 46 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, pp. 363–365.

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In this two-point sermon, Bossuet asserts in his second point that the kingdom of Jesus Christ is the Catholic Church. Kings are to be defenders of its faith, protectors of its authority, and guardians of its discipline. Bossuet reminds Louis XIV of the actions of his ancestors: of Saint Louis (Louis IX, 1226–70), and of Louis XIV’s own father, Louis XIII (1610–43). The latter ‘overturned’ the party that created heresy, and left to his successor ‘the glory’ of suffocating heresy altogether ‘by a wise temperament of severity and patience’.47 To the elimination of heresy from France, Bossuet adds other duties that Louis XIV owes to the Church. The King ought to promote ‘good morals and true piety’, he should ‘exterminate’ blasphemy, and he ought to combat public and scandalous crimes. By the example of his life of virtue, he should make Jesus Christ reign. The monarch should elevate, defend, and favor virtue; he should love justice and imitate King Solomon in rendering justice to his people.48 Bossuet brings this sermon to a conclusion by exhorting the young Louis XIV not to place, through his sins, any obstacle in the way of the things in preparation; and to ‘carry the glory of your name and that of the French name to such a height that there be nothing further to desire but eternal happiness’.49 Again and again, Bossuet suggests that a French king who meets his obligations to God and to the Church will prosper on earth and enjoy paradise in the next life. These themes would be further developed by Bossuet in his book of advice for the Dauphin, Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture.50 Death and preparation for it rank among the most prominent themes in Bossuet’s writing and preaching, whether intended for the court or other audiences.51 Funeral orations were privileged occasions for Bossuet to preach on death and closely related themes. Bossuet’s orations for deceased members 47 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, pp. 367–368. Bossuet alludes here to the success of Louis XIII in eliminating the military power of Protestants in France. By 1685 Louis XIV had run out of patience with Protestants, and turned to severity in revoking the Edict of Nantes that had granted them a degree of toleration. On the ideological climate that paved the way for the Revocation, see Bernard Dompnier, Le venin de l’hérésie: Image du protestantisme et combat catholique au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1985). 48 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, pp. 370–375. 49 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, pp. 375–376. 50 J.-B. Bossuet, Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture, trans. by Patrick Riley (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 191–285. 51 Bossuet’s sermon for Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent 1662 is often referred to as his sermon on death; see Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires IV, 262–281. On the theme of death in Bossuet’s oratory, see Jacques Truchet, “Points de vue de Bossuet sur la mort”, in Bossuet, Sermons: Anthologie critique, Jean-Philippe Grosperrin ed. (Paris, 2002), pp. 61–72; Cécile Joulin, La Mort dans les Oeuvres oratoires de Bossuet (Saint-Etienne, 2002).

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of the royal family are among his most famous discourses, and some of these were printed more than once in his own lifetime, as well as in later editions of his works. Indeed, his first published discourse was his funeral oration of 16 November 1669, for Henriette-Marie.52 The daughter of King Henry IV and Marie de Medici, she married King Charles I of England. Having fled to France during the English Civil War, Queen Henriette-Marie was a widow for some twenty years after the 1649 execution of Charles. She was the mother of some six children, including King Charles II (reign 1660–85), and Henriette-Anne, who would marry Philip, the Duke of Orléans and brother of Louis XIV. Addressing the Duke of Orléans, Bossuet begins his oration with Psalm 2:10 as his Scripture text: ‘And now, Kings, learn; instruct yourselves, you who judge the earth’ (Et nunc, Reges, intelligite; erudimini, qui judicatis terram). Bossuet points to the grandeurs and the miseries in the life of this princess: from happiness without limit to ‘tyranny under the name of liberty’, from a throne overturned to a throne ‘miraculously re-established.’ In her life God teaches kings: he makes them see the nothingness (le néant) of the world’s pomp and grandeur. In the life of this ‘wise and religious’ princess, a ‘spectacle’ is proposed in which one may see divine providence at work.53 In most of his sermons Bossuet concluded an exordium such as this with an Ave Maria, and then turned to a second exordium which led him to announce division of his discourse into two or more points. But in this funeral oration Bossuet moves directly from a single exordium into the body of his oration. Henriette-Marie was a Catholic Queen in a Protestant land. Bossuet lauds her courage and her attachment to the religion of her ancestors, Saint Louis among them. She was able to obtain ‘some peace’ for persecuted Catholics in England; in the royal chapel she had built, she upheld, through prayers and devotions, the ‘ancient reputation of the most Christian house of France’. Through her alms, poor Catholic families, ‘ruined for the sake of the faith’, were able to survive. She not only helped to conserve the people of God, but to augment it through ‘innumerable’ conversions; some 300 converts abjured their errors in the presence of her chaplains.54 Bossuet does not contrast Henriette-Marie’s Catholicism with the Anglicanism of her husband, Charles I. The preacher focuses, rather, on the difference between King Charles and his Protestant opponents. Charles 52 53 54

On early editions of this oration, see Verlaque, Bibliographie raisonnée, pp. 2–3. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 515–516. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 519–524.

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was ‘just, moderate, magnanimous, clement’. Hatred, excess, violence, and scorn for ancient religion animated the ‘sects’ that opposed him. The ‘innovators’ tore apart the majesty of religion, and they harbored ‘a secret distaste’ for authority. The Calvinists helped to establish the Socinians; the Baptists came from the same source, and from their opinions mixed with Calvinism came the independents. God, ‘in order to punish the irreligious instability of these peoples, gave them up to the intemperance of their foolish curiosity’, such that their ‘arbitrary religion’ became the most dangerous of their maladies.55 For when the authority of religion is annihilated, ‘all turns to revolts and seditious thoughts’. God himself threatens to ‘hand over to civil wars’ peoples who alter the religion he had established. A ‘refined hypocrite’ (i.e., Oliver Cromwell) gained the support of the multitude by appealing to liberty, though they did not see that they were headed for servitude.56 Providence and its pedagogical designs are Bossuet’s hermeneutical key to why all of this happened in England. He explains that God wished to teach kings not to leave his Church; he wanted to show them what heresy can do, especially how it is ‘fatal to royalty and to all legitimate authority.’ Bossuet compares England under Cromwell to Israel subjected to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 26:6–7).57 Providence-at-work is also Bossuet’s explanation for Henriette-Marie’s escape from England, in 1644, in the midst of the Civil War, and her life in France without Charles. Having given birth to a princess (HenrietteAnne) at Exeter, Henriette-Marie said what would be last adieu to the King, and fled approaching armies. She arrived in France, where Queen Anne of Austria, ‘Anne the magnanimous, the pious, whom we will never name without regret’, received her in a manner worthy of the two queens.58 Receiving letters from the imprisoned King Charles, Henriette-Marie knew suffering that taught her the ‘virtue of the cross’ and knowledge of the gospel. For while prosperity ‘blinds us’ and makes us forget God, the cross and suffering ‘fortify’ Christianity. With suffering and the cross we expiate sins, ‘we lose all taste for the world’ (on perd tout le goût du monde), 55

Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 526–531. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 532–534. Cromwell’s hypocrisy or sincerity in religious matters remains a disputed issue. For a relatively recent biography of Cromwell that stresses his sincere religious motivations, see Barry Coward, Oliver Cromwell (London, 1991). 57 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, p. 534. 58 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 538–540. Anne of Austria had died in 1666, some three years before. On Anne as Queen Regent, see Katherine Crawford, Perilous Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern France (Cambridge, MA, 2004). 56

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we cease to rely on ourselves. When (in 1660) God restored the royal house, and her son was recognized as King Charles II, Henriette-Marie was much consoled, but remained changed by her years of suffering. The world, once banished, had no return to her heart. Until her death, she spent her time in prayer, in reading the Imitation of Christ, in ‘rigorous’ examination of her conscience, in penance and in giving alms. She ‘preferred the cross to the throne’.59 One cross she was spared was the sudden death of her daughter, Henriette-Anne, in June 1670, less than a year after her own death. Bossuet preached a funeral oration for Henriette-Anne, the Duchess of Orléans, at Saint-Denis, the traditional burial place of French royalty, on 21 August 1670. In his exordium, the preacher dwells on the shock of her death, and states that his only words are those of Ecclesiastes 1: 2, ‘Vanity of vanities, says Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities, and all things are vanity’ (Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes: vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas). In her death one may see ‘the death and the nothingness of all human grandeurs’. For ‘life is but a dream, glory but an appearance’, and pleasures but ‘a dangerous amusement.’ But meditating before her tomb and before the altar may show us both our nothingness and our dignity.60 Such meditation leads Bossuet to attribute to heaven Henriette-Anne’s escape from England to France: ‘as if by a miracle’, heaven snatched her from the hands of the enemies of her father the king, ‘to give her to France’.61 Bossuet then reviews at length how her ‘merit’ was even greater than her rank. In so doing, he implicitly critiques those who lack what he defines as her merit. Thus her love of wisdom led her to read history, ‘the wise counsel of princes’ (la sage conseillère des princes); she studied the ‘duties’ of those whose lives are the subject of history. At the same time, she lost the taste for novels, and she scorned their ‘dangerous fictions’.62 Her spirit made her apt for the great matters of state; she could keep the greatest secrets, unlike those persons unable to restrain their ‘indiscrete’ tongue. She was able to be the ‘worthy link’ between ‘the two greatest kings in the world’ (Louis XIV and Charles II).63

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Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 541–546. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 653–655. 61 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, p. 656. 62 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 658–659. The novel developed rapidly as a literary genre in seventeenth-century France, and as one especially associated with women; see Joan DeJean, Tender Geographies: Women and the Origins of the Novel in France (New York, 1991). 63 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 659–560. 60

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Turning to the unexpected death of Henriette-Anne, Bossuet both recalls the painful surprise of such news, and insists that God instructs and saves others through such a death. Bossuet exclaims, ‘Oh disastrous night! Oh fearful night, where suddenly resounded, like a clap of thunder, this stunning news: Madame is dying! Madame is dead!’ But the preacher also declares that such a shock can shake our hearts ‘enchanted with the world’, and can convince us of our nothingness. For divine power, ‘justly irritated by our pride’, pushes it to nothingness, and makes of all of us but ashes. God ‘thunders’ against our grandeurs, reducing them to dust. Yet God does not leave us without hope.64 In ‘our Christian heroine’, HenrietteAnne, we may ‘adore’ the mystery of grace. The life of a Christian, as Saint Augustine teaches, is but ‘a miracle of grace’. In the terrible death of Madame, one may see grace at work. Regretting but her sins, she asked for the crucifix, and requested ‘priests before physicians.’ She requested the sacraments of the church: Penance, Eucharist, and Extreme Unction. She offered her sufferings to God ‘in expiation’ for her faults; she professed the Catholic faith and the resurrection of the dead.65 Bossuet brings this oration to a conclusion with an appeal for the conversion of his hearers. ‘What are we waiting for in order to convert ourselves?’ Are we waiting for God to raise the dead? Yet this ought not to be necessary for conversion. The ‘truths of eternity’ are well enough established; it is by passion, not by reason, that we dare to oppose them. Beyond the death of Madame, what more could ‘divine providence’ do to show us the vanity of human things?66 Queen Marie-Thérèse was the wife of Louis XIV, and the daughter of Philip IV of Spain. Born in 1638, she married Louis in1659 and had six children with him, though but one of them survived, the Dauphin. MarieThérèse died in 1683, and on 1 September of that year Bossuet preached a funeral oration for her, at Saint-Denis. Addressing Louis, the Dauphin, whose tutor he had been, Bossuet takes as his Scripture text Revelation 14: 5 ‘For they are without stain before the throne’ (Sine macula enim sunt ante thronum). The preacher declares that the Queen was horrified by sin; her soul was innocent and her heart sincere, ‘without dissimulation and without artifice.’ Like Saint Louis, she was ‘always pure and always holy’, 64

Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 662–665. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, pp. 668–675. In lauding Henriette-Anne’s death as a ‘good’ death, Bossuet’s oration recalls the tradition of printed manuals on how to die well; see Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France, trans. by Lydia Cochrane (Princeton, 1987), pp. 32–70. 66 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires V, p. 679. 65

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from her childhood onwards. God raised her to human grandeurs in order to make her life more visible, for the ‘instruction of the human race’.67 After such an exordium, Bossuet devotes the body of his oration first to crediting Marie-Thérèse with reconciling Spain and France, ‘two proud nations’ and long-time enemies, and secondly, and especially, to presenting the ‘incomparable beauty’ of the Queen’s soul to his audience.68 Alluding to the realities of court life, Bossuet maintains that the Queen conserved her purity in a place of temptations and of illusions of grandeur. She joined a lively faith with exterior practices of piety and with frequent reception of the sacraments. Before God, she poured out ‘torrents of tears’ for her sins, even though these were, in themselves, but slight.69 She visited the poor, the sick, and the crippled, for she was happy to ‘strip off a borrowed majesty’ and adore in the poor the ‘glorious poverty’ of Jesus Christ. By her life she continues to speak, and she says that ‘grandeur is a dream, joy an error, youth a flower that fades, health a name that fools’.70 In this and other discourses, Bossuet promoted an austere spirituality that contrasted the world as a place of illusion and sin with a spiritual life that led to eternal happiness.71 Yet Bishop Bossuet did not advocate flight from the world to a monastic refuge in the countryside. The exemplary lives he most often lauded in his preaching were examples of Christian lives lived in the world, in the midst of temptations, but triumphant over them. With his admission to the French Academy in 1671, Bossuet gained in recognition as a master practitioner of eloquent, elegant French, both in oral discourses and in printed texts.72 Bossuet himself was a man who lived in the world, and whose talents were recognized by the world. Bossuet called his hearers to make practical decisions about living Christian lives in the world of their day. His literary aplomb no doubt explains at least part of the reasons why his writings were printed and reprinted after his death, in the eighteenth century and beyond, perhaps at times regardless of spiritual or theological content. But his spiritual message of piety in the world would not be altogether outdated in the eighteenth century.

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Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires VI, pp. 172–175. Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires VI, pp. 179, 184. 69 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires VI, 6, pp. 186–91. 70 Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires VI, pp. 196–197, 204. 71 For an excellent study of Bossuet’s approach to the spiritual life, see Jacques Le Brun, La spiritualité de Bossuet (Paris, 1972). 72 He delivered his discourse of reception into the French Academy on 8 June 1671; see Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires VI, pp. 5–12. 68

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Reception of Bossuet’s sermons in the 1700s included negative and positive reactions, and not necessarily from those we might think would have liked or disliked his oratory. In his book, Death and the Enlightenment, John McManners suggests that Bossuet’s funeral orations attracted readers well into the eighteenth century, though Bossuet was not read without some criticism. The juxtaposition in his funeral oratory between extended praise of deceased members of the elite, and an oft-repeated insistence on human equality in the face of death and beyond the grave, came to be seen as ‘incongruous’ and even ridiculous.73 There was some criticism of Bossuet by Catholic clerics, who perhaps thought that they were better preachers than the bishop of Meaux. Jean Siffrein Maury (1746–1817) eventually became archbishop of Paris and a cardinal; an anonymous work published in 1773 defended Bossuet against hostile comments by the then ‘young’ Maury. Maury had suggested, among other things, that pleasure in encountering Bossuet’s sermons was reserved to Bossuet’s own contemporaries, and that Bossuet’s ‘enthusiasm’ had led him to spread ‘terror’ among his audiences.74 Yet even a Deist, such as Voltaire, had some positive things to say about Bossuet. Voltaire (1694–1778)—his anticlerical polemics notwithstanding— acknowledged Bossuet’s eloquence, in a work on the ‘century’ of Louis XIV, first published in the 1750s. Calling Bossuet’s eloquence sublime, this Enlightenment philosophe specifically mentioned the funeral orations for Henriette-Marie and Henriette-Anne, comparing them to tragic theater, and noting that only the French have succeeded in this genre of eloquent oratory.75 More fulsome praise of Bossuet, appreciative of the religious content of his oratory, could also be found in Voltaire’s era. A forthcoming edition of Bossuet’s works was marketed ca. 1770, and its prospectus offers a valuable window onto favorable attitudes toward a preacher who had been dead for some 65 years. The printer Antoine Boudet published a 13-page prospectus in 1769, seeking subscriptions to the new, multi-volume edition of Bossuet’s works, an edition that did appear 1772–88. The prospectus states that the public has made known a desire for this new edition, a desire that will be fulfilled. The ‘just impatience’ with which this desire is expressed ‘proves’ how much the writer is esteemed. For ‘as long as love of truth 73

John McManners, Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1981), p. 289. 74 Eloge a l’allemande, des réflexions sur les sermons nouveaux de M. Bossuet (Aix, 1773), pp. 10, 26. 75 Voltaire, Oeuvres historiques, René Pomeau ed. (Paris, 1957), pp. 1005–1006.

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remains’ the works of Bossuet will be recommended. Never will one find writings ‘so appropriate for forming the spirit and ruling the heart’.76 There are few limits to the praise this prospectus lavishes on Bossuet. He is called a ‘universal genius’ in whose writings one finds majesty of dogma, grandeur of thoughts, and energy of expression. He makes the most abstract matters interesting, as he imitates the ‘elegant simplicity’ of nature. Like nature, Bossuet produces, ‘from the inexhaustible bosom of his abundance’ (du sein inépuisable de son abondance), the greatest riches with an ease that makes them even more admirable.77 By his ‘male eloquence’ he produces conviction, while the gentleness and feeling (le pathéthique) of his discourses ‘touch, persuade, and capture consent’. Bossuet makes one see ‘the wisdom, economy, and marvels of religion’. He ‘instructs the Catholic, confounds the unbeliever, dissipates the false reasonings of the heretic’. And writings so precious to religion ‘guarantee to their author an immortal glory’, already evident as some call him a Father of the Church.78 His sermons are a ‘lively and natural painting’ (une peinture vive et naturelle). He preached to the great truths opposed to their passions, and his courage, ‘far from offending them’, made them respect the preacher all the more. His sermons should be models for preachers ‘in our day’, so that they may replace the ‘frivolous eloquence’ one finds in the pulpit. ‘Evangelical truths alone’, and ‘in their august simplicity’, should be preached.79 The Bossuet edition promoted by this prospectus was published, in 19 volumes, 1772–88.80 There were also editions of Bossuet’s preaching in other languages. It is no surprise to find that there were English translations of some of Bossuet’s funeral orations, given that two of the most famous were pronounced for the consort and a daughter of Charles I. But there were also other English translations of Bossuet’s oratory.81 And there were translations into other languages, of various works by Bossuet, and not solely his oratorical works.82 76 Prospectus de la nouvelle édition des oeuvres de Messire Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, évêque de Meaux (Paris, 1769), p. 2. 77 Prospectus, pp. 2–3. 78 Prospectus, pp. 3–4. 79 Prospectus, pp. 5–7. 80 On what this edition did and did not contain, see Verlaque, Bibliographie raisonnée, pp. 104–105. 81 As late at 1800, the last year of my survey, there was such an edition. See Biographical Sketches of Henrietta Duchess of Orleans, and Louis of Bourbon Condé. To which are added Bossuet’s Orations, pronounced at their interment, 2nd ed. (London, 1800). See also these examples: Bossuet, A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of Mary Terese of Austria (London, 1684); Bossuet, Select Sermons (London, 1800). 82 See Verlaque, Bibliographie raisonée.

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4. Bourdaloue Bossuet was not the only late seventeenth-century French preacher to enjoy a considerable life, in print, in the eighteenth century and beyond; another was the Jesuit Louis Bourdaloue (1632–1704). I shall examine several of his sermons, and I shall also briefly survey when and where editions of Bourdaloue’s sermons appeared in the eighteenth century. Bourdaloue’s preaching career extended from 1665 to the year of his death, 1704.83 He preached frequently and for a wide variety of occasions. There were funeral orations, Advent and Lenten series of sermons, sermons at the Jesuit church of Saint-Louis and elsewhere in Paris,84 sermons before the court, sermons in religious houses, and sermons outside Paris in the provinces. With the exception of some funeral orations, very little was published until after his death. Beginning in 1707, Jesuit father François de Paul Bretonneau (1660–1741), himself a preacher, published Bourdaloue’s pulpit oratory.85 He also wrote prefaces for some of these volumes; I shall return to one of these prefaces. First I shall examine several of Bourdaloue’s published sermons, including examples that were originally preached for Sundays, for Lent, for saints’ feast days.These sermons offer a particularly good overview of themes characteristic of Bourdaloue’s preaching.86 Preaching for a twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Bourdaloue begins his first exordium by citing a verse from the gospel of Matthew: ‘Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what to belongs to God’ (Matthew 22: 21). One might expect the preacher to develop themes such as obligations to the state (perhaps taxes), or various obligations to God. But Bourdaloue tells his ‘dear hearers’ that the maxim contains ‘one of the most essential duties of Christian justice’, the duty to give to each other what you owe to each other. If, by ‘usurpation’ you have violated another’s rights, ‘may your first concern be to restore them by a prompt and legitimate restitution’.87 Père Bourdaloue is quick to reply to any possible objection that the interests of one’s neighbor ought not to be put ahead of God’s interests. God’s interests are ‘necessarily included in the 83 See the chronology of Bourdaloue’s sermons in Aimé Richardt, Bourdaloue (1632–1704). L’Orateur des rois (Tournai, 1995), pp. 277–281. 84 On the Jesuit church of Saint-Louis, see Saint-Paul—Saint-Louis: Les jésuites à Paris (Paris, 1985). 85 On Bretonneau and his publications, see Carlos Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (10 vols.; Brussels and Paris, 1890–1909) II, pp. 139–143. 86 My citations are from an early nineteenth-century edition, Oeuvres complètes de Bourdaloue, de la Compagnie de Jésus (16 vols.; Versailles, 1812). 87 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VII, Dominicale, pp. 273–274.

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interest of the neighbor’.88 Bourdaloue concludes the first exordium with an Ave Maria, and then announces in a second exordium a four-point division of his discourse.89 The first point concerns concupiscence, and the second treats the difficulty of restitution. The preacher explains: Concupiscence makes us look with jealousy upon the goods of the neighbor, and we often have opportunities to seize the neighbor’s goods. Neither grace, nor reason, nor nature governs us; it is passion, and the more that this concupiscence has, the more it wants. There is no ‘artifice’ that this passion will not employ, no ruse it will not invent, no crime it will not commit; it will turn to usury, to simony, to false contracts, to chicanery. The ‘disordered love’ of temporal goods has led us to traffic and to sell even in the sanctuary, and to trade the patrimony of the poor and the benefices of the Church. Yet while the smallest thefts are punished according to the severity of the laws, the greater thefts occur with impunity. The great, the rich, persons of dignity, ‘seem to be the furthest from usurpation and stealing’, but they are nevertheless the most exposed to it.90 In his second point, Bourdaloue examines resistance to the making of restitution: While those who possess the goods of others may prostrate themselves before altar, with ‘their eyes bathed in tears’, and they may confess and seemingly wish reconciliation with God. But when one speaks to them of restitution, they change their language, and they seek out another priest, one more malleable, one less demanding, one who damns himself with them. And if we deny the Eucharist to those who refuse to make restitution, these remedies are weak, for there are few who resolve to engage in restitution in order to be restored to participation in ‘the body of Christ, who is the sovereign good of the just on earth’.91 The third and fourth points deal with the impossibility of restitution that is alleged by most of those that must make it, and the real impossibility of salvation without restitution. Bourdaloue surveys the excuses—the ‘pretended reasons’—given by those claiming that they cannot make restitution, and responds to them: They say that restitution will ruin their family; but is financial ruin not better than damnation? If children are so

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Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VII, Dominicale, p. 275. Bourdaloue divides his sermons into two, three, or four points or parts. In an otherwise excellent essay on Bourdaloue, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort is incorrect to claim that Bourdaloue always composed his sermons in three points; see “Louis Bourdaloue (1632– 1704) sa vie, son oeuvre”, Résurrection 105–106 (December 2004-March 2005), pp. 11–39, at p. 26. 90 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VII, Dominicale, pp. 278–283. 91 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VII, Dominicale, pp. 288–289. 89

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hard and blind so as to follow the example of parents who refuse to make restitution for what their avarice and ambition took from their neighbor, such children will be accomplices of sin and they will share in ‘eternal reprobation’. And to those that say that they must maintain their condition or state (état) of life, Bourdaloue replies that the first duty of a Christian is restitution, not the maintenance of one’s condition. If necessary, reduce your expenses, diminish the number of your domestics, be more modest in your clothing and your table, live in simplicity, and do all of that in ‘the spirit of justice that is the soul of Christianity’. For this is true piety; ‘without it, everything you do for God is but hypocrisy, all your devotions are but so many abuses’.92 Bourdaloue makes his fourth and final point even more non-negotiable: there is no salvation without restitution. Of all that is required for salvation, Père Bourdaloue insists, none suffers less relaxation than this obligation. Even the keys of Saint Peter, given to the Church to absolve sins, cannot open heaven to a usurper who retains the goods of his neighbor. The obligation of restitution is an eternal and invariable law of ‘sovereign’ justice. Sincere contrition includes the ‘effective willingness’ (la volonté efficace) to restore all things to what they were before sin. A person who beats his chest before God and punishes his body with all the austerities of mortification, but remains the unjust possessor of his neighbor’s goods, is a false penitent. If he receives communion it is sacrilege and profanation. If death surprises him, he dies impious and a reprobate.93 Bourdaloue closes his sermon by addressing the rich with a stern warning. He cites the epistle of Saint James: ‘Go now, you rich misers; weep, make loud cries, and recognize the appalling misery where you have fallen’ ( James 5:1). ‘At death you will see that your riches have rotted and your gold and silver have rusted’ ( James 5:2–3). He adds: You sacrificed your immortal soul for ‘passing’ goods; your blindness is the greatest of disorders. The Lord will hear the cry of the miserable ones whom you oppressed. He will hear the domestics from whom you demanded much but refused recompense…the cries of the workers whose salaries you did not pay, the cries of the creditors you did not pay…the cries of orphans. Only a ‘prompt and perfect restitution’ can preserve you from the ‘thundering anathemata’ that God is ready to rain down upon you.94

92 93 94

Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VII, Dominicale, pp. 291–293. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VII, Dominicale, pp. 297–300. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VII, Dominicale, pp. 301–303.

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Bourdaloue’s message in Sunday sermons was not always quite so menacing, though exhortation to some change in one’s life remained central to his oratory. In a discourse for a Sunday within the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi,95 he speaks at length on the Eucharist as a great meal and an adorable sacrament. His biblical text is Luke 14:16–24, the parable of a man who invited many guests to a dinner, but few of those invited came. Bourdaloue explains that preachers are sent by the Lord to announce to people that they are ‘called’ to the table of the Lord. But many allege various pretexts for not coming to the table: they have temporal matters to attend to; the obligations of their condition or ‘state’ retain them; they have family and children to care for. The most ‘specious’ excuse advanced is that one is not ‘pure’ enough to present oneself to such a holy table. Such a ‘false humility’, imagined by some as meritorious, is often but a ‘trap’ lain by the enemy of our salvation.96 In 1643, Antoine Arnauld had published his De la fréquente communion, a vigorous attack on the Jesuits for their encouragement of frequent reception of communion.97 Arnauld and other Jansenists lambasted the Society of Jesus for laxism in moral theology and in sacramental practice; the Jansenists lauded not easy access to the Eucharist, but a lengthy period of penitential preparation for it.98 One needed to be worthy to approach the altar. Bourdaloue clearly has all of this in mind as he divides his sermon into two parts. The first part will ‘destroy the vain excuse of those who withdraw from communion because they do not believe themselves to be pure enough’. He explains that Christ instituted the sacrament in the form of a meal and nourishment that we should use, not rarely but ‘frequently and often’, just as we take everyday other nourishment to sustain ourselves. One may err by insisting too much on ‘perfection’ prior to reception of communion. The Lord did not ‘scorn’ human weakness; human beings have their infirmities and fragilities, and it is precisely for that reason the ‘physician of their souls’ calls them to himself. He does not assemble the rich, the great, and the saints, but the poor, the little ones, the infirm, the blind and the lame. All extremes are bad: to make the use of communion 95 On the origins and history of this feast day, see Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge,UK, 1991). 96 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VI, Dominicale, pp. 65–67. 97 Antoine Arnauld, De la fréquente communion (Paris, 1643). 98 On this controversy between Jesuits and Jansenists, see Jonathan Wright, God’s Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigue, and Power—A History of the Jesuits (New York, 2004), p. 168.

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‘too easy’ is a slackening (un relâchement), but to make it too difficult is an excessive rigor. We should seek the middle way (le juste milieu).99 The second point in this sermon makes abundantly clear that Bourdaloue sees the much greater danger in infrequent communion than in overly frequent reception of the sacrament. Here he insists that the ‘effect’ of the Eucharist is to imprint on the soul of the one receiving it a ‘character’ of purity and sanctity. The Eucharist, containing the author of grace, extends its virtue to the life of those who receive it and sanctifies them, and even, in a sense, ‘divinizes’ them. While it is ordinarily the spirit that vivifies the flesh, here, by a miracle, the flesh vivifies the spirit. If a Christian only receives communion annually, at Easter, he will barely draw any profit from it. The ‘happy effects’ of this celestial food include restraint of ‘sensual appetites’ and fortification against temptation. The sinner, ‘by a happy transformation’, becomes a saint.100 Addressing clergy, Bourdaloue brings this sermon to a close. ‘Never forget’ that you are sent to gather the faithful at the table, not to distance them from it. Do not ‘take away from children the bread that must sustain them, and without which they will perish…do not be misers, when the Lord who confided it to you for them is so liberal with it’.101 A theme one finds again and again in Bourdaloue’s preaching is that of choices or decisions to be made. Père Bourdaloue clearly sees as central to the preacher’s role the provision of various kinds of assistance, advice, and exhortation useful for the making of good choices. Frequent reception of communion is one such choice; another concerns the vocational choices of children and the place of parents in such decisions. Parents—especially fathers—in seventeenth-century France often sought to control the choice their children would make to marry or not (and if to marry, to whom), or the choice to enter religious life or the priesthood.102 Bourdaloue exhorts his hearers/readers to respect the vocational freedom of their children. In a sermon for the first Sunday after Epiphany, Bourdaloue develops this argument from the response of Jesus, in the gospel of Luke, chapter 2, to his parents who were seeking him, while he was in the Temple. For Bourdaloue, just as Mary and Joseph did not

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Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VI, Dominicale, pp. 67–75. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VI, Dominicale, pp. 82–86. 101 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VI, Dominicale, pp. 92–93. 102 See Barbara Diefendorf, “Give Us Back Our Children: Patriarchal Authority and Parental Consent to Religious Vocations in Early Counter-Reformation France”, in Journal of Modern History 68 (1996), pp. 265–307. 100

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understand what Jesus said concerning what God called him to do, so too most Christian parents have not understood their obligations regarding the dispositions of their children in the matter of a vocation and state of life.103 Dividing his sermon into two parts, Bourdaloue devotes the first part to showing that it is not for parents to ‘determine’ the choice of their children in these matters. If they do so, they commit two injustices, one against God’s right (le droit de Dieu), and another against the children. Though an earthly father may determine the education and material goods of his children, he is not to decide their state of life. When fathers ‘interfere’ in these things, they do so with ‘unworthy’ motives and ‘vile’ interests. They wound the ‘respect’ due to God’s rational creatures.104 Bourdaloue insists that the father of family is not the ‘distributor’ of vocations; this grace is not in his hands. It does not depend on him whether or not his daughter marries or enters religious life; for a father to attempt to decide this matter is to attack the ‘sovereign domain of God’ and to ‘injure’ grace.105 It is perhaps above all those parents who force their daughters to become nuns that find no support in Bourdaloue. He denounces this practice as an ‘abomination’ and asks whether one should be surprised to find that such families are struck with divine malediction, for such fathers sacrifice their daughters not to God but to their own wealth and ‘avaricious cupidity’. Yet for Bourdaloue, just as bad are those parents who seek to prevent a child from entering religious life. They, too, interfere with the ‘inviolable rights’ of God, a God who may even call a family’s only son to religion. The ‘false pretensions’ of fathers and mothers ought not to trouble the ‘reasonable liberty’ of their children in making these choices.106 Eternal salvation itself is at stake: Bourdaloue explains that nothing less than this is at stake in vocational choices. Living one’s vocation is how one is saved, and when something is a matter of salvation, ‘a father has no authority over his son’ ( point d’authorité du père sur le fils). God does not oblige parents to make their children rich, but he does oblige them to leave their children free (les laisser libres).107 In a much shorter, second point, Bourdaloue acknowledges that while it does not belong to parents to ‘determine’ the vocations of their children,

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Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes V, Dominicale, pp. 1–3. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes V, Dominicale, pp. 4–7. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes V, Dominicale, p. 8. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes V, Dominicale, pp. 12–17. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes V, Dominicale, pp. 18–20.

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they may ‘participate’ in such choices. Indeed, for Bourdaloue, parents ought to ‘assist’ and guide children in choosing well. Parents ought to instruct and form their children so as to make them ‘capable, intelligent, and worthy of the places’ to which they may aspire.108 Yet this second point seems more a minor concession to parents than anything central to vocational decision making. Bourdaloue is adamant in defending the freedom to make one’s own vocational choices, and the vigor with which he makes this defense suggests the degree to which his ideals challenged the practices of his audiences.109 Financial motives are one of the things Bourdaloue mentions as likely to incline parents to interfere in their children’s vocational choices. In a sermon on ambition, for Wednesday of the second week of Lent, Bourdaloue asserts that vocations from God may be ‘profaned’ when we treat them as but temporal advantages.110 Taking a text from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, in which the disciples of Jesus demonstrate much ambition but little understanding, Bourdaloue argues that providence chose as disciples these men who were proud, ambitious, and jealous of the world’s honors, in order that we discover the ‘disorder’ of our ambition by viewing theirs.111 Bourdaloue then announces a three-part division of his sermon: he will consider how we ‘profane’ our vocations by seeking only temporal advantages; how we ought to serve our neighbor but instead seek proud domination; and how we ought to labor but instead seek an agreeable life. The relation between grace and human freedom was a hotly debated theological issue in the seventeenth century, especially between Jesuits and Jansenists.112 Bourdaloue, in preaching on vocation and ambition, insists that ‘theologians say’ that predestination is nothing but a series of graces 108

Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes V, Dominicale, pp. 22–32. On this question in Bourdaloue’s preaching, see also Lawrence Wolff, “Parents and Children in the Sermons of Père Bourdaloue: A Jesuit Perspective on the Early Modern Family,” in The Jesuit Tradition in Education and Missions: A 450-Year Perspective, Christopher Chapple ed. (Scranton, 1993), pp. 81–94. In the first half of the seventeenth century another prolific Jesuit writer, Nicolas Caussin (1583–1651), had already articulated many of the arguments made by Bourdaloue for vocational freedom; see Thomas Worcester, “Neither Married nor Cloistered: Blessed Isabelle in Catholic Reformation France”, in Sixteenth Century Journal 30 (1999), pp. 457–472. 110 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, p. 363. 111 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, p. 360. 112 On Jesuit views of freedom and grace, see Philippe Lécrivain, “Liberté et grâce au XVIIs. et la part prise par la Compagnie de Jésus dans ce débat”, in Dieu au XVIIe siècle: Crises et renouvellement du discours, Henri Laux and Dominique Salin eds. (Paris, 2002), pp. 191–212. 109

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prepared for us; our part consists of actions in response to grace, actions for which God will judge us. How many of the reprobate in hell ‘would have lived as saints on earth if they had followed the voice of God by embracing the state to which God called them?’113 The ‘grace of a vocation’ is not, Bourdaloue insists, restricted to the humble life in cloister. On the contrary, the more a state of life includes high honors the more it demands a vocation from God. ‘Ecclesiastical dignities’ should be seen as a divine vocation, for God to dispose as he will, not simply as honors ‘due’ to those of a certain birth.114 Bourdaloue vigorously castigates any such sense of entitlement: some consider the sanctuary of God as their inheritance, and they think that because a benefice has been in the family for many years it is theirs to keep. But nothing is more ‘fatal’ than the blindness of such cupidity. Some think that because a young man is the youngest son that he is therefore ‘called’ to the functions of pastor of souls; but the goal of fathers thinking in that way is to make powerful families not Christian families.115 Yet Bourdaloue acknowledges that his message may be falling on unwilling ears, especially at court, where auditors listen carefully, but are poorly disposed to believe or do as he says. Still, Bourdaloue protests that he will always bear ‘witness’ to the truth, against the world.116 In the second part of this sermon on ambition, Bourdaloue asserts that the proper task of the human being is to serve others. While the great among the pagans treat the small with domination, the great among Christians must treat the small with love and respect.117 In Bourdaloue’s era many in France, especially among the bourgeois, sought ennoblement and the higher status and privileges nobility brought.118 What Bourdaloue says about servants and ennoblement could not have been easy for many in his audience to hear. He states that the Word of God, by taking on the 113

Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, p. 365. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, p. 367–369. By the late seventeenth century, nearly all high level church appointments (bishops, abbots) in France were drawn from noble families; see Joseph Bergin, Crown, Church and Episcopate under Louis XIV (New Haven, 2004). 115 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, pp. 372–373. 116 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, p. 374. On audiences at court resisting the practice of what Bourdaloue preached, see Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Church: The Age of the Reformation (Grand Rapids, 2002), p. 504. 117 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, p. 375. 118 For a succinct discussion of what ‘nobility’ meant in early modern Europe, see M.L. Bush, “An Anatomy of Nobility”, in Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe since 1500: Studies in Social Stratification, M.L. Bush ed. (London, 1992), pp. 26–46. 114

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quality of a servant, ennobled that quality, in a sense ‘divinizing’ it; thus it should be honored among Christians. For Christians, all domination is forbidden; the ‘function’ of a Christian is to be charitable and to serve.119 Bourdaloue, claiming the ‘holy liberty of the pulpit’ (la sainte liberté de la chaire), declares that he will insist on such morality. The higher a person’s rank, the more that person must act with gentleness, moderation, and charity.120 Bourdaloue’s third point focuses on the Christian vocation to suffer and labor, as Christ suffered and labored. The highly ranked disciples of Jesus will know a large measure of tribulations and crosses. From those who have received much from God, much will be asked by God. Bishops, especially, should examine themselves. Are they ecclesiastics for the sake of receiving revenues and for showing themselves with the miter and the purple? Do they think of serving at the altar, instructing the people, and helping the needs of the poor?121 The needs of the poor—and the question of charity for the poor—are themes to which Bourdaloue returns frequently in his discourses. The Council of Trent (1545–63) had insisted on the obligation of good works and faith in order to be saved,122 and Bourdaloue certainly teaches this. In some cases, his emphasis is precisely on what charity does for the one who acts with charity for the poor, rather than on what it does for the poor recipient of such charity. An example is an ‘exhortation’ in which Bourdaloue addresses a group of wealthy women and explains to them how almsgiving may serve them as a ‘preservative’ from the corruption of the world. Crediting the sermons of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090– 1153) with his three points, he asserts that there are three things difficult to conserve in the world: humility in the midst of riches; chastity in the midst of the delights of the world; and piety amidst the business of the world.123 On the first point, Bourdaloue states bluntly that riches inspire pride, and ‘nothing is more rare’ than a humble person in the mist of opulence and wealth. Though the rich may pretend to merit an abundance of goods, and persuade themselves that it is all ‘owed’ to them, their riches are often

119

Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, pp. 377–378. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, p. 383. 121 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes II, Carême, pp. 384–391. 122 Council of Trent, Decree Concerning Justification, in Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. H.J. Schroeder (Rockford, IL, 1978), pp. 29–46. 123 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VIII, Exhortations, p. 1. 120

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based but on injustice, and are the fruit of usury.124 But the ‘corrective’ for such sentiments is the ‘indispensable duty’ of alms and works of charity, a corrective that includes attribution to God of one’s goods. The rich should say to themselves that God is the first master and owner of their goods, and that they are but the dispensers; for they have nothing but what they have received. What they have received has been ‘confided’ to them for the poor; in God’s providence, the rich are not made rich in order to satisfy their own ambition, but in order to ‘relieve the misery of the poor’, as servants of the poor (les servantes des pauvres). Citing the gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, Bourdaloue insists that what one does to the poor one does to Christ, and thus one should not be ashamed to be called servants of the poor. For ‘our kings’ wash the feet of the poor and recognize in the poor not their subjects but the ‘living images’ of the first of all masters ( Jesus Christ). Among those kings is Saint Louis, who embraced humility amidst royal grandeur.125 Though Bourdaloue explicitly cites Bernard of Clairvaux, he could well have also cited Vincent de Paul (1581–1660), whose work among the poor and whose foundation (with Louise de Marillac) of the Daughters of Charity was enormously influential in France and beyond, through Bourdaloue’s lifetime, and long after.126 Bourdaloue turns, in the second point of this exhortation on charity, to how the ‘practice of works of charity and of mercy’ is the means provided by providence for preservation from self-love, sensuality, and impurity. Such practice will inspire ‘the exercises of a penitential life’, and a reduction in the excesses of precious ornaments and sumptuous meals. It will also produce ‘shame’ when one contrasts one’s abundance with the poor who do not have necessities. It will lead one to ask what difference there is between oneself and the poor, and to reflect on how they, too, are children of God.127 Vincent Houdry (1631–1729) was a Jesuit preacher contemporary with Bourdaloue; penance was a dominant theme in his oratory.128 Bourdaloue places less emphasis on penance than Houdry did, but in this exhortation it does play a prominent role. By serving the poor one will learn to suffer and to stop complaining about it. One will see that the poor 124 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VIII, Exhortations, p. 2. On Christian critique of what was termed usury, see John Noonan, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Cambridge, MA, 1957). 125 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VIII, Exhortations, pp. 3–7. 126 On the Daughters of Charity, see Susan Dinan, Women and Poor Relief in SeventeenthCentury France: The Early History of the Daughters of Charity (Aldershot, UK, 2006). 127 Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VIII, Exhortations, pp. 8–11. 128 See Marie-Christine Varachaud, Le Père Houdry, S.J. (1631–1729): Prédication et pénitence (Paris, 1993).

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suffer far more, and thus one will learn to accept the practices of penance, of abstinence, and of fasting, practices that serve as a ‘preservative’ against the inclinations to vice of our corrupt nature.129 The third ‘advantage’ of Christian charity Bourdaloue finds in conservation of the spirit of piety in the midst of the cares of the world. He notes that while some religious have a vocation to the cloister and to separation from the world, for other people it is also possible to ‘sanctify’ their lives— through serving the poor. By visiting the poor in prisons and hospitals one’s heart is raised to God and one’s tepid piety is warmed; a visit to the poor is a ‘salutary suspension’ of worry about worldly things, and an opportunity for God to speak to the heart of such visitors, and to renew in them the spirit of eternal truths.130 Models of sanctity are a recurring theme in Bourdaloue’s discourses; holy exemplars such as Saint Louis and Saint Francis de Sales provide concrete models of how to live a holy Christian life in the world. In a sermon for the feast of Saint Louis (25 August), Bourdaloue shows both how this king of France was like Moses and even like God in his zeal for the people of God. Yet his sanctity, ‘though royal and magnificent’, is an example for all Christians to follow, especially the French. They have a ‘special obligation’ to honor him, and one that is even more ‘indispensable’ to imitate him. He is not a saint imitable only by those in some ‘conditions’ or ‘states’ of life; his life shows that it is possible to be a saint in all states and conditions of life.131 In the first part of this two-part sermon, Bourdaloue endeavors to show that royalty not only was not an obstacle to holiness in the life of Saint Louis, but it was the means by which he reached ‘heroic’ sanctity. The ‘greatest of kings’, Saint Louis was the most humble of men, obedient to God. He died a martyr, seeking the conversion of the Saracens in Egypt. In France, he labored to eliminate the scandal of simony among the clergy. He published an edict against blasphemy ordering the piercing of the tongue of those who ‘profaned the holiness and the majesty of the name of God’. He forbade duels, exterminated usury. Even when in camp with his armies, he had a tent set up as a kind of sanctuary for the Eucharist. And he opened his treasury to purchase the holy crown of thorns (of Jesus), ‘for which he would have given all the crowns in the world’.132

129 130 131 132

Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VIII, Exhortations, pp. 11–13. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes VIII, Exhortations, pp. 14–19. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XIII, Panégyriques, pp. 87–89. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XIII, Panégyriques, pp. 90–98.

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Again and again, Bourdaloue highlights how the kingship of Saint Louis not only did not interfere with his holiness, but was also a vehicle for or means to holiness. Thus Saint Louis was charitable toward his people, receiving personally the requests of widows and orphans, rendering justice to all, consoling the afflicted. Motivated by ‘tender and affectionate’ love for the poor, he founded innumerable hospitals. He loved the poor so much that he housed them in his palace and received them at his table, and served them with his own hands. He also washed their feet and bandaged their ulcers and wounds. He was persuaded that the poor person was the ‘living representation of Jesus Christ’ (la vive représentation de Jésus-Christ). But in what concerned himself, Saint Louis was austere. He punished his body with ‘rigorous mortifications’ and judged himself severely.133 Bourdaloue’s second part of this sermon on Saint Louis is a response to those who would claim that ‘evangelical perfection’ is incompatible with accomplishment of great things. He declares that this ‘error’ has made an infinite number of libertines and impious. Bourdaloue argues that the example of Saint Louis proves them wrong. He was great in war and great in peace, great in prosperity and great in adversity. Neither Greece nor ancient Rome produced a more heroic warrior; it is not true that holiness ‘weakens the courage of men’. Never, since the establishment of the French monarchy, had France been so flourishing and opulent, as in the reign of Saint Louis.134 To this history lesson Bourdaloue adds a direct appeal to Louis XIV, successor to Saint Louis and ‘heir of his zeal’, to pray to God that all who hear this sermon be persuaded and touched by its ‘important truths’. For Bourdaloue, without Christian sanctity, there is in this world ‘but appearance of virtue, but dissimulation, but lying, but illusion and hypocrisy’.135 François de Sales (1567–1622) was canonized as a saint in 1665, the very year in which Bourdaloue began his preaching career. Bourdaloue’s high praise of Saint François de Sales knows few limits. In a sermon for his feast day, Bourdaloue calls the ‘incomparable’ de Sales ‘a saint for our times’ (un saint pour nos jours), the apostle of Savoy, the oracle and preacher of France, the model of prelates, the scourge of heresy, the defender of true religion, the ornament of our century, a saint respected by the monarchs of the earth, a saint canonized for the excellence of his gentleness.136 133 134 135 136

Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XIII, Panégyriques, pp. 99–102. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XIII, Panégyriques, pp. 104–109. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XIII, Panégyriques, pp. 113–115. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XII, Panégyriques, pp. 188–190.

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Dividing his discourse into two parts, Bourdaloue devotes the first part to destruction of heresy. Asserting that God raised up François de Sales just as he once raised up David for the Israelites, Bourdaloue explains that God did not want the most Christian kingdom of France or the duchy of Savoy to become a rampart of error. Thus François de Sales converted more than 70,000 heretics, a miracle accomplished by virtue of his patient and active gentleness.137 For Bourdaloue, not only was François de Sales like David, but he was also like Moses. Just as Moses defeated Pharaoh, François de Sales defeated heresy, and delivered the people of God from servitude.138 In his second point, Bourdaloue lauds de Sales as a writer and as a preacher. After Scripture, Bourdaloue declares, there are no works that have done more to support piety among the faithful than those of this holy bishop. And ‘to form the morals of the faithful’, and establish souls in a solid piety, no one has the gift of the bishop of Geneva. As for his Introduction to the Devout Life, ‘how many sinners has it converted?’ And how many men and women has it ‘sanctified’ within marriage? ‘Have you ever opened it’, without being moved to the ‘practice of virtue’ and without being moved by holy desires? Preaching in Paris and at court, François de Sales also devoted entire Lents to the least towns of his diocese; he was like Jesus who preferred preaching in small towns to doing so in Jerusalem. The bishop of Geneva ‘still lives in his writings’ (vit encore dans ses écrits), for he left his spirit in them.139 To live on after one’s death through one’s writings: not only did François de Sales do that but so too did Louis Bourdaloue. In the case of the latter, his sermons were collected and published after his death in 1704, under the editorship of Jesuit Father Bretonneau. Bretonneau’s editions of Bourdaloue’s oratory first reached the printing presses in 1707; many reprintings and editions followed, through the eighteenth century and beyond. It may be useful to examine one of the prefaces Bretonneau provided. For a 1716 edition of Advent sermons of Bourdaloue, Bretonneau explains that it is fitting for the Society of Jesus to preserve the memory of a man it regards as one its ‘first ornaments’ and whose loss it continues to mourn. Thus the works of this celebrated preacher should be published ‘for the good of souls and to perpetuate the fruits of his zeal’. Bretonneau goes on to recall how Bourdaloue painted a picture of morals in which 137 138 139

Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XII, Panégyriques, pp. 192–197. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XII, Panégyrqiues, p. 203. Bourdaloue, Oeuvres complètes XII, Panégyriques, pp. 210–211.

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each person saw and recognized himself; with his ‘full, resonant, gentle and harmonious’ voice, Bourdaloue made his audience listen. Frequently from the audience one would hear a cry that he was right, that he accurately described humanity and the world. Though he first preached in the provinces, it was not long before he was sent to Paris. There providence opened to him ‘the most vast and beautiful field’, and as soon as he appeared at the professed house of the Jesuits (the church of Saint-Louis), all Paris, and from the court, ‘a prodigious crowd’ ran to hear him. The more one heard him the more one wanted to hear him. With a ‘ground of reason’ ( fonds de rasion) joined to ‘a lively and penetrating imagination’ (une imagination vive et pénétrante), he found in each thing what was solid and true. His discourses were well-organized, his arguments ‘ordered and convincing’, and he never wandered from his goal.140 Even as Bretonneau draws attention to the elite audiences that rushed to hear Bourdaloue, he also insists that Bourdaloue was appreciated by all sorts of persons. One ought not to be surprised by this, Bretonneau adds, for what is ‘natural and founded on reason’ (naturel et fondé sur la raison), pleases everywhere, and all times, and all tastes.141 Bourdaloue, perhaps especially Bourdaloue as presented by Bretonneau, offers us excellent examples of a ‘classical’ ideal of preaching. Christian ethics took pride of place, and the preacher sought to persuade his audiences, by reasonable arguments and by eloquent speech, to make good moral choices. Bretonneau may have overstated somewhat the degree to which Bourdaloue was well received as a preacher in his time, but if the number of editions and translations published is a way of measuring how pleasing Bourdaloue was in print, he was very pleasing indeed. The Bourdaloue holdings of the library at the Centre Sèvres, the Jesuit faculty of theology and philosophy in Paris, are vast. This library has some 300 volumes of Bourdaloue’s works from the eighteenth century alone, published between 1707 and 1787.142 In addition to various editions in French, published in several cities in France, there are editions from Brussels, Liège, and Antwerp. There are also versions published in translation—Latin, German, 140 Sermons du Père Bourdaloue, de la Compagnie de Jésus: Pour L’Avent, new ed. (Paris, 1716), preface by François Bretonneau. 141 Bourdaloue, Sermons, preface by François Bretonneau. 142 I am grateful for the assistance of Jacqueline Diot, librarian at the Centre Sèvres, in compiling this information. Nineteenth-century editions I have not examined, except the 1812 Versailles edition, which I have used in my own reading of Bourdaloue. See also the list of Bourdaloue’s works in Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus II, pp. 5–28.

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Italian, or Dutch—in Augsburg, Innsbruck, Venice, or Amsterdam. No library has a complete collection of all the editions of Bourdaloue, eighteenth-century or later. The Centre Sèvres has some volumes not in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and vice versa. While the British Library does not have much of what may be found in Parisian collections, in the catalogue of the former one finds some of Bourdaloue in English, in a four-volume edition published in 1776 in London.143 The Society of Jesus had been suppressed not long before this date, by Pope Clement XIV, in 1773.144 Such an effort to eliminate the Jesuits— carried out under pressure from the Bourbon monarchs—seems not to have affected the publishing of the sermons of Jesuit Father Bourdaloue. In 1773 itself, in Liège, several volumes of Bourdaloue’s sermons were published; in 1787, in Toulouse and Nîmes. Reception of Bourdaloue’s works in the eighteenth-century can be gauged by other means, such as critical commentaries. One of the most interesting is found in Voltaire, and it perhaps gives some idea of how Bourdaloue retained an audience of readers, even in an age less and less given to traditional Christian piety. In his work on the century of Louis XIV, Voltaire praises in Bourdaloue an always eloquent reason (une raison toujours éloquente), unlike other orators. Voltaire adds praise, or at least respect, for Bourdaloue’s ‘style’, one that did not aim to please, but to convince.145 5. Tillotson Bourdaloue, like Camus, and like Bossuet, would have seen Protestant preachers not only as rivals but as heretics.146 These French preachers would not have given much attention to any similarities between their Catholic preaching and Protestant preaching. Yet in retrospect, the historian may well find continuity (as well as discontinuity) between their pulpit oratory and that of their contemporaries on the other side of the confessional divide. John Tillotson (1630–94) may serve as an example. He has been

143 Louis Bourdaloue, Practical Divinity: Being a Regular Series of Sermons, trans. by Anthony Carroll (4 vols.; London, 1776). 144 On the Jesuit suppression, see Jonathan Wright, God’s Soldiers, pp. 175–90. 145 Voltaire, Oeuvres historiques, René Pomeau ed. (Paris, 1957), pp. 1004–1005. 146 Paul Hazard recounts that Bossuet, who never set foot in England, hoped to go there to change the minds of its (Protestant) theologians; see Hazard, The European Mind, trans. by J. Lewis May (New Haven, 1953), p. 207.

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called ‘the most famous preacher of his day’, in England, and a preacher whose printed works ‘were widely read and admired in the eighteenth century’.147 An Anglican theologian and preacher seeking to make the Church of England more Protestant, Tillotson was a Fellow of Clare College Cambridge. With the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the accession to the throne of William and Mary, Tillotson moved to the centers of power in the Anglican Church. In 1689 he was made Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, and in 1691, Archbishop of Canterbury. While some of his preaching was published in his own lifetime, editions of his complete works appeared after his death. A 14-volume edition of his sermons was published 1695–1704, and other editions of his works followed.148 Some of his sermons were translated into French and published in London, others in eighteenth-century Amsterdam.149 There were also works about Tillotson; for example, a funeral oration for Tillotson, by Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Sarum, was published in 1694; a life of Tillotson, nearly 500 pages long, by Thomas Birch, was first published in 1752.150 Like Bossuet, Tillotson often preached before royalty. One example is Tillotson’s sermon on Moses, preached in 1687, at Whitehall, before Princess Anne.151 (One of James II’s two Protestant daughters, Anne would eventually reign as Queen Anne, 1702–14.) Taking as his text Hebrews 11: 24–25, Tillotson explains how Moses chose an ‘afflicted piety’ rather than a kingdom. Moses refused the kingdom of Egypt rather than forsake God and his religion; ‘considering how strangely the Egyptians were addicted to idolatry’, he could not have been heir of that kingdom without violating his conscience, ‘either by abandoning or dissembling his religion’.152 Tillotson then divides his sermon into four points: Moses’ 147 James C. Livingston, Modern Christian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Vatican II (New York, 1971), p. 15. On Tillotson, see also Louis Glenn Locke, Tillotson: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Literature (Copenhagen, 1954). 148 Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., s.v. “Tillotson, John”. 149 See J. Tillotson, L’esprit du christianisme, ou, Sermon sur le IX de S. Luc v. 55,56, trans. by J.B. de Rosemond (London, 1679); Sermons sur diverses matières importantes, trans. by Jean Barbeyrac (2 vols.; Amsterdam, 1713–18); Sermons sur la repentance, trans. by Charles Louis de Beausobre (Amsterdam, 1728). 150 Gilbert Burnet, A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Most Reverend Father in God, John Tillotson (Dublin, 1694); Thomas Birch, The Life of the Most Reverend Dr.John Tillotson (London, 1752). 151 John Tillotson, The Works of Dr. John Tillotson, Late Archbishop of Canterbury (10 vols.; London, 1820) IV, pp. 51–72. 152 Tillotson, Works, IV, pp. 51–52.

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self-denial; the circumstances of this self-denial; the prudence and reasonableness of this choice; why so many other people make another choice.153 On the one hand, Tillotson insists that it is very rare to find a person that would choose suffering rather than be a prince. On the other hand, he endeavors to ‘abstract from the particular case of Moses, and shew in general, that it is a prudent and reasonable thing, to prefer even an afflicted state of piety and virtue, before the greatest pleasures and prosperity of a sinful course’. Appealing to the self-interest of his audience, Tillotson argues that nothing in this world is ‘too grievous to suffer, for the obtaining of a blessed immortality.’ Thus, the one who ‘suffers for God and religion does not renounce his happiness, but put[s] it out to interest upon terms of greatest advantage, and does wisely consider his own best and most lasting interest’. Tillotson also cautions his elite audience that their status in this world will be of no advantage to them at the Last Judgment. Before God’s tribunal, the distinctions ‘which now seem so considerable, and make such a glaring difference amongst men in this world, shall all then be laid aside, and moral differences shall only take place.’ If we have changed our religion for the sake of gain in this world, our guilt will ‘never leave us nor forsake us’.154 With the 1685 accession of James II, a Catholic, to the throne, the religious situation in England had dramatically changed. It was no longer English Catholics who might become Protestant for the sake of worldly gain, but English Protestants who might be tempted to become Catholic. With the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the situation would, again, be reversed. But even in 1687 Tillotson did not confine his preaching at court to the danger of what seemed to him opportunistic apostasy. In the same sermon before Princess Anne, he sounds very much like Bourdaloue by insisting on restitution of ‘that which hath been gained by sin, if it hath been got by injury of another’. Arguing that is better to have never had ‘an ill-gotten estate’ than to be obliged to refund it, Tillotson suggests an analogy between restitution and regurgitation. A wise man will do without the most pleasant foods, if he knows in advance ‘that they will make him deadly sick, and that he shall never be at ease till he have brought them up

153 On how Tillotson and his contemporary Anglican theologians and preachers appealed to both reason and to Scripture, see Gerard Reedy, The Bible and Reason: Anglicans and Scripture in Late Seventeenth-Century England (Philadelphia, 1985). 154 Tillotson, Works, IV, pp. 55–63.

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again’. Tillotson’s broader point is that the consequences of sin are misery, in this world, and for eternity in the next world.155 Unike the 1687 sermon before Princess Anne, many of Tillotson’s collected sermons offer no indication of a date or of circumstances when originally preached. But like the sermon before Princess Anne they reveal a preacher hostile to Catholicism yet not altogether unlike Catholic preachers such as a Bossuet or a Bourdaloue. Tillotson’s sermon, ‘Of the Form and Power of Godliness’, more than once points to Catholics as examples of ‘the show and pretence of religion’, of religion as form without power. Like the Pharisees, many in the ‘Romish church’ fast and impose other bodily mortifications, yet they remain favorable to their lusts and superstitions; they may go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to visit the Savior’s sepulcher, yet they know not the power of his death.156 The papists praise ‘silliness and freakishness’ among their saints, such as Saint Francis preaching to the birds and the beasts, or stripping himself naked. These things ‘render religion ridiculous to any man of common sense’.157 What is needed for Christian holiness, Tillotson declares, is a ‘sincere and diligent use of the means and instruments of religion, such as prayer, reading, and hearing the word of God, and receiving the sacraments’. To these must be added the ‘subduing of our passions, the government of our tongues, and the several virtues of a good life’. Those virtues must include humility and meekness, ‘charity to those in want and necessity, a readiness to forgive our enemies, and a universal love and kindness to all men’.158 Like Bourdaloue, Tillotson puts much emphasis on morality, the virtuous life, on making good choices, and so on. Bourdaloue was a member of a religious order whose motto was ‘For the greater glory of God’, a focus not very different from that in Tillotson’s sermon entitled ‘Of Doing All to the Glory of God’. Tillotson argues our actions may be done to the glory of God when they meet three conditions: our actions must be what God commands; we must do them with the right intention, ‘with regard to God and out of conscience’ of our duty to obey God; our actions must not ‘be spoiled and vitiated by any bad circumstance: for circumstances alter moral actions, and may render that which is lawful in itself unlawful in some cases’.159 Tillotson thus endorses an ethical reasoning known as

155 156 157 158 159

Tillotson, Works, IV, pp. 64–65. Tillotson, Works, VIII, pp. 500–501, 510–511. Tillotson, Works, VIII, p. 515. Tillotson, Works, VIII, pp. 518–522. Tillotson, Works, IX, pp. 38–39.

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casuistry, a case-based ethical reasoning associated with the Jesuits, at least in Catholic circles, and a reasoning that remained very controversial in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.160 6. Conclusion It is well known that late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were an age when the French language emerged as an international idiom for literate elites in many parts of Europe.161 This essay on the classical sermon may shed light on how, in the pulpit, and perhaps even more so in print, preaching played an important role in such literacy. The influence of preachers such as Bossuet (1627–1704) and Bourdaloue (1632–1704) was vast in their own era, but also beyond, thanks to the printing press. Camus (1584–1652) focused somewhat more on doctrine than Bourdaloue or Bossuet did. Camus indulged in a richer array of images than either Bourdaloue or Bossuet, though the ‘classical’ preachers of the late 1600s also relied, at times, on vivid analogies and metaphors. Terms such as nature and reason make more frequent appearance in the classical sermons than in those of Camus, and this surely reflects Enlightenment culture and its ideals, though of course the meaning attached to such terms could vary enormously, from one era to another, from one author to another.162 Language in service of good morals is a key component of classical preaching. A member of the French Academy, Bossuet stands out as a distinguished practitioner of polished, elegant French. But as a preacher he sought not only to delight francophone ears, but especially to call his audiences to conversion, to change of life. Moral change is the most consistent goal in his pulpit oratory. The same can be said of Bourdaloue. His sermons have a practical focus. They are efforts to convince their hearers/ readers to make certain decisions, to do certain things, and not others. They are aimed at comfortable people living in the world, and they call them to live lives of charity and service for the poor. They insist on the 160 On continuities between Jesuit and English Protestant casuistry, see James Keenan, “Jesuit Casuistry or Jesuit Spirituality? The Roots of Seventeenth-Century British Puritan Practical Divinity”, in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris and T. Frank Kennedy eds. (Toronto, 1999), pp. 627–640. 161 On French as an international tongue, see Peter Burke, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, UK, 2004), pp. 85–88. 162 On the changing meanings of the word reason, see Hazard, The European Mind, pp. 119–154.

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freedom of children to make vocational decisions, in response to the grace of God, not the economic desires of their parents. They frequently repeat a relatively small number of themes, such as these, and make their arguments from Scripture and reason, in view of what will lead to eternal salvation. Even as Bourdaloue’s sermons challenged their audiences to change their ways, they may have been pleasing by their eloquence, practicality, and clarity. They were not at all concerned with abstract theologies or doctrinal subtleties. They were contemporary—one could say modern—in that they addressed in a direct way real moral issues faced by many people in that time and place. Even as Tillotson denounced certain things he thought typical of Catholicism, his preaching was not altogether unlike that of a Bossuet or a Bourdaloue. Like those Catholic preachers, Tillotson often addressed elite audiences and sought to call them to a change of life, to putting aside passion in favor of duty, and hypocrisy in favor of sincerity. He would seek to persuade audiences with eloquent speech, and through citation of Scripture and arguments appealing to reason and nature. His pulpit oratory, like that of his French Catholic contemporaries, made ethical life the heart of Christian life. Duty, sincerity, nature, reason: these would be ideals promoted by many moralists in the eighteenth century, Catholics, Protestants, and others.

PIETISM AND REVIVAL Jonathan Strom 1. Introduction The sermon rose to new prominence and controversy in the Pietist and revival movements of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Above all, preaching and printed sermons came to represent the movements’ distinctive expressions of piety and theology. Sermons remained one of the leading literary genres of the movement’s theologians. Both John Wesley and August Hermann Francke relied heavily on sermons rather than theological treatises to disseminate their theology. Pietists and revivalists were particularly concerned to produce effective sermons. They focused attention on the religious disposition of the preachers and introduced innovative forms of pulpit oratory and new occasions for preaching. They further developed new methods of disseminating sermons and employed print media shrewdly to convey stories recounting the effect of their preaching. They criticized much traditional preaching as both ineffective and insufficient for inculcating lay piety. All of these mark important developments in the history of preaching, but scholars should not underestimate the level of continuity with earlier eras of Protestant preaching, especially with regard to Pietism. The following will focus on first on Pietist preaching and sermons, predominately in Germany, and then look to revivalist sermons in Europe and the New World. 2. Sermons and Preaching in Germany Pietist sermons and preaching in Germany emerged from a context in the seventeenth century in which there was widespread criticism of the sermon and keen interest in improving efficacy in the pulpit. Older historiography has often portrayed this period as one of declension in which the vibrant preaching of the Reformation gave way to the highly stylized, doctrinally obtuse, and spiritually devoid preaching of the late seventeenth century, to which the Pietists offered an important

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corrective.1 New studies of the confessional era have challenged these negative views and consequently, the place of Pietism. Albrecht Beutel has shown in his study of Johann Benedikt Carpzov how the picture of Carpzov’s homiletics created by Pietists in the eighteenth century and uncritically repeated by later historians has fundamentally distorted his work.2 Case studies by Sabine Holtz and Nobert Haag of the preaching activity of clergy in Tübingen and Ulm during the confessional age have shown the difficulty of sweeping generalizations about preaching in this period.3 The sermon was one of the most public events in the early modern village and city and this remained so into the eighteenth century, so much so that the clergy were often required to publicize the edicts and pronouncements of the civil authorities from the pulpit immediately following their sermons. Nothing defined the duties of the Protestant clergy more than the task of preaching; it was the most visible of their pastoral duties, and almost universally the office of ministry in German Protestantism was known the Predigtamt or office of preaching in the seventeenth century. Candidates for pastoral positions vied before the congregations in trial sermons, or Probepredigt, and poor performance in the pulpit could spell trouble for an otherwise promising candidate.4 In colloquial usage, the ‘sermon’ came to stand as a synecdoche for the entire worship service, reflecting its figurative dominance within religious worship in German Protestantism.5 1 A particularly influential interpretation is Martin Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus im Kampf um die Predigt. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des endenden 17. und des beginnenden 18. Jahrhunderts (Gießen, 1912), esp. pp. 10–12. Schian sees Orthodox preaching as typical of ‘epigoni’ who only narrowly and superficially clung to classic preaching of the Reformation. His understanding of Orthodox preaching is tendentious and deficient, but his analysis of Pietist preaching still remains the most thorough account in print. 2 Albrecht Beutel, “Aphoristische Homiletik. Johann Benedikt Carpzovs ‘Hodegeticum’ (1652), ein Klassiker der orthodoxen Predigtlehre,” in Klassiker der protestantischen Predigtlehre: Einführungen in homiletische Theorieentwürfe von Luther bis Lange, Christian Albrech and Martin Weeber eds. (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 29–32. 3 Norbert Haag, Predigt Und Gesellschaft. Die Lutherische Orthodoxie in Ulm 1640– 1740, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz Abteilung Religionsgeschichte 145 (Mainz, 1992). Sabine Holtz, Theologie und Alltag. Lehre und Leben in den Predigten der Tübinger Theologen 1555–1750 (Tübingen, 1993). 4 Effective preaching was by no means the only factor in clerical elections, but it was important. On its role in clerical election, see Jonathan Strom, Orthodoxy and Reform: The Clergy in Seventeenth Century Rostock (Tübingen, 1999), pp. 51–52. Heinrich Müller was particularly critical of the importance placed on the voice of the preacher in clerical elections in his Geistliche Erquickstunden, Oder Drey hundert Haus u. Tisch-Andachten (Frankfurt/Main, 1692), p. 398, Nr. 197. 5 Theophilus Großgebauer, Wächterstimme auß dem verwüsteten Zion, Das ist, Treuhertzige und nothwendige Entdeckung, auß waß Ursachen die vielfaltige Predigt deß Worts Gottes bey evangelischen Gemeinen wenig zur Bekehrung und Gottseligkeit Frucht (Frankfurt/Main,

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The sermon, of course, was part of a larger liturgical act in Protestantism, and on Sundays it typically followed the credo and was expected to span an hour, though they could last considerably longer especially on church holidays.6 Most parishes had at least two sermons on Sundays. Larger parishes often offered a separate catechism sermon on Sundays or at a separate time during the week. Many parishes also held regular midweek sermons, and throughout the church year there were feast days, special days of penitence and prayer, and occasional ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, all of which were accompanied by sermons. Lutheran churches still followed the traditional lections for the Gospels and Epistles that were to form the textual basis for sermons on Sundays and church holidays, but other sermons offered ample opportunities for preaching on texts outside the lections. The demands on clergy for preaching were considerable, usually requiring several sermons a week, and often many more.7 Preaching was almost exclusively the prerogative of the ordained ministry, and in the ordination ceremonies, the ordinand was expressly charged with the task of the preaching.8 In many cities, students who had completed a substantial portion of their theological studies were often admitted as ministerial candidates and allowed to preach when the regularly appointed

1661), p. 207. Beyreuther describes the growing dominance of the sermon in Lutheran worship during the seventeenth century and what he termed the “distention” of the preaching event, which overshadowed other elements of worship. Erich Beyreuther, “Die Auflösung des reformatorischen Gottesdienstes in der reformatorischen Orthodoxie des 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Evangelische Theologie 20 (1960), pp. 380–397, at p. 384. Christoph Besold, a convert to Catholicism complained in 1639, “The whole religion of the Lutherans consists of preaching.” Quoted in Arnold Schleiff, Selbstkritik der lutherischen Kirchen im 17. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1937), p. 20. Underscoring this are the complaints by Fritsch and others that many parishioners, especially well-to-do women, arrived at church just as the preacher entered the pulpit. Ahasver Fritsch, I. Der sündliche KirchenGänge, II. Der sündliche Kirchen-Schläfer, III. Der sündliche Kirchen-Schwätzer (Dresden, 1686), pp. 13–14. 6 On the lengths of sermons, see the examples cited by Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, pp. 6–8. Despite some calls to reduce the length of sermons, both in Pietism and Orthodoxy, preachers regularly exceeded one hour. 7 Tobias Wagner estimated that he preached from three to six times a week in his parish in Esslingen. Albrecht Beutel, “Lehre und Leben in der Predigt der lutherischen Orthodoxie. Dargestellet am Beispiel des Tübinger Kontroverstheologen und Universitätskanzlers Tobias Wagner (1598–1680)” in Albrecht Beutel, Protestantische Konkretionen: Studien zur Kirchengeschichte (Tübingen, 1998), pp. 161–191, at p. 171. Adami describes some clergy having to preach as many as ten or eleven sermons within three days during the major church festivals. [Johann Samuel Adami], Der vertheidigte, beliebte und gelobte PostillenReuter (Dresden, 1703), pp. 67–68. 8 In the ordination services, it was often explicitly referred to as the ‘office of preaching’ as in Württemberg. See Ralph F. Smith, Luther, Ministry, and Ordination Rites in the Early Reformation Church (New York, 1996), p. 271.

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clergy were absent from the pulpit.9 This provided an avenue for theological students to receive experience in preaching and also made promising candidates known to the congregations in the event of a future vacancy. In other situations, qualified candidates who were appointed as adjuncts or substitutes for ordained clergy regularly assumed preaching duties. Despite the calls from some to widen preaching to the laity, preaching remained first and foremost a function of the ordained clergy and theologically trained candidates preparing for a clerical career. The historical sources for sermons comprise predominately printed sermons and sermons collections. These include the postils, or collected sermons on the lections throughout the church year, sermon cycles on themes or particular biblical books, occasional sermons, especially funeral sermons, as well as individual sermons published as pamphlets. Printed sermons, of course, are one or more steps removed from the sermons delivered in the pulpit, and preachers often took the liberty to revise extensively their sermons before publication. One of the most popular authors of postils in the late seventeenth century, Heinrich Müller, for instance, acknowledged editing his sermons for publication significantly, especially the elision of local content.10 Often learned quotations and references were added for print and were not part of the oral delivery.11 Manuscript sermons represent a step closer than printed sermons, but even these represent an inevitable distance to actual sermons preached from the pulpit.12 Scholars should be careful not to assume exact correspondence between spoken and written sermons. Printed sermons functioned as a form of devotional writing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that at

9 On the function of the ministerial candidates in general see Hans Bruhn, Die Kandidaten der Hamburgischen Kirche von 1654 bis 1825 (Hamburg, 1963). 10 Heinrich Müller, Apostolische Schluß-Kette, und Krafft-Kern oder Gründliche Auslegung der gewöhnlichen Sonn- und Fest-Tags-Episteln (Frankfurt/Main, 1671), p. ii. 11 See Thomas Kaufmann, Universität und lutherische Konfessionalisierung: Die Rostocker Theologieprofessoren und ihr Beitrag zur Theologischen Bildung und kirchlichen Gestaltung im Herzogtum Mecklenburg zwischen 1550 Und 1675 (Gütersloh, 1997), pp. 540–544. 12 Many sermons were delivered from outlines or brief drafts not a full manuscript. See Veronika Albrecht-Birkner, Reformation des Lebens : die Reformen Herzog Ernsts des Frommen von Sachsen-Gotha und ihre Auswirkungen auf Frömmigkeit, Schule und Alltag im ländlichen Raum (1640–1675) (Leipzig, 2002), p. 298; Kaufmann, Universität und lutherische Konfessionalisierung, p. 499. Consequently many manuscripts were composed post facto or transcribed by a third party. Studies of the differences of manuscript and printed sermons are relatively rare. On the relationship of printed and spoken sermons, see Monika Hagenmaier, Predigt und Policey. Der gesellschaftspolitische Diskurs zwischen Kirche und Obrigkeit in Ulm 1614–1639 (Baden-Baden, 1989) pp. 75–76.

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times could be only loosely related to the act of pulpit preaching. Other sources such as homiletical manuals, church orders, and indirect reports about content and reception can greatly aid in understanding early modern sermons, but caution should be used in drawing practical conclusions from these normative and prescriptive sources.13 From the late Reformation, Lutherans applied the divisions of classical oratory to the sermon, a process that intensified with an increased concern for preaching and language in the seventeenth century.14 While critics later decried the inflexible application of these categories, in fact, they shaped explicitly or implicitly the structure of the sermons well into the eighteenth century and the structure afforded listeners a more or less predictable form of the sermon.15 In addition, homiliticians generally identified five genera, didactic (genus didascalicus), refutatory (genus elenchticus), admonitory (genus paedeuticus), condemnatory (genus epanorthoticus), and consolatory (genus consolatorius).16 Neither the structure nor the genera were invariable during the period and while the potential rigidity they represented was criticized, they continued to provide the underlying rhetorical structure of sermons among Pietists and Orthodox into the eighteenth century.17 In basic form there were two methods of preaching, the analytic or paraphrastic, which dealt with the explication of the text, and the synthetic, which developed doctrinal issues; a third method, the ‘heroic,’ or free method of preaching, usually connected with Luther was not recommended by homileticians, although some Pietists such as Gottfried Arnold would call for a return to this approach.18

13

In overview, Janis Kreslins, Dominus narrabit in scriptura populorum: A Study of EarlySeventeenth-Century Lutheran Teaching on Preaching and the Lettiche lang-gewünschte Postill of Georgius Mancelius, Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 54 (Wiesbaden, 1992). 14 Kreslins, Dominus narrabit, 21–25. 15 The typical divisions were: exordium, propositio, confirmatio, applicatio, conclusio. Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, p. 13. On the variations in this structure, Kreslins, Dominus narrabit, 120–121. 16 Kreslins, Dominus narrabit, 57–74. Kreslins notes the teaching on genera are transformed into teaching on corresponding usus (p. 114). See also, Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, p. 21. 17 See, for instance, the continued reference to these in Johann Jacob Rambach, Erläuterung über die Praecepta Homiletica (Gießen, 1736), one of the leading Pietist homiletic manuals. 18 Beutel, “Aphoristic Homiletik,” p. 38 and Gottfried Arnold, Evangelische Reden über die Sonn- und Festags-Evangelien zu einer beqvemen Hauß- und Reise-Postill heraus gegeben mit einer Vorrede De Methodo Heroica oder von der freyen und einfältigen Predigt-Art (Leipzig, 1713). On Arnold, see below.

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jonathan strom 3. Challenges to the Lutheran Sermon Prior to Pietism

There is no doubt concerning the centrality of the sermon in religious worship at the end of the seventeenth century both for the self-understanding of the clergy and the expectations of the laity. But we can identify several challenges to preaching and the sermon at the end of the seventeenth century that had long-term implications for the place of the sermon in Pietism and in the eighteenth century. First, there was increasing criticism of the clergy and with it their actions in the pulpit. Radical spiritualists such as Joachim Betke and Christian Hoburg deplored the state of the clergy and made them and their sermons largely responsible for the poor condition of Christianity in Germany. Hoburg, for instance, called on the clergy to devote less time to their preaching duties and more to their other pastoral tasks.19 Betke, in particular, called for opportunities that would allow pious laity opportunities to preach, a point echoed by Hoburg.20 Where Hoburg and to a lesser extent Betke fundamentally questioned the office of ministry in Lutheranism, it is telling that other, less radical clergy raised similar concerns about the sermon. Theophil Großgebauer questioned the excessive emphasis on the sermon within Lutheran worship.21 He criticized the neglect of other aspects of Christian worship and called for a reinvigoration of church discipline and a revived universal priesthood of the laity. Moreover, Großgebauer emphasized the spiritual quality of the clergy themselves as essential to effective preaching and speculated one reason that the Word of God bears so little fruit is perhaps ‘because those, who proclaim the Word of God to others, do not believe in it, are not illumined by it, and have not been converted from the world to God’.22 What does not come from the heart, he wrote, does not reach the heart.23 His colleague Heinrich Müller, who became one of the most widely published devotional writers of the second half of the seventeenth century, echoed Großgebauer on this point and called the unreflective reliance on the pulpit one of the four dumb

19

Christian Hoburg [Elias Praetorius], Spiegel der Misbräuche beym Predig-Ampt im heutigen Christenthumb und wie selbige gründlich un heilsam zu reformieren (s.l. 1644), p. 745. 20 Joachim Betke, Sacerdotium, Hoc est, New-Testamentisches Königliches Priesterthumb (s.l., 1640), p. 83. Cf. Hoburg, Spiegel der Misbräuche, pp. 739, 743. 21 Großgebauer, Wächterstimme, p. 208. 22 Großgebauer, Wächterstimme, p. 99. 23 Großgebauer, Wächterstimme, p. 101.

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idols of the church.24 As Schleiff has shown, these complaints were not untypical in the seventeenth century.25 They underscore that it was not the lack of preaching that had become problematic for many Lutherans at the end of the seventeenth century, rather it was its dominance and unthinking reliance on it that was criticized. The sermon at the end of the seventeenth century faced other challenges as well. The production of devotional literature flourished in the seventeenth century and presented, indirectly, an alternative to the pulpit sermons of the parish clergy for many laity. Much of the devotional literature constituted printed sermons such as the popular postil collections, but this literature also allowed the ‘pious middle classes’ as Lehmann has described them, to bypass in some measure the individual connection to the parish clergy by offering access to sermons and sermon-like devotional materials outside of regular worship.26 These devotional works afforded the laity not only a way of conceiving their religious life apart from regular parish preaching, but they also provided standards against which the laity could measure the spirituality and rhetorical skills of the local preacher. An indirect challenge to traditional parish preaching was the phenomenon of lay prophecy in the seventeenth century.27 Though drawing on supernatural revelation, most lay prophecies were modest and often focused on specific concerns or events, usually with the intent of encouraging repentance.28 On occasion some prophets explicitly challenged the clergy directly in the pulpit, as did Ludwig Friedrich Gifftheil who stormed the chancel with his sword drawn and demanded that the pastor preach ‘God’s Word’.29 Indeed, in some cases the prophecies of the laity had a 24 Heinrich Müller, Apostolische Schluß-Kette, und Krafft-Kern oder Gründliche Auslegung der gewöhnlichen Sonn- und Fest-Tags-Episteln (Frankfurt/Main, 1671), p. 271. 25 Schleiff, Selbstkritik der lutherischen Kirchen, pp. 18–24. 26 Hartmut Lehmann, “The Cultural Importance of the Pious Middle Classes in Seventeenth-Century Protestant Society,” in Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800, Kaspar von Greyerz ed. (London, 1984), p. 37. 27 On lay prophets see Jürgen Beyer, “A Lübeck Prophet in Local and Lutheran Context,” in Popular religion in Germany and Central Europe, 1400–1800, Bob Scribner and Trevor Johnson eds. (London, 1996), pp. 166–182 and Jürgen Beyer, “Lutherische Propheten in Deutschland und Skandinavien im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Enstehung und Ausbreitung eines Kulturmusters zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit,” in Europa in Scandinavia: Kulturelle und soziale Dialoge in der frühen Neuzeit, Robert Bohn ed. (Frankfurt/Main, 1994), pp. 35–55. 28 Beyer reports that many prophets brought their concerns to the pastors to encourage them to preach on the matter in their sermons; Beyer, “Lübeck Prophet,” p. 166. 29 Gottfried Arnold, Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie, Vom Anfang des Neuen Testaments biß auf das Jahr Christi 1688 (Frankfurt/Main, 1729) II, p. 102.

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sermonic quality.30 But even much more modest claims by laity to visions and new revelations were also considered by many clergy to be a direct affront to their preaching and spiritual authority.31 Thus for all its prominence, the sermon faced increasing challenges in the second half of the seventeenth century that would leave it open to new developments in the face of Pietism, the most important religious renewal movement after the Reformation. 4. Spener and the Emergence of Pietism The emergence of Pietist renewal movements in the 1670s in Frankfurt/ Main under Philipp Jakob Spener and later elsewhere in Germany was not fundamentally directed at changing the structure of preaching and sermons, but the development of Pietism had long-reaching implications for the place and criticism of the sermon within the church.32 When two laymen encouraged Spener to begin holding devotional meetings outside the regular worship service in the early 1670s, they initiated a new phase in the history of Lutheranism in which conventicles had only sporadically played a role.33 The collegia pietatis, as the meetings in Frankfurt were known, became a central feature of Pietism at the end of the seventeenth century. Their purpose as Spener and his supporters described it was to encourage piety and devotion while allowing the word of Christ to dwell more richly among them (Col. 3:16). The collegia pietatis in no way presented a direct challenge to the place of preaching and the

30

See for instance Christian Bullen, Vox Clamantis in deserto oder Stimme Johannis des Teuffers an alle Sünder, Sie in ihren Gewissen zu überzeugen (Amsterdam, 1668), in which Bullen clearly modeled himself after John the Baptist. 31 Jacob Stolterfoth, Consideratio Visionum Apologetica, Das ist schrifftmässiges Bedencken, Was von Geischtern heutiges Tages zu halten sey (Lübeck, 1645), pp. 145, 230. 32 The definition and scope of Pietism remains controversial in the historiography and it can be understood both in a broader sense reaching back to Johann Arndt and others in the early seventeenth as well as in a narrower sense referring primarily to the emergence of a socially tangible movement in the 1670s. For a discussion, see Jonathan Strom, “Problems and Promises of Pietism Research,” in Church History 71 (2002), pp. 536–555. On continuing debates and further literature, Hartmut Lehmann, “Erledigte und nicht erledigte Aufgaben der Pietismusforschung. Eine nochmalige Antwort an Johannes Wallmann,” Pietismus und Neuzeit 31 (2005), pp. 13–20. For the purposes of this article I will focus on Pietism in the narrower sense, which corresponds much more closely with the overall framework of this volume. 33 On the emergence of conventicles in Frankfurt, Johannes Wallmann, Philipp Jakob Spener und die Anfänge des Pietismus, 2nd ed. (Tübingen, 1986), pp. 264–290.

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sermon. Indeed, in some ways Spener saw these gatherings as an extension of the sermon and opportunity to build on it.34 But implicitly the emergence of conventicles challenged the sufficiency of the sermons for the adequate proclamation of the Word of God. The gatherings offered an alternative forum for the public discussion of scripture and later provided an avenue for the criticism of sermons by the ordained clergy and the opportunity for informal lay preaching that had not previously been available. Spener presented the first programmatic work of Pietism—the 1675 Pia Desideria—as an extensive foreword to a collection of sermons of Johann Arndt, indirectly linking his reforms to the extensive tradition of sermon publications of the period. In his proposals, he advocated the use of collegia pietatis and other exercises outside of worship to inculcate the Word of God, the reinvigoration of the universal priesthood, an emphasis on Christian practice, the curbing of gratuitous polemics and religious controversy, the reform of theological education to promote piety, and practical training for the ministry. The Pia Desideria did not deal extensively with preaching and sermons, but in it Spener specifically pointed to limitations and problems of current preaching practice. For instance, he recognized that the sermon alone could not afford an adequate discussion of the scriptural texts for the laity. The limitation of the sermon in this regard became a major reason for the practice of the collegia pietatis.35 In his discussion of theological training he also emphasized the necessity of godly clergy for credibility as preachers.36 In the last proposal, Spener dealt with the problems of preaching itself. Spener felt that it was not the lack of sermons which was the problem, observing: ‘There are probably few places in our church in which there is such want that not enough sermons are preached. But many godly persons find that not a little is wanting in many sermons’.37 Spener articulated two major concerns about preaching: first, that preachers avoid using the sermon to display their erudition and focus instead on Erbauung—a

34

Philipp Jacob Spener, Pia Desideria, trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia, 1964), p. 90. 35 Spener acknowledged, ‘In the absence of such exercises, sermons which are delivered in continually flowing speech are not always fully and adequately comprehended because there is no time for reflection in between or because, when one does not stop to reflect, much of what follows is missed (which does not happen in a discussion).’ Spener, Pia Desideria, p. 90. 36 Spener, Pia Desideria, p. 103. 37 Spener, Pia Desideria, p. 115.

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building up of faith, giving special attention to the common people. Second, that preachers not fall prey to an excessive rhetorical formalism in their sermons and instead should attend to the inner lives and beliefs of their listeners.38 Spener’s criticisms of the contemporary sermons and recommendations for preaching that he developed in the Pia Desideria and expanded elsewhere would become hallmarks of the Pietist understanding of the sermon: An emphasis on Erbauung and speaking from the heart, the importance of the preacher’s character, a distaste for rhetorical formalism, and criticism of excessive learnedness in pulpit that distracts from the greatest rule of preaching—the salvation of one’s parishioners.39 From Mosheim on, historians have seen Spener as a great break in the history of homiletics. Mosheim described Spener’s criticisms as the beginnings of an epochal battle between the Orthodox and Pietists regarding the sermon. In his own homiletical work, Anweisung Erbaulich zu Predigen, he wrote: ‘In 1700 this homiletical war began, and it had the consequence that the Spenerians were victorious and the so-called Orthodox, who had favored the vulgar form of preaching previously described, were forced to be ashamed of themselves’.40 Martin Schian made Mosheim’s idea of warring homiletical factions the basis of his major study of the sermon in Pietism and Orthodoxy and largely seconded Mosheim’s conclusions.41 But some skepticism on the easy division on this point between Pietism and Orthodoxy is warranted, not only because it distorts their relationship but also because it obscures some of the changes that Pietism effected. Spener’s criticisms about the sermon were neither new nor were they unique to Pietism. Earlier figures as diverse as Theophil Großgebauer, who can be seen as a forerunner of the Pietists, and Johann Benedikt Carpzov, who was the epitome of seventeenth century orthodoxy, had stressed the importance of piety for the preacher.42 Like these, Johannes Quenstedt

38

Spener, Pia Desideria, pp. 115–118. On Spener’s understanding of preaching and homiletics, see Albrecht Haizmann, “Erbaulichkeit als Kriterium der Predigt bei Philipp Jakob Spener,” in Klassiker der protestantischen Predigtlehre, Christian Albrecht and Martin Weeber eds. (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 48–73. Still enormously helpful on Spener and preaching, Paul Grünberg, Spener als praktischer Theologe und kirchlicher Reformer (Göttingen, 1905), pp. 31–58. 40 Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen. Aus den vielfältigen Vorlesungen des seeligen Herrn Kanzlers verfasset und zum Drucke befördert (Erlangen, 1763), p. 85. 41 Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, p. 119. 42 On Großgebauer, see above. On Carpzov see Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, pp. 86, 87. Beutel, “Aphoristische Homiletik”, p. 35. 39

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also criticized excessive displays of learnedness in the pulpit and bringing polemics into the pulpit.43 Further many of Spener’s concerns would have been shared with his Orthodox contemporaries. Zacharias Grapius, certainly no friend of Pietism, attacked the artificial and ‘galant’ sermons of the day in a 1704 disputation, and Greschat argues that Spener’s concerns for preaching and the sermon would have been shared by Ernst Valentin Löscher, one of the leading anti-Pietists of the era.44 Consequently, Mosheim’s idea of an epochal battle between Pietism and Orthodoxy on the nature of the sermon overstates the divisions between the parties. As Grünberg notes, Spener hewed to the traditional schema of the sermon more closely than some of his contemporaries, an approach that prevented him from developing a freer preaching style.45 Many concerns were shared on both sides of the Pietist - Orthodox debate, and on most issues Pietist and Orthodox understandings of the sermon were considerably closer than Mosheim would suggest.46 How then do we account for the level of complaint about the sermon at the turn of the century? Schian often takes Pietist complaints about preaching in this period as indicative of the problems of the preaching by the Orthodox clergy, and, at the same time, he uses complaints by Orthodox theologians who echo these criticisms as simple confirmation of Pietist charges, rather than examining them critically for what they might suggest about preaching in general at the time.47 Since Leube’s groundbreaking work, we know that the complaints about religious decline cannot merely be taken at face value and were often exaggerated.48 It would, of course, be obtuse to argue that the criticisms of the sermon by Pietists and others,

43 On Quensted, see Hans Leube, Die Reformideen in der deutschen lutherischen Kirche zur Zeit der Orthodoxie (Leipzig, 1924), p. 55. 44 Zacharias Grapius, De concionibus artificiosis et alamodiciis, vulgo: von Künstlichen und Galanten Predigten (Rostock, 1704). Martin Greschat, Zwischen Tradition und neuem Anfang. Valentin Ernst Löscher und der Ausgang der Lutherischen Orthodoxie (Witten, 1971), p. 196. In a similar vein, Beutel argues that the orthodox theologian Tobias Wagner largely agreed with Spener on the sermon, Beutel, “Lehre und Leben,” p. 188. 45 Grünberg, Spener als praktischer Theologe, pp. 51–52. 46 This is a point that Schian acknowledges despite his adoption of Mosheim’s rhetoric of warring factions. Schian noted that Pietist homiletics posed no fundamental contrast to those of Orthodoxy, although in their presuppositions sketched some new directions. Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, pp. 60–61, 87. 47 This inconsistent approach, especially with regard to the defects of Orthodox preaching, mars Schian’s otherwise thorough analysis. 48 Leube, Die Reformideen in der deutschen lutherischen Kirche, pp. 140–148 and Leube, “Die Theologen und das Kirchenvolk im Zeitalter der lutherischen Orthodoxie,” in Orthodoxie und Pietismus, Martin Schmidt ed. (Bielefeld, 1975), pp. 59–73.

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including many Orthodox, had no basis in reality. But rather than forcing it into a dichotomy of Pietist and Orthodox, perhaps we should see in many of these complaints of pedantry, pompousness, and unoriginality by Pietist and Orthodox observers, common concerns about the sermon at the turn of the century and, perhaps, an indication of higher expectations regarding its production. The practical literature on sermons grew significantly around the turn of the century. Books offered particular methods of constructing sermons, complete with week-by-week concrete examples that clergy could employ in their sermons.49 Johann Samuel Adami was particularly industrious in this regard producing an extensive series of works to aid preachers in constructing their sermons.50 In another series, Adami described the burdens facing the clergy at turn of the century and even wrote a defense of the much maligned ‘postil riders’ (Postillen-Reuter), who drew on the many published sermon collections for their preaching. Adami found it perfectly understandable that the over-worked clergy often resorted to postils to help construct their sermons and offered suggestions how to do so responsibly.51 While this may also appear as a falling away from an ideal of Protestant preaching in which through meditation, prayer, and study the preacher would construct an original sermon, it may also reflect the reality of frequent preaching and higher expectations faced by clergy at this time at the end of the seventeenth century. Further, historians should be careful not to assume that the complaints surrounding preaching meant that these sermons were necessarily unpopular. There is little evidence to suggest that sermons in the early eighteenth century were losing popularity or centrality with most parishioners. In 1732, Gerber disapprovingly noted that parishioners in Saxony explicitly arrived at church just in time to hear the sermon, which they considered

49 Helmstädtische Prediger-Methode: In sich haltend Dispositiones über die sonn-, fest- u. apostel-täglichen Evangelien durchs gantze Jahr (Hannover, 1703); Gottfried Steinbrecher, Concionator Theoretico-Philologico Practicus Oder Leipziger Prediger-Kunst (Leipzig, 1697); Johann Friedrich Bauch, Jenaische Prediger-Methode in vollständiger Dispositionibus über die Sonn- und Festtags-Evangelia (Jena, 1704). 50 See, for instance, Johann Samuel Adami, Deliciae Evangelicae, d.i. Vorrath solcher Realien welche zu den Sonn u. Fest-Tags-Evangelien durchs ganze Jahr zugebrauchen, 14 vols. (Dresden, 1699-1715); Deliciae epistolicae, oder Epistolische Ergetzlichkeiten, 4 vols. (Hamburg, 1711-1717). 51 [ Johann Samuel Adami], Der vetheidigte, beliebte und gelobte Postillen-Reuter (Dresden, 1703).

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the essential part of the service, while ignoring the rest of the service.52 Adami wryly commented that many of new modes of preaching, criticized by Spener and Grapius alike, in fact, often came off quite well with the common people, at least initially.53 Some of the complaints themselves reflect this, noting that the sermons were entertaining and even elegant, using words and phrases that ‘tickle the ears’ but fail to move the heart.54 Of course, alongside these are many reports of inattention and sleeping during sermons, but as Hagenmaier has noted, one should not assume that what the clergy wanted from sermons was the same as what the majority of their parishioners expected or desired.55 Reception of preaching by the laity is a particularly complicated issue and will require analysis that goes beyond simply cataloguing complaints.56 The emphasis on the divisions between Orthodox and Pietists on the sermon also tends to obscure other challenges that the Pietist movement presented to the sermon that had profound effects. All but the most radical Pietists recognized the centrality of the sermon in worship and its role in furthering piety, but many implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, raised questions about its sufficiency and proposed other parallel forms of Christian discourse and community in order to further the growth of piety and the Christian life. By emphasizing conventicles and the universal priesthood, Pietists created new possibilities of Christian fellowship and 52

Christian Gerber, Historie der Kirchen-Ceremonien in Sachsen; Nach ihrer Beschaffenheit in möglichster Kürtze mit Anführung vieler Moralien, und specialen Nachrichten (Dresden, Leipzig, 1732), p. 353. This was not a new practice, however. See Fritsch, I. Der sündliche Kirchen – Gänge, as well as further examples cited in Joseph Herl, Worship Wars in Early Lutheranism: Choir, Congregation, and Three Centuries of Conflict (New York, 2004), pp. 50, 117. 53 Adami, Wolgeplagte Priester, p. 94. From a very different point of view, the radical spiritualist Christian Hoburg also complained that the common people often preferred preachers who used exaggerated gestures and mannerisms in the pulpit and that they even praised those vain preachers who inappropriately made use of their Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac extensively in the pulpit. Neuer Präedicanten-Spiegel (s.l., [ca. 1670]), esp. pp. 6, 29. 54 The phrase of ‘tickling the ears’ comes from 2 Tim. 4:3 and was commonly applied to preachers who catered to their audiences. See for instance, Spener quoted in Haizmann, “Erbaulichkeit als Kriterium der Predigt”, p. 65 and Rambach, Erläuterung, preface. 55 Monika Hagenmaier, Predigt und Policy. Der gesellschaftspolitsche Diskurs zwischen Kirche und Obrigkeit in Ulm 1614–1639 (Baden-Baden, 1989), pp. 67–69. For criticisms of sleeping, chatting, and inattentiveness during sermons, see Fritsch, I. Der sündliche Kirchen-Gänge. 56 In her recent book, Kevorkian addresses the reception of preaching in Leipzig: Tanya Kevorkian, Baroque Piety: Religion, Society, and Music in Leipzig, 1650–1750 (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 29–30, 46–51.

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speech that afforded a supplement and sometimes an alternative to the sermon in regular public worship. The purpose of the early Pietist conventicles was to pray, read the Bible and devotional works, and engage in spiritual discussion and edification.57 Supporters of such gatherings repeatedly emphasized that these exercises provided no threat to public worship and the ordinary sermons of the clergy; they were, to the contrary, intended to supplement them.58 However, their opponents saw in them almost immediately a heterodox threat to the office of preaching, labeled their leaders Winkelprediger, and portrayed them as an invitation to lay preaching.59 The specter of the English Quaker movement, in which lay women and men openly preached, certainly played a role in the accusations. Pietists rejected the comparison to the Quakers, from whom they differed significantly, but their gatherings and revived notions of the universal priesthood did create new possibilities for religious speech that could impinge on the clerical monopoly on preaching. Perhaps a more apt comparison than the Quakers would have been the conventicles and communions in Scotland and Ireland in the seventeenth century that afforded new opportunities for dissenting preaching.60 In his defense of the collegia pietatis, Spener, for instance, cited a passage from Luther that described a sermon as a ‘collation’ over a table, acknowledging an affinity of the spiritual discussions in such gatherings with sermons.61 The growth of Pietism and its attendant gatherings provided new audiences for lay preachers and ready-made forums to express prophecy and 57

Spener, Pia Desideria, pp. 88–92; Wallmann, Philipp Jakob Spener, pp. 278–279. Wilhelm Christoph Kriegsmann, Symphonesis Christianorum (Leipzig, 1689), p. 57. Johann Winckler, Send-Schreiben an den Hoch-Ehrwürdig, Großachbar und Hoch-Gelahrten Herrn, Hn. Philippum Ludovicum Hannekenium (s.l. 1690), pp. 28, 34. 59 The Hamburg clergy accused students who held private devotional gatherings of being “Winkelprediger,” Arnold, Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie II, p. 993. Against supporters like Spener and Kriegsmann, Dilfeld argued that the arguments for conventicles inevitably opened the door for lay preaching. Georg Konrad Dilfeld, Gründliche Erörterung der Frage Ob neben der öffentlichen Kirch-Versammlung auch noch einnige Privat und Haus-Zusammenkünfften zu Erbauung der Christlichen Kirchen von nöthen und von Christo und denen Apostel eingesetzet und zu halten geboten, auch in primitiva Ecclesia üblich gewesen sey (s.l., 1679), p. 11. 60 These, however, had a powerful political dimension largely lacking in Germany. See Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625–1760 (New York, 1988), pp. 43–73. 61 Philipp Jacob Spener, Sendschreiben An Einen Christeyffrigen außländischen Theologum, betreffende die falsche außgesprengte aufflagen/ wegen seiner Lehre/ und so genanter Collegiorum pietatis (Frankfurt/Main, 1677), pp. 70–71. Dilfeld criticized Spener’s use of this passage, Dilfeld, Gründliche Erorterung, 10. 58

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new revelations. This became especially clear during the so-called Pietist disturbances of the late 1680s and early 1690s that opened new possibilities for religious speech and discussion. In some cases, Pietist prophecies by individuals such Rosamunde Juliane von der Asseburg had a quasi-sermonic quality in their call for repentance and use of scripture.62 In particular, participants in the conventicles became increasingly critical of traditional preaching because the ordained clergy lacked the ‘illumination of the Holy Spirit.’63 This criticism devalued pulpit preaching and reinforced the value of the gatherings of the Pietists and the kinds of informal and ‘private’ preaching that went on in them. 5. Francke One of the most copiously documented figures of Pietist preaching is August Hermann Francke (1663–1727). He was founder of the Halle orphanage and its schools and associated enterprises, professor of theology, and the leader of the Pietist movement in Germany after Spener, but throughout his career preaching remained central to his self-identity. In his famous conversion narrative, it was the charge to preach a sermon as a student that induced a profound crisis and brought him to faith.64 Once ordained, Francke preached regularly for the next three and a half decades, and he left behind an extraordinary legacy of printed and manuscript sources that encompasses over 1,700 sermons; these remain the best sources for understanding his theology.65 Francke conducted his preaching within the traditional bounds of Lutheran worship, but he gave his sermons 62 See the description in Ryoko Mori, Begeisterung und Ernüchterung in christlicher Vollkommenheit: Pietistische Selbst- und Weltwahrnehmungen im ausgehenden 17. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 2004), pp. 113–114. Matthias describes the biblical underpinnings of some of her prophecies; Markus Matthias, Johann Wilhelm und Johanna Eleonora Petersen: Eine Biographie bis zur Amtsenthebung Petersens im Jahre 1692, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Pietismus 30 (Göttingen, 1993), pp. 266–267. Martin discusses prophecy and preaching in: Lucinda Martin, “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen geistlicher Rede von Frauen in Halle und Herrnhut,” in Pietismus und Neuzeit 29 (2003), pp. 80–100. 63 Mori, Begeisterung und Ernüchterung, pp. 91, 244. 64 Markus Matthias, Lebensläufe August Hermann Franckes (Leipzig, 1999), pp. 25–32. 65 Francke’s sermons are well catalogued. The most complete listing of manuscript and printed sermons (over 1700) is found in Erhard Peschke, Katalog der in der Universitätsund Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt zu Halle (Salle) vorhandenen handschriftlichen und gedruckten Predigten August Hermann Franckes (Halle, 1972). Supplementing this, the recent bibliography by Paul Raabe and Almut Pfeiffer, August Hermann Francke 1663– 1727. Bibliographie seiner Schriften, Hallesche Quellenpublikationen und Repertorien 5 (Tübingen, 2001) lists among his other writings over 500 sermons in nearly 900 editions.

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distinctive theological accents—especially emphasizing conversion and the personal appropriation by his audience—but he also pioneered new methods of recording and distributing his sermons that made him one the of the most influential preachers in Germany. During the radical events of the Pietist disturbances in the late 1680s and early 1690s pulpit preaching played only a subordinate role in the rapid spread of the movement, but as ecclesial Pietism became established in Halle and elsewhere in the 1690s, the sermon increasingly became one of the prized modes of Pieist proclamation and communication, and Francke one of its best known representatives. In his duties as parish pastor, Francke preached a full cycle of sermons on Sundays and church holidays alongside the frequent catechism, weekday and occasional sermons, burdens shouldered by many parish clergy at that time. Francke carried this heavy load amid many other responsibilities in the university and his growing charitable institutions. His innovative approach to documenting his sermons allowed for its rapid distribution and resulted in the remarkable preservation of much of his preaching. In most cases, Francke did not work from a full draft but only with notes.66 According to contemporary reports, Francke began preparation for his sermons in the early hours of the day, working closely with carefully chosen theological students to whom he would dictate his thoughts and ideas for an outline that he could then expand upon in the pulpit.67 For a typical Sunday sermon, Francke preached from an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half.68 His sermons first took complete written form in an innovative process of transcription done by theological students. Beginning in 1694, specially selected students sitting near the pulpit had the task of transcribing Francke’s sermons. Working together with carefully numbered notebooks, one student would capture a phrase or sentence and give a 66 August Hermann Francke, Predigten über die Sonn- und Fest-Tags- Episteln nebenst einer Vorrede vom erbaulichen predigen, und dem rechten Gebrauch dieser Predigten, 3rd ed. (Halle, 1741), preface c3r-v. Francke was typical in this regard. See Gerber, Historie der Kirchen-Ceremonien, p. 405. 67 Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke 3b/2c:138, Letter Heinrich XXIII. v. ReußLobenstein to Ulrich Bogislaus von Bonin, 17 February, 1716, p. 11v. Some of these dispositiones are still extant. See, for instance, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke, 1b/4 F:1c “Stichwortzettel.” Even when Francke had dictated a complete draft for the pulpit, which was sometimes the case, the transcripts show that the oral sermon was often much longer and only loosely tied to the draft. See the two versions of “Von der gründlichen und hertzlichen Frömmigkeit” in August Hermann Francke, Predigten, Erhard Peschke ed., Texte zur Geschichte des Pietismus 2/9 (Berlin, 1987) II, pp. 18–138. 68 Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke 3b/2c:138, 11v. This length is also reflected in the transcripts and printed versions of Francke’s sermons.

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signal to the next in line to continue transcribing. After the sermon, the notes were collated and a full transcript produced. Unlike manuscript sermons from this period that were drafts completed before the sermon or written down from memory later, the Francke sermon transcriptions are significant because they are based on what the students heard and, in principle, reflect an orality that a manuscript completed by the preacher before or after the sermon would not.69 The transcripts formed the basis of his printed sermons, and Francke’s editing of them could vary considerably. Many were published quickly with only with small stylistic and orthographic changes while others were heavily edited and, in a few cases, completely rewritten. In addition, as was the case with many printed sermons, Francke sometimes attenuated his polemical remarks or dropped references to local events in the transition to print.70 Like many of his fellow ministers, Francke produced a series of sermon collections, including a popular postil that he continued to revise throughout his career and went through many editions.71 Francke’s sermon collections were influential and were frequently cited as examples for good preaching for parish clergy.72 But while these collections followed the traditional forms of sermon collections or postils and typically appeared years after the sermons themselves were preached, Francke also published an unusually high number of individual sermons that were printed as pamphlets in inexpensive duodecimo format and distributed widely, often shortly after the original sermon.73 When Francke undertook his tour of Germany in 1717–1718, his sermons were transcribed by students in the ‘Halle manner’ and some appeared in print in the city 69 On the transcription process, see Peschke, Katalog. In contrast to Francke – and most other preachers at the time – Spener completed finished drafts of his sermons and delivered them almost verbatim. Grünberg, 56. Cf. Gerber, 405. 70 Peschke, introduction to Francke, Predigten I, xv. Because the collated transcripts were generally used as the copy for type-setting, relatively few transcripts of printed sermons remain. 71 On the editions of Francke’s sermons collections, see Peschke, “Die Predigtsammlungen August Hermann Franckes”, in Theologische Literaturzeitung 110 (January 1985), pp. 1–14. The Sonn-, Fest- und Apostel-Tags-Predigten were printed first in 1704 and reprinted seven times in the first half of the eighteenth century. 72 Friedrich Andreas Hallbauer, Nöthiger Unterricht zur Klugheit erbaulich Zu Predigen zu Catechisiren und andere geistliche Reden zu halten: Nebst einer Vorrede von der Homiletischen Pedanterey (Jena, 1737), 42–43. 73 For example, Francke’s sermon, Busz-Predigt über Ps. LI, v. 11, 12, 13. darinnen Der Kampff eines Bußfertigen Sünders (Halle, [1695]), appeared shortly after it was held in 1695, again in 1698 as a separate pamphlet and then was taken up into his collection of Bußpredigten in 1699. See Raabe and Pfeiffer, August Hermann Francke 1663–1727, pp. 217–218.

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where they were preached almost immediately.74 The transcription process and decision to publish so many in pamphlet form afforded a rapidity of publication that created a kind of inexpensive tract literature, a phenomenon according to Raabe and Pfeiffer that was unprecedented since the early Reformation.75 Francke published 492 sermons as individual publications, which were printed in estimated runs of 5,000. This would have put nearly two and a half million of his pamphlet sermons in circulation in Germany.76 The publication in this form extended the communicative reach of Francke’s sermons, and established him as a paradigm of Pietist preaching in the eighteenth century. The huge number of Francke’s sermons published indicates his influence as a preacher in Halle and the broader Pietist community. Peschke provides a number of contemporary accounts that describe the powerful effect Francke could have in the pulpit.77 Letters testify as well to the power of Francke’s preaching on his listeners, particularly on the issue of conversion.78 Undoubtedly, similar things could be said about many preachers at this time, but what distinguishes Francke is the influence through his printed sermons that multiplied the reach of his preaching far beyond Halle. The archives of the Franckesche Stiftungen contain numerous letters testifying to the effect of Francke’s printed sermons. For instance, Samuel Urlsperger wrote how the reading of one of Francke’s sermons had transformed a pastor in Stuttgart.79 Prince Anton Günther of Anhalt-Zerbst wrote Francke of the influence of duodecimo pamphlet sermons in his household.80 Others described the influence of these printed tracts could 74 See, for example, August Hermann Francke, Anleitung zum rechten Gebrauch der an sich klaren Weissagung Christi vom jüngsten Gericht (Stuttgart, [1717]). The same year another edition appeared in Halle. Obst describes how Francke and his associates distributed large numbers of his printed sermons in pamphlet form, 1,000 alone during his stay in Ulm. Helmut Obst, August Hermann Francke und die Franckeschen Stiftungen in Halle (Göttingen, 2002), p. 42. 75 Raabe and Pfeiffer, August Hermann Francke 1663–1727, p. xv. 76 Figures based on Raabe and Pfeiffer, August Hermann Francke 1663–1727, p. xv. Obst estimates that in the six years from 1717 to 1723 the publishing house of the Halle orphanage produced around 350,000 copies of Francke’s sermons; Obst, August Hermann Francke, p. 43. 77 Peschke in Francke, Predigten I, pp. 78, 205. 78 See for instance the 1712 letter of Samuel Stott, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke 30/50: 1. 79 Letter of Samuel Urlsperger to A.H. Francke (1720), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke 21,2,1/7: 69. 80 Letter of Anthon Günther von Anhalt-Zerbst to Johann Eberhard von Exter (March 1707), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke, 2a/4a: 1.

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have on the individuals. The Wahrhaffte und umständliche Historie Von der Schwedische Gefangenen in Rußland in particular emphasized the effect of Francke’s printed sermons, which were often read aloud in their gatherings and were instrumental in many conversions.81 Francke’s printed sermons could also take on an exemplary character for others. One correspondent of Francke wrote to say that he had given his local pastor some of Francke’s sermons, and the pastor had promised to read them carefully and model his own sermons to Francke in the future.82 In his instructions to students, Francke likewise recommended that they model their preaching on that of their teachers in Halle and emphasized the value of personal examples far more than any set of homiletical precepts they might learn from a book.83 Francke also proposed that students in Halle practice preaching through carefully structured homiletical exercises.84 In his 1724 Send-Schreiben vom erbaulichen Predigen, Francke laid down his specific ideas of preaching for students and clergy.85 As one might expect, Francke emphasized the need for the preacher to function as example to his congregation in faith and life. However, the question of conversion and the order of salvation is the overriding theme of the open letter. Throughout the preacher is to help the congregants determine 81 Halle and its allies supplied the prisoners in Russia with large quantities of books and pamphlets including many sermons. For the effect of Francke’s sermons, see Curt Friedrich von Wreech, Wahrhaffte und umständliche Historie von der schwedische Gefangenen in Rußland (Sorau, 1728), esp. pp. 43, 125, 170, 172. See also W. Reginald Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 84–86 and Pentti Laasonen, “Der Einfluß A.H. Franckes und des hallischen Pietismus auf die schwedischen und finnischen Karoliner im und nach dem Nordischen Krieg,” in Halle und Osteuropa: Zur Europäischen Ausstrahlung des hallischen Pietismus, Johannes Wallmann and Udo Sträter eds. (Tübingen, 1998), pp. 5–22. 82 Letter to Heinrich Julius Elers (1710). Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke, 5,2/113: 1. 83 August Hermann Francke, Idea Studiosi Theologiae, oder Abbildung eines der Theologie Beflissenen, wie derselbe sich zum Gebrauch und Dienst des Herrn, 3rd ed. (Halle, 1717), pp. 222–224. 84 Francke recommended that after learning the fundamentals of theology and the basic precepts of homiletics students begin by analyzing their colleague’s sermons and then move to preaching their own practice sermons. Francke, Idea Studiosi Theologiae, p. 278. 85 The Send-Schreiben was first published separately as Vom erbaulichen Predigen, Oder die Frage: Wie ein treuer Lehrer, der gern seine Predigten zur Gewinnung und Erbauung seiner Zuhörer immer weißlicher einrichten (Halle, 1725) and then as preface to Francke’s Predigten über die Sonn- und Fest-Tags-Episteln, Nebst einer Vorrede vom erbaulichen Predigen (Halle, 1726). It is reprinted as well in Francke, Predigten II, pp. 3–10. An English translation appeared in 1736 under the title, A Letter to a Friend Concerning the Most Useful Way of Preaching (s.l. [1736]). The English title however, loses the broader spiritual sense of Erbauung. A modernized English translation appears in Peter C. Erb, Pietists: Selected Writings (New York, 1983), pp. 117–127.

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whether they belong to the unconverted or the converted, whether their actions are only outwardly moral or flow from true contrition of the heart, whether they deceive themselves with vain outwards rituals or have been freed from the bonds of Satan through Christ’s grace. Francke recommends that in their sermons, preachers should complete their exegesis of the assigned biblical passage thoroughly but briefly in order to hasten to the application and explain to their congregants how the text relates to conversion, faith, and life. Francke emphasizes that the preacher should guide his congregants to Christ as a shepherd herds his sheep or a hen entices her chicks, making manifest Christ’s divinity and love. In order to be effective in the pulpit Francke emphasizes that preachers should press for a deep denial of the ways of the world, encourage them to keep Christian company, and provide them with other biblical texts and devotional writings that will further their faith and salvation.86 In many ways the open letter captures main themes of Francke. Running throughout his sermons is the strong emphasis on Erbauung and especially conversion, a point Peschke repeatedly emphasizes, but other themes in his preaching should not be neglected. Thomas Kuhn has recently emphasized the emphasis on Christian charity in Francke’s preaching.87 Much as clergy had throughout the seventeenth century, Francke also employed the sermon for polemical purposes, for Christian instruction, and as part of church discipline. The continuity of Francke’s preaching with earlier models should not be neglected. Where radical Pietists challenged the ecclesial context of many sermons altogether, to a certain extent, Francke represents a reassertion of the place of the sermon. His sermons fell within the context of the larger liturgical worship in Lutheranism. They were almost always delivered from the pulpit in the church. The sermons took as their lead texts the traditional lections appointed for Sundays and feast days, and the underlying rhetorical structure remained that of the seventeenth-century sermon although its formal divisions became more fluid. There were a number of points on which ecclesial Pietists represented by Francke differed clearly from their Orthodox opponents. One of the most important of these was the debate on the preaching by the impious. For neither the Orthodox nor Pietist parties was the character of the preacher 86

“Sendschreiben” in Francke, Predigten II, pp. 3–10. Thomas K. Kuhn, Religion und neuzeitliche Gesellschaft: Studien zum sozialen und diakonischen Handeln in Pietismus, Aufklärung und Erweckungsbewegung (Tübingen, 2003), pp. 42–77. 87

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irrelevant, but the emphasis on the centrality of the preacher’s spiritual condition marked the Pietist approach to the sermon and distinguished them from the Orthodox. Francke and his colleagues repeatedly emphasized how critical a converted preacher was for efficacy in the pulpit. Francke likened the unconverted preacher to an ignorant farmer, who may sow with the best of seed but whose ignorance and missteps nevertheless ruin the harvest.88 His colleague Joachim Lange was even more direct, arguing that the unregenerate preacher could have no living recognition of God and divine truths. ‘How would the unregenerate teachers show the people the way to salvation in their sermons and private conversations, if they themselves lack the spiritual light of the true knowledge? Might a blind man show another the way?’89 Moderate Pietists were always careful not to make the power of the Word of God dependent on the character of the preacher, but they consistently stressed the importance of a regenerate and converted ministry for effective preaching, which put the Orthodox on the defensive.90 In response, the Orthodox increasingly emphasized the objective power of God’s word along with the authority of the office of ministry and the special grace that it afforded clergy in their preaching and other ministerial activities, a position the Pietists utterly rejected.91 A second area of contention concerned the use of ‘artifice’ in sermons. Pietists such as Joachim Lange regularly derided the excessive use of method and rhetorical structures in preaching, which he connected with the Orthodox style preaching.92 In the debate that followed, however, the controversy was less about the use of appropriate methods and rhetorical structures, which both moderate Pietists and the Orthodox could affirm. Pietists interpreted the word ‘ars’ to mean artificiality, which had no place in sermons whereas the Orthodox interpreted it to mean any method in sermons.93 In both Orthodox and Pietist preaching in the beginning of the 88 Francke, Predigten I, 409. Francke devoted almost an entire sermon to problem of the unconverted clergy and their ineffectiveness. “Von dem Dienst untreuer Lehrer,” in Predigten I, pp. 400–437. See also “Von den falschen Propheten,” in Predigten I, p. 458. 89 Joachim Lange, “Academische Abhandlung von erbaulichen Predigten” in Johann. Georg Walch, Sammlung Kleiner Schriften von der Gottgefälligen Art zu Predigen ( Jena, 1747) p. 128. 90 Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, p. 94; Lange, “Academische Abhandlung”, pp. 125–126. 91 On the debate between Lange and Loescher on the Amtsgnade, see Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, 93–97. 92 Lange particularly ridiculed the publication of sermon outlines or dispositiones in the Unschuldigen Nachrichten, the chief periodical of Loescher and the Orthodox party; Mosheim, Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, p. 85. Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, p. 80. 93 Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, p. 80.

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eighteenth century the structure of the sermon became more flexible.94 Pietists were in general more open to looser homiletical forms, and they did avoid certain popular devices in their sermons. For instance, in contrast to Loescher, Pietists were generally quite skeptical of the use of the emblems and Realien as illustrations in sermons, preferring to use figures exclusively drawn from scripture.95 Further, the Pietists were critical of the so-called Jahrgang sermons that would introduce a theme that would be explored throughout the regular sermons of the year, arguing that it required the preacher to bend the texts to his needs.96 Thus while there are distinctions, caution should be exercised in drawing overly broad contrasts between Pietist and Orthodox preaching, a point that Sabine Holtz’s longitudinal study of preaching in Tübingen reinforces.97 6. Radical Pietism By emphasizing the converted and regenerate, moderate Pietists did move the personality of the preacher to the center of their sermons and in their critique of ‘artificiality’ of rigid rhetorical structures in sermons, they opened up new possibilities of non-traditional preaching. Yet, moderate Pietists continued to emphasize the ecclesial setting of the sermon and university education as essential for the task of preaching. Indeed, one of the main educational goals of the Halle Pietists was to produce universitytrained men for the ministry. But in the radical streams of the movement, the Pietist emphasis on the character of the preacher and the necessity of divine illumination created the conditions for more unorthodox forms of preaching than that which existed under moderate Pietism of Francke and Spener. Radical Pietism afforded the laity without theological training the possibility to assume preaching duties and increasingly dissociated it from the ecclesial context of the established territorial churches. The emergence of the Pietist itinerant preacher is exemplified by Ernst Christoph Hochmann von Hohenau (1669/70–1721) who studied law

94 See Schian’s discussion of the homiletical reflection among the Orthodox, especially in the Unschuldigen Nachrichten; Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, pp. 82–83. 95 Greschat notes Loescher frequent use of emblems in his sermons. Greschat, Zwischen Tradition und neuem Anfang, pp. 90, 93. On the Pietist critique, see Francke, Predigten I, pp. 455–456; Rambach, Erläuterung, pp. 136–137; Hallbauer, Nöthiger Unterricht, pp. 345–347. 96 Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, pp. 16–18. 97 Holtz, Theologie und Alltag, pp. 338–348.

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and then experienced a profound conversion in a circle of radical Pietists in Halle.98 Convinced of his immediate calling by God and disdainful of the hypocritical ordained clergy, Hochmann began a peripatetic existence, traveling throughout Germany where he sought to gather the regenerate into separate communities, alternating his itinerancy with periods of eremitical withdrawal. His preaching often took place informally among circles of radical Pietist sympathizers, and he was repeatedly imprisoned and banished for unauthorized preaching.99 Despite persecution, Hochmann could find continued support from radical Pietists scattered throughout Germany. In a number of small territories in Germany such as Laubach and Wittgenstein-Schwarzenau, rulers who favored radical Pietism gave Hochmann refuge and, as in Obergreiz even involved him in their plans for church reform and opened some pulpits in the churches to him.100 Hochmann wanted to form no new church but rather organize loose affiliations of small regenerate communities. Some itinerant preachers among the Pietists were clergy who had lost their positions because of their radical views. For instance, Victor Christoph Tuchtfeld (1678-ca. 1752) had been trained in Halle and became parish pastor in Dössel. He reportedly had great gifts as a preacher and appeared to have a promising career in front of him in the eyes of the Halle Pietists.101 However, Tuchtfeld became increasingly critical of the practice of forcible recruitment to the military in Brandenburg-Prussia, and his belief in immediate divine visions created a rift with his former mentors in Halle.102 Anxious about the favor of the king and the legitimacy of the movement,

98 On Hochmann, Heinz Renkewitz, Hochmann von Hochenau (1670–1721). Quellenstudien zur Geschichte des Pietismus (Breslau, 1935). For a detailed description of his conversion and his sense of direct calling, see Mori, Begeisterung und Ernüchterung, pp. 229–239. 99 See Renkewitz, Hochmann von Hochenau, pp. 165, 241, 337. 100 Hans Schneider, “Der radikale Pietismus im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Martin Brecht and Klaus Deppermann eds., Der Pietismus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, Geschichte des Pietismus 2 (Göttingen, 1995), pp. 127–128. 101 On Tuchtfeld’s skills as a preacher and his commitment to the Pietist “spirit of Halle” in his congregation, see Hannelore Lehmann, “Victor Christoph Tuchtfeld und das Tuchtfeldische Soldaten-konventikel in Potsdam 1726/27. Erziehung zum frommen Soldaten oder ‘Verleidung’ des Soldatenstandes,” in Militär und Religiosität in der frühen Neuzeit, Michael Kaiser and Stefan Kroll eds. (Münster, 2004), p. 280. Francke singled out Tuchtfeld’s first book as especially promising. A.H. Francke, Monita Pastoralia Theologica, oder Theologische Erinnerungen und Vorschläge (Halle, 1718), p. 149. 102 Carl Hinrichs, Preußentum und Pietismus: der Pietismus in Brandenburg-Preußen als religiös-soziale Reformbewegung (Göttingen, 1971), p. 137. See also Lehmann, “Victor Christoph Tuchtfeld”, p. 281.

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they turned their back on Tuchtfeld, and he was arrested and dismissed from his position.103 He began informally preaching in and around Magdeburg and Halle, at one point even appearing in the great hall of the orphanage in Halle to attack the ordained clergy.104 He traveled to Hanoverian territories in 1723 and 1724 where his revivalistic preaching met an enthusiastic response among the separatist Pietists in the mining town of Clausthal.105 Expelled from Clausthal, Tuchtfeld returned to Brandenburg where he began holding conventicles and preaching, especially focusing on the soldiers. He was detained for several years in the Charité in Berlin, but Tuchtfeld was not without his prominent supporters and after his release became preacher at the radical Pietist court of SaynWittgenstein in the early 1730s. Following his patron’s death in 1741 he again took up his itinerant preaching. In the late 1740s he was in the Rhineland, and in 1752 was again arrested for unauthorized preaching in the Tiergarten in Berlin. He was taken to the Charité, where he disappeared from the records.106 Much more than moderate Pietists, radical Pietists broke decisively with tradition by encouraging itinerancy and lay preaching, emphasizing immediate divine calling, and dissociating preaching from the ecclesial and liturgical context. Those without official positions only rarely published their sermons, partly a consequence of their commitment to the oral nature of preaching and partly a result of their marginalization and difficulty in gaining access to the printing presses.107 In many cases, we only have a small number of second-hand accounts of their sermons.108 Radical Pietists

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Lehmann, “Victor Christoph Tuchtfeld”, p. 282. Ibid. Lehmann argues that without a parsonage or other adequate rooms to hold gatherings that Tuchtfeld engaged in field preaching; Lehmann, “Victor Christoph Tuchtfeld”, p. 285. 105 On Tuchtfeld’s powerful preaching among the separatists in Clausthal, see Rudolf Ruprecht, Der Pietismus des 18. Jahrhunderts in den Hannoverschen Stammländern (Göttingen, 1919), pp. 48–80. To the skeptical authorities in Clausthal, Tuchtfeld claimed his calling was “to preach the Gospel freely and without compensation wherever the spirit of God would lead him.” Ibid., p. 51. 106 Lehmann, “Victor Christoph Tuchtfeld”, p. 292. 107 In contrast to the Halle Pietists, radical Pietists often focused their major publishing projects on other genres than the sermon, such as the spiritual biographies collected in Reitz’s Historie der Wiedergebohrene or the commentaries and heavy annotation of the Berleburger Bibel. On publications of the radical Pietists, see Hans-Jürgen Schrader, Literaturproduktion und Büchermarkt des radikalen Pietismus: Johann Henrich Reitz’ “Historie der Wiedergebohrnen” und ihr geschichtlicher Kontext (Göttingen, 1989). Gottfried Arnold, however, published several collections of sermons; see below. 108 On the content of Tuchtfeld’s preaching, see Ruprecht, Der Pietismus des 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 50. On Hochmann’s sermons, Renkewitz, Hochmann von Hochenau, pp. 168–172, 196–197, 334–336 and passim. 104

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generally remained strongly biblically oriented in their preaching, although they were often more open to spiritualist interpretations and new revelations than moderate Pietists such as Spener and Francke. For other highly spiritualist radicals, preaching became increasingly unnecessary. An alchemist and radical Pietist active in North Germany and Sweden, Johann Konrad Dippel, for instance, intensified his criticism of any form of established Christianity to the point that he devalued the place of the sermon in his writings and made it virtually superfluous.109 Indeed, among some radicals such as the Inspirationists, the proclamation of new prophecies took precedence and even superseded the practice of preaching entirely. The Inspirationists drew from both the radical Pietists as well as the ecstatic French Prophets who toured Germany in 1713 and 1714.110 The Inspirationists found refuge as a separatist community in the relatively tolerant territories of the Wetterau. The ‘instruments’, as the male and female prophets among them were known, would fall into ecstatic states in which they would begin to prophesy.111 There were periodic reports of ecstatic preaching among radical Pietists, especially on the fringes of the movement. Daniel Lindmark describes a number of ecstatic lay preachers that appeared among Pietist revivals in eighteenth-century in Sweden. Much like the Inspirationists, these mostly young women and girls would fall into trances and begin to preach.112 The authorities referred to the phenomena of ecstatic preaching as a form of contagion, which they term the ‘preaching disease’.113 There were as well a few cases in Scandinavia of somnambulant preaching among Pietists, 109 Stephan Goldschmidt, Johann Konrad Dippel (1673–1734): Seine radikalpietistische Theologie und ihre Entstehung (Göttingen, 2001), pp. 223–224. 110 Isabelle Noth, Ekstatischer Pietismus: die Inspirationsgemeinden und ihre Prophetin Ursula Meyer (1682–1743) (Göttingen, 2005), pp. 96–101. See also Schneider, “Der radikale Pietismus”, pp. 145–152. On the French Prophets, Georgia Cosmos, Huguenot Prophecy and Clandestine Worship in the Eighteenth Century: ‘The Sacred Theatre of the Cévennes’ (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2005) and Hillel Schwartz, The French Prophets: The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1980). 111 Noth provides a number of eyewitness accounts of the ecstatic prophesying or Aussprechen. Noth, Ekstatischer Pietismus, pp. 116–133. 112 Daniel Lindmark, “Vision, Ecstasy, and Prophecy: Approaches to Popular Religion in Early Modern Sweden,” in ARV, Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 59 (2003), pp. 177–198. On Pietist preaching in Scandinavia see most recently, Carola Nordbäck, Samvetets röst. Om mötet mellan luthersk ortodoxi och konservativ pietism i 1720-talets Sverige (Umeå, 2004); Erik Vikström, Ortotomisk applikation: bibelordets tillämpning och delning enligt den konservativa pietismens predikoteori (Åbo, 1974), and Yngve Brilioth, Predikans Historia: Olaus Petri-föreläsningar hallna vid Uppsala Universitet (Lund, 1945), pp. 201–233. 113 Daniel Lindmark, “The Preaching Disease: Contagious Ecstasy in EighteenthCentury Sweden”, in Imagining Contagion in Early Modern Europe, Claire Carlin ed. (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 139–153.

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in which the lay preacher, usually a woman, would appear to fall asleep and then begin to preach.114 Gottfried Arnold was one of the most prominent radical Pietists who assumed clerical office and preached regularly on the appointed lections.115 Most radical Pietists remained outside the official church structures and reflected little in print on the nature of sermons. Arnold took up the question of preaching in the preface to his postil on the Gospel texts, which was first published in 1709. In his forward, Arnold shares many of the concerns of moderate Pietists like Spener and Francke against worldly sermons, elaborate rhetorical devices, and oratorical inventions that were merely ‘empty husks without kernel or power of the Holy Spirit’116 and consequently fail to feed wretched souls. Instead, he calls for the return to the heroic method of preaching, through which the Holy Spirit would touch the hearts of his parishioners. This method, which he connected with Luther, Arndt, Lütkemann, Müller, and Egardus, would be simple, clear, and erbaulich but also driven by the Spirit in the regenerate preacher.117 In his preface, Arnold defined the heroic method: ‘It means in actual understanding, such a heroic form of teaching, in which one does not bind oneself or turn to his own or other human strictures or rules, much less to the logic and rhetoric of Aristotle (as is currently thought) but rather speaks, after the Spirit has been given to him to pronounce, out of a complete faith in the true freedom of the spirit according to its guidance and rules’.118 Arnold emphasized the need to stay close to the scriptural texts,

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The best known of these in eighteenth-century Scandinavia was Anna Rogel. See Jan Häll, “Den sovande predikerskan: Anteckningar om Anna Rogel”, in Lychnos: Årsbok för idé- och lärdomshistoria (1997), pp. 49–79. The tradition of sleeping preachers or sleep preachers continued in Finland into the twentieth century. See Kirsi Stjerna, “Finnish Sleep-Preachers: An Example of Women’s Spiritual Power,” Nova Religio 5 (2001), pp. 102–120. Among the Mennonites in the nineteenth century, see Harry H. Hiller, “The Sleeping Preachers: An Historical Study of the Role of Charisma in Amish Society,” in Pennsylvania Folklife 18 (1968/1969), pp. 19–31. See also Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, & Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, 1999), p. 137. 115 On Arnold’s turn away from celibacy and radical separatism in the early 1700s, see Schneider, “Der radikale Pietismus”, pp. 116–117. Despite these shifts, Schneider argues for the continuity of many radical themes in Arnold’s thought. 116 Arnold, Evangelische Reden, preface. pp. *3v, [**7v]. 117 Arnold, Evangelische Reden, preface, **4r. 118 Arnold, Evangelische Reden, preface, **1v. In traditional Lutheran homiletics, the heroic method was recognized alongside the more common analytical and synthetic methods of preaching, though its use was strongly discouraged. See Hanspeter Marti, “Die Rhetorik des Heiligen Geistes. Gelehrsamkeit, poesis sacra und sermo mysticus bei Gottfried Arnold,” in Pietismus-Forschungen: zu Philipp Jacob Spener und zum spiritualistisc h-radikalpietistischen Umfeld, Dietrich Blaufuß ed. (Frankfurt/Main, 1986) pp. 276–278.

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but his approach was also more allegorical, even mystical, than that of Spener or other moderate Pietists, and one of his goals in preaching was to bring the ‘obscured truth’ of scriptural texts back to the forefront.119 In fact, many of his contemporaries did find his sermons obscure and difficult to understand, a complaint Arnold himself seemed to recognize.120 In contrast to some radicals who doubted the function of the sermon altogether, Arnold did not question the legitimacy of preaching, but as Blaufuß argues, he nonetheless devalued the importance of the sermon within the larger context of Gottesdienst or worship.121 7. Zinzendorf One of the most distinctive forms of Pietism that developed its own traditions and styles of preaching emerged under the guidance of Nikolas Ludwig von Zinzendorf who began settling religious refugees on his estate in Upper Lusatia in 1722. The community, known as Herrnhut, grew quickly and despite early dissension, Zinzendorf was able forge an agreement among the refugees led that led to the founding of a new religious community in 1727 with common roots in German Pietism and the Hussite Unitas Fratrum. The Moravians, as they became known in English, went beyond many Pietist communities and groups in the way that they combined traditional ecclesiastical preaching with lay preaching of both men and women within the community. By ordaining men and women without formal theological education to a series of offices, they blurred many of the lines between lay and clerical religious speech and set new examples for Protestant preaching in the eighteenth century. Under Zinzendorf, the community at Herrnhut understood itself, partly for legal reasons, as an ecclesiola within the established Lutheran church of Saxony, and members of the community continued to attend the sermons in the Lutheran parish church in nearby Berthelsdorf well

119 Arnold, Evangelische Reden, preface, pp. **4r-v. On Arnold’s allegorical style of preaching, see Dietrich Blaufuss, “Zur Predigt bei Gottfried Arnold,” in Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714): Mit einer Bibliographie der Arnold-Literatur ab 1714, Dietrich Blaufuss und Friedrich Niewöhner eds. (Wiesbaden, 1995), p. 51 and Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, pp. 75–76. 120 See, for instance, the comments by Prince Anton Günther of Anhalt Zerbst, who found them obtuse. Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlaß Francke, 2a/4a: 1, letter from 22 March 1707. On Arnold’s recognition of this, see Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, p. 77. 121 Blaufuss “Zur Predigt,” p. 43.

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into the 1750s.122 They integrated the traditional parish preaching into a much larger and richer liturgical practice in Herrnhut, part of which included the repetition of the Sunday morning sermon within their own community.123 The extensive liturgical life of the Moravians opened up new possibilities for preaching within their community, including numerous homiletical addresses throughout the weekly course of worship.124 From the beginning the Moravian movement incorporated lay preachers such as Christian David and David Nitschmann who had no theological training but were practiced lay preachers before coming to Herrnhut.125 Zinzendorf, though highly learned, had no formal theological training himself. The Moravians did not just include lay preachers in their practice of worship, they also created their own spiritual offices and ordained or appointed them within the community according to their gifts rather than on the basis of any formal academic requirements.126 Known within the community as ‘the Disciple’, Zinzendorf became the Moravian’s most prominent preacher, and his sermons were widely printed and used within the community devotionally and to communicate his theology both internally and to the outside world. Zinzendorf did become an ordained Lutheran minister in 1734, but perhaps because of his lack of homiletical training, his sermons reflect a stronger break with traditional preaching than that of ecclesial Pietists such as Spener or Francke. His sermons show little of the traditional rhetorical structures that are muted but still present in the preaching of many church Pietists. His Pennsylvania sermons from 1742, for instance, evince a flexibility in their approach to the scriptural texts, audience, and length. Before Lutheran congregations,

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The Moravians were however strongly ecumenical and did not see themselves as a Lutheran organization, but rather as a close-knit community within all the major confessions. On Zinzendorf ’s understanding of the Tropenlehre, Heinz Motel, Zinzendorf als ökumenischer Theologe (Herrnhut, 1942), pp. 110–117. 123 Nicole Schatull, Die Liturgie in der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine Zinzendorfs, (Tübingen, 2005), pp. 94–95. 124 A description of an informal homily based on the daily Losung or watchword during the Frühstunde is found in Schatull, Die Liturgie in der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, p. 82. Lucinda Martin observes that the Moravians “redefined the ‘sermon’ to fit their own requirements, developing various new kinds of sermons for various occasions and settings.” Lucinda Martin, “Women’s Religious Speech and Activism in German Pietism” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 2002), p. 287. 125 Dietrich Mayer, “Zinzendorf und Herrnhut,” in Brecht and Depperman, Geschichte des Pietismus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, pp. 20–25. 126 For a discussion of the Moravian offices with special attention to the role of women, see Martin, “Women’s Religious Speech and Activism”, pp. 277–282, 287–294.

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for instance, he preached on the appointed lections, while before Moravian audiences he chose the daily watchword, and for Reformed he selected yet other texts.127 At other times to the community, Zinzendorf preached on the litany of the wounds, which was central to Moravian theology and worship.128 The inclusion of non-traditional preachers from carpenters like Christian David to nobleman like Zinzendorf was part of the Moravian success in the eighteenth century as they spread in the New World and throughout northern Europe, where they were particularly successful in gaining adherents in Scandinavia and the Baltic.129 They blurred the lines between lay and clerical preaching and broke with the model that was still dominant in Halle Pietism that the preacher should be a university-trained theologian if nonetheless regenerate. Furthermore, the networks of itinerant preachers they developed to work with the ‘Diaspora’, that is with awakened ‘children of God’ in all Christian confessions outside established Moravian communities, proved an effective means of spreading Moravian ideas and practices in North America and Europe.130 Zinzendorf and the Moravians never adopted large scale open-air preaching and remained suspicious of Anglo-American field preaching.131 One of the most distinctive aspects of Moravian preaching was the inclusion of women. There were precedents for women’s preaching within Pietism, and a repeated criticism of Pietism by critics was that they allowed 127 Nikolas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, A Collection of Sermons from Zinzendorf ’s Pennsylvania Journey 1741–42, trans. by Julie Tomberlin Weber and edited by Craig D. Atwood (Bethlehem, 2001). 128 Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Vier und Dreyßig Homiliae über die WundenLitaney der Brüder, Gehalten auf dem Herrnhaag in den Sommer-Monathen 1747 (s.l., 1757). On the litany of the wounds, Craig D. Atwood, Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem (University Park (PA), 2004), pp. 201–208. 129 Meyer, “Zinzendorf and Herrnhut,” pp. 66–67; Ingun Montgomery, “Der Pietismus in Schweden im 18. Jahrhundert” in Brecht and Deppermann, pp. 514–520. 130 On the meaning of Diaspora for Moravians and their Diaspora work, see Meyer, “Zinzendorf and Herrnhut,” pp. 65–68. See also Horst Weigelt, “Die Diasporaarbeit der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine und die Wirksamkeit der deutschen Christentumsgesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert”, in Der Pietismus in neunzehnten und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, Geschichte des Pietismus 3, Ulrich Gäbler ed. (Göttingen, 2000), pp. 113–124. 131 Zinzendorf critically noted: “For thus when ten thousand and twenty thousand come running together, as they did during the recent English and American revivals, that is a mob; it is more a decent game than a time of listening. For of the twenty thousand scarcely a third is listening. The others are there out of boredom, doing nothing.” Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Die an den Synodum der Brüder in Zeyst vom 11. May bis den 21. Junii 1746 gehaltene Reden (s.l., [1747]), p. 188 reprinted in Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Hauptschriften III, Erich Beyreuther and Gerhard Meyer eds. (Hildesheim, 1963).

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women to preach in their assemblies.132 The Moravians were the only Pietist community to institutionalize women’s preaching and ordain women as deaconesses and priestesses. Many of the records of women’s preaching in Moravians have deny been lost or destroyed, but as Lucinda Martin and Peter Vogt have shown, Moravian women leaders such as Anna Nitschmann took on preaching roles within the community.133 Unlike Quaker women preachers, who had a much more public role, Moravian women only preached to women within the community, and their sermons were never published.134 After Zinzendorf ’s death in 1760, in fact, the authority of women within the movement was sharply curtailed and a longer tradition of women’s preaching in Moravianism did not continue. Moravians democratized preaching in some respects, and they allowed pious men and women many more opportunities for preaching and similar religious speech than most other Pietist communities. They expanded the understanding of the sermon and preaching, sometimes even referring to singing as a kind of sermon.135 At the same time, preaching was not necessarily the focus of Moravian worship as it was in ecclesial Pietism. The rich liturgical and musical life, including hymn singing, litanies, love feasts, and foot washing became the center of communal worship among the Moravians. These incorporated sermons and homiletical addresses, of course, but the elaborate and lengthy liturgical practices also tended, in relative terms, to deemphasize preaching’s centrality in Moravian worship even as printed sermons played an important role in communicating the community’s theology both internally and externally. The legacy of Pietism for preaching leads in several directions. The criticism of preaching by Pietists and their emphasis on plain speech and Erbauung was embraced by others outside the Pietist movement, including reformers of the German language and theological representatives of the

132 Ecclesial Pietists were sensitive to these charges and repeatedly rejected them. See Spener, Sendschreiben, p. 90. Likewise, Francke denied in a 1692 sermon that he allowed women to preach. Francke, Predigten, I, pp. 70–71. Johann Heinrich Feustking, for instance, portrayed a woman being toppled from the pulpit in the frontpiece to his vehemently anti-feminist and anti-Pietistic polemic, Gynaeceum Haeretico Fanaticum, Oder Historie und Beschreibung Der falschen Prophetinnen, Quäckerinnen, Schwärmerinnen, und andern sectirischen und begeisterten Weibes-Personen (Franckfurt, 1704). 133 Peter Vogt, “Herrnhuter Schwerstern der Zinzendorfzeit als Predigerinnen”, in: Unitas Fratrum, 45/46 (1999), pp. 29–60; Martin, “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen,” pp. 80–100; Martin, “Women’s Religious Speech and Activism,” pp. 226–317. 134 Martin is planning an edition of Moravian women’s sermons; Martin, “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen,” p. 80. 135 Schatull, Die Liturgie in der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, p. 91.

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early Enlightenment such as Johann Christoph Gottsched and Johann Gustav Reinbeck. The Prussian Cabinets-Ordre from 1739 implicitly recognized the influence of Pietist homiletics in its recommendations.136 However, the understanding of Erbauung in the accompanying explanations and prefaces differed from the much more spiritual and theological sense of Erbauung as the Pietists had understood it.137 A bridge figure between Pietism and Enlightenment, Mosheim approvingly saw Pietist preaching practice triumphing over Orthodox in the eighteenth century.138 He understood Erbauung more in moral terms than the sense of spiritual conviction and conversion that it connoted for many Pietists.139 Consequently, in some important respects Pietism also prepared the way for rationalist approaches to preaching and the sermon in the later eighteenth century.140 Where Pietism gradually lost influence in Brandenburg-Prussia after the 1740s, Pietism remained strong in other parts of Germany, especially Württemberg, and here Pietism shaped preaching and the sermon throughout the eighteenth century in figures such as Johann Albrecht Bengel, whose emphasis on scriptural exegesis and its personal application remained influential throughout the eighteenth century.141 The Pietist emphasis on the regenerate character of the preacher and the expectation of conversion

136 In fact, the order specifically criticized the Reformed preachers for adopting an often “forced, unclear, and hardly edifying” approach to preaching, implicitly comparing them unfavorably to the Pietist Lutheran preachers in Brandenburg Prussia. [ Johann Christoph Gottsched], Grund-Riß einer Lehr-Arth ordentlich und erbaulich zu predigen nach dem Innhalt der Königlichen Preußischen allergnädigsten Cabinets-Ordre vom 7. Martii 1739 entworffen (Berlin, 1740), p. H8r. This edition also contained “Vorbericht und kurtzen Einleitung wie eine gute Predigt abzufassen sey” by the Wolffian theologian, Johann Gustav Reinbeck. On their common interests with Pietists on preaching, see Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, esp. pp. 154–164. 137 This was a point raised specifically by Joachim Oporin, who was not a Pietist, but had reservations about the rationalist understanding of Erbauung in Gottsched’s Grund-Riß and Reinbeck’s accompanying text. Joachim Oporin, Theologisches Bedencken über den GrundRiß einer Lehr-Arth ordentlich und erbaulich zu predigen (Hannover, 1741), pp. 4–5. 138 Mosheim, Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, p. 85. 139 On Mosheim’s understanding of Erbauung, Ulrich Dressman, “Erbauliche Aufklärung. Zur Predigttheorie Johann Lorenz von Mosheims,” in Albrecht and Weeber, p. 81. For a contrast of the Pietist and Rationalist understandings of Erbauung, see Lucian Hölscher, Geschichte der protestantischen Frömmigkeit in Deutschland (Munich, 2005), p. 116. 140 Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, esp. pp. 154–164. 141 On Bengel, see Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Vol. 5: Moderatism, Pietism, and Awakening (Grand Rapids, 2004), pp. 98–103 and Lothar Bertsch, Johann Albrecht Bengel. Seine Lebensgeschichte (Holzgerlingen, 2002) pp. 51–59.

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through preaching could also create tensions and self-doubt as clergy blamed themselves for the lack of homiletical effectiveness.142 Where ecclesial Pietists remained traditional in many respects, radical Pietists challenged tradition more decisively than their ecclesial Pietist counterparts. They stressed illumination by the Spirit and incorporated lay preaching into their practices much more readily, often dissociating it entirely from clerical office; they established a tradition of itinerant preaching. The long-term influence of radical Pietist preaching in Europe was less pronounced than in North America where radicals were able to establish their own denominations and practices of preaching. Though similar to radical Pietists in some respects, Moravians did not break with parish preaching entirely but added new opportunities for uneducated men and women to preach while at the same time they created new religious offices. Moravians influenced the early Wesleyan approach to preaching, but they diverged on the question of field preaching and revival.143 As they became more established, however, Moravians became more conventional in their practices of preaching. 8. Revival and Preaching The development of preaching and the sermon in the revival movements of the mid-eighteenth century shows clear parallels to Pietism. Revival preaching dealt with similar concerns including an emphasis on conversion, the character of the preacher, itinerancy, the role of lay preaching, and the place of the sermon within worship. In some cases, the revival movement in Britain and North America took more radical positions on preaching than did ecclesial Pietism in Germany. Revivalists often embraced, for instance, itinerancy and the necessity of a regenerate ministry without, in contrast to radical Pietism, separating themselves from the established churches. In these revival movements, the personality of the preacher was particularly emphasized, and revivalists such as Gilbert Tennent or George Whitefield became public figures in a way that transcended local parishes

142 Ulrike Gleixner, Pietismus und Bürgertum: eine historische Anthropologie der Frömmigkeit, Württemberg 17.–19. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2005), pp. 314–316. Theodor Wotschke, “Der Pietismus in Moskau”, in Deutsche Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Polen 18 (1930), pp. 53–95, at p. 61. 143 See above and Colin Podmore, The Moravian Church in England, 1728–1760 (Oxford, 1998), p. 99.

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and congregations. The revivals reflected new forms of preaching as well as innovative means of communication about preaching and its effects. Born in Germany and trained in the Netherlands, the Reformed preacher Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1691–1747) brought a distinctive style of preaching to the Raritan valley in New Jersey.144 Drawing on the Nadere Reformatie, a religious renewal movement of seventeenthcentury Netherlands closely related to Puritanism and German Pietism,145 Frelinghuysen developed a method of addressing different audiences in his sermons that presupposed varying levels of faith and stages of conversion among his audiences. This classificatory method or discriminating preaching, as it is sometimes known, sought to address multiple audiences within a congregation in a sermon and not seek one general application of a sermon for all listeners.146 In a manner reminiscent of August Hermann Francke, Frelinghuysen called in his preaching for an experience of conversion and personal introspection, exploring whether one had received the marks of grace. Frelinghuysen’s revivalist preaching and his strict discipline found a receptive audience among many Dutch immigrants, but it also earned him considerable opposition among the Dutch elite in the middle colonies.147 His remarkable success as a preacher also won him admirers among clergy outside the Dutch Reformed church. Taken with Frelinghuysen’s success in the Raritan valley, Gilbert Tennent sought to emulate his colleague’s approach among his congregants in New Brunswick. Coalter largely credits Frelinghuysen with Tennent’s transformation into one of the leading revivalist preachers in North America in 144 On Frelinghuysen, see James Tanis, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism in the Middle Colonies. A Study in the Life and Theology of Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (The Hague, 1967); Joel R. Beeke ed., Forerunner of the Great Awakening: Sermons by Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen 1691–1747 (Grand Rapids, 2000), and Milton Coalter, Gilbert Tennent, Son of Thunder: A Case Study of Continental Pietism’s Impact on the First Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies (Westport, 1986), pp. 13–25. 145 For an overview with further literature, Fred van Lieburg, “From pure church to pious culture: the further Reformation in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic”, in Later Calvinism, David Graham Murphy ed. (Kirksville, 1994), 409–430. 146 Frelinghuysen discusses his method of preaching in the ordination sermon, “Duties of Watchmen on the Walls of Zion,” in Beeke, Forerunner of the Great Awakening, 280– 281. On the classificatory method in the Nadere Reformatie see Teunis Brienen, De prediking van de Nadere Reformatie: Een onderzoek naar het gebruik van de klassifikatiemethode binnen de prediking van de Nadere Reformatie (Amsterdam, 1974). 147 Randall Balmer describes the reception of Frelinghuysen’s revivalism among the Dutch immigrants in “The Social Roots of Dutch Pietism in the Middle Colonies,” in Church History 53 (1984), pp. 187–199. See also Randall Balmer, A Perfect Babel of Confusion. Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies (New York, 1989), esp. pp. 108–116.

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the 1730s.148 Along with continental Pietism, the tradition of Scots-Irish revivalism stretching back to the seventeenth century also influenced Tennent and Reformed revivalism in North America with its emphasis on new birth and conversion as well as practices of outdoor preaching and occasional itinerancy.149 Emphasizing the necessity of personal conviction and conversion rather than doctrinal exposition, Tennent became widely known for his powerful preaching of the terrors facing the unconverted who remained mired in their false security. Tennent argued that the balm of the Gospel could be applied only after there was a profound conviction of the soul.150 Just as many Pietists did, Tennent became critical of an unregenerate clergy but he took the argument further and argued that not only were clergy who had not experienced a true conversion ineffectual, they were in practice the allies of the Devil.151 This reasoning led to Tennent’s famous 1740 sermon, The Danger of An Unconverted Ministry, in which Tennent excoriated unconverted ministers and argued that they presented a clear danger to a parishioner’s salvation.152 The implications for preaching were substantial. Such an argument underscored both the need for godly preachers to itinerate and loosened the connection between the laity and their appointed ministers. Along with his emphasis on extemporaneous preaching, Tennent represented the ‘new measures’ of preaching that would characterize revival preaching of the early 1740s during the Great Awakening in America. Less dramatic than Tennent, perhaps, but equally powerful in the pulpit was Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 1734 and 1735, Northampton and the surrounding area was swept by a revival movement under Edwards. Revival preaching with a focus on conversion was itself hardly unprecedented, but the regional rather than local character of the revivals was new.153 Edwards applied the rationalism of the 148 Milton Coalter, Gilbert Tennent, Son of Thunder: A Case Study of Continental Pietism’s Impact on the First Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies (Westport, 1986), p. 24. 149 On these influences, see Westerkamp, The Triumph of the Laity, and Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, 2001). Schmidt especially emphasizes the sacramental background of revivals. As Brauer signals, however, both studies raise unanswered questions about the nature and importance of revivalistic preaching. Jerald Brauer, “Revivalism Revisited,” in Journal of Religion 77 (1997), p. 271. 150 Coalter, Gilbert Tennent, pp. 44–46. 151 Coalter, Gilbert Tennent, p. 44. 152 Gilbert Tennent, The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry (Philadelphia, 1740), and Coalter, Gilbert Tennent, pp. 64–66. 153 Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York, 1986), pp. 180, 189.

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Enlightenment to an understanding of the emotions, and his preaching, as Lambert argues, ‘had an emotional effect on his listeners as they heard calm, quiet, clear, reasonable sermons setting forth the terrors awaiting the unredeemed in an everlasting hell’.154 Edwards instituted new sermons that were designed especially to reach young people who were key to the revival’s success. He later penned an account of the events, in which preaching is important but not the central focus of the work of the revival. The translation and wide publication of accounts like Edwards’ Faithful Narrative represent new forms of communication about revival and preaching.155 The structure of Edwards’ sermons reflected the older Puritan style of text, doctrine, and application and remained doctrinally orthodox, but Kimnach, Minkema, and Sweeney emphasize the metaphysical aspect of Edwards, who employed a radical rhetoric in his preaching that strove to make the spiritual tangible in that it added ‘a new dimension of psychological realism in religious rhetoric’.156 Edwards also gave appeals to the emotions in preaching philosophical justifications that made him the leading theoretician of the revivals in North America.157 However, Edwards did not embrace all innovations and he remained skeptical of the role of lay preaching in the Awakening and continued to see it as a clerical prerogative.158 George Whitefield became the best-known revival preacher on either side of the Atlantic, and his rise to prominence marks new approaches to preaching. Like the Pietists, he emphasized themes of New Birth and conversion as well as personal experience, but in contrast to many Pietists, Whitefield also rejected any semblance of classical oratory in preaching, and he brought innovative forms of theatricality to his pulpit. He emphasized extemporaneous preaching without any notes whatsoever and sometimes even no predetermined biblical text. Further he moved preaching out of 154

Frank Lambert, Inventing the “Great Awakening” (Princeton, N.J., 1999), p. 65. Jonathan Edwards, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton (London, 1737). Lambert describes the development of the narrative and publication history; Lambert, Inventing the “Great Awakening”, 69–81. Ward emphasizes the influence of the narrative in continental Europe, where it was translated and published almost immediately. Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening, pp. 91, 275. 156 Jonathan Edwards, The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader, Wilson H. Kimnach, Kenneth P. Minkema and Douglas A. Sweeney eds. (New Haven, 1999), pp. xiii, xix. They note the rhetorical richness of Edwards’ preaching in contrast to the older “plain style.” Kimnac et al., The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, p. xx. Cf. Old, Moderatism, Pietism, and Awakening, p. 253. 157 Stout, The New England Soul, pp. 202–207. 158 George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven, 2003), p. 276. 155

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the churches and meetings houses and made open-air preaching a central feature of the revival, a practice that most Pietists would reject. Trained at Oxford where he was an associate of the Wesleys, Whitefield was ordained a deacon in the Church of England in 1736 and began preaching in churches in London to great acclaim. Stout emphasizes that it was less the content of his sermons than his dramatic delivery and emphasis on experience that set him apart from other preachers.159 Whitefield adopted a particularly theatrical approach in the pulpit that Stout argues owes much to the English stage in the eighteenth century.160 At first he preached from written texts in the traditional Anglican manner, but Whitefield quickly moved to a form of extemporaneous preaching that was particularly amenable to his dramatic style.161 Whitefield drew large crowds to the churches where he preached and news of success circulated in the London press as well as rumblings of opposition.162 Whitefield proved to be particularly adept at self-promotion throughout his career and the skillful use of print and other forms of publicity would be critical to his growing reputation.163 After a brief stint as a missionary to Georgia where he resolved to establish an orphanage, Whitefield returned to England. Ordained as a priest in 1739, he began a new phase as a field or open-air preacher. When he found pulpits closed to him, Whitefield moved outside. Possessing a powerful voice, he found open-air preaching particularly well-suited to his style of delivery. He drew thousands of listeners from the coalfields of Kingswood to the urban setting of London and became a sensation. He traveled to North America again in 1739 and embarked on one of the most successful preaching tours of the eighteenth century. The ‘Grand Itinerant’, as he became known, preached from Georgia to Massachusetts to enthusiastic crowds. Whitefield’s appeal cut across denominational lines and preaching outdoors he drew thousands to hear his sermons.164 His preaching proved especially effective in the religiously diverse context of North America.

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Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, 1991), p. 38. 160 Stout, The Divine Dramatist, p. xviii. 161 Stout, The Divine Dramatist, pp. 39, 43. 162 Stout, The Divine Dramatist, pp. 46, 47. 163 Frank Lambert, “Pedlar in divinity”: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737–1770 (Princeton, 1994), esp. 47–51. See also Stout, The Divine Dramatist, p. 45. 164 In Philadelphia in November 1739, Whitefield preached to six thousand, roughly one-half of the city’s population. Stout, The Divine Dramatist, p. 90.

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Whitefield’s sermons reflect a strong orality. The dramatic delivery and the ability to work spontaneous occurrences seamlessly into his sermons gave his preaching an immediacy and sense that he was speaking directly from the heart. Contemporaries such as Benjamin Franklin noted that his printed sermons failed to convey the power of his preaching in person.165 Furthermore, as Stout argues, Whitefield’s itinerancy and lack of familiarity with his audience changed the social context of preaching, moving it away from the local context of churches and meetinghouses and the authority of the standing ministry.166 Indeed part of Whitefield’s success was also tied to his criticism of the clergy, in what has been called an ‘inverted jeremiad’. Rather than blaming the people themselves, Whitefield and other revivalists made ‘lukewarm’ and presumably unconverted ministers—and the colleges that trained them—responsible for the general lack of piety.167 While the power of Whitefield’s preaching in person was extraordinary, historians have also emphasized the importance of printed forms of communication to his success. Revivalist magazines, newspaper accounts, the publication of Whitefield’s journals and sermons, served to publicize his preaching and prepare the public for its acceptance. Frank Lambert, in particular, has stressed the importance of these modes of communication in the ‘invention’ of the Great Awakening.168 Whitefield capitalized on these forms of publicity and used them artfully to purvey the power of his revivalist message.169 Whitefield established the standard for revivalist preaching in Great Britain and North America. He and other revivalists made itinerant and field preaching widely accepted forms of religious communication that could complement and at times challenge traditional preaching in the parishes and congregations. They emphasized extemporaneity, although itinerancy afforded them the opportunity to return to similar themes over

165 Quoted in Stout, The Divine Dramatist, p. 192. See also Old, Moderatism, Pietism, and Awakening, p. 137. 166 ‘With his itinerancy, there blossomed an innovative style of public speaking that redefined the social context of homiletics. In his revivals the power to speak was dispensed from beneath, in the voluntary initiative of the people assembling in extrainsitutional settings, thereby creating new models of authority and social order. Gone were seated meetinghouses and every other distinction that reinforced the ministry’s aristocratic claims.’ Stout, New England Soul, p. 193. 167 Stout, New England Soul, p. 194; Stout, The Divine Dramatist, p. 120. 168 On the concept of ‘invention’, see Lambert, Inventing the “Great Awakening”, p. 8. 169 Lambert argues that Whitefield conceived of his mission in commercial terms, seeing himself as a “merchant of the Lord.” Lambert, “Pedlar in divinity”, p. 46.

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and over without fear that their ever-changing audience would have heard them before. The practice of itinerant preaching he and others popularized had far-reaching effects on the development of Protestantism in eighteenth-century North America as it loosened the connection to parish boundaries across denominations.170 By emphasizing the personality of the preacher and attacking the institutions that trained the ministry, they opened new possibilities for lay preachers without academic qualifications, including in some cases women.171 As a preacher, Whitefield and a number of his colleagues also became public figures that transcended denominations or confessional boundaries. This was based in part on their extraordinary effectiveness in person but also on the shrewd use of publications that promoted their stature as extraordinary preachers. The revival waned in North America by the mid-1740s and some pulled away from revivalist emphases. Once the scourge of unconverted ministers, Gilbert Tennent began to seek rapprochement between pro-revivalist ‘New Side’ and the more traditional ‘Old Side’ Presbyterians, and his own preaching moved away from the revivalist style.172 Opposition to revivalist practices hardened in many areas.173 Whitefield remained a popular preacher throughout his life, and he embodied a new style of evangelical preaching, but revivalist forms of preaching found their greatest acceptance and success in the burgeoning Methodist movement under the direction of the Wesleys. John Wesley never matched the reputation of Whitefield as a preacher, but under his organizational verve and unstinting energy, Methodism became the most important movement to emerge from revivalism of the eighteenth century. It made revivalist forms of preaching such as itinerancy, open-air preaching, and lay preaching a key part of its extraordinary success. Influenced by Whitefield’s success, Wesley began field preaching in 1739 and made it part of his evangelical movement that was centered on the new Methodist societies in England. Wesley saw it as part of his

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Timothy D. Hall, Contested Boundaries: Itinerancy and the Reshaping of the Colonial American Religious World (Durham, 1994). 171 Brekus describes the emergence of women exhorters during the Awakening in the 1740s, who, however, left few records. Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers & Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill, 1998), pp. 44–61. 172 After 1744 and his move to Philadelphia, Tennent increasingly relied on detailed notes and sermon manuscripts rather than an extemporaneous preaching. Coalter, Gilbert Tennent, pp. 122–123. 173 Lambert, Inventing the “Great Awakening”, pp. 185–221.

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mission to reach those that were left untouched by the regular parish preaching of the Church of England.174 Lacking the theatricality of Whitefield, Wesley was nonetheless a powerful and effective preacher, often drawing thousands to hear him preach. Wesley’s sermons tended to be short—generally a half an hour or less—and focused on the clear application of a scriptural theme.175 Later Wesley described the best method of preaching as: ‘(1.) to invite. (2.) To convince. (3.) To offer Christ. (4.) To build up; and to do this in some measure in every sermon’.176 Wesley was a prodigious preacher, delivering an estimated 40,000 sermons during his long career. But where Wesley was not the orator that Whitefield and other revivalists were, he more thoroughly instituted revival forms of preaching than any other figure of the eighteenth century and established a legacy that made Methodism one of the most dynamic Protestant movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Certainly Wesley’s personal example as an itinerant preacher was part of this success. Wesley’s published sermons, however, differ from those of some other revivalists or Pietists. Wesley brought relatively few of his sermons to print. Many were published long after they were originally delivered and most were carefully composed and then edited for a wider audience. Those he did publish took on a model character for the movement as succinct statements of Methodist teaching and doctrine. Wesley published the first collection in 1746 as Sermons on Several Occasions to show critics and supporters ‘the Substance of what I have been preaching, for between Eight and Nine years last past’.177 Rather than an attempt to communicate in print the immediacy and orality of the preaching event, these were carefully constructed and re-edited in order to demonstrate the central teachings and doctrines of Wesley and his emerging Methodist movement. As such, they functioned as a doctrinal guide for his corps of lay preachers. Wesley’s unstinting example as a preacher was undoubtedly a force within the emerging Methodist movement, but the movement’s remarkable

174 On Wesley’s decision to begin field preaching, William Parkes, “John Wesley: Field Preacher,” in Methodist History (1992) 30, pp. 217–223. 175 Parkes, “John Wesley”, p. 223. 176 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley 3rd ed., VIII (Peabody, 1984 [1872]), p. 317. 177 John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions: In Three Volumes (London, 1746), preface. The planned second and third volumes were published in 1748 and 1750. A fourth was added in 1760 and these volumes comprise the 44 “Standard Sermons” of Wesley’s corpus. Additional sermons were added in later editions reaching eight volumes by the time of his death. For the publishing history of Wesley’s sermons, see Albert Outler, “Introduction” in The Works of John Wesley I (Nashville, 1984), pp. 29–54.

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growth was not based solely on the charisma of a handful of evangelists. One of Wesley’s great successes was the way in which he was able to employ lay preachers so effectively in the spread of the movement. Preaching by non-theologically trained laymen was by no means unprecedented in English Protestantism—the ‘mechanic preachers’ of radical Puritanism are but one example. But Wesley was able to assemble a corps of these lay preachers and incorporate them as part of a formal religious organization in dynamic fashion that others could not match. In the first Methodist Conference of 1744 called by Wesley, he and his collaborators gave shape to an organization that would institutionalize itinerancy and lay preaching. By 1745 there were fifty lay preachers associated with Wesley.178 These would grow substantially in the coming years, and the mobilization of lay preachers was a major factor in Methodism’s extraordinary growth. The itinerant lay preachers were rotated frequently in their circuits, in part to ensure that their sermons not turn stale or repetitive.179 In addition to these ‘assistants’ and ‘helpers’ as the itinerant preachers were known, were local preachers, who as Wesley noted, ‘assist us only in one place’.180 Wesley’s embrace of preaching by lay men without formal theological training was a central part of the movement, and this opened a possible avenue for exhorting and preaching by women as well. Women generally constituted a majority of the early Methodist societies and played a critical role within the bands and classes. After 1760 a number of women went beyond public praying, witnessing or exhorting and began preaching within the movement. While initially wary, John Wesley eventually recognized their ‘extraordinary call’ to preach in Methodism.181 Although the numbers were never very large—around forty—Wesley supported a number of women such as Sarah Crosby, Mary Bosanquet, and Sarah Mallet, the latter of which received official recognition within the Methodist Conference in 1787. After Wesley’s death, the number of women preachers declined, and they were eventually repressed and excluded from public preaching.182

178 The Works of John Wesley, vol. 9: The Methodist Societies. History, Nature and Design, Rupert E. Davies ed. (Nashville, 1989), p.16. 179 Davies ed., The Methodist Societies, p. 16. 180 Quoted in Davies ed., The Methodist Societies, p. 17. 181 Paul Wesley Chilcote, John Wesley and the Women Preachers of Early Methodism (Metuchen, N.J., 1991), p. 143. 182 Chilcote, John Wesley, pp. 232–237. See also Jean Miller Schmidt, Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism (Nashville, 1999), pp. 29–32.

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Wesley never intended his societies as a separation from the Church of England; rather he saw them as a supplement to its worship and sacraments. Methodists did establish their own preaching houses, and through the classes and bands they cultivated a rich and highly successful religious culture. Frequent preaching was a critical part of its success, but it was only one aspect of Methodism, which employed gatherings in classes and bands, liturgical practices such as the love feast, and above all its rich hymnody to further its distinctive piety.183 In Wesley’s instructions for preachers he moved seamlessly from discussing the style and manner of preaching to the selection of hymns and their effective use, illustrating how closely preaching and hymns were associated in Methodism.184 The Methodist practices of itinerancy and preaching by men—and sometimes women—without formal theological training helped make Methodism into one of the most dynamic religious movements of the eighteenth century. Particularly, in North America the institutionalization of itinerancy and revival preaching found extraordinary growth and made Methodism’s distinctive approach to preaching one of the dominant forms in nineteenth century America. 9. Conclusion Pietism and Revivalism challenged traditional sermons and the practices of preaching, but historians should not discount the continuity with earlier periods. This is especially the case for ecclesial Pietism. Like many contemporaries, Pietists questioned undue reliance on the sermon, and to supplement it, they proposed conventicles and other devotional practices, which in turn opened up new possibilities for religious speech. The typical Pietist criticisms of the sermon against excessive rhetorical devices, florid language, or attempts to entertain rather than edify were not unique to Pietism and were shared by contemporaries, including many Orthodox opponents. They did, however, develop distinctive themes. Pietists emphasized Erbauung, conversion and the personal application of scripture to

183 Hempton describes the Methodist sermon along with hymns and gatherings as quintessential Methodists practices. David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, 2005), pp. 74–85. On the early classes, see David Lowes Watson, The Early Methodist Class Meeting: Its Origins and Significance (Nashville, 1987). 184 Wesley, Works, vol. 8 (1984), pp. 317–318.

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one’s own life. Further, Pietists were generally open to freer homiletical forms and they disdained certain devices, especially non-biblical emblems and figures. Nonetheless, preaching among Pietists such as Spener and Francke remained conventional in many respects. Mainstream Pietist preaching was based in the parish, delivered from the pulpit, followed the prescribed lections as part of the liturgy, and, despite attempts to shorten its duration, remained roughly of the same length as in the seventeenth century. The traditional rhetorical structure of the sermon became less obvious but continued to provide the underlying framework. University education for preachers remained the norm. Pietists questioned the sufficiency of the sermon for devotional life, but at the same time their emphasis on the regenerate character of the clergy put the personality of the preacher in the foreground. In contrast to the revivalists, many of whom also retained their church ties, ecclesial Pietists did not advocate itinerancy, nor did they employ field preaching as strategy. They did take advantage of new forms of communication to distribute their sermons as inexpensive pamphlet literature, making their sermons influential models for other preachers as well as a form of devotional literature. The legacy of the moderate Pietists for preaching was therefore mixed. While they criticized the form and function of the sermon and offered supplemental devotional exercises, their emphasis on preaching as a prerogative of highly educated, ordained clergy, the setting of the sermon within the established liturgies of the church, its delivery from the pulpit, and the continued use of the prescribed lections all tended to reinforce the traditional place of the sermon even as they developed new thematic interests. The Pietist emphasis on the spiritual disposition of the preacher could undermine the authority of some preachers whose sincerity their congregants doubted, but as a paragon of godliness, the Pietist preacher could also endow his sermons with greater authority and reinforce their place within traditional church services.185 Rejecting non-traditional forms of preaching advocated by the radicals and revivalists, the ecclesial Pietist understanding of Erbauung and criticism of excessive artifice in their sermons fit well with emerging rationalist ideas of the sermon. From Mosheim on, scholars have recognized an affinity between moderate Pietist views of preaching and those of the rationalists

185 For an example, see the idealization of the pietistic preacher in Karl Philipp Moritz, Anton Reiser: Ein psychologischer Roman (Leipzig, 1987), pp. 57–66.

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in the eighteenth century.186 To be sure, the Pietist understanding of Erbauung with its emphasis on individual spiritual awakening and conversion differed significantly from the largely moral and didactic emphasis of the Rationalists. Indeed, one of the ironies of ecclesial Pietist preaching may have been its indirect contribution to Rationalist preaching, against which the descendants of Pietism in the nineteenth century would react so strongly. The tradition of eighteenth-century Pietist preaching lived on in editions of sermons that were reprinted in the nineteenth century. Sermons by Spener, Francke, and Bengel all enjoyed new editions, but in the case of Francke, for whom a complete bibliography exists, sermons make up only a small part of his works reprinted between 1800 and 1900,187 pointing perhaps to a different role of printed sermons in devotional life. The extent of continuity between eighteenth century Pietism and correlate movements of the nineteenth including the Erweckungsbewegung remains controversial, but the continued publication of eighteenth century sermons, sometimes across national and linguistic borders, ensured a measure of literary continuity.188 Radical Pietists and the Moravians broke more decisively with tradition in their practices of preaching. There was a range of preaching practice among radical Pietists, but in general, they emphasized direct illumination by the Spirit and tended to dissociate preaching from the ordained und university educated ministry. They were able to incorporate lay preaching more easily into their practices and widened the setting beyond the pulpit of the parish church. Some radicals such as Dippel spiritualized practices to the point where preaching became superfluous, where others such as the Inspirationists essentially merged prophecy with preaching. Still others like Arnold continued to find a place for preaching in the established churches even as he radicalized his understanding of it. The radicals drew on Pietist conventicles as forums for their preaching and Pietist networks allowed dissident clergy and lay preachers to itinerate. Radicals more readily offered women opportunities for leadership and preaching, but outside of the prophecy of the Inspirationists and the Finnish somnabulent

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See above and Schian, Orthodoxie und Pietismus, pp. 154–164. See Raabe and Pfeiffer, August Hermann Francke 1663–1727, pp. 727–731. 188 On the question of the continuity in the nineteenth century, see most recently, Hartmut Lehmann, “Erledigte und nicht erledigte Aufgaben der Pietismusforschung. Eine nochmalige Antwort an Johannes Wallmann”, in Pietismus und Neuzeit, 31 (2005), pp. 13–20. 187

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preachers—both of which continued throughout the nineteenth century— radical Pietists did not generally establish lasting practices of female preaching. More than any other Pietist group, Moravians instituted new practices of preaching within their communities, although these were embedded in a rich array of distinctive liturgical and devotional practices. Their ‘Diaspora’ endeavors carried out by itinerant preachers allowed them to connect small communities of awakened Christians throughout Europe and North America. Moravians were the only Pietist group to institute regular preaching by women, though this remained limited and was never exercised in public. As a practice it was largely discontinued after Zinzendorf ’s death.189 Revivalists instituted many of the more radical practices of Pietism, without, however, necessarily separating from the established confessions or denominations as radical Pietists did. The itinerant preacher became a fixture of the revivals of the eighteenth century, and they challenged the relationship between the parish minister and his flock. Revivalists also tended to break more strongly with traditional forms of the sermon. Whitefield’s emphasis on extemporaneity allowed him to introduce spontaneity and theatricality into his sermons in a way that Pietists did not. Like most Pietists, revivalists also stressed the importance of a converted ministry for effective preaching, but a number took it further than most moderate Pietists would find comfortable. In contrast to Pietists, they embraced field preaching to reach new audiences. While revivalists and Pietists both used the new forms of communication skillfully to further their goals, revivalists were particularly adept at employing news accounts about the success of revivalist preaching to increase their support. Revivalists were split on the issue of lay preaching, but under John Wesley, the Methodist movement institutionalized itinerant lay preaching as a fundamental aspect of its organization. Products of revivalism, these Wesleyan lay preachers helped make Methodism one of the most dynamic religious movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and profoundly shaped sermons and the practice of preaching well into the nineteenth century. Many of the innovations pioneered by revivalists gained momentum in the nineteenth century, and the legacy of eighteenth-century revivalist 189

See Beverly Smaby, “ ‘Only Brothers should be accepted into this proposed council’: Restricting Women’s Leadership in Moravian Bethlehem,” in Pietism in Germany and North America, 1680–1820: Transmissions of Dissent, Jonathan Strom et al eds. (Aldershot, forthcoming 2009).

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preaching was in many respects more direct than that of moderate Pietism. With roots in Scots-Irish and North American revivalism, the Cane Ridge revival of 1801 inaugurated the nineteenth-century the camp meeting, in which the community formed itself around the occasion of revival. The camp meeting signified a further break from traditional, Protestant parishbased preaching, in which not only the preachers itinerated, but in a sense the audience did as well.190 When Charles Finney, the most prominent evangelist of the Second Great Awakening, embraced the ‘new measures’ of preaching, he consciously endorsed the practices of eighteenth century revivalists along with new features, such as the anxious seat and spontaneous exhortation, that were adeptly employed to wring the maximum number of conversions from his audience.191 Itinerancy and lay preaching, already features of eighteenth century revivalism, became more widely established in nineteenth century and profoundly affected the development of Christianity, especially in North America.192 One result was the emergence of many more women preachers in the revival traditions. Just as the eighteenth-century Pietists and revivalists had used print media to communicate effectively about preaching, its use intensified among nineteenth century revivalists. Anglo-American and continental revival movements of the nineteenth century influenced each other, although continental revival movements never developed the mass events with large-scale conversions that were a feature of Anglo-American revival preaching.193 If at the end of the seventeenth century, regular parish preaching was one of the most public events of the early modern village or town, in the course of the eighteenth century the traditional sermon faced increasing competition from religious and non-religious forms of communication that challenged its centrality and form. Establishing innovative practices of preaching, Pietism and Revivalism contributed to these challenges, but

190 Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Women and religion in early America, 1600–1850: The Puritan and Evangelical traditions (London, 1999), p. 107. 191 Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion 2nd ed. (New York, 1835), p. 252. For a detailed description of these ‘new measures’ in Britain and North America, see Richard Carwardine, Transtatlantic Revivalism: Popular Evangelicalism in Britain and America, 1790–1865 (Westport, 1978), pp. 3–42; Ted A. Smith, The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice (New York, 2007). 192 For the effects on the United States, see Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, 1989), esp. pp. 3–9. 193 On this distinction, Ulrich Gäbler, “Auferstehungszeit”. Erweckungsprediger des 19. Jahrhunderts: Sechs Portraits (Munich, 1991), p. 165.

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they also sought to revitalize preaching in an era of religious, cultural, and political change. Moderate Pietists focused on reshaping the sermon to accommodate Pietist notions of Erbauung, conversion, and the character of the preacher within the parish context. Radical Pietists, Moravians, and Revivalists extended innovations beyond the parish and ordained ministry. Especially Revivalism would launch new models of preaching and communication that would be powerfully effective in Great Britain and North America, establishing a legacy of preaching that continued well into the next century.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT SERMON: TOWARDS PRACTICAL RELIGION AND A SACRED NATIONAL COMMUNITY Pasi Ihalainen The idea that European thought had undergone a fundamental secularization was the premise of eighteenth-century studies for much of the twentieth century. Such a paradigm suggests that “the Enlightenment” and “sermon” must be opposite – even antithetical – terms. It will be argued in this chapter that this is not the case. Instead, the Enlightenment should be seen as a period of intellectual debate, resulting in changes that took place not only in opposition to but also within religion. Sermons need to be analysed as important contributions to the Enlightenment debate and to the emergence of modernity as such. The clergy, as a social group that had received professional education, and the sermon, as a genre of public debate, were involved both in maintaining intellectual continuity and in facilitating the intellectual change which Western Christendom experienced during the eighteenth century. Particularly in North-Western Europe and North America, preachers were influenced by Enlightenment thought. In many cases, their engagement resulted only in a defence of tradition. Yet it could also mean that clergymen acquainted themselves with new ideas, adopting them, and sometimes actively contributing to their development. Indeed, in the Age of the Enlightenment, sermons were expected to have a practical purpose and to reflect current debates. In preparing their sermons, the less dogmatically oriented members of the clergy were able to redescribe the Christian religious confessions and political theories as well. By addressing current themes in their sermons – accommodating them either intentionally or unintentionally – and thus gradually reinterpreting the worldview propagated by the Church, the preachers made their own contribution to intellectual change. In this way, they provided emerging modernity a religious sanctification. They also propagated ideas combining traditional religion and moderate forms of Enlightenment thought to audiences which might otherwise not have learned about them via other media. This meant that members of the clergy could support the intellectual shift towards modernity not only among the higher echelons of society but also among the masses.

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This chapter focuses on the Enlightenment renewal of the sermon within the public churches of North-Western Europe in the late eighteenth century. By the renewal of the sermon I am referring to the adaptation of the theory, form, style, and theological and political content of sermons to the modes of thinking characteristic of the Enlightenment. Public churches are the main focus here, as changes within state religion and the ideology propagated by it can be assumed to reflect transformations in mainstream values. In their public statements, religious minorities predominantly conformed to the common values provided by the state and voiced by its privileged church, so that whatever diverging views they may have had did not figure prominently in their preaching. The Enlightenment sermon will be approached from three perspectives. Firstly, I shall define the Enlightenment sermon in the context of the recent scholarly debate on religion and the Enlightenment. Secondly, I shall present a comparative exploration of how the Enlightenment sermon has been understood in different national contexts. Thirdly, I shall analyse the elements of Enlightenment thought contained in the sermons by focusing on the specific genre of the political sermon, which, due to its unusual politico-religious authority, played a particularly important role in registering, sanctifying, reinforcing and sometimes producing changes in the contemporary worldview. Ten political sermons originating from Anglican, French Catholic, French Constitutional, Austrian Catholic, Prussian Lutheran, Dutch Reformed and Swedish Lutheran contexts will be analysed for this purpose. The analysis will reveal how deeply involved the sermon was in the process of Enlightenment, at the same time both advancing and criticizing it. 1. The Enlightenment Sermon: A Contradiction in Terms? The eighteenth century is still viewed by many as an era during which religious belief waned, political theory and practice liberated themselves from the domination of religion, and religion was pushed to the margins of social life. The Enlightenment has conventionally been interpreted as being radically secularist and as an alternative to supernaturalism. The rise of secular modernity is believed to have been a unilateral process, and this has led many historians to conclude that everything “religious” in the eighteenth century was passée or at best a desperate defence of the old world.

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They have argued that secularization, naturalization, rationalization and modernization were the leading trends, not religiosity of any kind.1 It is now clear that the secularization thesis is beset with problems. An increasing number of scholars have argued that both change and continuity should be studied and that the consideration of continuity means that religion should also be taken seriously as a political, social and ideological force. Furthermore, religion potentially had a considerable level of dynamism and could even act as a catalyst for change in a world which cannot be simply divided into two with traditional religion opposing progressive Enlightenment within religious communities.2 Religion and other expressions of thought interacted in a fruitful manner throughout the eighteenth century. Confrontations between the established church and radical forms of the Enlightenment only became irreconcilable in 1 See Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London, 2000), with references to how “ecclesiastics had been secularizing themselves” (p. 98), “the rejection of traditional Christian dogmas in favour of new secular models” (p. 219) and “a profound transformation of mentalities, secularization and naturalization” (p. 229). The Enlightenment World, Martin Fitzpatrick, Peter Jones, Christa Knellwolf and Ian McCalman eds. (Abingdon, 2007) discusses the Enlightenment and religion only through conventional themes such as the critique of Christianity, the debate on toleration, German Pietism, deism, materialism, and atheism. For summaries of historians’ arguments on the Enlightenment and religion, see Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1995), p. 31; Jeremy Gregory, “Christianity and Culture: Religion, the Arts and the Sciences in England, 1660–1800”, in Culture and Society in Britain 1660–1800, Jeremy Black ed. (Manchester, 1997), p. 102; and James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley, “Introduction”, in Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe, James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley eds. (Notre Dame, 2001), pp. 1–17. 2 J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice During the Ancient Regime (Cambridge, 1985); Robert Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order in England 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1989); Joris van Eijnatten, God, Nederland en Oranje: Dutch Calvinism and the Search for the Social Centre (Amsterdam, 1993); Peter van Rooden, Religieuze regimes. Over godsdienst en maatschappij in Nederland 1570–1990 (Amsterdam, 1996); Tony Claydon, William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge, 1996); B.W. Young, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford, 1998); Pasi Ihalainen, The Discourse on Political Pluralism in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Helsinki, 1999); Tony Claydon, “The sermons, the ‘public sphere’ and the political culture of late seventeenth-century England”, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature and History 1600–1750, Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough eds. (Manchester, 2000), pp. 208–234; Bradley and Van Kley, “Introduction”, pp. 36–37; Jonathan Sheehan, “Enlightenment, Religion, and the Enigma of Secularization: A Review Essay”, The American Historical Review 108 (2003), 1057–1080; S.J. Barnett, The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity (Manchester, 2003); Joris van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Public in the Eighteenth-Century Netherlands (Leiden, 2003);

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France – and only during the Revolution. In most European countries and even in France, Christians yearning for reform and some clergymen of the established churches could play an active role in the Enlightenment.3 The sermon, in turn, was one of the genres which could be used to redefine prevalent values in the context of emerging modernity. Defining “the Enlightenment” as the belief in human reason, a scientific worldview and a hostile attitude towards religion inevitably excludes any analysis of interaction between religion and other areas of discourses.4 We therefore need to adopt a broader definition of the Enlightenment, as advocated by Jeremy Black, Dorinda Outram and Thomas Munck, among others. These scholars have emphasized the highly diversified and often contradictory nature of the Enlightenment as it appeared in various national contexts. The Enlightenment should in their view be seen as a critical attitude and as a series of debates on the acute problems of the time. The Enlightenment took on various forms in different national and cultural contexts, sometimes remaining marginal and at other times contributing to revolutionary intellectual, social and political change.5 The Enlightenment was also a process of communication, in which new ideas were spread that led to millions of Europeans reconsidering their traditional values and beliefs.6 This contributed gradually to the establishment of a practical modernity, or a new way of seeing the relationship between religion and other areas of life, which often quite creatively reconciled the changing social and political realities and emerging new ideas with inherited tradition. 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); Dale K. Van Kley, “Piety and politics in the century of lights”, in The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler eds. (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 110–143. 3 Nigel Aston, Christianity and Revolutionary Europe, 1750–1830 (Cambridge, 2002), p. 93. See also Gregory, “Christianity and Culture”, p. 103, Outram, The Enlightenment, p. 34; Jeremy Black, Eighteenth Century Europe, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke, 1999), p. 262; Ernestine van der Wall, “Religie en verlichting. Harmonie of conflict?” De Achttiende Eeuw 32 (2000), pp. 5–16, at p. 10; Helena Rosenblatt, “The Christian Enlightenment”, in Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett eds., The Cambridge History of Christianity: Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660–1815 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 283–301, at pp. 283–284. 4 Cf. Tore Frängsmyr, Sökandet efter upplysningen (Stockholm, 1993); see also Outram, The Enlightenment, pp. 4–5, 8. 5 Outram, The Enlightenment, pp. 3, 12; Black, Eighteenth Century Europe, pp. 246–262; Thomas Munck, The Enlightenment: A Comparative Social History 1721–1794 (London, 2000), pp. 4–7. 6 Munck, The Enlightenment, p. 20.

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This understanding of the Enlightenment as a variegated phenomenon that combined an interest in new ideas, attempts to reconcile them with older patterns of thought, and a willingness to communicate them to the masses, suggests that sermon literature, too, needs to be examined. Printed sermons contained both traditional and Enlightenment ideas and sometimes had a considerable audience. They thereby contributed to the development of European thought. Some clergymen, aware of the current state of the debate, included entirely new ideas in their sermons. Orthodox clerics, while apparently loyal to traditional doctrine and preaching conventions, were also affected by changes in the form and content of sermons and thus came to surprisingly new conclusions, making them participants in the process of intellectual change. The current historiographical debates on Enlightenment and religion lead to a similar reinterpretation on interaction between the Enlightenment and sermons. As a consequence of the “revisionist” controversy of the late 1980s, mainstream British history writing now rejects strict definitions of the Enlightenment as a sceptical, anti-clerical, and conscious alternative to religion. Indeed, some historians want to dispense with the entire category as an anti-religious, polemical, oversimplifying, modernist nineteenthcentury invention. They also argue that religion was not marginalized in the eighteenth century in the way that the term “secularization” suggests.7 In the Netherlands as well the religious dimensions of the Enlightenment have been considered, the conclusion being either that the relationship between religion and the Enlightenment was harmonious or that the two were never distinct from one another in the first place.8 This Anglo-Dutch paradigmatic shift can be contrasted with a tendency in some Continental eighteenth-century studies to reinforce the older interpretation of the Enlightenment as anticlerical criticism and the defence of reason.9 Yet

7 J.C.D. Clark, “Providence, Predestination and Progress: Or, Did the Enlightenment Fail?,” in Ordering the World in the Eighteenth Century, eds. Diane Donald and Frank O’Gorman, (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 27–28, 51–52. 8 Van der Wall, “Religie en verlichting”, pp. 10–11. 9 See Jean Mondot, “Einleitung”, in Les Lumières et leur combat. La critique de la religion et des Églises à l’époque des Lumières, Jean Mondot ed. (Berlin, 2004), pp. xiii, xv; cf. Ulrich Dierse, “Das Verhältnis von Vernuft und Offenbarung bei den Theologen der Neologie”, in Mondot, Les Lumières et leur combat, pp. 87–88, who points out that Aufklärung in the form of neology worked within Christian theology and the church; and Peter M. Jones, “ ‘And Calm of Mind, all Passion Spent’: Church and State in England during the Eighteenth Century”, in Mondot, Les Lumières et leur combat, pp. 167 and 170, who distinguishes between anticlericalism and the critique of religion and questions the paradigm of the Enlightenment as totally anti-Christian; cf. also Religion und Aufklärung. Studien zur

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some American, German, Scandinavian, and even French historians have started to emphasize the continuing ideological significance of religion in eighteenth-century society and the ability of religion to support forms of practical modernity.10 Such an approach rejects the assumption that secularization and modernity refer to identical processes, and focuses instead on the potentially constructive elements of religion in eighteenth-century intellectual life. While the interpretation of the Enlightenment and religion as opposites would by definition render the concept of the Enlightenment sermon contradictory, the new paradigm, which aims at analysing the interaction and intimate links between the Enlightenment and religion, renders the study of Enlightenment sermons quintessential. The “religious Enlightenment” approach facilitates the recognition that the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment had common interests. It helps us to find Enlightened ways of thinking among educated members of the clergy, and to see how religious discourse, too, changed as a result of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment appears as a debate in which religion was involved rather than as a confrontation in the course of which religion was excluded. To be sure, the established churches were challenged in a number of ways in the eighteenth century, often by intellectuals who called for reforms within Christianity. The anticlerical critique of the church rarely arose out of pure atheism, however. A process of fundamental religious change was taking place within the apparently unchanging external forms of religion. Intellectual conflicts in which politics and religion were deeply intertwined, contributed to the formation of some major aspects of the Enlightenment.11 Sermon literature, in particular, provides an abundance of instances in which leading clerics were willing to defend traditional religion with both old and new arguments, and to reconsider their assumptions on the basis of the new ideas expressed in Enlightened discourse. It illustrates how a significant intellectual change occurred within apparently traditional modes of discourse and not only within an alternative secular discourse neuzeitlichen “Umformung des Christlichen”, Albrecht Beutel and Volker Leppin eds. (Leipzig, 2004), which sees the Enlightenment as a phase in the continuous reform of Christianity. 10 Michael Bregnsbo, Samfundsorden og statsmagt set fra prædikestolen. Danske præsters deltagelse i den offentlige opinionsdannelse vedrørende samfundsordenen og statsmagten 1750– 1848, belyst ved trykte prædikener (Copenhagen, 1997); Pierre Chaunu, Le basculement religieux de Paris au XVIIIe siècle: essai d’histoire politique et religieuse (Paris, 1998); Ihalainen, The Discourse; Sheenan, “Enlightenment”; Ihalainen, Protestant Nations; Van Kley, “Piety and politics”, p. 110. 11 Barnett, The Enlightenment and Religion, pp. 14, 26–27.

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which openly challenged orthodoxy.12 Orthodox Protestantism – and sometimes even Catholicism – was capable of considerable dynamism in its response to the challenges of modernity. How might we then characterize the Enlightenment sermon from the point of view of the religious Enlightenment? The content of an Enlightenment sermon could include one or more of the following features:13 (i) the recognition of contemporary economic, social, political or intellectual change and the willingness to view the consequences of change as potentially positive; (ii) the willingness to build on a language not oriented towards traditional theological doctrine (for instance by appealing to the rhetoric of classical republicanism, freedom, popular sovereignty, economy, mechanical natural philosophy) as opposed to the strict adherence to religious dogmas typical of seventeenth-century orthodoxies; (iii) a trust in the capability of human beings to achieve social progress and a related future-oriented outlook; (iv) an emphasis on the use of reason and on freedom of thought; (v) outspoken participation in Enlightenment debates on for example toleration, the form of government, and proper citizenship. This approach to the Enlightenment sermon must be flexibly applied by examining the theological, political, social and cultural content of each sermon, and not by building on any established canon of Enlightenment preachers. The emphasis in the following will be on the role of the Enlightenment sermon in political culture rather than on its contribution to theological debate or homiletic developments. Yet theology and homiletics will also be considered. The change in the structure of sermons from ‘analytic’ to ‘synthetic’, which favoured clarity, practice, and the discussion of a moral theme instead of a particular theological point, led to innovations within perfectly orthodox sermons as well. 12

See J.G.A. Pocock, “Within the margins: the definitions of orthodoxy”, in The Margins of Orthodoxy: Heterodox Writing and Cultural Response, 1660–1750, Roger D. Lund ed. (Cambridge, 1995), p. 35. 13 Among the examples analysed below, the Anglican ones contain most of these features. The French example from 1774 mainly builds on feature (ii), while the example from 1791 contains them all. The instances from the German states (1791 and 1814) lack most of these features, although they make use of the language of classical patriotism and comment on the Enlightenment. The same is true of the Dutch case, the example from 1785 merely discussing patriotism, while that from 1795 expresses a belief in progress as well. The Swedish instance from 1762 combines features (ii), (iv) and even (v), while that from 1810 focusses on features (i), (ii) and (iii). See also Rosenblatt, “The Christian Enlightenment”, p. 284.

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pasi ihalainen 2. The Enlightenment Sermon in North-Western Europe

The rest of this chapter surveys Enlightenment sermons in two ways: by reviewing the extant literature and by analysing a special genre of Enlightenment sermon which reveals how sermons contributed to the formation of modern conceptions of the national community. My discussion here will not be limited to what have been traditionally regarded as the core areas of the Enlightenment, Britain and France, but will also include Germany (Prussia), the Dutch Republic, and Scandinavia. Little will be said on Southern Europe and the Catholic countries of Eastern Central Europe, as there is only a very limited amount of relevant literature available. The existing literature suggests that religious traditionalism, censorship and the lack of public debate were dominant features of the mostly Catholic regions in Southern Europe, and that this left few possibilities for Enlightenment sermons to flourish there. In contrast, the Enlightenment sermon appears to have been highly relevant in the economically more developed and literate regions of North-Western Protestant Europe, where a certain degree of freedom of the press had also been achieved.14 Together with North America,15 this was an area where public religion and Enlightened ideas were more likely to converge than to conflict. The survey is carried out in national contexts, as most scholars have limited their examinations to developments in their own country. Yet there were international currents and parallel developments in preaching. There were confessional connections and influences across national boundaries, and the reading of sermon literature was not limited to the authors belonging to the confession of the reader. While the proportion of theological literature in the publishing industry declined in the course of the eighteenth century, sermons continued to convey ideas across national boundaries, and the ongoing intellectual change affected preaching in similar ways in different countries. The sermons presented here are political sermons preached during national ceremonies and in the presence of political rulers. They have been selected because they enable the reconstruction of the basic concepts in the official political and social theory of each eighteenth-century state. They form a relatively uniform series of sources, allowing a comparative study of 14

Munck, The Enlightenment, pp. viii–x. An analysis of Enlightenment preaching in the North American British colonies and the U.S. would have been equally interesting but could not be realized within the confines of this chapter. The European influences on the American debate are obvious. 15

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the various European political cultures dealt with here. Their analysis allows us to draw conclusions concerning the political consequences of the Enlightenment not only within the sermon but also in the official ideology of the states as disseminated by the churches to their subjects. What interests us most are the effects of the Enlightenment on clerical formulations of the officially endorsed identity of each national community. The most important political preachers were, after all, bishops or had a corresponding status in the clerical hierarchy. As educated representatives of the clerical estate they were well-informed about intellectual developments and often ready to react quickly to them – mostly in traditional but some-times also in progressive terms. They often belonged to the political elite themselves, being members of the British House of Lords, the council that governed the Prussian state church, or the Swedish Clerical Estate. Many of them also held influential posts as preachers in the Bourbon, Habsburg, Hohenzollern or Holstein-Gottorp courts. To be sure, as a genre the printed political sermon did possess features which distinguished it from ordinary, more theology-based sermons and Enlightened sermons given in ordinary parish churches on practical everyday issues.16 Due to their special function as summaries of the official ideology of the state, political sermons formed a genre in which the religious and the political were closely intertwined. The justification for preaching was initially political, not ecclesiastical. The secular elites initiated the service in which the sermon was given, formed the core of the audience, and also controlled the publication of the sermon. A solemn occasion of nationwide significance readily gave rise to expressions of the common values of the national community. The sermon was expected to combine the official ideology of the state and the theology of its public church not only for the purposes of the specific occasion but also as a means of providing a wider political education. The clergyman had to discuss political theory in easily understandable terms and to support it with a biblical justification, which led to creative combinations of religious and political vocabularies. When describing the state of the national community, the preacher had to take into consideration the political views of the elite. He had to develop his exegesis in accordance with the appropriate political message of the sermon. The arguments put forth in such sermons were considered carefully, as the sermon was likely to be printed ex post and to serve as a model text. The total number of printed political sermons rose to the thousands in 16

Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, Ch. 2.

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eighteenth-century Europe. These numbers demonstrate not only the capability of the political rulers to exploit the clergy in the propagation of presumably shared values but also the willingness of the clergy to reformulate the state ideology according to the demands of the day. Political sermons focusing on issues of national interest sold relatively well and played an important role in public discourse. The views expressed in them were actively imposed on the public by the fact that they were printed. First and foremost, the sermons reveal what kind of official national identity the powers that be wished their subjects to adopt. In the late eighteenth century there was a growing awareness of a modern national identity in most European countries. The Enlightenment and the French Revolution contributed to a shift towards conceptions of the nation as the source of sovereignty and as an independent and active political agent advancing the common good of the people in the temporal world. These developments can be seen in political sermons as well. The modernization of the national community did not originate within the clergy, yet its expression through sermons cleared a path for the adoption of a more modern and increasingly secular concept of nation. 3. The Eighteenth-Century English Sermon: “Enlightened” by Definition? Many historians are now agreed that, in eighteenth-century England, reason and religion were generally seen as complementing rather than competing with each other. Anglican clergymen readily familiarized themselves with novel ideas, initially often with the intention of opposing secular philosophy and defending traditional beliefs. Many clerics exploited arguments borrowed from the new natural philosophy to defend Anglican orthodoxy and participated in the intellectual controversies of the day. When contributing to these debates and discussing the ideas of the Enlightenment, some clergymen drew conclusions which inspired them to reinterpret Anglican political theology as well.17 The preaching models of latitudinarian Anglicanism, as provided in the late seventeenth century by John Tillotson (1630–1692), guided the 17 Gregory, “Christianity and Culture”, pp. 104–5, 116, 129; Young, Religion and Enlightenment, p. 3; Claydon, “The sermon”, p. 227; Jeremy Gregory, Restoration, Reformation and Reform, 1660–1828: Archbishops of Canterbury and Their Diocese (Oxford, 2000), p. 57; Munck, The Enlightenment, p. 8; William Gibson, The Church of England 1688–1832: Unity and Accord (London, 2001), pp. 148–49; Aston, Christianity and Revolutionary Europe, p. 99.

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preaching of many clergymen. In terms of theology, Latitudinarianism looked for a compromise between deism and traditional religion and counted on reason as the basis of revealed religion. It gave rise to sermons such as Religion plain, not mysterious; or, reason the judge of all doctrines (George Johnston, 1733) and The use of reason asserted in matters of religion: or, natural religion the foundation of revealed (Ralph Heathcote, 1756). It took the findings of the new natural philosophy as evidence of the existence of a benevolent divinity, which consequently gave rise to more optimistic theological notions, including a belief in the natural goodness of man. The doctrine of predestination in its Calvinist form was removed from sermons, while the availability of grace to everyone living according to God’s will was emphasized. The primary duty of a latitudinarian preacher was to persuade the public to choose moral reform and the Christian life, to teach private and social virtues, and to educate the people on their duties. Significant emphasis was placed on a benevolent Providence, charity and toleration.18 Latitudinarian preachers favoured a neoclassical plain style and attempted to avoid all extremes in their sermons. They utilized both ancient and modern rhetoric in their quest to identify the strategies which could best influence the broadest possible audience, preferably without appealing excessively to the emotions. The preachers were less interested in lecturing on dogmatic issues or in polemizing against theological rivals than they were in practical teaching on ethical questions. Exegesis became simpler and shorter. Sophisticated explanations were avoided, as it was considered sufficient to demonstrate that the propositions in question were of biblical origin. The sermons tended to concentrate on teaching the message of the biblical text by explanation or by applying the text to some topical question. As a consequence, natural philosophy, education, politics and practical social and economic issues entered sermons, which is shown by such titles as The religious use of botanical philosophy (William Jones, 1784), The happiness and advantages of a liberal and virtuous education (Thomas Hough, 1728), The religious and politick prudence of Hezekiah, when invaded by the Assyrians, consider’d, and recommended in the present conjuncture (Leonard Howard, 1759), British constitutional liberty (Caleb Evans, 1776),

18 James Downey, The Eighteenth Century Pulpit: A Study of the Sermons of Butler, Berkeley, Secker, Sterne, Whitefield and Wesley (Oxford, 1969), pp. 1, 14–16; Rolf P. Lessenich, Elements of Pulpit Oratory in Eighteenth-Century England (1660–1800), (Cologne, 1972), pp. 162–165, 178, 209–233; O.C. Edwards, A History of Preaching (Nashville, 2004), pp. 403–405.

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The morality of a citizen (David Williams, 1776) and Liberality in promoting the trade and interest of the publick display’d ( John Thomas, 1733). In brief, sermons were expected to include a clear point which was relevant to their audiences.19 Eighteenth-century English sermons have been interpreted in different ways. Some have not connected the Enlightenment and the sermon at all, while others have considered a universal concept of the Enlightenment as capable of explaining all developments in preaching as well.20 Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, for instance, has argued that both Anglican and nonconformist preaching was based on a philosophy that was “clearly enlightened and Lockean”. “Lockean” here means that English preachers favoured a more simplistic style and rejected religious enthusiasm in favour of moderation, saw no conflict between natural and revealed religion, and could easily reconcile traditional providentialism with latitudinarian religion.21 While such features did occur in sermons, not all English preaching should be regarded as latitudinarian, Enlightened, and Lockean. There was a considerable amount of diversity within English preaching, as the clergy were divided into High and Low Church and Tory and Whig, did not collectively see the Church of England as the church of reason, and seldom made explicit references to John Locke.22 Though English preachers were prepared to adopt some of the ideas and practices of modernity in their defence of the established order, some aspects of their thinking were quite incompatible with the views of progressive Enlightenment.23 Hence we

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Lessenich, Elements of Public Oratory, p. 163; summarized and commented by Edwards, A History of Preaching, pp. 400–403; Downey, The Eighteenth Century Pulpit, pp. 10–13, 17, 25. See also Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, Vie politique, sociale et religieuse en Grande-Bretagne d’après les sermons prêchés ou publiés dans le Nord de l’Angleterre 1738–1760, 2 vols (Paris, 1984) II, 770. 20 Downey, The Eighteenth Century Pulpit; Lessenich, Elements of Pulpit Oratory; Deconinck-Brossard, Vie politique, sociale et religieuse; the impact of the Enlightenment on the sermon has been discussed in Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order; J.C.D. Clark, The Language of Liberty, 1660–1832: Political Discourse and Social Dynamics in the AngloAmerican World (Cambridge, 1994); Claydon, “The sermon”; James Caudle, “Preaching in Parliament: patronage, publicity and politics in Britain, 1701–60”, in The English Sermon Revised: Religion, Literature and History 1600–1750, Lori Anne Ferrell and Peter McCullough eds. (Manchester, 2000). 21 Deconinck-Brossard, Vie politique, sociale et religieuse, pp. 773–774. 22 Ihalainen, The Discourse, pp. 248–256; Jones, “ ‘And Calm of Mind, all Passion Spent’ ”, pp. 163–164. 23 J.G.A. Pocock, “Clergy and Commerce: The Conservative Enlightenment in England,” in L’Età dei Lumi. Studi storici sal settecento Europeo in onore di Franco Venturi (Naples, 1985), pp. 528–529, 558; A helpful summary of Pocock’s argument can also be found in Knud Haakonsen, “Enlightened Dissent: an introduction”, in Enlightenment and

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should be cautious not to fall into anachronisms by arguing that Anglican preachers unanimously supported “a contractual view of the body politic,” “constitutional monarchy” or “liberalism,” despite the fact that they opposed popery as superstition and absolutism as tyranny and advocated free trade. Deconinck-Brossard is certainly correct in claiming that the Anglican clergy was willing to consider natural philosophy an ally of religion, but it is an exaggeration to refer to their theology as “Christian only in name”.24 The changes in their political theology took place gradually. In fact, Robert Hole has suggested that a major shift in English clerical political theory from religious to secular took place only in the early 1790s. The accommodation of the Anglican sermon was obviously a process that went on throughout the eighteenth century.25 It is equally difficult to deduce the extent to which the sermons of the Evangelical revival should be seen as Enlightened. Despite the fact that the Evangelicals sometimes conceptualized human nature in rational and optimistic terms and had an interest in natural philosophy, they relied heavily on revealed religion. Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley included Lockean philosophy and Newtonian natural philosophy in their thought, although they were skeptical about a reason distinct from revelation. Their emphasis on the active role of God and the constant presence of evil were not necessarily Enlightened notions.26 The Enlightenment sermon in its English context is thus as complicated a phenomenon as the English Enlightenment itself. The popularity of latitudinarian theology and the neoclassical sermon might suggest that all Anglican preaching was Enlightened. Some preachers went further than others in turning sermons into discourses on the practical questions of the day, but not all preachers advocated ideas that could be called Enlightened. Yet it is relatively easy to find Anglican political sermons which contain arguments that fit the broad definition of the Enlightenment as a positive attitude towards the reconciliation of traditional religion and new ideas, Religion: Rational Dissent in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 2–5; Ihalainen, The Discourse, pp. 72–74 and literature cited there; Jones, “ ‘And Calm of Mind, all Passion Spent’ ”, p. 170. 24 Deconinck-Brossard, Vie politique, sociale et religieuse, pp. 771, 774; Françoise Deconinck-Brossard, “Eighteenth-Century Sermon and the Age”, in Crown and Mitre: Religion and Society in Northern Europe since the Reformation, eds. W.M. Jacob and Nigel Yates (Woodridge, 1993), pp. 119–120. 25 Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order, p. 7; cf. Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 582, 590–591, 593–596. 26 Katherine Thomas Paisley, “Evangelical Sermons”, Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, Alan Charles Kors ed., 4 vols. (Oxford, 2003), IV, pp. 68–69.

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thus accepting the emergence of a kind of practical modernity. Many leading clergymen actively applied new political languages alongside more traditional theological views and thus contributed to the redefinition of the national community. Although the form of political preaching remained the same, the content of Anglican political sermons changed dramatically over the course of the century, particularly when contrasted with the continuity shown by Continental preaching.27 Though the Enlightenment in England has been characterized as conservative due to its clerical basis and support for the established order, it contributed to the popularization of new concepts, opening possibilities for the reconciliation of the old and new in European political thought. The British nation, instead of being seen as an Israel-like fallen nation awaiting divine judgements, increasingly appeared as an active political agent advancing the common good in this world. The relevance of the Israelite prototype of nationhood declined, religion was defined in increasingly nation-centred rather than confessional terms, the national community included a greater degree of religious pluralism, the stereotype of the popery as “the other” against which to construct identity weakened little by little, and the monarchy, too, was redefined in less confessional terms. Secular patriotism, liberty, commerce, and scientific progress provided new vocabularies for the construction of national identity. The transition from religion-based early modern national identities to an understanding of the nation as “sacred” was gradual, but the trend is clear.28 The Anglican version of the Enlightenment political sermon can be illustrated by two examples selected from a corpus of some 400 eighteenthcentury parliamentary sermons. These examples should not be considered representative of the entire genre, but they do demonstrate some major features of the English Enlightenment sermon in its most explicitly political form. The first and most obvious instance dates from 1770, when British national self-confidence ran high in a period following the Seven Years’ War and preceding the American War of Independence. In his sermon, Bishop Jonathan Shipley (1714–1788) described the current state of the British national community and offered some reasons for loving one’s country. For Shipley, Britain was essentially a community of human beings who had joined together to advance their common national interests. Shipley saw freedom as having promoted economic activities among 27

Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 17–18. Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 581–97; see also Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford, 2003), pp. vii-vii, 3–6. 28

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“an active people” which had access to natural resources and was able to use the findings of the new natural philosophy to its advantage. He suggested that the recent economic and intellectual change had given rise to a new kind of national spirit and understanding among Britons. As a consequence, Britain was in many ways superior to all other nations. Every Briton had the highest duty to serve, defend and obey his or her country. Indeed, the whole of mankind had good reason to respect a nation from which so many scientific discoveries benefiting men had originated. In Shipley’s view, Britain deserved to enjoy a permanent state of prosperity and power among the nations of the earth.29 Our second instance illustrates the Anglican sermon’s response to the intellectual challenges of the French Revolution. By 1798, the belief in progress and the adherence to revolutionary principles, evident in some sermons given in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, had withered away. Republican France was ever more clearly “the other” against which Britishness was defined. Criticism of the belief in reason and progress, and of the religious and moral state of the British nation, had come to the fore in Anglican preaching. On the occasion of thanksgiving for the victories over the French in Egypt and Ireland, Bishop John Buckner (1734–1824) gave what could be characterized as a post-Enlightenment sermon defining the British national community. For Buckner, Britain was still in many ways a very special nation. The ideal British political model was “founded on the principles of equity [not equality!] and freedom, and received such improvements as accumulated experience and progressive wisdom could suggest”. It continued to be “the admiration and envy of other nations”.30 The values underlying the national community still included reason and liberty, but rationality and libertinism of the French type were denounced, the centrality of religion underscored, and the adequacy of “Christian liberty” emphasized. For Buckner, patriotism entailed that31 every humane feeling, every liberal sentiment, every ardent commendation, is excited towards those of our fellow-subjects, who, by the faithful and honourable execution of their momentous trust, have been, in the hands of Providence, the glorious instruments of our success.

29 Jonathan Shipley, A Sermon Preached before the House of Lords … January, 30, 1770 … the Day of the Martyrdom of King Charles I (London, 1770), pp. 10–12, 15–16, 18. 30 John Buckner, A Sermon Preached … Before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, …, Nov. 29, 1798, being the Day Appointed for a Public Thanksgiving (London, 1798), p. 14. 31 Buckner, A Sermon Preached, pp. 21–23, 27.

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A new argument in the context of Anglican political preaching was the presentation of the social consciousness of the government as a unique feature of the British “system of national rule” that could explain the “wellknown patriotism of the community”. According to Buckner, the British government aimed at “balancing, as far as possible, these social distinctions, and softening down the apparently harder lots of human life”.32 The Anglican Enlightenment sermon, despite its more cautious content in the era of the American and French Revolutions, had already provided a model for Continental preachers. The idea that it was the principal duty of the preacher to persuade his listeners to live a proper Christian life and the strategy of making more practical points related to the acute issues of the day had an impact that extended far beyond the British Isles. As England was often the model country for Continental advocates of Enlightened politics, Anglicanism served for many as a model of Enlightened Christianity. Many preachers in Scotland and Germany adopted similar views on the form, structure, style, and themes of sermons, emphasizing simplicity and clarity and aiming at the development of human nature primarily through moral education.33 Some French clerics would also be affected by the Enlightenment in its English form. 4. France: Did Enlightened Catholic Sermons Exist? The shadow of the Revolution obscures the Enlightenment sermon in France. Church historians used to criticize French eighteenth-century preaching for its diminished quality in comparison with the grand pulpit orators of the seventeenth century. According to A. Bernard, for instance, the preachers adopted a lighter style, focused increasingly on ethical questions, allowed non-theological factors influence their sermons, and began to speak apologetically. The arrival of the fashionable “English” philosophy in France endangered the Catholic faith and led to “the tyranny of the philosophers towards the preachers”. As a reaction, “semi-philosophical preaching” emerged among clerics such as Abbé Boismont and Abbé Fauchet in the 1770s and 1780s.34 32

Buckner, A Sermon Preached, pp. 16–17. Lessenich, Elements of Pulpit Oratory, p. 234; Jelle Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand. De invloed van de verlichting op de in het Nederlands uitgegeven preken van 1750 tot 1800 (Nieuwkoop, 1997), p. 19. 34 A. Bernard, Le sermon au XVIIIe siècle: étude historique et critique sur la prédication en France, de 1715 a 1789 (Paris, 1901), pp. 587–607. 33

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In contrast, the paradigm of the French Enlightenment as an anticlerical philosophical movement has caused many historians to maintain that Enlightened Catholic sermons simply could not have existed. According to François Lebrun, Catholic homiletics was so dependent on the sermon guidelines laid out by the sixteenth-century Council of Trent that it remained practically impossible for Catholic eighteenth-century preachers to be innovative in their work. The same kind of teaching was provided to practically all Catholics. The only duty of a preacher was to translate the doctrines held by the Church into the native language in which he gave his sermons. Such strict limits on preaching meant that there was no change in the content of most Catholic sermons in comparison with the preceding century. A pessimistic conception of Christianity was dominant; the sinfulness of human beings was emphasized; the people were warned about approaching divine punishments; and the rejection of worldly matters was seen as the only way out of the circle of sin. The predominance of orthodox Catholicism would have made it very difficult for the clergy to become involved in the process of the Enlightenment. Lebrun’s conclusion is that the clergy were incapable of engaging in a constructive debate with Enlightenment philosophy, which advocated ideas completely opposite to the values of the Catholic Church.35 If Lebrun is correct, hardly anything more need be said about Catholic sermons. The limited availability of secondary literature on the interaction between preaching and the Enlightenment throughout much of Catholic Europe – particularly the Mediterranean and Eastern Central Europe – would suggest that Lebrun has a point.36 Yet, contrasting the Enlightenment and Catholic preaching as starkly as this is misleading. It is evident that Enlightenment ideas were beginning to creep into French political sermons during the two last decades of the ancien régime. The effect of Enlightenment principles on revolutionary sermons was even more explicit. There should be no doubt as to the willingness of some French Catholic clerics to reconcile Enlightenment thought and Christian religion. Christian Cheminade’s case study on Abbé Coyer (1707–1782) illustrates one extraordinary clergyman’s attempt to find a compromise between traditional religion and the ideas borrowed from Enlightenment philosophy. 35 François Lebrun, “Roman Catholic Sermons”, in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment IV, pp. 66–68. 36 Joël Saugnieux, Les Jansénistes et le renouveau de la prédication dans l’Espagne de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Lyon, 1976), p. 341, does not identify similar kinds of Enlightenment influences on Spanish Catholic preaching as those found in North-Western Europe.

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As both priest and philosopher, Coyer criticized superstition, intolerance, corruption, and inequality, and advocated reforms intended to increase material welfare. His social criticism was based on the traditional Christian censure of vice and a critique of social and political inequality that was in line with Enlightenment philosophers. In more concrete terms, Coyer called for prison reform, opposed extreme forms of slavery, rejected torture, questioned the death sentence and criticized economic regulations. Not unlike other Enlightened clerics, he built on a conception of Christian morality which viewed the roles of man, Christian and citizen as identical and interchangeable. Christ in his view taught that the virtues of a good citizen were also the virtues of a good Christian and constituted the first steps towards another life. This attempt to reconcile religion and the Enlightenment, which might well have succeeded in a Protestant country, ended in an impasse in France, causing Coyer to lose both his philosophical optimism and Christian hope.37 Cheminade’s conclusion suggests that a compromise between the Enlightenment and religion was impossible in France. Yet Coyer had colleagues within the ranks of the higher clergy who were more successful in combining Enlightenment and Christianity. They did so subtly in the decades preceding the Revolution and more radically once the old order had been crushed. The Huguenot minority was so completely excluded from the national community that it could, in principle, provide another alternative to the Catholic stagnation. Yet the persecution which took place in the aftermath of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes strengthened the old tradition of Calvinist preaching until at least 1760. Only the rejection of the most pessimistic forms of Calvinist theology made possible the rise of the neoclassical sermon and the reformulation of political and social views. Preachers influenced by Enlightenment ideas during their studies in Switzerland began to draw conclusions based on reason rather than Calvinism in their sermons. The plain style and an unproblematic combination of natural and revealed religion in the English fashion began to emerge in French Protestant sermons. One undeniable indication of a connection between French Protestantism and the Enlightenment is that some Huguenot clerics became advocates of Voltaire and Rousseau. They opposed religious intolerance and held an idealistic belief in the possibility of reconciling Enlightenment and Christianity, something not 37 Christian Cheminade, “L’abbé Coyer et L’Essai sur la Prédication (1781) ou une réconciliation du christianisme et de la philosophie”, in Dix-huitième siècle 34 (2002), pp. 325–331.

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all philosophers themselves agreed on. This dedication to Enlightenment thought made it easy for some French Protestant preachers to reform their sermons and contribute actively to the early phase of the Revolution.38 Though marginal in overwhelmingly Catholic France, Protestant Enlightenment preaching provides a further illustration of the existence of the Enlightenment sermon in France. How about the “semi-philosophical” preaching among Catholic clerics, then? By the 1750s, Montesquieu and Voltaire had defined political virtue as synonymous with love of the country, its laws and the welfare of the state. For the Enlightenment philosophers, patrie stood for a free state, the laws of which protected the freedom and happiness of its citizens. The vocabulary used to describe the national community in sermons was developing in a similar direction, particularly among clergymen influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment. We can even trace the rise of the concept of a sacred nation in their sermons in the period preceding the Revolution. In other words, an early form of modern nationalism, which saw the nation and people as objects of particular veneration, was gradually emerging within the French public religion. Two sermons from 1774 and 1791 demonstrate the kind of changes that were taking place in the context of the Enlightenment. The first was given by Nicolas Thyrel de Boismont (1715–1786), the Royal Preacher in Ordinary, to the Academy of France in the chapel of the Louvre on 30 July 1774. Boismont, a member of the Academy since 1755, readily adapted himself to the intellectual trends of the day, being the only bishop to attend a reception when Voltaire, the arch-critic of the Church and Christianity as such, visited the Academy in 1778. Boismont’s sermon contained a mixture of Enlightenment and early nationalism. Firstly, Boismont followed his learned contemporaries and declared science, literature and the Enlightenment as the source of French national dignity in times when the kingdom was less successful in warfare:39 C’est par cette gloire littéraire, Messieurs, que la Nation dans ses disgraces conserva de la dignité aux yeux de l’Europe; il sembloit qu’elle regagnât par les lumières la supériorité qui lui échappoit du côte des resorts et de l’action du Gouvernement.

38 François Deconinck-Brossard, “Protestant Sermons”, in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment IV, p. 66. 39 Nicolas Thyrel de Boismont, Oraison funebre de Louis XV, …, prononcée dans la Chapelle du Louvre le 30 Juillet 1774, en présence de Messieurs de l’Académie Françoise (Paris, 1774), pp. 20, 22.

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This was an open recognition of the achievements of French Enlightenment authors, given the fact that he was speaking at the commemoration of a deceased monarch before the scholarly elite of the country. Such an approach, though hardly endorsed by the clerical elite as a whole, identified the national community with its philosophical and scientific achievements. Secondly, Boismont included an account of French history in which the nation and the people were awarded a role alongside the monarchy. Boismont presented Louis XIV as a ruler who possessed qualities which earned him the veneration of his subjects and thus made him capable of representing “the feeling of an entire nation”.40 The actions of Louis XV were even more “touching … for the nation”, “his nation”, and “his people”.41 The language of rising nationalism also inspired Boismont to emphasize that “all the principles of the moral and national spirit” and “the interest of their people” had guided the work of Louis XV and his ministers and that much had been done to strengthen the economic and cultural standing of the nation.42 He argued that “the heart of Louis” had provided “the nation” all that it needed and that the people had responded to him with universal loving sentiments and “a national belief ” in his kindness.43 It was still the love of the monarch which formed the basis of this national belief, but the role of the nation within the national community also was central. Boismont argued that monarchical government was patriotic, too, maintaining that the “enlightened charity of these nobles” stemmed from “all the virtues” and was “devoted to patriotism and glory”.44 Another example of French Enlightenment preaching comes from François-Claude Fauchet (1744–1793), a Royal Preacher who attempted to demonstrate the compatibility of religion and liberty when speaking to the deputies of the National Assembly, representatives of the municipality, electors, the national guard, the friends of truth, and “an immense meeting of citizens” on the anniversary of the royal recognition of the sovereignty of the people on 4 February 1791. Fauchet had had a successful career before the Revolution despite his interest in Enlightenment philosophy and his willingness to criticize the established order in general and the privileges and corruption of the nobility in particular. In April 1789,

40 41 42 43 44

Boismont, Oraison funebre, pp. 5, 8. Boismont, Oraison funebre, p. 14. Boismont, Oraison funebre, pp. 13, 21–22. Boismont, Oraison funebre, pp. 29–30. Boismont, Oraison funebre, p. 31.

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he had advocated reforming French Catholicism in an ever more Gallican direction, arguing that “[t]he Catholic faith is national in France”.45 After the fall of the Bastille, he gave a sermon in memory of its victims, calling it Discours sur la liberté française, which further increased his popularity as a preacher and a revolutionary. Fauchet supported the confiscation of clerical property, took an oath on the new constitution and contributed to the creation of a society which would advocate Rousseau’s thought. In 1791, he became a bishop of the Constitutional Church, joined the Jacobins and was elected a delegate of the National Convention. He expressed too much sympathy for the King, however, which led to his becoming a victim of the Terror in 1793. In 1791, however, Fauchet was still whole-heartedly committed to a political and religious revolution, showing, in accordance with Mirabeau, that God was the creator of both the nation and its liberty. One distinctly Enlightened feature of Fauchet’s sermon was the redefinition of both God and Jesus in a way which tended to lead to a civil religion of the revolutionary type. Fauchet addressed God as “the God of France and the universe, of the patrie and religion!”46 Despite the reference to the universe, this view reflects the ongoing nationalization of divinity so that God was primarily seen as the God of the nation and fatherland, not only as the God of religion and the wider world. Fauchet’s interpretation of Jesus was also adapted to the needs of the revolutionary regime and presented him as a major patriotic figure, as a champion of popular activism, and even as a defender of social revolution. Fauchet’s Jesus was an advocate of the people against the enemies of the people.47 Fauchet’s sermon was not merely Enlightened; it was revolutionary in its radical conclusions concerning the national community and political liberty. God still appeared as the primary agent of political change. He had made the French free and established popular sovereignty as the basis of all national power. God dictated “the laws of national democracy to the Jewish people” in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament he dictated “the laws of brotherly democracy to mankind”, a path which France was following.48 Fauchet’s text from Paul already declared that anyone who

45 Cited in Jeffrey W. Merrick, The Desacralization of the French Monarchy in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge, 1990), p. 1. 46 Claude Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord de la Religion et de la Liberté, prononcé dans la Métropole de Paris, le 4 Février 1791, pour la solemnité civique des anciens Représentans de la Commune, en mémoire de ce qu’à pareil jour, le Roi vint à l’Assemblée Nationale, reconnaître la Souveraineté du Peuple [Paris, 1791], p. 5. 47 Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord, pp. 14–15. 48 Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord, pp. 3, 5–6.

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resisted sovereign power – defined here as the power of the people – resisted the divine ordinations.49 Fauchet was clearly drawing more radical conclusions than any previous political preacher. He claimed that “in the Revolution, the face of the world has changed”.50 Revolutionary vocabulary dominated Fauchet’s sermon in every respect, yet his redescriptions of both religion and the national community were not enough to satisfy the revolutionary government in the long run, as it was already moving in the direction of lay liturgies and rejecting the Catholic tradition in favour of classical and secular ones.51 Yet Fauchet tried to demonstrate that, counter to the claims of some revolutionaries, the Christian religion was not an obstacle to liberty but actually its primary source. He argued that the true principles of religion were principles of liberty. The divine regime was one of liberty and, indeed, God was “the God of liberty”. In the Old Testament, He had instituted “the primitive democracy … for the free government of his people”.52 At the same time, He had given the people the right to resist arbitrary rulers. Heaven was favourable to liberty on earth and closed to all tyrants who sought to destroy this original liberty. In Fauchet’s reinterpretation of the Scripture, the unwavering divine support for liberty had been most manifestly demonstrated by the Gospel’s “announcement of liberation”, and by Jesus, who “brought together against himself all the aristocrats who debased or ran over the people, and [who] died for the democracy of mankind”.53 The Revolution meant that Jesus’ liberating message would ultimately be understood “in an age of liberty, equality, general fraternity of the peoples”.54 All of this constituted an extremely radical reformulation of the politico-religious theory derived from the Christian religion. Enlightenment and revolutionary preaching undoubtedly existed in late eighteenth-century France, and it continued to play a role in the intellectual debate at least until the start of the radicalization of the Revolution in 1792. The Revolution also affected Catholic preaching on a broader scale, forcing it to reconcile Christianity and democratic principles. A future Pope, Cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti (1742–1823), recognized the compatibility 49 Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord, pp. 3–4. The text is derived from Rom. 13:2 “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God”. 50 Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord, p. 4. 51 Claude Langlois, “La rupture entre l’Eglise catholique et la Révolution”, The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, François Furet and Mona Ozouf eds., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1989) III, pp. 384–385. 52 Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord, pp. 5–6, 9, 15 [erroneously printed as ‘51’]. 53 Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord, pp. 7, 10–11, 13, 18–19. 54 Fauchet, Sermon sur l’Accord, p. 18.

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of democratic government and the Gospel at least in name in 1797,55 during which time the French occupied much of Italy. 5. Prussia and Austria: Conservative Auf klärung in Sermons The situation in the German states was very different. There the Enlightenment was to a greater extent an intellectual current within which the state, the church and the Enlighteners cooperated rather than challenged each other. The renewal of the sermon in Protestant Germany took place considerably later than in England and was restrained rather than inspired by the French Revolution. The early eighteenth century did see the emergence of a moderate Frühauf klärung in philosophy, but the German Enlightenment proper did not really gain ground until the period between the early 1770s and 1805. Johann Joachim Spalding (1714–1804) played a key role in the development. He published an influential essay on the usefulness of the office of the preacher (Über die Nutzbarkeit des Predigtamtes und deren Bef örderung) in 1772. French and English influences also played a role in transforming the sermon. Rather dated examples of preaching by Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627–1704), Tillotson, Jean-Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742), andFrançois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715) were wellknown and imitated in Germany, although mostly for their form rather than their theological content. French Protestant influences were disseminated via Huguenot refugees in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Some Dutch influence was also felt, although this mostly concerned orthodox homiletics.56 In sermon theory, the popularity increased of a pragmatically understood rhetoric and homiletics. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693–1755), and later also so-called neologians such as Spalding, who attempted to prove the basic tenets of Christianity by reason, looked for ways to overcome what they saw as weaknesses in Orthodox and Pietistic preaching. Seventeenth-century orthodox homiletics appeared to them as too formal and dogmatic, while Pietism seemed to entail an excessive rejection of the world. Instead of emphasizing original sin, Mosheim spoke in favour of a simplified Christianity based on the Bible, adopted a more optimistic 55

John Dunn, Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy (London, 2005), p. 112. Reinhard Krause, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Auf klärung (1770–1805) (Stuttgart, 1965), pp. 8, 15; Hans Martin Müller, “Homiletik”, Theologische Realenzyklopädie, 36 vols. (Berlin, 1977–2004) XV, pp. 536–537; Deconinck-Brossard, “Protestant Sermons”, p. 66. 56

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conception of man, emphasized differences between the biblical and contemporary worlds, and focused increasingly on the common man and his daily life. Together with Spalding, he advocated simple, stylish and thematically clear “philosophical” sermons which would build on both the Bible and reason, advance the spirituality of the people, and convert every listener by persuasion. Analytical sermons, which had lumped together biblical quotes and used biblical texts allegorically, were replaced by synthetic sermons, which developed themes that were deemed more relevant to life and faith.57 German sermons thus became more practical and reason-based, as shown by titles such as Gedanken von dem Einfluss der Vernunft-Lehre in die Auslegungskunst ( Johann Hinrich Vincent Nölting, 1761) and Predigten zur Bef örderung einer vernünftigen Aufklärung in der Religion (August Christian Bartels, 1793). The new form of preaching was based on a novel conception of the relationship between the preacher and his audience. Biblical texts were seen primarily as historical expressions of general truths which had to be accommodated to the contemporary situations. Mosheim insisted that the listener had to be enticed by the sermon. This meant that attention was to be paid to the circumstances in which the listeners lived and that the preacher had to base his sermon on ideas and concepts which were familiar and significant to them. A sermon had to be both didactic and exhorting, addressing both intellect and will. It had to enhance religious knowledge and prove the arguments it made through examples borrowed from human life or nature. It was only through persuasion and emotional response that the preacher could expect people to accept the truth and to follow the divine will.58 Preachers generally adapted their style of preaching to the demands of time and audience, recognizing the need to make sermons useful and practical. The Prussian rationalists, in particular, saw it as their Enlightened duty to improve the morals and welfare of mankind.59 Themes such as

57 Müller, “Homiletik”, p. 537; Bosma, Woorden, pp. 75–76; Ulrich Dreesman, “Erbauliche Aufklärung. Zur Predigttheorie Johann Lorenz von Mosheims”, in Klassiker der protestantischen Predigtlehre: Einführungen in homiletische Theorieentwürfe von Luther bis Lange, Christian Albrecht and Martin Weeber eds. (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 75–76, 78, 80, 84, 87, 91. 58 Olav Hagesæther, Norsk preken (Oslo, 1973), p. 255; Albrecht Beutel, “Evangelische Predigt vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert”, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie XXVII, pp. 306–307; Dreesman, “Erbauliche Aufklärung”, pp. 82–84. 59 Günter Birtsch, “The Christian as a Subject: The Worldly Mind of Prussian Protestant Theologians in the Late Enlightenment Period”, in The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century, Hellmuth Eckhart ed. (Oxford, 1990), pp. 315, 318.

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individual and social virtue, and issues relating to politics, economics, and nature flourished in sermons. Titles such as Die Nothwendigkeit Hindernisse des Glaubens und der Tugend in der Welt zu finden (Wilhelm Friederich Stölzel, 1759), Der erklärte Bürgereid (Johann Gotthilf Lorenz, 1786), Die Gesinnungen guter Bürger in Rücksicht der Huldigung eines neuen guten Königes ( Jakob Elias Troschel, 1798), Dreyerley Arge Gedancken die man besonders in Handel und Wandel … vermeiden soll (Romanus Teller, 1742), and Die Offenbahrung Gottes in der Natur (Friedrich Christian Lesser, 1750) illustrate the trend toward thematic diversification. Sermons began to become more secular in the sense that the Bible might serve as no more than the source of a motto. Attention was paid primarily to moral topics, worldly questions were discussed, the notion of accommodation was embraced to the extent that teaching the practicalities of economic life became a relevant theme for a sermon, and the preacher was seen as best serving his country when focusing on the advancement of material welfare.60 It was thus quite easy to move from this practical approach to preaching to the notion of clergymen as Enlightening their congregations on issues that had little to do with traditional theology. A lecture on the cultivation of potatoes, for instance, followed from the fact that clergymen were generally considered representatives of the secular authorities and as an important link between the parishioners and the wider world. Prussia, and Berlin in particular, was the centre of the German style of Enlightenment sermon, but the trend was also felt in much of Northern Germany. The supernatural began to play a less central role in sermons, whereas the belief in man’s reason and his ability, as a being created in the image of God, to achieve ethical improvement grew in importance. Such neology flourished until the Napoleonic wars, which led to a rejection of rationalist preaching in favour of rather more conservative Romantic sermons.61 Although the period of Enlightenment preaching was relatively brief, German solutions to the problem of combining religion and reason were embraced also outside the country. This reflects the considerable intellectual impact which Northern Germany had on much of Northern Europe, including the Netherlands and all of Scandinavia.

60 Krause, Die Predigt, pp. 50–51, 116–19; Joris van Eijnatten, “Reaching audiences: Sermons and oratory in Europe”, in Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett eds., The Cambridge History of Christianity: Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660–1815 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 128–146, at pp. 137, 144. 61 Krause, Die Predigt, pp. 8, 12, 14, 16–17.

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Politically speaking, the Enlightened German preachers supported absolutism. In Frederick II’s Prussia, they spurned theocratic political theory, advocated religious tolerance, rejected religious discord and superstition, and referred to philanthropism and even cosmopolitanism in their sermons.62 At the same time, they expressed traditional ideas in the language of the new era. The status of religion and paternalistic authority were hardly challenged by the German Enlightenment. The importance of the community over the individual continued to be emphasized in public discourse.63 This tendency is evident in the case of Prussian political sermons given in times of war. An analysis of war sermons in England and Prussia during the Austrian War of Succession and the Seven Years’ War reveals that the early Enlightenment had hardly had any impact on the conception of political community propagated by the Prussian clergy. Rather than being secularized, Prussian conceptions of the national community were radicalized during the war, so that Israelite parallels were substituted for references to God’s direct personal involvement on the Prussian side – possibly a consequence of Pietistic influences on the Lutheran state church and the entire Prussian society. One major change was the rise of “fatherland” as a key concept. Another noteworthy feature was the explicit sanctification of sacrifices for the fatherland. Fighting and dying for the fatherland was represented as a holy duty to be rewarded by God. Hardly anything was heard about the advancement of liberty, the common good or commerce, themes emphasized by Anglican preachers. The Prussian concept of freedom underscored collectivist and passive religious freedom as opposed to the active political freedom of the individual. An economic understanding of the political community did not feature in Prussian sermons at all. The notion that there was no greater accomplishment than to save one’s fatherland by fighting and dying for it seems to have been incorporated into the state ideology in other German principalities as well, signalling the emergence of a German version of secular patriotism.64 Political sermons from late eighteenth-century Prussia and Austria are equally traditional and monarchical in tone. Most preachers concentrated on legitimating the established political order; sermons criticizing the political elite were rare.65 Enlightened absolutism did manifest itself in 62

Krause, Die Predigt, pp. 12–14. Munck, The Enlightenment, p. 6. 64 Pasi Ihalainen, “Patriotism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century English and Prussian War Sermons”, to be published in Gilles Teulié et al. eds., War Sermons (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2009). 65 Krause, Die Predigt, pp. 111–115. 63

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sermons, however. In 1791, before the outbreak of the Revolutionary Wars, the Royal Preacher of the Habsburgs, Johann Donat Holzmann (1743–1811), still believed in the potential of the Enlightenment to overcome the “unnatural” hatred that had emerged between the nations of the Habsburg monarchy:66 (…) die Aufklärung trägt das Ihrige bey, und vertilgt den eben so unnatürlichen als in diesem Falle schädlichen Nationalhass; der Böhme, der Ungar, der Slave, der Bataver, der Italiener ist der Oesterreichers Bruder, und alle lieben sich wie Glieder einer Familie; (…) Wie glücklich werden wir seyn, wenn wir uns untereinander lieben, wenn jeder National- und Privathaβ sammt der Wurzel aus unserm Herzen gerissen ist, und Freundschaft und Wohlwollen und brüderliche Zuneigung an derselben Stelle tretten!

This kind of optimistic view on the Enlightenment hardly survived the war and the rise of nationalism in the early nineteenth century. In Prussia, first the French Revolution and then the French occupation gave rise to a fierce anti-Enlightenment reaction which strengthened panGerman nationalism. German preachers opposed the French Revolution and seldom dared to discuss concepts such as liberty and equality.67 The anti-Revolutionary views of the Prussian clergy as well as the rising national sentiment were aired in a victory sermon given by Court Preacher Rulemann Friedrich Eylert (1770–1852) in Potsdam in 1814. Eylert presented the Enlightenment as the cause of the loss of piety and the rise of rationalism, which had resulted in a Europe-wide crisis:68 Durch eine einseitige, so genannte Vertstandes-Aufklärung, durch ein stolzes Vernünfteln, durch einen irdischen Sinn voll Leidenschaft und Begierde, hatten sie den kindlichen Glauben an einen Gott, der anordnet und regieret, der richtet und vergilt, wie es jeder verdient, verloren – sie waren ohne Gott.

For Eylert, the advocates of the Enlightenment had been totally mistaken in their assumption that the fate of the people depended solely on laws which were analogous to those of the physical world and which could be directed by “human intelligence and power”. For him, the welcome restoration of religion after the Revolution was a direct result of “the loud echo

66 Johann Donat Holzmann, Predigt auf den Friedenschluss zwischen Oesterreich und der Pforte im Jahre 1791 (Wien, [1791]), pp. 17, 28. 67 Krause, Die Predigt, pp. 115, 126–127. 68 R. Eylert, Siegespredigt. Gehalten in der Königlichen Hof- und Garnisonskirche zu Potsdam, an dem, wegen der Einnahme der Stadt Paris, verordneten Dankfeste (Potsdam, 1814), p. 12.

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of the voice of the people”.69 This formulation made the revolutionary principle of popular sovereignty serve a reactionary vision of the future. As for the requirement that the Prussians love their country, Eylert emphasized the role of God in delivering “our common German fatherland” from the enemy. He mentioned not only the monarch and the constitution, as would have been conventional, but also “the national honour”, the fatherland, freedom, independence, science, culture, and prosperity.70 These were keywords of rising nineteenth-century nationalism. When fulfilling their “sacred duty” in the “sacred battle” for the fatherland, the community as an entity and each individual within it was inspired by God, who sanctified this cause for the sake of humanity:71 Darum befiehlt denn auch das Ganze ein höherer, mächtiger, göttlicher Geist, darum ist denn auch die Kraft, die jede Brust hebt, und jedes Herz begeistert, und jeder Arm stählt, eine Kraft von Oben; darum sind denn auch die, welche in diesem grossen heiligen Kampfe gefallen sind, nicht blos für König und Vaderland, sondern in Dienst der menschheit gefallen; (…) So fühle denn men jeder die heilige Pflicht, die diese grosse Zeit ihm auferlegt, und helfe da wo er steht, her beiführen und vollenden die Wiedergeburt des Vaterlandes zu einem neuen Leben, voll Wahrheit und Tugend, voll Kraft und Wohlfahrt.

Eylert’s sermon illustrates how at first Enlightenment and then anti-revolutionary discourse had strengthened those features of the Prussian state ideology that supported the rise of a Prussia-centred German nationalism. It illustrates how forcefully Prussian political preaching could formulate and propagate the ideology of the state both in and after the Age of the Enlightenment. The cultural elites of emerging Northern European nations readily adopted the German Lutheran model of conceptualizing the national community in the nineteenth century. 6. The Netherlands: A Delayed Change in Religious Mentality The influence of the Enlightenment on preaching within a single country has been most exhaustively explored in Jelle Bosma’s study on late eighteenth-century Dutch printed sermons. Bosma argues that the Dutch Enlightenment is best approached as a change in mentality. In his view, 69 70 71

Eylert, Siegespredigt, pp. 12–13. Eylert, Siegespredigt, pp. 6, 8, 11. Eylert, Siegespredigt, pp. 12, 14.

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the Dutch Enlightened mentality in the second half of the eighteenth century was essentially Christian, rather slow to develop, moderate and eclectic. In contrast to dissenting religious groups (Remonstrants and Mennonites), the Reformed public church adopted the new mentality with a considerable lag. The influence of German and English theological and homiletic traditions on the Dutch intellectual climate is evident, as 20 percent of printed sermons were of German and 15 percent of English origin. The pattern of change in Dutch preaching is reminiscent of the German one, with traditional orthodoxy losing ground to an emphasis on moral responsibility. Orthodox traditions dominated preaching within most denominations until about 1770, after which changes gradually set in. However, a major transition in the relationship between the church and state occurred as late as in 1796, when the Reformed Church lost its privileged status as a result of the formal separation of church and state.72 This in turn followed from the establishment of the French-inspired Batavian Republic. The style and content of the Dutch sermon developed along similar lines as in England and Germany. Dutch preaching had traditionally been based on a detailed explanation of a biblical text. By 1750, some preachers, initially those belonging to the Walloon (Huguenot) and dissenting churches, had begun to regard this method as unpractical and inefficient and to instead favour the English plain style model with its brief exegesis and practical conclusions. Reformed preachers criticized the trend at first but were increasingly influenced by it after the 1780s. Dutch sermons thus became more freely structured, linguistically simple and argumentative. Even the theological content changed gradually so that dogmas were seen as theoretical constructs not be contemplated excessively in sermons. The simplicity and reasonableness of Christian life and the temporal and spiritual utility of virtue were emphasized more than they had been in the past. Christianity was also defended with appeals to reason and utility. Religion became more anthropocentric, emphasizing the responsibility of individual Christians. The expression of these pragmatic views were most common in sermon translations, however, whereas Reformed preachers often continued to preach in a traditional manner.73 Yet the focus on more practical everyday issues in sermons advanced modernity in the Netherlands more generally, in due course also in Reformed sermons. 72 Bosma, Woorden, pp. 410–413; for continuity in Dutch preaching, see also Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 582, 592, 594–595. 73 Bosma, Woorden, pp. 413–415.

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Continuity is characteristic of the political and social ideas expressed in Dutch Reformed political sermons for most of the eighteenth century. Along with the basic pessimistic Calvinist conception of the people and nation, the economic decline of the Republic did not make the Reformed clergy more willing to focus positively on the role of the nation. Yet the Reformed clergy carefully followed the instructions given by the States General in prayer-day declarations. The notion of loving one’s country thus found its way into sermons. Even before the 1770s, Reformed political preaching had begun to emphasize the importance of national rather than international religious and political communities, adopted a more inclusive conception of the national community, rejected some older pejorative connotations of the term nation, and combined the languages of classical patriotism and political freedom with Calvinist political discourse.74 In comparison with Anglican political preaching, Enlightened ideas are rare in Dutch political sermons. The effects of the Enlightenment seem to have been more indirect. Joris van Eijnatten has viewed the growing acceptance of modernity and the redefinition of the public sphere in more secular terms as reflections of a conservative Enlightenment of the Dutch type. He has argued that even orthodox Calvinists might have seen the Enlightenment as “beneficial, unavoidable or necessary” and pointed out that the Dutch Reformed Enlightenment included a willingness to appreciate the new material understandings of society and culture as well as forms of public religiosity such as open-mindedness, rationality, morality and utility.75 Such elements existed, although their effects would only become discernable towards the end of the eighteenth century. In the meantime, Dutch political preachers redefined the values of the community in more subtle terms. Peter van Rooden has argued that, starting from the 1760s, they adopted a new conception of vaderland as a community of individuals with moral responsibilities. Thus an era of “religious nationalism” began. The love of the fatherland was continuously linked with the fulfilment of religious duties, and public and private morals were both seen as relevant for the fate of the nation. The public role of religion changed so that public religion began to be increasingly seen as grounded in private religious convictions.76 The Patriot period of the mid-1780s and the creation of the Batavian Republic in 1795 led to a new kind of politicization in some Dutch 74 75 76

Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 585–597. Van Eijnatten, God, Nederland en Oranje, pp. 200–203. Van Rooden, Religieuze regimes, Ch. 2.

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sermons and to an increased interest in ideas borrowed from Enlightenment discourse.77 Two Reformed sermons, which were distinctly political in that they were preached to provincial magistrates and printed by order of the representative body, illustrate this development. In 1785, Theodorus Brunsveld de Blau (1729–1815) gave a sermon on the “patriotic ruler” to the Provincial Estates of Groningen at a time when the Patriot movement was expanding. In 1795, Johannes Heringa (1733–1816) preached to the provincial representatives of the people of Holland in connection with the alliance between revolutionary France and the Republic. Brunsveld de Blau concentrated on formulating a comprehensive definition of a good patriot. In the spirit of classical patriotism, he pointed out that a true patriot associated himself with the people of a country and more particularly with their rights and liberties, aiming at the advancement of the common good within “a free nation”. He understood Dutch patriotism to refer simultaneously to the home town, the Province and the entire Dutch Republic. Unlike most Protestant preachers, Brunsveld de Blau conceded that the duty to love one’s fatherland had not been recorded in the Bible but was nevertheless compatible with Scripture.78 Enlightened features of this sermon included the adoption of the language of republican patriotism and a concomitant willingness to interpret Scripture from this perspective. Whereas Dutch political sermons had previously contained few Enlightened elements, the constitutional changes that followed the French invasion forced even relatively orthodox clerics to update their descriptions of the national community.79 Heringa’s sermon of 1795 was already considerably more radical in its advocacy of distinctly revolutionary ideas. Associating Batavian republicanism with that of France and America and urging the congregation to pray for “our brothers the French”, “our sister America,” and “other liberty-loving republics”, Heringa recognized “the indefeasible rights of man and citizen”.80 The principle of popular sovereignty was expressed in his argument that “popular government

77

Bosma, Woorden, pp. 245–264. Theodorus Brunsveld de Blau, Een Patriotisch Regent Geschetst in eene LanddagsPredikatie … Uitgesproken in het Provincie-Huis te Groningen, den XXIII Febr. 1785 (Groningen, 1785), pp. 9–11, 35, 52, 55. 79 Bosma, Woorden, pp. 252, 263. 80 Johannes Heringa, Godsdienstige redenvoering op verzoek en in tegenwoordigheid der Provisioneele Representanten van het volk van Holland, ter gelegenheid van de geslotene en geratificeerde alliantie tusschen de Fransche en Nederlandsche Republieken, in ’s Hage gehouden (The Hague, 1795), pp. 9, 47. 78

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(volksregeering), when well ordered and consolidated, has the equality, liberty, and brotherhood of all the inhabitants as its goal”. As in France, representatives were to be chosen by the people.81 Heringa continued to advocate an essentially Christian form of patriotism in that he underscored the link between virtue, piety, and the love of fatherland. The revolutionary period called for some modifications, however. While using the common Christian concept of the heavenly fatherland, Heringa also emphasized the need for a Christian to fulfil his duties in this world. It was appropriate for a Christian to have a close affinity with his fellow citizens, to help them willingly, to advance the common good, and to thereby increase the happiness of the fatherland. It had now become possible for a Reformed clergyman to speak about the need “to make sacrifices, for the support, protection and rescue of the beloved fatherland, and for the consolidation and increase of popular virtue (volksdeugd ) and the happiness of the people (volksgeluk)”.82 The focus on the nation-state in Heringa’s sermon was quite different from the Protestant internationalism characteristic of late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Reformed sermons.83 Internationalism was now primarily secular and political. The adoption of the revolutionary ideas of liberty, equality and brotherhood appeared to have made the Dutch one of “the virtuous, pious and patriotic peoples”. Liberty, above all, was the most precious property of the country. Liberty was to be cherished along with equality and brotherhood, both seen as derivatives from the Christian principle of charity. Heringa summarized the revolutionary ideology of the new political elite when calling on the representatives to pray to God for power “for the practice of moral virtue, true godliness, and genuine love of the fatherland, and for the faithful care of well ordered liberty, equality and brotherhood”.84 This was indeed an expression of a new moral community combined with moderate revolutionary principles. Despite its late start, the Dutch Reformed Enlightenment sermon clearly participated in the transition to the modern world of nation states and representative government.

81 82 83 84

Heringa, Godsdienstige redenvoering, pp. 14, 21. Heringa, Godsdienstige redenvoering, pp. 32–34. Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 272–285. Heringa, Godsdienstige redenvoering, pp. 35–36, 38–39, 44.

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7. Scandinavia: Modest Transformations German Lutheran and Pietistic influences had long been felt throughout Scandinavia, even though Pietism had met with fierce resistance from the state churches. The latter had become practically inseparable from both state and nation. The Scandinavian Lutheran churches were isolated from each other and feared intellectual developments that seemed to jeopardize the orthodoxy they so cherished. This was the context of the eighteenthcentury sermon in the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, which included present-day Norway and Finland. Danish Lutheran preaching was built on national traditions despite the close geographical and cultural proximity to Germany. Michael Bregnsbo has argued that, like the ruling dynasty, the Lutheran state church and its clergy, were one of the few factors that created a sense of belonging within the Danish conglomerate state. As loyal servants to and representatives of the absolutist state, the clergy, who had received a shared education at the University of Copenhagen, willingly taught theocratic conceptions of the social and political order as part of the official ideology of the state. It was only during the French Revolution that the clergy was challenged in public discourse, which caused some clerics to search for new ways to legitimate their profession, distance themselves from traditional religion, and demonstrate their usefulness to the public. While practical information had commonly been delivered via the pulpit, the Enlightened Danish sermon began to concentrate on moral rather than dogmatic topics. Temporal happiness was underscored. Sermons became shorter, more easily understandable and even entertaining – something that more traditionalist parishioners would oppose.85 In Norway, the clergy served the same Danish state-church. Because of Norwegian contacts with much of Western Europe, Enlightenment influences were received not only via Denmark but also directly from England, Germany and the Netherlands. These influences reached the Norwegian clergy relatively late, however, and hence the era of the Enlightenment sermon was not truly experienced until the early nineteenth century. Although the clergy of the turn of the nineteenth century has occasionally been accused of having had an excessive interest in radical ideas, truly 85 Bregnsbo, Samfundsorden, pp. 454–56; Michael Bregnsbo, “Præster under pres. Den danske statskirkegejstligheds reaktioner på udfordringen fra Oplysningen i 1790’erne”, Den jyske Historiker 105 (2004), 94–108.

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rationalist theologians were few and far between. Instead, many clerics attempted to reach their audience with sermons that differed from the tradition of orthodox Lutheranism and found their inspiration in German neology.86 In Denmark, the political ideas of the Enlightenment, such as an emphasis on civic virtues, contractual notions and a more dynamic view of society as capable of reforming itself, only began to appear in sermons in the 1780s and 1790s. The French Revolution was generally condemned and refuted with arguments that portrayed the Danish monarchy as defending “law-bound” (or regulated) freedom, natural equality and human rights, albeit in a typically harmonious Danish way, with the support of the people.87 What makes the clerical expressions of patriotism particularly noteworthy is that, within the composite state, separate national and ethnic identities were growing among the Danes, Norwegians and Germans at the same moment that the Enlightenment and the Revolution challenged the established order. The clergy did their part by emphasizing civic virtues and duties, public spirit and the willingness to make sacrifices for one’s fatherland. Whenever they discussed the “fatherland”, they used the term in a wide variety of senses, sometimes referring to the entire Danish state, sometimes to just one of its territories, and sometimes merely to the province where the speaker was born or lived. Norwegian preachers were most likely to focus on Norwegian patriotism and the geographical and historical features which distinguished the Norwegians from the Danes. In Denmark proper and the German territories, the clergy – while vindicating patriotism as a link between the different peoples of the realm – also contributed to the formation of separate regional and ethnic identities by simultaneously speaking in favour of local patriotism.88 The Danish and Norwegian Enlightenment sermon thus rose only with and after the French Revolution. The timing of the Swedish Enlightenment sermon is far less clear due to the fact that Swedish historians have often used the concept of the Enlightenment loosely. The influence of Wolffian philosophy on Lutheran apologetics or the translation of a sermon by Tillotson into Swedish in the late 1760s, for instance, have been taken as

86

Hagesæther, Norsk preken, pp. 251–252, 306–308. Bregnsbo, Samfundsorden, pp. 454–456, 459–462. 88 Michael Bregnsbo, Gejstlighedens syn på samfund og øvrighed 1775–1800, belyst ved trykte prædikener og taler (Copenhagen, 1992) II, pp. 4–7; Bregnsbo, Samfundsorden, pp. 158–164. 87

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breakthroughs of the Enlightenment in Sweden.89 Tore Frängsmyr has been one of the few historians to oppose this tendency and to argue that Wolffianism was actually used in Sweden to resist the spread of Enlightenment. He has suggested that signs of the Enlightenment proper are difficult to discern in Sweden, particularly as regards the state church.90 Many historians, by contrast, have viewed the Ages of Liberty (1718–1772) and Gustavus III (1771–1792) as eras which gave rise to radical ideas within the Swedish clergy and ever “more modern trends of a more distinct type of Enlightenment”. Tensions between traditional and Enlightened ways of thinking may have existed, but they have been considered less relevant.91 In recent interpretations, Lutheran orthodox support for the rise of practical modernity, at least in science, has also been emphasized. The eighteenth century was without a doubt an era of some change in Swedish preaching. Independence from Germany grew as Swedish Lutheranism distanced itself from Prussian Lutheranism, which was considered to be tainted by Calvinism and Pietism. Despite Sweden’s relative isolation, however, calls for logical clarity and practical relevance became familiar through Mosheim’s texts and also directly from the French classical sermon and the English plain style of preaching.92 Yet the Swedish clergy remained fierce defenders of continuity in preaching and seldom advocated ideas that could be easily seen as Enlightened. Fashionable concepts of the time were applied only as far as they suited the Lutheran confession, as in the sermon Friheten hwar til wi kallade äre, såsom den förnämsta orsak, hwarföre wi bore tacka och lofwa Gud (Christian Cavander, 1761).93 Until mid-century, the orthodox rejection of innovations dominated the pulpit. Pietist ideas concerning pastoral care and the notions of clarity and simplicity might have affected some sermons, but it is an overstatement to argue that preachers such as Sven Baelter and Abraham Pettersson were influenced by “the moderate Enlightenment”.94 It is revealing that Anders Chydenius, known as an Enlightened spokesman for free 89 E. Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan, 2 vols. (Stockholm, 1926–27) I, pp. 42, 87–89, 148, 162–163, 175. 90 Frängsmyr, Sökandet, p. 112. 91 Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan, 2:1–2; cf. Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 583–584, 586, 592–596. 92 Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan, 1:1; Yngve Brilioth, Predikans historia (Lund, 1945), pp. 202–205. 93 Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 583–584, 586, 592–596. 94 Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan, 1:71–72; Brilioth, Predikans historia, pp. 205–6, 209. Cf. Ihalainen, Protestant Nations on the preachers mentioned, pp. 157–159, 213, 227, 235–236.

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trade and a free press, gave sermons to his parishioners in Finland that do not reflect the Enlightenment. Disillusioned with Diet politics as a means of reform, Chydenius welcomed the revival of the royal prerogative in 1772, and preached according to the tenets of traditional Lutheranism.95 He could allow a degree of modernity in politics and economics but hardly in Lutheran doctrine or homiletics. Towards the end of the century, German homiletic literature and contemporary philosophy encouraged some Swedish clerics to experiment with innovations in their otherwise orthodox sermons. German physico-theology, in particular, inspired sermons on nature. The only major homiletic work published in Swedish during the second half of the century ( Johan Möller, 1779) recommended the plain English style but otherwise advocated orthodoxy and a traditional approach to preaching. The Gustavian secular authorities advised the clergy to abstain from philosophy (1797). German neology thus only truly began to affect Swedish preaching during the first half of the nineteenth century.96 In some ways, of course, the Enlightenment challenged Lutheran orthodoxy and its preaching methods. Censorship could not prevent new ideas from pouring into the country, and preaching had to be accommodated to elite audiences familiar with foreign trends. The concept of the citizen, for instance, was reflected in Riksdag sermons emphasizing traditional duties, as in En christen medborgares skyldighet, at fara efter frid och förbettring (Engelbert Halenius, 1755) and in En christen medborgares skyldighet, at befordra inbördes kjärlek (Anders Forssenius, 1769). Claims that reason and revelation were compatible led to appeals to natural religion, as in Människans skyldighet at rätt nyttja den kunskap om Gud, som erhålles af naturens och förnuftets ljus (Anders Bergner, 1780). By the late 1780s, some clerics could argue that both reason and revelation should be discussed and that moral advice should replace lectures on divine law and optimism take the place of the traditional pessimistic conception of man. Even orthodox theologians occasionally discussed ethical instead of dogmatic questions and conceded that the pulpit should teach not only on the road to salvation but also on matters of practical use in this world. Some sermons turned into educative speeches responding to the needs of contemporary

95 Anders Chydenius, Homiletiska forsök (Stockholm and Upsala, 1781). One explanation may be that Chydenius did not consider the common people as capable of understanding the new trends of thought. For him, the reforms remained an elite affair only. 96 Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan, 1:73; Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan, 2:141; Brilioth, Predikans historia, pp. 210–211, 216, 218, 222–223, 233.

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society and using biblical citations only as openings.97 The new forms and vocabularies which arose from neology mostly affected court sermons,98 however, and to a lesser extent Riksdag and ordinary Sunday sermons.99 The utility of Christianity was demonstrated through its support for the established order, as in the title Et lyckeligt borgerligt samhälle, där man håller konungens ord och Guds ed, eller Den rätta christendomens och Jesu evangelii nytta i den borgerliga regeringen (Carl Johan Brag, 1788). Distinctly Enlightened sermons were rare in late eighteenth-century Swedish political preaching. The Swedish clergy retained many of their traditional notions about the Lutheran national community well until the Finnish War and the constitutional reform of 1809.100 As far as political preaching is concerned, the most obvious instances of the Swedish clerical Enlightenment date from the early 1760s, a period of increasingly free debate and gradual radicalization, and then again from the period following the fall of the Gustavian autocratic monarchy in 1810. There was little Enlightenment political preaching in between. In 1762, the Royal Preacher Gabriel Rosén (1720–1784), whose brother was a sympathizer of Rousseau, spoke to the Noble Estate on the duty of citizens to advance the common good of the fatherland. Though beginning with a reference to the Christian love of one’s neighbour, Rosén soon turned to arguments borrowed from the classical tradition of patriotism and interpreted the need to express love of the fatherland as a natural human characteristic. As a new feature in Swedish Lutheran sermon discourse – though not in the aristocratic language of politics – he showed admiration for pagan authors when he referred to Cicero and Virgil as models for the Swedes: “The heathen men … the more enlightened (upplysta) they were, the greater the value they attached to the love of the fatherland”.101 The traditional dominance of the Israelite model in the Swedish Lutheran descriptions of the national community was beginning to be challenged by the Roman model, which paved the way for the further secularization of the language of nation. 97 Brilioth, Predikans historia, pp. 222–224, 226–228; Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan II, pp. 28–29, 43. 98 Leufvén, Upplysningstidens predikan II, pp. 32–33, 93–94, 103. One reason for this was that men with lacking theological knowledge could make a career in court preaching. 99 Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, pp. 583–584, 586, 592–596. 100 Pasi Ihalainen, “Svenska kyrkan och det moderniserande nationella tänkandet 1789–1810”, Sjuttonhundratal 3 (2006), pp. 25–48. 101 Gabriel Rosén, En Medborgares Löfte in f ör Gud, at bewisa Kärlek emot Fäderneslandet, På Den Femtonde Kongl. Ordens-Dagen I Swerige, Den 28 April, 1762 …Uti Kongl. Slotts-Kyrkan … (Stockholm, 1762), pp. 8–10.

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Rosén argued that by fostering the common good, citizens were repaying a debt to their fatherland which they would not be able to repay in full during their lifetime.102 This argument suggests that the national community to a certain extent could replace God as an object of gratitude and love. Christianity justified love of country, as Rosén argued that the Swedes “as human beings, as citizens and as Christians are undeniably involved in a threefold relation and must never forget [their] fatherland”.103 Rosén maintained that the classical authors and “enlightened reason”, and not only the Lutheran religion, taught that citizenship called for active expressions of the love of one’s country. When defining the love of country, Rosén referred to the conservative Bossuet on the one hand and to the fashionable Montesquieu on the other as authors to be followed by the Swedes. Rosén’s political theory included references to the formation of civil society through a voluntary contract not unlike Lockean theory. This cannot be found in other contemporary sermons, but it fitted well with Swedish political discourse, in which the Estates figured prominently.104 Despite the fact that Rosén soon became unpopular in the Swedish court and was pushed to the margins of the clerical elite, he had expressed some Enlightenment ideals more explicitly than can be found in most political sermons in western Christendom – not to say eighteenth-century Sweden. His sermon reflects the temporary radicalization of political discourse in Sweden in the late 1750s and 1760s. Swedish clerics discussed economic and scientific developments in the pulpit every now and then during the Gustavian era (1772–1809), but a conservative approach prevailed and a truly Enlightened political sermon would appear only five decades later, when Gustaf Murray (1747–1825) spoke at the closing of the Diet in May 1810. The loss of Finland, the abolition of the absolutist form of government, and the possibility of electing a French successor to the Swedish throne had opened the gates for the expression of political ideas that had until then existed only among the noble opposition, and had been championed in much more radical forms by the French revolutionaries. Three novel arguments deserve particular attention here. Firstly, arguments using the concept of freedom, which had been avoided in the Gustavian clerical propaganda, were forcefully reintroduced. Murray

102 103 104

Rosén, En Medborgares Löfte, p. 9. Rosén, En Medborgares Löfte, p. 15. Rosén, En Medborgares Löfte, pp. 8–9, 13, 18–19.

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argued that the Swedes had a duty to love their fatherland and to advance its common good, as they enjoyed such a high degree of civic liberty. The love of country and liberty were united in Enlightenment patriotism, though the old emphasis on “law-bound” liberty also remained. The emphasis was on the collective rather than individual liberty of Swedish citizens; the independence of the fatherland was primary. The liberty of the “nation” as a whole had also been extended by the abolition of royal autocracy, however, so that “all have been allowed to express more freely their thoughts at a Diet”.105 Secondly, Murray adapted the traditional Lutheran emphasis on solidarity by applying the rhetoric of fraternity developed during the French Revolution. Having himself worked in favour of poor relief and education, he urged all members of society to see in each other “a brother whose rights are equally holy to them as those of their own” and to advance “enlightenment (upplysning) and the development of fellow brothers”. This emphasis on a wider “enlightenment”, or the education of the people, and the belief in the potential of society to develop were new in comparison to Gustavian political sermons.106 Thirdly, Murray’s recognition of the ideal of popular sovereignty was unique in its explicitness when compared to previous Swedish Riksdag sermons. Murray praised the fact that it had become easier for “the voice of the nation” to reach the throne, thus distinguishing the monarchy and the nation from one another and recognizing the political role of the Estates as representing the Swedish nation. The idea of popular sovereignty was also reflected in Murray’s emphasis on the responsibility of the people themselves (rather God or the monarch) to shape their own destiny: “It is up to you, the people of Sweden, to become happy again!”107 The main reformulations of political theory produced by the Swedish Enlightenment sermon thus seem to have occurred only from the 1810s onwards. 8. Conclusion The shift in eighteenth-century studies away from a simplified secularization thesis has led to a reinterpretation of the Enlightenment. In consequence, the ability of sermons to provide a forum for debate on reform and 105 Gustaf Murray, Predikan, hållen wid riksdagens slut i Stockholm, den 2 maj 1810 (Stockholm, 1810), pp. 5–6, 9, 12, 16. 106 Murray, Predikan, pp. 12–13. 107 Murray, Predikan, p. 16.

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renewal has been increasingly recognized. This chapter has highlighted the specific Enlightened aspects of preaching. Although the involvement of the clergy in Enlightenment debates did encourage traditionalist resistance – particularly during and after the French Revolution – it also forced clergymen to reconsider their conceptions of the proper way of teaching Christianity, the themes to be addressed, the arguments to be used, and the conclusions to be drawn. Changes in preaching led to less dogmatic and more practical preaching. The interest in new forms and topics of preaching, the recognition of ongoing intellectual changes, the emphasis on reason and freedom of thought, and the willingness to describe political reality in non-theological terms are just some of the features found in sermons that can be called “Enlightened”. A comparative discussion of the Enlightenment sermon revealed a number of common trends but also major differences in England, France, the German states, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. Diverging understandings of Enlightenment preaching have previously led to confusing conclusions on the timing and extent of the phenomenon. While some scholars used to doubt the very existence of an English Enlightenment, others considered nearly all eighteenth-century English preaching “Enlightened”. The early and extensive renewal of the Anglican sermon and its significance as a model for Continental Enlightenment preaching is evident. By the 1760s, the Anglican clergy was already able to define the national community in secular terms. Yet a variety of approaches continued to exist within Anglicanism, and the revolutions and wars of the late eighteenth century led to a conservative turn – even to an antiEnlightenment reaction – in Anglican sermons. In France, the renewal occurred much later but led in some individual cases to more radical changes. Some scholars have maintained that the Enlightened Catholic sermon was a contradiction in terms, but both late ancien régime and revolutionary French political sermons demonstrate that major changes in ideological content took place, and that there was a marked interest in secular political and social theory. The idea of an active nation possessing popular sovereignty, for instance, arose very distinctly within the French revolutionary sermon. German, Dutch and Scandinavian scholars have emphasized the role of both English and French models as sources of inspiration for Enlightenment preaching. In the north of Europe, German models were also significant. Many have identified Enlightenment preaching in their own country,

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emphasizing a general turn toward practical and moral questions, although there has been a great deal of diversity as regards the interpretation of the exact timing, extent and significance of these changes. We have been able to mention only one Enlightenment sermon preached in Sweden in the radical 1760s, for instance. It is questionable, therefore, that widespread Enlightenment preaching truly existed in mid-eighteenth-century Sweden. The content of German Lutheran preaching changed in the 1770s but supported a conservative version of Auf klärung. Dutch Reformed sermons only became more “Enlightened” in the mid-1780s and increasingly in the mid-1790s. In Denmark, the transition started during the French Revolution, and in Norway, the Enlightenment sermon flourished only in the early nineteenth century. Caution is clearly needed in determining the extent of Enlightenment preaching throughout much of Continental North-Western Europe before the early nineteenth century. The shift toward practical and secular themes was most clear in Prussia, where the sermon supported the rise of Prussian nationalism. Still, the various examples of political preaching analysed in this article illustrate the dynamic role of the Enlightenment sermon in the formation of late eighteenth-century European political thought in general and more modern conceptions of the national community in particular. Whenever the official values of the national community were discussed, arguments of non-theological origin were used side by side with, or instead of, biblical language. A more dynamic conception of the nation was thus beginning to emerge. The versions of national discourse which arose in different European countries varied from arguments in favour of popular sovereignty in revolutionary France, the Batavian Republic and Sweden, to calls for action on behalf of the nation. While the sanctification of duties for the fatherland was a common European feature, the arguments were most outspoken in Prussia. The French case, in particular, illustrates how an early form of modern nationalism, which saw the nation and the people as primary objects of veneration and justified democracy with the Christian religion, could emerge within the sphere of public religion. The rise of nationalism did not thus necessarily entail secularization in the sense of a sharp distinction between national thought and religion; rather, it implied a transformation within public religion. In the early years of the French Revolution, religion and nationalism were not yet distinct phenomena, though they separated

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into different spheres during the course of the Revolution. Nationalism never entirely replaced religion in European thought, however. In many countries, they supported each other to the extent that in Finland, for instance, state services were still held in the early twenty-first century. We clearly need to remain wary of an overly simplistic secularization thesis, as it may prevent us from seeing the constant redefinition of public religion even in the modern world. The ability of the clergy to reconstruct religion, to reform the sermon, and to reconcile tradition and modernity in the Age of the Enlightenment explains much of this continuity in European thought.

PART IV

COMMUNICATION

ON SERMONS AND DAILY LIFE Sabine Holtz Translated by Charlotte Masemann 1. Introduction Despite their differing beliefs, confessional churches were similarly constituted and established.1 They exerted approximately the same modernizing influence and occupied similar functions. Along with their instrumental, functional and microhistorical commonalities, one can, however, also observe differences in confessional development. In the process of confessionalization, the issue was less about differences in doctrines, organization and practice of faith, rather the more decisive point was the relative value that was assigned to them as starting points in the different confessions. These different points of departure for the structuring of the confessions had a lasting impact on the establishment of standards and limits for the respective religions, and thus impressed themselves on the culture as a whole. Johannes Burkhardt identified the following points of departure: primacy of doctrine for the Lutherans; primacy of organization and ritual for the Catholics; primacy of practice for the Reformed Church.2 Due to the primacy of doctrine, preaching began to stand out from among the various forms of communication in the churches of the Reformation.3 The significance of preaching, however, also increased for Catholicism. The dogmatically strengthened validity of the preacher as ‘an authoritative

* I thank Mr. Stefan Kötz, MA, of the Institut für Geschichtliche Landeskunde und Historische Hilfswissenschaften der Universität Tübingen for his competent assistance in researching primary and secondary sources as well as in correction. 1 Cf. Wolfgang Reinhard, “Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung: Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” in Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 10 (1983), pp. 257–277. 2 Cf. Johannes Burkhardt, Das Reformationsjahrhundert: Deutsche Geschichte zwischen Medienrevolution und Institutionenbildung, 1517–1617 (Stuttgart, 2002), pp. 77–135. 3 Cf. Wolfgang Sommer, Gottesfurcht und Fürstenherrschaft: Studien zum Obrigkeitsverständnis Johann Arndts und lutherischer Hofprediger zur Zeit der altprotestantischen Orthodoxie, Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 41 (Göttingen, 1988), p. 14.

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mediator of the truth of salvation’4 led to a significant increase in the authority of the speaker. In 1720, Franz Höger (1664–1727) advised the listeners of Catholic preaching to pay attention to three points. First, the listener should possess a great desire for the word of God; secondly, he should have a holy intention with reference to the sermon and thirdly he should attempt to unite himself with God in prayer to the Holy Spirit.5 In the words of the preacher: the ‘characteristics of a Christian listener which he must bring with him to church and which must precede the sermon: desire, good intentions and prayer’.6 The sermon ‘has not yet come to an end’7 with the Amen. If the believer attended the service ‘with devotion and attention’, then he has done his part, but if he merely listened to the sermon, then his duty is not yet at an end: ‘he must also put into practice what he heard and learned in the sermon […]’.8 Tobias Wagner (1598–1680), sometime superintendent at Esslingen and later a theology professor at Tübingen, emphasized in the preface of his Epistel-Postill (Tübingen 1668) that usus practicus should be of equal importance to the proclamation of true doctrine at the centre of Lutheran preaching.9 According to this preface, preachers attempted to establish norms for a Christian life. By ‘punishing vices seriously’ and ‘praising the worthy’, they made a contribution to the constitution of social reality.10 The sermon acted as ‘a mirror of human habits’ for the Capuchin Andrea da Faenza as well.11 He considered morality to be everything that concerned the habits of his listeners. Therefore it was important for him that morality be not abstract, so that listeners could recognize themselves in the words of the preacher.12 4 Franz M. Eybl, Abraham a Sancta Clara: Vom Prediger zum Schriftsteller, Frühe Neuzeit 6 (Tübingen, 1992), p. 215. 5 Cf. Urs Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit: Die katholische Barockpredigt (München, 1991), p. 323. 6 Franz Höger, Die siben Brodt (Ingolstadt, 1720), pp. 223a–224. 7 Franz Hunold, Christliche Sitten-Lehr uber die Evangelische Wahrheiten, 3rd ed. (Augsburg, Würzburg, 1751) I, p. 81a. 8 Pacificus à Cruce, Sylva Spiritualis Morum, Oder: Geistlicher Sitten-Wald […] (Augsburg, 1726), p. 90b. 9 Tobias Wagner, Epistel=Postill Das ist: Schrifftmässige Auslegung der ganzen Sonn=Fest= und Feyertäglichen Episteln deß Jahrs […] Erster namlich Winter= und Frühlings=Theil […] (Tübingen, 1668), p. ii. 10 Wagner, Epistel=Postill I, preface. 11 Andrea da Faenza, Lettera didascalia ad un predicatore novello […] (Rom, 1763), quoted from Italo Michele Battafarana, “Der Arme Lazarus und der reiche Prasser: Theorie und Praxis der Predigt in Italien von Musso bis Campadelli,” in Predigt und soziale Wirklichkeit: Beiträge zur Erforschung der Predigtliteratur, Werner Welzig ed., Daphnis 10 (Amsterdam, 1981), pp. 153–192, at p. 166. 12 Cf. Battafarana, “Der Arme Lazarus”, pp. 169–70.

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It is precisely these pronouncements that preachers of all confessions made concerning everyday life that form the focus of the following article. Its geographic emphasis will be the German-speaking south of the Holy Roman Empire. Because of the establishment of the state church there from 1648 on, different territories arose that were each confessionally uniform. The existence of these territories offers the possibility of taking a look at preachers and sermons of the Catholic and Lutheran confessions as examples, and also offers some hints concerning the Reformed Church. Within our period of focus, 1680 to 1815, and particularly around the middle of the eighteenth century, many European states underwent considerable change. There are some indicators that the principles of the Enlightenment had met with a positive response among broad swathes of the populations even before the French Revolution.13 The churches had to have it out with their Enlightenment critics. The French Revolution, with its anticlerical ideology and its politics that were hostile to the church, brought the Christian church and its institutions seriously into question. This confrontation with the church was also carried over into neighbouring states during the revolutionary wars. This struggle was waged particularly bitterly in Belgium, the Netherlands and the lands on the left bank of the Rhine.14 In the German territories, the established church that had been in existence since 1648, was forced to cede to multiconfessionality after 1803/1806; equal religious rights and a reduction in clerical claims were imminent. Thus the demands of the Enlightenment were met, even if this came about less as a result of conviction than of the practical considerations of politics. In spite of these developments, it remains an open question whether this structural change around 1800 ultimately led to a collapse of traditional frames of reference or to a strengthening of received tradition at the beginning of the nineteenth century.15 It is apparent in any case in the sermon literature that, taken purely quantitatively, the number of printed

13

Michel Vovelle, Piété baroque et déchristianisation en Provence au XVIIIe siècle. Les attitudes devant la mort d’après les clauses des testaments (Paris, 1973); Rudolf Schlögl, Glaube und Religion in der Säkularisierung (München, 1995). 14 Horst Carl, “ ‘Der Anfang vom Ende’ – Kriegserfahrung und Religion in Belgien während der Franzosenzeit” in Der Krieg in religiösen und nationalen Deutungen der Neuzeit, Horst Carl ed. (Bonn 2001), pp. 86–110, at p. 88. 15 Hartmut Lehmann, “Säkularisierung, Dechristianisierung, Rechristianisierung im neuzeitlichen Europa. Forschungsperspektiven und Forschungsaufgaben” in Säkularisierung, Dechristianisierung, Rechristianisierung im neuzeitlichen Europa, Hartmut Lehmann ed. (Göttingen, 1997), pp. 314–325.

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sermons as well as of devotional literature in general experienced a reduction.16 In addition, concrete references to daily life within Protestantism gradually decreased because of Pietist influence. A stronger emphasis on inner belief arose, admittedly without losing sight of active faith. Through the constant work of inculcation of Protestant preachers, a way of life had been achieved around 1700, that at the time was described as ‘bourgeois’ or ‘externally respectable’.17 According to it, a man was devout and godfearing if he went to church regularly, led a moral life, believed in eternal salvation and had a minimum of religious knowledge. In the eyes of the Pietists this was a dubious form of success. The Pietists presented a Christian life, in contrast to this externality, that nourished itself entirely on personal experience of God. Initially Pietism was more of a contemplative and subjective devotional and reform movement with ascetic elements. It soon laid aside otherworldliness and called for the active presence of Christ in the world, in the state and in society. The individual was meant to give form to the will of God in his own life, and to mould the world energetically wherever necessary. Each person was meant to help to overcome social and political opposition, and so to place his work in the service of the spreading of the kingdom of God on earth.18 As sermon titles indicate, sermons of all confessions increasingly took on the task of the enlightenment of the people, as well as that of edification.19 This altered the character of sermons considerably. Catechism and catechistic preaching stepped into the background and only emerged in

16 Cf. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Europa im Jahrhundert der Aufklärung (Stuttgart, 2000), p. 136. 17 Christoph Reuchlin, Kurtze Abbildung […] Des Rechtschaffenen Wahren und Thätigen Christenthums […] (Tübingen, 1705), pp. 185–186. 18 Cf. Wolfgang Sommer, “Der Untergang der Hölle: Zu den Wandlungen des theologischen Höllenbildes in der lutherischen Theologie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Politik, Theologie und Frömmigkeit im Luthertum der Frühen Neuzeit: Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Wolfgang Sommer ed., Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 74 (Göttingen, 1999), pp. 177–205, at pp. 189–190. 19 Cf. Johann Ludwig Ewald, Familienpredigten für mittlere Stände (Lemgo, 1784); S.C. Dittmann, Predigten zur Beförderung häuslicher Tugenden (Königsberg, 1798); H.M. Rehm, Predigten zur Privaterbauung über einige Quellen und Ursachen häuslicher Leiden, nebst zwei Erntepredigten (Leipzig, 1797); Conrad Gottlieb Ribbeck, Predigten für Familien zur Beförderung häuslicher Tugenden, 4 vols. (Magdeburg, 1798–1804); Ludwig Friedrich August Hoffmeister, Predigten zur Beförderung häuslicher Tugenden und häuslicher Freuden (Braunschweig, 1810); Karl August Moriz Schlegel, Biblische Predigten über Gegenstände des Privat- und Familienlebens (Göttingen, 1817); Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher, Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand, Johannes Bauer ed., 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1927). Cf. Holger Böning, Die Genese der Volksaufklärung und ihre Entwicklung bis 1780 (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1990).

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the instruction of children.20 This also made traditional sermons about the Christian household obsolete. Nevertheless this type of sermon continued and examples date from the last third of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. These new sermons, however, were different from the socalled house-sermons. The nine Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand (Berlin 1820) form a good example. These were preached by Friedrich Schleiermacher in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Berlin in 1818. The basis for these sermons was, in similar fashion to the earlier sermons, the Haustafeln (advice for families) of the New Testament. Whereas former preachers, basing their remarks on the Biblical text, had presented household duties as ethical instructions, Schleiermacher took on the task of, ‘surveying the fabric of the relationships of our lives, observing them in the mirror of the divine Word, in order to renew our Christian understanding of them and to stimulate our consciousness of how they draw us back a great distance from community with God and from the pious love of our Saviour, rather to solidify both of these much more within ourselves and, through our actions, to arouse it in others’.21 That the separate spheres of life were undergoing an upheaval is demonstrated by the fact that Schleiermacher had the contemporary urban household of Berlin in mind and sharply differentiated the family from the servants. The diminishing quantity of printed sermons does not allow us to make general statements to the extent possible for the earlier period. Thus the best period for the study of everyday life as seen in sermons for all three confessions lies in the years between 1680 and 1780. Studies on Catholicism and Lutheranism far outweigh those on the Reformed Church and this makes an interconfessional comparison well-nigh impossible. There is, however, an urgent need not only for work on the Reformed Church, but also on Lutheranism, linked to the structures of the local church; in addition work on Catholicism is needed, for example in the form of a comparison perhaps between parish priests and regular clergy. Serial longitudinal studies of the early modern period would put statements concerning the success, or lack of it, of the work of inculcation by means of preaching on a broader basis and would thus permit wide-ranging comparisons. Certain aspects,

20 Cf. Julius Hoffmann, Die “Hausväterliteratur” und die “Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand”: Lehre vom Haus und Bildung für das häusliche Leben im 16., 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Göttinger Studien zur Pädagogik 37 (Weinheim a.d. Bergstraße, Berlin, 1959), p. 209. 21 Friedrich Schleiermacher, Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand, quoted from Hoffmann, Die “Hausväterliteratur”, p. 210.

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such as funeral sermons, already stand out.22 Moreover, interconfessional comparative studies on the entire field would be desirable. The decrease in the publication of sermons affected moral sermons and sermon collections above all. Nevertheless, sermons on particular themes were printed, not least for purposes of wider distribution. A good example is represented by sermons in the context of the national uprising of the wars of liberation,23 and also those that addressed themes of the popular Enlightenment. It is nevertheless conspicuous that important theologians like Friedrich Schleiermacher published their sermons continually.24 Because of a disinterest in publication or the reduced demand for the sermons by rural, and particularly, urban ministers, one is not able to derive guidelines for the structuring of daily life from this medium to the same extent as before. The glory days of printed sermons, especially as media of early modern mass communication, ended in the eighteenth century. It is generally the case that certain trends can be identified over the entire period of research; these trends coalesce to form a unified picture. Before wide-reaching generalizations can be made, however, research on the broader theme, for all confessions and provinces, must be intensified. In all confessions, sermons had the goal of interpreting and forming societal realities, as well as dealing in spiritual edification. Just how sermons interpreted and formed daily life is the theme of the following sections. Sermons served church and state (section 2). Sermons were concerned with everyone: with all social classes, the illiterate as well as the literate, men as well as women, and indeed with (school) childrenas well (section 3). The clergy discussed elements of social order such as marriage and household, food and employment, wealth and poverty, as well as the authorities and their subjects (sections 4–5); they also discussed important stages of life: birth, childhood and youth, as well as illness, old age and death (section 6). The question of why confessional polemic became the

22

Cf. Rudolf Lenz, ed., Marburger Personalschriften-Forschungen (Stuttgart et al., 1978–2006); Birgit Boge and Ralf Georg Bogner, eds., Oratio funebris – Die katholische Leichenpredigt der frühen Neuzeit: Zwölf Studien, Chloe: Beihefte zum Daphnis 30 (Amsterdam, 1999). 23 Cf. Sabine Holtz, “Todesangst und Gottesfurcht: Preußische Militärseelsorge zwischen Machtpolitik und Erweckungsbewegung,” in Interdisziplinäre Pietismusforschungen: Beiträge zum Ersten Internationalen Kongress für Pietismusforschung 2001, Udo Sträter et al. eds., Hallesche Forschungen 17,1 (Tübingen, 2005), pp. 257–262. 24 Cf. Hans-Joachim Birkner, Hermann Fischer eds., Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 14 vols. (Berlin, 1980–2005); Nicholas Saul, “Prediger aus der neuen romantischen Clique”: Zur Interaktion von Romantik und Homiletik um 1800 (Würzburg, 1999).

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norm despite the hesitant beginnings of religious tolerance will be discussed in section 7, while sermons and social control will be dealt with in section 8. Finally, section 9 will sum up the conclusions. 2. Sermons in the Service of Church and State In the Lutheran territories, church regulations made attendance at service and listening to the sermon obligatory. Absence was punished by the authorities.25 Sermons were held on Sundays, often both in the morning and the afternoon; the sermons during the week that had been introduced after the Reformation were for the most part eliminated again, at least in the villages. The number of sermons in addition to these was increased by those held on feast days or on special occasions. The church regulations of Reformed Bern also made attendance at the sermon compulsory.26 At least one representative from each household had to take part in the service. In order to find those who missed church and desecrated the Sabbath, each congregation employed two so-called Heimlicher 27 after 1587 at the latest who were in charge of this. Those who were found guilty received the punishment of a number of days in jail from the local canonical court; more serious cases came before the city’s superior canonical court.28 The three weekday sermons that had been introduced during the course of the Reformation in 1528 were reduced to two in 1587, to one in 1748, and eliminated in 1780. The number of absences at sermons increased correspondingly throughout the eighteenth century.29 In Lutheranism and Catholicism, Sunday sermons were based on the yearly order of service. The Reformed Church, in contrast, preferred consecutive sermon interpretations of entire Biblical books (serial sermons). It is often difficult to assess the content of a sermon from its title or the assigned text in the order of service. The structure of the religious year remained unchanged to the greatest extent in Lutheranism. Usually

25 Württembergische Große Kirchenordnung (1559), Ch. “Politisch Censur und Rügordnung”, taken over literally in the Siebente Landesordnung (1621) (Ch. cxi–cxxxiii, i.c. Ch. cxxi), cited in August Ludwig Reyscher ed., Vollständige, historisch und kritisch bearbeitete Sammlung der württembergischen Gesetze (Tübingen, 1841) XII, p. 873. 26 Cf. Heinrich R. Schmidt, Dorf und Religion: Reformierte Sittenzucht in Berner Landgemeinden der Frühen Neuzeit, Quellen und Forschungen zur Agrargeschichte 41 (Stuttgart, Jena and New York, 1995), p. 113, n. 214. 27 Schmidt, Dorf und Religion, p. 49. 28 Cf. Schmidt, Dorf und Religion, pp. 51–58. 29 Cf. Schmidt, Dorf und Religion, pp. 123–125, 168–171.

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religious holidays were celebrated over three days; festivals of the Virgin Mary included the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, Annunciation and Assumption.30 The feast days of the apostles (John the Baptist and Michael) were retained. Consequently the occasions for sermons in the Catholic Church tallied to a great extent with those in the Lutheran, although the Catholics had additional sermons as a result of their greater number of feast days and special occasions such as pilgrimages.31 A comparison with the Reformed Church reveals more serious differences. The rigorous limiting of feast days significantly altered the traditional course of the church year. There were few feast days apart from Sunday. Christmas, Easter and Pentecost were celebrated as two-day-long festivals, as were the New Year and the Ascension. As a result of these limitations, the number of workdays increased significantly. In contrast to the situation within Protestantism, Catholic sermons in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were embedded in popular liturgical events. The missionary sermons of the Jesuits and Capuchins were especially enlivened by dramatic enactments and processions.32 Everyone was supposed to be able to come to the sermons and the attendance of sermons by servants was meant to be facilitated. The Jesuit Conrad Purselt (1644–1706) quoted servants and children as saying, ‘Ah, I would like to go to the sermon and worship, but I am not allowed to go to a single sermon all year’.33 Going to sermons allowed a chance even for illiterate servants to have access to spiritual teaching.34 In general, regardless of the confession, one hour was the outer limit for the length of a sermon; exceptions in sermons for feast days prove the rule. Rural preachers were to express themselves more briefly than those in the city.35 In Württemberg in the eighteenth century the length of the sermon 30 Cf. Paul Münch, “Volkskultur und Calvinismus: Zu Theorie und Praxis der ‘reformatio vitae’ während der ‘Zweiten Reformation’,” in Die katholische Konfessionalisierung: Wissenschaftliches Symposion der Gesellschaft zur Herausgabe des Corpus Catholicorum und des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte, Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling eds., Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 198 (Gütersloh, 1995), pp. 291–307, at p. 302. 31 Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 18. 32 Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit, p. 59. Cf. Werner Welzig, ed., Katalog gedruckter deutschsprachiger katholischer Predigtsammlungen, 2 vols., Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse 430, 484 (Vienna, 1984–1987). 33 Conrad Purselt, Fons Aquae Triplici Scaturigine […], Andere Quell Sonntäglicher Predigen (Augsburg, Dillingen, 1700), p. 31b. 34 Ludwig Anton Freyhammer, Arca Noe Evangelica (Augsburg, 1740), p. 41a. 35 Michael Conrad Curtius, Kritische Abhandlungen und Gedichte (Hannover, 1760), p. 159.

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(45 minutes in the cities) was regulated by pulpit clocks; fines, payable to the alms chest, were levied if the sermon went overtime.36 In Wolfenbüttel, sermons had to be planned so that the entire service ‘[could] be completely finished in one hour, so that no one had to spend too much time away from his work’.37 Catholic preachers also took an hourglass, or later, a pocket-watch, into the pulpit.38 Johann Benedikt Carpzov (1595–1666) responded to criticism of overly long sermons thus: ‘Last Wednesday at the ball the youth and the gentle womenfolk sat for endless hours and watched; if that was not too long for them to be gazing at vanity, why would a shorter sermon of the word of God for the betterment of their souls annoy them?’39 Most sermons are preserved in printed form and not in manuscript. One must keep in mind when interpreting these sermons that the written version may not correspond exactly with the sermon as it was actually preached. Alterations must surely have occurred, particularly in order to get through the censors.40 Other elements are also lacking: the impression of spoken speech, as well as the charisma and the gestures of the preacher. These are certainly important factors whose influence on the audience should not be underestimated.41 Sermons about Sunday’s Gospels and Epistles, as well as the Passion or the catechism, could be published individually or in collections. Georg Schimmer (1652–1695), a preacher at St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg gave demand, his own initiative and the willingness of the publisher to undertake financial risk as reasons for undertaking a printing in 1689.42

36 Cynosura Oeconomiae Ecclesiasticae Wirtembergicae (1687), cited in Reyscher, Württembergische Gesetze (Tübingen, 1834) VIII, pp. 392–465, at p. 394; Johann Georg Hartmann, Geseze des Herzogthums Wirtemberg, Kirchen-Geseze des Herzogthums Wirtemberg 1 (Stuttgart, 1792) II, p. 71, §§ 186–187. Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 175. 37 Curtius, Kritische Abhandlungen und Gedichte (see above, n. 35), p. 169. 38 Rudolph Graser, Vollständige Lehrart zu predigen (Augsburg, 1768), p. 677. 39 Johann Benedikt Carpzov, Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten (Leipzig, 1703), quoted from Werner Welzig ed., Predigten der Barockzeit: Texte und Kommentar, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse 626 (Vienna, 1995), pp. 369–399 (comment pp. 674–682), at p. 391. 40 Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), pp. 225–226. 41 Cf. Maria Kastl, Das Schriftwort in Leopoldspredigten des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts: Untersuchungen zur Heiligenpredigt als lobender und beratschlagender Rede, Wiener Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur 13 (Vienna, 1988), pp. 8–9. 42 Georg Schimmer, Geistliche Erquick-Stunden (Wittenberg, 1689), quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit (see above, n. 39), pp. 103–118 (comment pp. 561–566), at p. 561.

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As a result of these collections, sermons could on the one hand attain a higher degree of distribution, while one the other hand they could also serve as a sort of handbook in the preparation of sermons.43 Some priests became writers of collections of sermons, merely by copying out the sermons.44 In order to stop this to some extent at least, it was compulsory in Württemberg for curates and assistants in particular to write out their sermons and date them.45 Even educated laypeople who had sermon collections at their disposal kept a watchful eye: ‘there are those who have poked their noses into a couple of sermon books and when they hear something in the sermon that they have read in the sermon book they purse their lips in order to poke fun at the preacher and scold him as a copier-out of sermons […]’.46 Collections of Latin sermons were published well into the eighteenth century.47 This did not, however, mean that sermons were preached in Latin. These were sermon collections firmly aimed at preachers themselves. Joseph Ignaz Claus (1691–1775) explained in his 1752 preface to his collection of sermons why he had decided to publish in Latin: first because of the brevity and expressiveness of the language, secondly with a view to its reception on the entire European market and the ease of its printing, and also because of didactic and pastoral considerations: ‘Thirdly the Latin language struck me as better, so that beginning preachers, who avail themselves of these rough drafts, are encouraged to elaborate on these and thus to present them in their own colloquial words, in their mother-tongue’48 43 Cf. Renate Dürr, “Images of the priesthood: An analysis of Catholic sermons from the late seventeenth century,” in Central European History 33 (2000), pp. 87–107, at pp. 89–90; Franz M. Eybl, Gebrauchsfunktionen barocker Predigtliteratur: Studien zur katholischen Predigtsammlung am Beispiel lateinischer und deutscher Übersetzungen des Pierre de Besse, Wiener Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur 10 (Vienna, 1982), p. 45. 44 Cf. Hans-Christoph Rublack, “Lutherische Predigt und gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeiten,” in Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland: Wissenschaftliches Symposium des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1988, Hans-Christoph Rublack ed., Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 197 (Gütersloh, 1992), pp. 344–395, here pp. 345–346 with notes 5–7 (pp. 383–386 present an assembly of pre-Reformation and Reformation sermon collections 1417–1735); Franz M. Eybl, “Die gedruckte katholische Barockpredigt zwischen Folklore und Literatur: Eine Standortbestimmung,” in Der Umgang mit dem religiösen Buch: Studien zur Geschichte des religiösen Buches in Deutschland und in der frühen Neuzeit, Hans Erich Bödeker, Gerald Chaix and Patrice Veit eds., Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 101 (Göttingen, 1991), pp. 221–41, at p. 223. 45 Hartmann, Geseze des Herzogthums Wirtemberg, (see above, n. 36) II, pp. 69–70. 46 Arnold Mengering, Informationes conscientiae evangelicum: Evangelisches Gewissens=Recht und Unterricht […] (Naumburg, 1656), p. 10. 47 Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 163. 48 Joseph Ignaz Claus, Der an vilen Orthen eingeladene Gast-Prediger (Augsburg, Innsbruck, 1752), preface.

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The language of preaching was of course German. The Homilist Joseph Ignaz Wurz (1727–1784) did not approve of sprinkling one’s text with Latin quotations.49 In contrast to Postillen, which assembled the sermons of an entire church year according to the order of service, some sermon collections were often thematically oriented (e.g., preaching related to education, preaching against the Turks, or preaching done on the occasion of the consecration of the church).50 They provided the preacher with a source of information, the head of a household with matter to read aloud, and finally the reader with enlightening material.51 Posterity did not always have much regard for most of the sermons printed in the Baroque period. The Homilist Rudolph Graser (1728–1787), who modelled his preaching on the most famous orators of France and Germany, confirmed this in 1768: ‘Perhaps in no other subject are there so many miserable and poorly considered writings as in this one. One must indeed marvel at the audacity of some preachers in presenting their sermons to the eyes of the world in print […]’.52 In the course of the eighteenth century French homiletics exerted an increasingly strong and observable influence on German sermons. The works of French theologians such as Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627– 1704), Louis Bourdaloue (1632–1704), François Fénelon (1651–1715) and Esprit Fléchier (1632–1710) were translated and thus formed models for German preachers. French sermons had, like their Italian counterparts, begun already around 1700 to shake off the bonds ‘of the stylistic methods and the ideological positions of “Baroque preaching”’.53 French preaching was thus able to become a model for Catholic preaching in southern Germany in the second half of the eighteenth century. Maurus Lindemayr (1723–1783) presents a good example of the reception of French sermons

49 Ignaz Wurz, quoted from Franz Hettinger, Aphorismen über Predigt und Prediger (Freiburg i.Br., 1888), p. 250. 50 Cf. Robert Pichel, “Zur Dokumentation der deutschsprachigen katholischen Predigtliteratur vom späten 16. bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert: Probleme ihrer Durchführung und wissenschaftlichen Auswertbarkeit,” in Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 3 (1980), 166–193. 51 Cf. Eybl, “Die gedruckte katholische Barockpredigt” (see above, n. 44), pp. 222–230; Rolf Engelsing, Der Bürger als Leser: Lesergeschichte in Deutschland, 1500–1800 (Stuttgart, 1974); Rolf Engelsing, Analphabetentum und Lektüre: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Lesens in Deutschland zwischen feudaler und industrieller Gesellschaft (Stuttgart, 1983). 52 Graser, Vollständige Lehrart zu predigen (see above, n. 38), p. 12. Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), pp. 14–5. 53 Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit, p. 15.

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in upper Swabia; some of Bossuet’s writing was found in his possession.54 Lindemayr outlined his thoughts on preaching in 1769, in his preface to Rudolph Graser’s collection of sermons entitled Praktische Beredsamkeit der christlichen Kanzel (Augsburg 1769). This preface shows to what extent Lindemayr was under the influence of the Catholic reforming model: ‘O on how many cold hearts has an entirely artless evangelical voice had a far better effect than the most magnificent and beautiful oratory?’55 Funeral sermons form a special genre of preaching. For a long time it was assumed that this fashion was a ‘phenomenon of the Protestant upper and middle classes’,56 especially in the first decades after 1600 and the second half of the seventeenth century. The middle of the eighteenth century marked the end of printed Protestant funeral sermons, although it remained the custom in Basel, for example, to print funeral sermons into the late twentieth century.57 This development had most to do with the Enlightenment and its accompanying profound changes in reading habits that involved a rejection of devotional literature. Preliminary research has focussed mainly on central Germany and, to a lesser extent, on the Imperial cities of the south.58 It has thus far demonstrated that this phenomenon certainly existed in all Protestant areas in Germany. Catholicism as well produced a large number of printed funeral sermons.59 Their heyday likewise was the late seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth. In contrast to the Protestant case, this genre remained active into the 1780s.60 In Anglican England, funeral sermons continue into the 1760s,

54 Cf. Andreas Brandtner, “Zu einer Rhetorik des Herzens: Pater Maurus Lindemayrs Leichenpredigten auf den Schwanenstädter Pfarrer Johann Ferdinand Gessl und den Baumgartenberger Abt Eugen Schickmayr,” in Oratio funebris, Boge and Bogner eds. (see above, n. 22), pp. 247–73, at p. 252 with n. 17. 55 Rudolph Graser, Praktische Beredsamkeit der christlichen Kanzel in Regeln, Exempeln und vollständigen Mustern (Augsburg, 1769), pp. xiv–xxxi (preface), at p. xvi. 56 Rudolf Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene? Leichenpredigten als multidisziplinäre Quelle, Marburger Personalschriften-Forschungen 10 (Sigmaringen, 1990), p. 17. 57 Cf. Rudolf Mohr, “Das Ende der Leichenpredigten,” in Leichenpredigten als Quelle historischer Wissenschaften: Personalschriftensymposion, Forschungsgegenstand Leichenpredigten, Rudolf Lenz ed. (Marburg, 1984) III, pp. 293–330. 58 Cf. Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene, p. 17. 59 Cf. Birgit Boge and Ralf Georg Bogner, “Leichenpredigtforschung auf Abwegen? Zu den Gründen für die bisherige Ignoranz gegenüber einer Gattung frühneuzeitlicher katholischer Gebrauchsliteratur,” in Oratio funebris, Boge and Bogner eds. (see above, n. 22), pp. 3–8. 60 Cf. Birgit Boge and Ralf Georg Bogner, “Katholische Leichenpredigten des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts: Einige vorläufige Thesen zur Geschichte von Produktion und Distribution einer Gattung der religiösen Gebrauchsliteratur der frühen Neuzeit,” in Oratio funebris, Boge and Bogner eds., pp. 317–340, at pp. 335–337.

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with their zenith occurring from 1660 to 1714; the share of these preached by Dissenters is considerable.61 In all confessions, however, the funeral sermon remained a phenomenon that was confined to the middle and especially the upper classes. Missionary sermons, on the other hand, were a special feature of Catholicism in Germany. During the eighteenth century ‘all of Catholic Germany saw missionary activity’.62 After the Council of Trent the Capuchins and the Jesuits were particularly engaged in this; their primary goal was to address the illiterate. Missionary sermons certainly relied on the oral form and thus only a few remain in written form. Among the best known of the Jesuit missions in Germany were those led by Fulvio Fontana (1649–1723) in 1705, by Konrad Herdegen and Georg Loferer in 1715 and by the Capuchin Marco d’Aviano (1631–1699). These sermons were preached in the German language, and they had even more of an effect because of the pathos of their delivery and the gestures of the preacher. Internal missionary work became a Protestant preoccupation only around the middle of the nineteenth century.63 Collections of sermons served as an aid in the religious instruction carried out by the paterfamilias into the eighteenth century. A domestic sermon collection dating from the Age of Enlightenment defines ‘instruction of the family’ as one of the duties of the paterfamilias.64 The job of preaching and spiritual instruction was thus transferred from ordained clergy and the church to the private sphere of the family.65 In this respect Protestantism was no different. The prefaces of sermon collections refer to the duty of the paterfamilias to preach and at the same time emphasise that he is strongly obliged to send the entire household, servants included, to church to hear the sermon.66 Since one must assume the existence of regional and confessional differences when considering the degree of literacy, sermons in some places took 61 Cf. Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, religion, and the family in England, 1480–1750 (New York, 1998), pp. 295–330; John L. McIntosh, English funeral sermons, 1560–1640: The relationship between gender and death, dying, and the afterlife (Oxford, 1990). 62 Bernhard Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher Zunge, vol. 4,2 (Freiburg i. Br., 1929), p. 190. Cf. Eybl, Abraham a Sancta Clara (see above, n. 4), pp. 96–102. 63 Cf. Volker Herrmann ed., Johann Hinrich Wichern und die Innere Mission: Studien zur Diakoniegeschichte, Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg 14 (Heidelberg, 2002). 64 Christkatholische Hauspostill (Vienna, 1786), preface. Cf. Eybl, Gebrauchsfunktionen barocker Predigtliteratur (see above, n. 43), p. 56. 65 Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 341. 66 Reuchlin, Kurtze Abbildung (see above, n. 17), p. 385.

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on a particular importance in relation to reading or being read to, so that the Christian message would not go unheard. Sermons made use of three strategies in order to facilitate the reception of what the illiterate public had heard: simple language, a clear manner of speaking with repetition of the most important points, and vivid examples.67 Wherever possible, sermon literature was also meant to be read aloud: ‘Beloved farmer in Christ! If you can read, then read these rules aloud often to yourself and to your household servants; if you cannot read, then it is to be hoped that there is a person in your house or neighbourhood who can perform the duty on a quiet day’.68 The religious duty of the paterfamilias lasted into the nineteenth century, at least in rural areas. A notice in a newspaper shows that the reading and reading aloud of sermon collections was firmly established in the rural way of life: ‘The farmer, if he can read, takes a spiritual book of fables as his domestic sermon collection, reads in it on Sundays and holidays, gives it to his children as a schoolbook, and takes every foolishness he finds within it as gospel truth […]’.69 Despite such criticism on the part of the enlightened bourgeois classes, to whom such behaviour counted as ‘foolishness’, Catholic sermons had not changed all that much.70 What was, however, particularly noticeable was the decline of monastic preaching.71 The titles of the sermon collections

67 Amandus of Graz, Seelen-Wayde der Christlichen Schäfflein […] (Augsburg, 1708), preface to the reader, quoted from Welzig, Katalog deutschsprachiger Predigtsammlungen (see above, n. 32) I, nr. 161, 7. 68 Franciscus Antonius Oberleitner, Geistliche Bauren-Reglen (Augsburg, 1748), quoted from Elfriede Moser-Rath ed., Predigtmärlein der Barockzeit: Exempel, Sage, Schwank und Fabel in geistlichen Quellen des oberdeutschen Raumes, Supplement-Serie zu Fabula A,5 (Berlin, 1964), p. 12. Cf. Jacob Lupperger, Dreyfache Sonntägliche Predig […] (Augsburg and Graz, 1739), preface to the reader; Eybl, Gebrauchsfunktionen barocker Predigtliteratur (see above, n. 43), p. 52–55; Franz M. Eybl, “Die Rede vom Lesen: Kirchliche Argumentationsmuster zum Problem des Lesens in Predigten des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Jahrbuch für Volkskunde, n.s. 10 (1987), 67–93; Elfriede Moser-Rath, “Lesestoff fürs Kirchenvolk: Lektüreanweisungen in katholischen Predigten der Barockzeit,” in Fabula 29 (1988), 48–72. 69 Münchner Tagsblatt (17 May 1803), quoted from Moser-Rath, Predigtmärlein der Barockzeit, p. 80. 70 Werner Schütz, Geschichte der christlichen Predigt (Berlin and New York, 1972), p. 171. Cf. Horst Alfred Fild, Beiträge zur Entstehungsgeschichte der bürgerlichen Weltanschauung in Deutschland: Dargestellt an der protestantischen Predigt zwischen 1740 und 1800 (Erlangen, 1965); Klaus Scholder, Grundzüge der theologischen Aufklärung in Deutschland (München, 1976). 71 Cf. Johann Baptist Schneyer, Geschichte der katholischen Predigt (Freiburg i.Br., 1969), pp. 305–326.

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testify that change was afoot: Addresses on morality; Instructive Sermons; Instructive Sermons for Christianity; Collections of Practical Orations for the Strengthening of Belief, Virtue and Contentment ; Orations on the Promotion of the Love of Homeland, Morality and Domestic Happiness.72 The short sermon was on the rise: brevity was practical, time was money. Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811), on a trip in southern Germany, was amazed at how much precious time people spent in ‘external religious practice’.73 He saw the weekday sermons held by the religious of Ulm as a waste of time, as foolish and harmful ‘to male and female citizens, who should be spending their time working to feed their families so that they don’t end up in the poorhouse’.74 Nicolai especially criticized Catholic devotions: the believers ‘vegetate between praying, eating and drinking'. The consequence: ‘One must not seek industry in Passau or in almost any other religious area’.75 The unproductive and contemplative life of monks seemed particularly useless to him. He came up with the idea that ‘monasteries, instead of being dedicated to monastic asceticism, should be turned into foundations for the learned’ and that they should occupy themselves with modern scientific research.76 Most Enlightenment thinkers agreed, despite their criticism of the church, that religion was the basis of political and moral order. The virtues of the striving bourgeoisie, such as rationality, industry, morality, peacefulness, love of order, obedience and utility, appeared with increasing frequency in sermons.77 The ideals of the popular Enlightenment are also somewhat reflected in rural sermons,78 although sermons On the advantage

72 Cf. Schütz, Geschichte der christlichen Predigt (see above, n. 70), pp. 170–1; Chrysostomus Schreiber, Aufklärung und Frömmigkeit: Die katholische Predigt im deutschen Aufklärungszeitalter und ihre Stellung zur Frömmigkeit und zur Liturgie. Mit Berücksichtigung von Michael Sailer (München, 1940); Saul, “Prediger aus der neuen romantischen Clique” (see above, n. 24). 73 Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), pp. 159–60. 74 Friedrich Nicolai, Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz im Jahre 1781: Nebst Bemerkungen über Gelehrsamkeit, Industrie, Religion und Sitten, 9 vols. (Berlin and Stettin, 1783–95), quoted from Wolfgang Martens, “Ein Bürger auf Reisen,” in Friedrich Nicolai 1733–1811: Essays zum 250. Geburtstag, Bernhard Fabian ed. (Berlin, 1983), pp. 99–123, at p. 104. 75 Nicolai, Beschreibung einer Reise, quoted from Martens, “Ein Bürger auf Reisen”, p. 106. 76 Nicolai, Beschreibung einer Reise, quoted from Martens, “Ein Bürger auf Reisen”, p. 105. 77 Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), pp. 159–160. 78 Cf. Johann Ferdinand Schlez, Landwirthschafts-Predigten: Beiträge zur Beförderung der wirtschaftlichen Wohlfahrt unter den Landleuten (Nürnberg, 1788).

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of stall feeding over pasturing and On the unutterable blessing of growing potatoes also appeared.79 Friedrich Nicolai expected that sermons about nature and farming would have economic and practical uses; they were meant ‘to make farmers aware that they ought to feed their children with gruel and that they would contract dropsy by using spirits’.80 Although for Catholics the demands of the Enlightenment became established more slowly than elsewhere, here too the new ideals of instructiveness, sensibleness and usefulness took hold. Sermons became more and more ‘sensible instruction[s]’,81 and appeared in fashionable journals and weeklies. The church became an ‘educational institution’.82 ‘There is no love for the preached word of God’,83 complained a Catholic preacher in 1792. A preacher at the cathedral in Paderborn, Johann Martin Mentges (1743– 1815), came to the same conclusion.84 ‘It is no wonder that just at the zenith of rationalism it has been proven that the practice of going to church has declined’,85 confirmed a historiographer of the church in Zürich. 3. The Sermon Audience Protestant preachers preached to an audience that was obliged to come and listen. Their sermons were addressed to all sorts, to the authorities and their subjects, to men, women and children, to the poor and the rich, to the educated and the uneducated, to literates and illiterates. The Tübingen theology professor and preacher Andreas Adam Hochstetter (1668–1717) advised his listeners: ‘Take up our loving punishment gladly therefore, both high and low, for God is no respecter of persons’.86 The power of

79 Cf. Martin Schian, “Geschichte der christlichen Predigt,” in Realencyklopädie für protestantischeTh eologie und Kirche 15 (1904), 623–747, at p. 695. 80 Nicolai, Beschreibung einer Reise, quoted from Martens, Ein Bürger auf Reisen, p. 105. 81 Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 10. 82 Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), pp. 10–11. 83 Klagstimme eines Predigers über das Sittenverderbniß unserer Zeiten (Augsburg, 1792) I, p. 64. 84 Johann Martin Mentges, Predigten auf alle Sonntage des Jahres (Paderborn, 1786) II, p. 4. 85 Georg Rudolf Zimmermann, Die Zürcher Kirche von der Reformation bis zum dritten Reformationsjubiläum (1519–1819) nach der Reihenfolge der Zürcherischen Antistes (Zürich, 1878), p. 349. Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 161. 86 Andreas Adam Hochstetter, […] Der H. Schrifft Doctoris und Profess. Ordinarii, Christliche Antritts-Predigt […] (Stuttgart, 1711), p. 25.

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their office gave Protestant church officials an admonishing and punishing function in respect to both upper and lower classes.87 The Catholic church also directed its preaching to all believers. The Capuchin Amandus von Graz (1637–1700) wrote about his activities in the pulpit: ‘Where I have had all types of people as an audience, such as high and minor nobility; authorities, councils and officials from different court positions; secular clergy and students; city-dwellers; married and single people; artisans, servants and farmers’.88 Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704) summarized the facts of the matter: ‘[…] it is the listeners who create the preachers: and may God grant, through his ministers, teaching that is agreeable to the sainted dispositions of those who listen. Construct the discourse through your prayers that must instruct you; and obtain for me the lights of the Holy Spirit, through the intercession of the blessed Virgin: (Ave, Maria)’.89 Without an audience, preachers and sermons would be simply nothing; as Prokop of Templin (1609–1680) notes with the words of the apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 13:1): they would be ‘a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal’.90 Because attending the sermon, unlike attending the Mass, was absolutely required by the church, Catholic preachers, as well as their Protestant collegues, had to contend with the excuses of the ‘learned’: ‘we have our Postill and sermon-book at home, we can preach to ourselves, we already know what may be said to us’.91 Georg Grill harboured doubts, however, whether they would actually do this: ‘That’s right, that they say, I can read a religious book; that this is possible, no one will deny. But whether they actually undertake this reading that often, I seriously doubt […]’.92 Even in the case of those who possessed many books and liked to have them on show, most of the admittedly few religious books had been gifts or inheritances, surmised one preacher, and gathered dust at the back of 87 Cf. Sabine Holtz, “Vom Umgang mit der Obrigkeit: Zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Staat im Herzogtum Württemberg,” in Zeitschrift für württembergische Landesgeschichte 55 (1996), 131–159; David Gugerli, Zwischen Pfrund und Predigt: Die protestantische Pfarrfamilie auf der Zürcher Landschaft im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert (Zürich, 1988), pp. 76–83. 88 Amandus of Graz: Seelen-Wayde (see above, n. 67), preface. 89 Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Oeuvres oratoires de Bossuet, Jean Lebarq ed. (Lille, Paris, 1891) VI, pp. 26–27. 90 Prokop of Templin, Mariale Concionatorium (Indifferentiale) (Salzburg, 1667), pp. 133a–134. Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), pp. 315–347. 91 Conrad Purselt, Fons Aquae Triplici Scaturigine […] (Augsburg and Dillingen, 1700) II, p. 31b. 92 Georg Grill, Sonn- und Feyertagspredigten (Augsburg and Innsbruck, 1769) I, pp. 222–223.

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the bookcase.93 In all confessions a socially heterogeneous congregation faced the minister.94 In theory, everyone belonged to the congregation: from the socially disadvantaged to the pinnacle of worldly rank. The social order based on privilege was, however, also omnipresent in the sphere of the church. The Protestant authorities accepted, in contrast to the Catholic Church, the demands of the laity for an established place to sit in the form of private pews. At the end of the sixteenth century the fitting of pews in Lutheran churches had been largely brought to an end. As late as 1729 a completed law school dissertation by Friedrich Philippi (1650–1724) confirmed the use of pews for order in church services.95 Each member of the congregation, who saw his position as important, had an established place. Man- and maidservants, however, often had to stand during the service.96 Listening to the sermon was not, however, the only task of the congregation. Lutheran preachers admonished parents to take their children, and indeed their servants, to church, and also to ‘pursue, put forward and impress through repetition’97 what had been discussed in the sermon and instruction of the children. The content of the sermon was thus not only inquired after in school, but was also meant to be discussed at home. In general, going to church and listening to the sermon was an established element of social life for all confessions, whether it was out of innate piety98 or enforced by the state or the church. The spectrum of topics was wide-ranging: social order was as much a subject for discussion as the phases of human life. Preachers made an emphatic effort to impress social and ethical norms and values for the formation of daily life. 4. Sermons and Social Order Societal Order The order of society was regarded as God-given by all classes. Each person had a function assigned to him by God, however differentiated or 93

Klagstimme eines Predigers (see above, n. 83), p. 94. Cf. Münch, “Volkskultur und Calvinismus” (see above, n. 30), p. 292. 95 Friedrich Philippi, Tractatio iuridica de subselliis templorum vulgo Von Kirchenstühlen (Leipzig, 1683, 2nd ed. 1729), p. 10. 96 Cf. Reinhold Wex, “Der frühneuzeitliche protestantische Kirchenraum in Deutschland im Spannungsfeld zwischen Policey und Zeremoniell,” in Geschichte des protestantischen Kirchenbaues: Festschrift für Peter Poscharsky zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus Raschzok and Reiner Sörries (Erlangen, 1994), pp. 47–61, at p. 58. 97 Reuchlin, Kurtze Abbildung (see above, n. 17), p. 383. 98 Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 16. 94

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inegalitarian, for him to carry out in order to preserve the divine order.99 Catholic sermons on class, which were customary at the New Year and on Martinmas, discussed the rights and responsibilities of each estate. These dates were chosen because they marked the beginning of a new phase, whether it was a new calendar year or a new fiscal year; socially, however, everything remained the same.100 According to contemporary opinion an established order based on class existed even in Heaven. Ignatius Ertl (1645–1713), in his sermon about the ‘chief steward of the heavenly court’,101 characterized heaven as a court, of which God was in charge as the ruler, comparable to an absolute monarch. The heavenly court became the perfect model for imperfect human rulership.102 Inequity within a society organized by class was part of an all-embracing order set up by God: if only one member failed, then overall harmony was endangered. It was a matter of course for Catholic preachers that ‘each [person] should dress according to his class, occupation and income; the burgers’ wives should look bourgeois and noblewomen should look noble’.103 Clear division of functions between duties and offices acted as a guarantee of stable relationships: ‘Where there is good order, then all is well, not only in certain houses but in the entire country and this order is best preserved when one part does not interfere in the duties and offices of another’.104 He saw the collapse of the social order in the possibility of the reversal of power relationships: ‘When the farmer wants to be a lord, the underling to command his better, the wife to put on trousers and to rule her husband, then everything will be chaos and confusion’.105

99 Martin Resch, Discurus in festo S. Jacobi Apostoli 25 Julii 1698. Quid vis? Was willst du. Matth, 20; cf. M. Eybl, “Jakobus auf dem Lande: Eine Festpredigt von Martin Resch, sozialgeschichtlich gelesen,” in Predigt und soziale Wirklichkeit, Welzig ed. (see above, n. 11), pp. 67–111, die Predigt [Abschrift des Exemplars in der Stiftsbibliothek Kremsmünster, angefertigt von Franz M. Eybl] pp. 95–111, at p. 111. 100 Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 19. 101 Ignatius Ertl, Sonn- und Feyer-Tägliches Tolle Lege: Das ist: Geist- und Lehr-reiche Predigen […] Festival-Teil […] (3rd ed. Nürnberg, 1715), p. 162. Cf. Peter Brecht, Der Barockprediger Ignatius Ertl (1645–1713): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der süddeutschen Barockliteratur (München, 1967), p. 50. 102 Ertl, Sonn- und Feyer-Tägliches Tolle Lege, p. 162. 103 Ignatius Ertl, Amara Dulcis: Das ist: Bitter-Suesses Buß-Kraut […] (Nürnberg, 1712), p. 339. 104 Donatus von Passau, Triumphus Temporis Evangelici (Sultzbach, 1695), quoted from Paul Münch, Das Jahrhundert des Zwiespalts: Deutschland 1600–1700 (Stuttgart, Berlin and Köln, 1999), p. 68. 105 Donatus of Passau, quoted from Münch, Das Jahrhundert des Zwiespalts, p. 68.

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Preachers vehemently supported the preservation of the hierarchical order of classes.106 They equated the breaking of social barriers ultimately with a rebellion against the divine order. Social mobility was just not conceived of in this system, either horizontally by means of changing professions, or vertically through desire for upward mobility. The latter was reckoned as the vice of ambition.107 Each person was meant to fulfil his position so that at any time he could render an account not only to man but also to God. God had promised nourishment to those working at a profession, not only for the individual and for his wife and children, but also so that he would be able to give alms to the poor and to lend money to the needy. Even when a good income, property and wealth were obvious signs of doing well in general, the ‘common good’108 was not meant to fade into the background. Here, efforts towards maximizing earnings and profit butted up against the public interest. Individual dealings were meant to be conducted with reference to the social structure of the congregation as well as of the entire territory.109 Preachers emphatically addressed the issue of contact with riches and its attendant obligations towards the poor and needy; at the same time the necessary thrift was strongly differentiated from avarice and closefistedness – characteristics that could be at the expense of one’s fellow man.110 Marriage and Household In the course of the disciplining of society by authorities and the church, the home ultimately became the dominant force for social order.111 The

106 Cf. Sabine Holtz, Theologie und Alltag: Lehre und Leben in den Predigten der Tübinger Theologen, 1550–1750, Spätmittelalter und Reformation, n.s. 3 (Tübingen, 1993), pp. 348–362. 107 Wagner, Epistel=Postill (see above, n. 9), Der Ander nämblich Sommer= und Herbst=Theil […] (Tübingen, 1668), pp. 455–460; Reuchlin, Kurtze Abbildung (see above, n. 17), p. 47. 108 Paul Münch, “Parsimonia summum est vectigal – Sparen ist ein ryche gült: Sparsamkeit als Haus-, Frauen- und Bürgertugend,” in Ethische Perspektiven: Wandel der Tugenden, ed. Hans-Jürg Braun, Zürcher Hochschulschriften 15 (Zürich, 1989), pp. 169–187, at p. 175. Cf. Winfried Schulze, “Vom Gemeinnutz zum Eigennutz: Über den Normenwandel in der ständischen Gesellschaft der frühen Neuzeit,” Historische Zeitschrift 243 (1986), pp. 591–626. 109 Christoph Wölfflin, Christliche Landtags=Predigt […] (Stuttgart, [1675]), p. 25; Christoph Wölfflin, Christliche Landtags= Predigt […] (Stuttgart, [1672]), p. 17. 110 Cf. Rublack, “Lutherische Predigt und gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeiten” (see above, n. 44), pp. 355–360. 111 Cf. Richard van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag in der Frühen Neuzeit (München, 1990) I, pp. 12–23.

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power of the paterfamilias increased because both the Reformation and Catholic reform movements took the house as a point of departure for their social ethics; this had an effect not only on domestic power structures, but also strengthened patriarchical, meaning noble, structures. The patriarchal position of the paterfamilias grew, because state and church expected him to keep domestic order. The paterfamilias combined very different social functions. He was at the same time father, husband, teacher, master, educator and nourisher, and he functioned as the moral and religious controller. In addition he represented in the public sphere those members of his household who were adult and unrelated, who neither had rights as individuals before the law nor could participate in the political life of the society. The process of dissolution of the household began in the context of urbanization and (proto)industrialization. This change in structure fundamentally altered interpersonal relationships, as it involved a division between household and business, as well as between home and work life; it relieved the family of its production functions.112 To the same degree, the paterfamilias lost his function as the lowest rung of secular and religious authority.113 Life at home was restricted to the private sphere and became a substructure of society. The establishment of a household, rather than the choice of partner, formed the basis of marriage.114 It was the household that made early modern people into recognized members of society.115 Sermons were directed at everyone living in the household, meaning parents, their children by blood (both legitimate and illegitimate), stepchildren, and domestic servants. In some cases the elderly were included, who no longer took part in working life, but still dwelt in the household. Thus the ties of life and law, and not only blood relationships, formed the social basis of the household. This was equally true for farming, artisanal, merchant and noble

112

Cf. Winfrid Freitag, “Haushalt und Familie in traditionalen Gesellschaften: Konzepte, Probleme und Perspektiven der Forschung,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 14 (1988), 5–37, at p. 26. 113 Cf. Freitag, “Haushalt und Familie”, p. 21. 114 Cf. Hoffmann, Die “Hausväterliteratur” (see above, n. 20), p. 112; Rublack, “Lutherische Predigt und gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeiten” (see above, n. 44), p. 354; Eileen Theresa Dugan, Images of marriage and family life in Nördlingen: Moral preaching and devotional literature, 1589–1712 (Ann Arbor, 1988), pp. 110–123. 115 Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, pp. 156–59; Richard van Dülmen, “Fest der Liebe: Heirat und Ehe in der frühen Neuzeit,” in Armut, Liebe, Ehre: Studien zur historischen Kulturforschung, Richard van Dülmen ed., Studien zur historischen Kulturforschung 1 (Frankfurt a.M., 1988), pp. 67–106.

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households; indeed a noble household was scarcely different from a large farming one in terms of its representative functions. In Protestant areas, the household took on an outstanding importance, because, in contrast to Catholicism, there was no alternative form of social life to that of marriage and family.116 For both men and women entering the cloister was no longer a possibility, although Protestant foundations for women formed the only exception to this rule.117 Though some people did live alone, the norm was life in a large household. During the Reformation, marriage lost its sacramental character. Nevertheless, in the context of the ways in which humans could live their lives, it took on a significantly higher status, since the everyday life of marriage and its tribulations could be dealt with as the will of God in faith. In contrast to this point of view, the Council of Trent largely confirmed medieval teachings on marriage.118 The Council confirmed the sacramental nature of marriage, placed it under religious jurisdiction, rejected divorce and preserved celibacy. Unmarried life maintained its higher status, as it had done before. The Württembergischen Summarien (Leipzig 1709) asked the following three things of candidates for marriage: fear of God, a godly way of life, and industrious work.119 People who intended to get married were supposed to pay attention that they did not impose on their parents and friends for long, that they did not sit down to eat at another’s table, that in the meantime they should not spend time idly going for walks or having fun over meals provided by their parents, but should set up their own household […], because it is only in his own household that a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife […] In order to succeed in this, however, it is necessary that beforehand he should have studied somewhat diligently or that he should have spent some time working in the service of other people truly and industriously, so that he can begin his own household, and that he may increase it with the true contribution of his wife.120

116 Cf. Hoffmann, Die “Hausväterliteratur”, p. 112; Rublack, “Lutherische Predigt und gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeiten”, p. 354. 117 Cf. Lucia Koch, “ ‘Eingezogenes stilles Wesen’? Protestantische Damenstifte an der Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert,” in “In Christo ist weder man noch weyb”: Frauen in der Zeit der Reformation und der katholischen Reform, Anne Conrad ed., Katholisches Leben und Kirchenreform im Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung 59 (Münster, 1999), pp. 199–230. 118 Cf. Heribert Smolinsky, “Ehespiegel im Konfessionalisierungsprozeß,” in Die Katholische Konfessionalisierung, Reinhard and Schilling ed. (see above, n. 30), pp. 311–331. 119 Summarien Oder gründliche Auslegung Uber die gantze Heil. Schrifft […], vol. 1–6 (2nd ed. Leipzig, 1709), pp. 1603–1605. 120 Summarien I, pp. 184–185.

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Quite a few preachers feared that the romantic ideals with which young people entered marriage could not withstand reality.121 Therefore in their sermons they depicted a realistic picture of what those who married could expect: poverty and hunger were not out of the question; effort and worry expended on bearing and raising children were daily occurrences; squabbling and even jealousy and marital breakdown were possible; one was not proof against the illness and death of one’s spouse. The idea of marriage thus propagated was not based primarily on emotional inclination or agreement, but rather on commonality founded in solidarity, in which each must fulfill his or her allotted role.122 Marriage was a functional alliance rather than a grand passion. Preachers knew and approved of the socio-economic requirements and fit them into their depictions of marriage and family. In most cases, marriage contracts were completed before the wedding; this shows the significance of material possessions in the choice of a partner.123 In individual cases the maternal inheritance of children from the first marriage and the marriage portion of the bride were established. All of this occurred in the presence of the relatives of both spouses and several of the village notables. It also sometimes came about that parents were present at discussions concerning first marriages. Thus material and social interests were always intertwined. Nevertheless these interests could only then form a lasting foundation if they were founded on a love based on solidarity and duty. Sermons indicate throughout that in a marriage it was not only necessary to fulfill one’s functions within the household, but that affection also played an important role. In any case, emotionality in the early modern period can only be understood within a social context that did not traditionally separate life and work. The preservation of property, the collective way of life of the household and the solidarity that was necessary in the face of the experience of want, illness and death, were those categories that were to be bound up in emotionality. Thus it was not personal feelings of happiness, but rather dealing in solidarity while paying attention to the obligations of love that went along with the marriage, that stood at the centre of the early modern household. Worry about providing for a family of many members was one of the 121 Cf. Rublack, “Lutherische Predigt und gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeiten” (see above, n. 44), pp. 348–355. 122 Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, p. 164. 123 Contract of marriage (1795–10–10), quoted from Andreas Maisch, Notdürftiger Unterhalt und gehörige Schranken: Lebensbedingungen und Lebensstile in württembergischen Dörfern der frühen Neuzeit, Quellen und Forschungen zur Agrargeschichte 37 (Stuttgart, Jena and New York, 1992), p. 401 and note 10.

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reasons that a married couple ‘had many crosses to bear’ and it ‘made their marriage bed into a bed of nails’.124 Fundamentally speaking, in each household there were people whose job it was to exert authority and people whose job it was to obey. This subordination was the will of God. For preachers, marriage was not a goal in itself, but had much more to do with life as a father or mother of a household. The bearing and rearing of children was its essential function.125 One’s relationship as a spouse was nonetheless integrated into one’s status as father or mother. Protestant preachers therefore described life in terms of household categories. The division of roles between the sexes involved a relationship of subordination of the woman to the man: the relationship of the woman to the man was characterized by obedience, while that of the man to the woman was characterized by love.126 This division of roles was oriented in the first instance to both Haustafeln of the New Testament (Eph. 5:22–6:9; Col. 3:18–4:1). This subordinate relationship was however not based on the absolute rule of the man over his wife, but rather prescribed the rights and responsibilities of both partners toward one another. The necessary division of labour and spousal reliance upon one another for the security of their existence led to a certain equality of rights for the woman.127 A household could not function if ‘one part did not know what the other was doing, and why it was troubled or joyful; if one half of the couple is always pestering the other and neither allows the other to get a word in, then what kind of love can there be between them?’128 The principle of equality between spouses – Gleich und gleich macht Freuden-reich – was also stressed in Catholic Baroque sermons: ‘And as well, when two people are married, the man and the woman are equal, equal in religion, equal in intention, opinion and desire, equal in virtue, equal in age, equal in status or background, equal in wealth […]’.129 Andreas Strobl (1641–1706), a secular preacher from Upper Bavaria, based the precedence of the man on reference to passages in Paul:130 ‘You 124 Wagner, Epistel=Postill (see above, n. 9) I, p. 368. Cf. Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene (see above, n. 56), pp. 77–81. 125 Summarien (see above, n. 119) IV, pp. 142–144 and III, p. 1607. Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, p. 158. 126 Summarien (see above, n. 119) IV, p. 1034 and III, p. 256; Wagner, Epistel=Postill (see above, n. 9) I, pp. 351–357. 127 Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, p. 46. 128 Summarien (see above, n. 119) II, p. 194. 129 Leo Wolff, Rugitus leonis, Geistliches Löwen-Brüllen […] (Augsburg, 1702), pp. 106–107. Cf. Elfriede Moser-Rath, “Familienleben im Spiegel der Barockpredigt,” in Predigt und soziale Wirklichkeit, Welzig ed. (see above, n. 11), pp. 47–65. 130 Cf. Moser-Rath, “Familienleben im Spiegel der Barockpredigt”, p. 57.

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wives should be subordinate to your husbands, the way the Lord deserves respect […] The wife should nicely give in to her husband, she should not arrogate authority to herself, but allow the man to rule, if he is sensible and of good understanding, and is not a wastrel’.131 The domestic servants also belonged to the household; these were mainly unmarried menservants and maidservants, who were related to the man or woman of the house. It was quite usual for people to send their children to work at other houses. In addition there were the so-called Inleute who on the whole had no family relationship to anyone in the household and who were quite possibly married. All of these people were subject to the authority of the head of the household. According to the conception presented by the preachers, domestic servants had a similar status to children. Certainly, men- and maidservants were subject to unlimited subordination.132 Preachers warned against hasty marriages: parental consent was absolutely necessary. Even if the Catholic church rejected ‘a constitutive collaboration of the parental will in the marriage vows’133 in their guides to marriage, the consent of the parents became de facto the norm.134 For Protestants, as well, it was considered that the consent of the parents should not be ignored in entering into marriage.135 Legally speaking, however, a couple did not require parental consent before marrying.136 The blessing of the church then sanctioned a relationship that had become legally valid through the taking of marriage vows. Thus the state of marriage was ‘publicly praised’ and was referred to God as the founder and preserver of the marriage.137 In order to preserve social harmony, people approved this consent and observed it. Thus two goals were met: parental consent limited suspect marriages and made sure that a secure livelihood was available. Work and Working Life In the teaching of every confession, all work was connected to effort and pain: according to the Fall of Man in the Bible, a human must earn his

131

Andreas Strobl, Noch ein Körbel voll Oster-Ayr […] (Salzburg, 1708), p. 175. Wagner, Epistel=Postill (see above, n. 9) I, pp. 353–354. 133 Smolinsky, “Ehespiegel im Konfessionalisierungsprozeß” (see above, n. 118), p. 316. 134 Cf. Eybl, “Jakobus auf dem Lande” (see above, n. 99), p. 82. 135 Summarien (see above, n. 119) III, pp. 1603. 136 Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, pp. 136–7. 137 Tobias Wagner, Postilla textualis: Das ist; Schrifft= vnd Textmässige Außlegung° Der Son=Fest= vnd Feyrtäglichen Evangelien desz Jahrs […] Erster Jahrgang […] (Ulm, 1650), pp. 119–124. 132

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bread ‘in the sweat of his brow’.138 It was the earning of food by working that drove humans on. Self-actualization or happiness had nothing to do with it: ‘Vnser leben wehret siebenzig Jar/ wens hoch kompt so sinds achtzig jar/ Vnd wens köstlich gewesen ist/ so ists Mühe vnd Erbeit gewesen/ Denn es feret schnell da hin/ als flögen wir dauon’.139 In a translation of Psalm 90 by Martin Luther (1483–1586), struggle and work were closely bound together. This ‘made an example of the accursed character attributed to all labours by each person in his time’.140 Each person was placed in his profession by divine Providence and there he had to do his duty. A person could hardly achieve anything by his own efforts; the blessing of God must accompany his activity. Sermon and prayer did not hinder a man in his work and profession, but rather one was able to ‘work well and achieve a lot’141 after hearing a sermon. Work thus performed was blessed by God: ‘Indeed, the blessing of God comes to the devout in their sleep, but not by means of sleep; First it goes: Put your hand to the plough, and work; and then stop working, and take your blessing from the Lord’.142 God promised to reward now and forever all housework and other tasks done from the heart and voluntarily with good will.143 Work preserved human health and prevented the slide into poverty.144 The Lutherans preached that contentment in relation to earthly possessions, to which one was not supposed to become too attached, was also the part of work. A person was indeed supposed to work hard in his profession, but should also enjoy with a happy heart that which God had given him.145 Whoever approached his duties with faith in God, industriously, decently, truly and honestly, would find his work not a burden but a pleasure. God wished to reward all good work now and forever.146 In Lutheranism all work had equal status; the spiritual sphere did not have an advantage over the secular. Thus theologians were able without difficulty to advocate

138

Summarien (see above, n. 119) I, p. 11. ‘Seventy years is the span of our life, eighty if our strength holds; the hurrying years are labour and sorrow, so quickly they pass and are forgotten.’ Psalm 90:10–11; translation taken from The New English Bible (Oxford and Cambridge, 1970). 140 Paul Münch, Lebensformen in der frühen Neuzeit (1500–1800) (Frankfurt a.M. and Berlin, 1992), pp. 356–357. 141 Summarien (see above, n. 119) VI, p. 373. 142 Summarien VI, pp. 512–513. 143 Summarien VI, p. 1038. 144 Summarien V, p. 539 and III, p. 1814. 145 Summarien III, pp. 1961–2. 146 Summarien VI, p. 1038. 139

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the preservation of hierarchical order within classes.147 Social inequality was thus certainly willed by God. The Providence of God alone had the right to make each change in class and function. Preachers condemned worry about providing food because it hindered efforts towards piety while also leading to avarice.148 Well-earned earthly goods could be enjoyed with pleasure and in good conscience. Lutheranism and Catholicism agreed on this point, and indeed their conception of work scarcely differed, apart from the extra weight the Catholics gave spiritual professions. Here as well preachers declare war on the idleness and laziness which lead to sickness and infirmity, through which man himself is destroyed. The commandment to work effected a tremendous ‘campaign of diffusion’ and confessional differences are almost nonexistent.149 In contrast to the case in the Reformed Church, Lutheran ‘job satisfaction’ did not lead to a connection between the ‘Protestant work ethic’ and the ‘spirit of capitalism’.150 In the Reformed Church, however, worldly success in work was linked to the belief in predestination. This placed a higher value on success in work. It was linked with a tendency towards asceticism in work and led to a maximization of profit, along with personal modesty. It is reasonable to expect that this conception was impressed upon the congregation by means of sermons. Wealth and Poverty The principle of inequality formed the kernel of early modern society.151 It was divinely ordained: just as there were privileged people who exerted power, and dependents who had to obey, there were also rich and poor. The divine order legitimized social inequality, and divided God’s gifts unequally. Nonetheless, life lived in need could be sustained as well as with excess. Even if it was said that work was profitable, in the final analysis it was God who led the way to prosperity. Humans were meant to use their gifts for the glory of God and the good of their neighbours. Goods achieved

147 Wagner, Epistel=Postill (see above, n. 9) II, p. 466; Georg Heinrich Häberlin, Postilla epistolica versicularis […] (Stuttgart, 1685), p. 302a. 148 Summarien III, pp. 1961–2. 149 Münch, Lebensformen in der frühen Neuzeit (see above, n. 140), p. 359. 150 Cf. Max Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (9th ed. Tübingen, 1988) I, p. 77. 151 Cf. Münch, Lebensformen in der frühen Neuzeit, pp. 68–70; Françoise DeconinckBrossard, “Le discours des églises sur la pauvreté,” in Pauvreté et assistance en GrandeBretagne, 1688–1834, Paul Denizot and Cécile Révauge eds. (Aix-en-Provence, 1999), pp. 77–88.

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through careful management could be used for necessary food for oneself, or could also alleviate the poverty of another. In no way was the believer to set his heart on these goods and to depend on earthly property. Wealth per se was nevertheless not at all reprehensible; it was indeed necessary for the support of churches and schools, for the payment of taxes to the authorities, for the proper nourishment of a man and his family, and for the aid of the poor. Mutual aid preserved love and unity among people. The weak beggars of a town had the right to count on the help of its citizens.152 On the other hand, able-bodied beggars, that is, those who were able to work, threatened the already scanty food supply of the village and urban population. They could expect no help. Whoever became poor through his own fault, whether through drunkenness, extravagance or indebtedness, could not rely on the support of society. On the other hand, those threatened by illness or death could count on solidarity, even if for the most part the surplus was scanty. Responsibility for the ill and for orphans was borne by civic and religious institutions. In this context, differences existed between Catholic and Protestant territories. The Capuchin Antonio dalla Barra (d. 1751), Bishop of Aversa, who preached in the farming villages around Naples, saw that his task as a preacher on alms consisted above all of dispelling doubt about the identity of the poor in his audience.153 Dalla Barra repeatedly brushed all possible objections on the part of the public aside. He came to the conclusion that the question of whether one was dealing with a needy person or a cheat was in the final analysis of no importance, since the receiver of alms was actually Christ. Vincenzo Maria Zaretti treated the rich as eternally damned in a sermon published in 1794, merely because they were rich.154 Whatever the rich did, be it never so pious, devout, altruistic, modest or self-sacrificing, it was always just hypocrisy. Being rich meant cheating, cunning and innate sin.155 The Tuscan Jesuit Paolo Segneri (1624–1694) saw only the profit motive in enterprise. The negative consequence was that wealth was squandered on luxury and magnificence. Segneri sought to convince businesspeople not to invest the profits they gained through management back into business undertakings, nor to invest it in luxury, but rather to make use of their wealth

152

Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) II, pp. 238–240. Cf. Battafarana, “Der arme Lazarus” (see above, n. 11), p. 190. 154 Cf. Battafarana, “Der arme Lazarus”, pp. 190–191. 155 Vincenzo Maria Zaretti, […] Quaresimali, Panegirici, e Sermoni (Napels, 1794) II, pp. 74–75. 153

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in a Christian manner.156 He condemned the maximization of profit by the entrepreneur.157 He wanted also to ensure that the rich not only supported the poor in material terms, but also ceased their exploitation of the poor: ‘Up to this point I have tried to encourage you to support the poor substantially. But O, God! It would be a lot if some, as I have said, even if they do not support [the poor], would at least refrain from oppressing them’.158 The Jesuit Wolfgang Rauscher (1641–1709) consoled the old and the sick, as well as those who were ‘devout, begging, indigent’ people, and who placed their faith in God: ‘there is a little piece of bread left over for you, indeed in the hand of the Lord, who can and will save you himself ’.159 The majority of preachers had to struggle with the social reality of a farming society based on scarcity. The mass of men was threatened by sinking into want and hunger. Illness and crop failure quickly led to a life lived below the minimum required for existence: ‘when again and again a half dozen children grow up, with nothing to chew or bite on’, then the path to begging and perhaps even vagrancy was indicated.160 5. Authorities and Subjects The social teachings of all Christian confessions came into conflict with the interests of the ruling classes. The churches taught a natural loyalty on the part of Christian citizens towards the state.161 Preachers were aware that earthly power always existed within, and not independently of, an order of power that for its part rested on divine laws.162 Political representatives of this order of power had to be personally responsible before God. Being in possession of both Tablets of the Law, the Lutheran authorities exercised trusteeship over both worldly and spiritual rule.163 This double

156 Paolo Segneri, Quaresimale (Florenz, 1679, 11th ed. Venedig, 1717), cited in Battafarana, “Der arme Lazarus”, p. 187. 157 Segneri, Quaresimale, quoted from Battafarana, “Der arme Lazarus”, p. 186. 158 Segneri, Quaresimale, quoted from Battafarana, “Der arme Lazarus”, pp. 188–9. 159 Wolfgang Rauscher, Oel und Wein Deß Mitleidigen Samaritans, vol. 1 (Dillingen, 1689), pp. 272a–3. 160 Resch, Discursus in festo S. Jacobi, quoted from Eybl, “Jakobus auf dem Lande” (see above, n. 99), p. 84. 161 Cf. Holtz, Theologie und Alltag (see above, n. 106), pp. 348–362. 162 Cf. Gerd Mischler, “English political sermons, 1714–1742: A case study in the theory of the ‘divine right of Governors’ and the ideology of order,” in British journal for eighteenth century studies 24 (2001), 33–61. 163 Johannes Öchslin, Das um einen nachdrücklichen Land-Tags-Seegen Zu GOTT Hertzlich seuffzende Würtemberg […] (Stuttgart, [1739]), p. 36.

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responsibility for the piety of the lower classes and the course of their lives formed the basis of the duties of the authorities.164 In principle the cooperation of church and state in preserving good order and ‘the common good’165 was indispensable. The responsibility of the authorities for the Lutheran church did not merely involve externalities such as the protection of churches, the facilitation of church services, the abolition of idolatry and the protection of theologians and teachers. According to their conception of themselves, Lutheran clergy occupied the position of mediator between authorities and subjects and both had to pay attention to the word of God. The church, just like the authorities, was interested in keeping subjects on the straight and narrow. Secular authorities thus had to take care that their subjects endeavour to follow a respectable way of life, an ‘external respectability’.166 Without these authorities, anarchy would reign, and no one would ‘remain lord of his manor for one hour’.167 The preachers had to take care that each person followed an appropriate way of life, not only out of fear of punishment, but also from inner conviction. Those who worked in churches had a difficult dual function: they were at one and the same time servants of God and servants of rulers. Nonetheless, clergy were mainly taken as representatives of the authorities by their listeners, not least because they were meant to satisfy the religious expectations of the congregation and not create problems in the first place. Without a doubt preachers stabilized political power through their measures concerning social discipline, although they also reminded the secular authorities that their responsibilities had been given legitimacy by the grace of God. Lutheran preachers made the governing classes take to heart the behaviour that was expected of them.168 The continuity and stability of political rule – the basic aspiration expressed by the behaviour of Lutheranorthodox rulers – similarly were held by the preachers to be inherent in a conflict-free change of government: ‘Thus a ruler does well when he enters 164 Cf. Wolfgang Sommer, “Obrigkeits- und Sozialkritik in lutherischen Regentenpredigten des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Predigt und soziale Wirklichkeit, Welzig ed. (see above, n. 11), pp. 348–362. 165 Dieter Stievermann, “Die württembergischen Klosterreformen des 15. Jahrhunderts: Ein bedeutendes landeskirchliches Strukturelement des Spätmittelalters und ein Kontinuitätsstrang zum ausgebildeten Landesfürstentum der Frühneuzeit,” in Zeitschrift für württembergische Landesgeschichte 44 (1985), 65–103, at pp. 99–100. 166 Johannes Öchslin, Christliche Predigt Von der Kinder-Zucht […] (Stuttgart, 1713), p. 22. 167 Johann David Frisch, Die wahre Fürsten-Ehre Jn einer Huldigungs-Predigt […] (Stuttgart, [1734]), p. B2v. 168 Cf. Holtz, “Vom Umgang mit der Obrigkeit” (see above, n. 87).

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into government […] when he maintains the pacta majorum, the old settlement and contract/…; in this way it appears that there has been no change of government […]’169 On the occasion of the burial of the Württemberg senior official Friedrich Jakob Witt (1640–1722), the sometime deacon and then court preacher Johannes Öchslin (1677–1738) took the opportunity to identify serious shortcomings in the administration. The preacher evaluated the dead man himself as a prime example of a civil servant, but noted that many ‘politici’ and authorities did not, in contrast to the deceased, have the skill of ‘self-knowledge’; their arrogance stopped them from having it; and indeed they indulged in unashamed partisanship.170 In spite of all the difficulties with officials, it was important to Öchslin that the ruler ‘did not arrogate everything to his own might, and act alone in the full force of his power against his own subjects’.171 In contrast, a wise ruler paid attention to the weal and woe of his subjects and attempted to further the common good (1 Kings 3:9). Such a ruler would also preserve the agreements that had been concluded by his predecessors. This was particularly important at a time when the Dukes of Württemberg were Catholic. Öchslin expressed himself forcefully on this subject: ‘We demand in the name of religion and its freedom nothing other than to be able to conduct ourselves freely and undisturbed in the ways of God, and to carry out his laws, rights and customs […]’172 When Duke Carl Alexander (1733–1737),173 who had converted to Catholicism, began governing, Johann David Frisch (1676–1742), a preacher at the collegiate church in Stuttgart, expressed himself very subtly on the occasion of his enthronement: ‘O it is of course in every way nothing but an expression of the love of God, when the land and its people are supplied with a ruler. The heathen have recognized that it would be even better to have the most evil ruler than to have none at all'.174 Rulers not only enacted laws, but also provided justice for all, and gave their subjects well-being, nourishment and safety.175 Frisch incorporated his – attested – expectation that he would be able to remain a Lutheran into the

169

Wölfflin, Christliche Landtags=Predigt 1675 (see above, n. 109), pp. 44–45. Johannes Öchslin, Hertzliche Liebe zu dem geschriebenen Wort Gottes Ist ein Vortrefflicher Vortheil eines vornehmen POLITICI […] (Stuttgart, [1722]), p. 24. 171 Öchslin, Land-Tags-Seegen, p. 33. 172 Öchslin, Land-Tags-Seegen, p. 27. 173 Cf. Hermann Tüchle, “Herzog Carl Alexander (1733–1737),” in 900 Jahre Haus Württemberg: Leben und Leistung für Land und Leute Robert Uhland ed. (3rd ed. Stuttgart et al., 1985), pp. 227–236, at pp. 227–228. 174 Frisch, Die wahre Fürsten-Ehre (see above, n. 167), p. B2r. 175 Frisch, Die wahre Fürsten-Ehre, p. C1r. 170

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responsibility of the ruler to ensure the eternal well-being of his subjects; this could only mean in this case remaining Lutheran. Frisch conflated his (officially sanctioned) expectation to be able to remain a Lutheran with his magisterial duty to be responsible for the eternal welfare of his subjects; in this instance, this could only mean remaining with his traditional Lutheran faith. Abraham a Santa Clara (1644–1709), a preacher at the imperial court in Vienna, did not himself shrink back from open criticism of the nobility: […] in these times it’s all over for preachers who trust rulers to speak out against troublesome public misdeeds and blasphemy, as the case of a certain court preacher demonstrates. He punished his ruler’s wicked lifestyle by telling allegories that the ruler was certainly able to pick up on. After a sermon, the ruler invited him to a meal. While they were dining in the finest style, the ruler spoke: ‘Mr. Court Preacher, you’ve been taking pot-shots at me!’ The court preacher answered: ‘Your Excellency, I’m very sorry. I was aiming at your heart, and here I find out that they were only flesh wounds’.176

The responsibilty of preaching at court, at the centre of power, was certainly a double-edged sword, since the court preacher was part of the court, but at the same time a member of the religious authorities.177 He was the voice ‘of objection and if need be of opposition to the absolutist world of court […]'.178 The ruler in his turn relied on sermons to support his power: for example, pietas Austriaca was the basis of the dynastic might of the Habsburgs.179 On the other hand he was at the mercy of the sermon with its demands and criticism.180 If the preacher discussed questions of government or indeed made criticisms in the pulpit, then this served abundantly as the stuff of conflict. This was not only the case for preachers at noble courts; in many cities as well, criticism that issued from the pulpit led to tensions between the religious and secular spheres.181 Preachers did not go 176 Abraham a Sancta Clara, quoted from Theodor Georg von Karajan, Abraham a Sancta Clara (Vienna, 1867), p. 132. Cf. Brecht, Der Barockprediger Ignatius Ertl (see above, n. 101), p. 69. 177 Cf. Rudolf von Thadden, Die brandenburg-preußischen Hofprediger im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der absolutistischen Staatsgesellschaft in BrandenburgPreußen, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 32 (Berlin, 1959). 178 Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 181. 179 Aemilian Daneli, Der Verstellte einer gantzen Welt/ Denen Christen aber bekandte Pilger/Heiliger Rochus […] (Vienna, 1728), cited Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit (see above, n. 39), pp. 195–206 (comment pp. 608–614, at pp. 608–610). 180 Cf. Dieter Breuer, “Der Prediger als Erfolgsautor: Zur Funktion der Predigt im 17. Jahrhundert,” Vestigia Bibliae 3 (1981), 31–48, here p. 35. 181 Cf. Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit (see above, n. 5), p. 181.

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out of their way at all to avoid an impending conflict with the nobility and did not let themselves be intimidated by the ‘baying’182 of the powerful. The state could fundamentally, however, count on the cooperation of the church, and not only in questions of social discipline.183 For example, August Graf Neithardt von Gneisenau (1760–1831) very consciously used religion as an instrument in the wars of independence.184 In August 1811 he lectured the Prussian clergy ‘of all Christian confessions’ on their responsibilities in case of war and provided them with propaganda material. He expected not only pointed sermons from them, but also patriotic missionary activity. The military preacher Christian Wilhelm Spieker (1780–1858), a theology professor at the University of Frankfurt a. d. Oder from 1809 on, spoke to military chaplains accordingly: they should say to the soldiers that ‘the deciding moment had come, in which they should justify the love of the king, the trust of the fatherland, the expectations of all patriots, […] that God was standing by them in battle, and that through their efforts an honourable peace would soon be achieved’.185 Faced with the brutalities of war, the preachers put their patriotic mission aside, since practical brotherly love and pastoral care were needed on the field of battle. Preachers nevertheless did not acquiesce to being used simply as an extension of the secular authorities. Even when they agreed with the goals of the nobility in issues of social policy and social discipline, they used their admonishing and warning position not only to bring about the behaviour desired by God in the lower classes, but also to shine a critical light on the behaviour of the nobility. It did not make the sermons of the Lutheran preachers apolitical when in so doing they referred often to examples from the Old Testament in order to comment on contemporary developments and events from the pulpit.186 Before a background provided by the authority of scripture, they argued by means of pictures which could easily be transferred by their listeners into the present. It is reasonable

182 Mauritius von Nattenhausen, Homo Simplex Et Rectus, oder der alte redliche Teutsche Michel (2nd ed. Augsburg, 1705) I, p. 101b. 183 Cf. Holtz, “Todesangst und Gottesfurcht” (see above, n. 23). 184 Cf. Hartmut Rudolph, Das evangelische Militärkirchenwesen in Preußen: Die Entwicklung seiner Verfassung und Organisation vom Absolutismus bis zum Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges, Studien zur Theologie und Geistesgeschichte des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts 8 (Göttingen, 1973), pp. 92–93. 185 Christian Wilhelm Spieker, “Was können Feldprediger im Kriege nützen?” Journal für Prediger 52 (1807), 241–288, at p. 264. 186 Cf. Holtz, “Vom Umgang mit der Obrigkeit” (see above, n. 87).

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to conclude that, since the Bible was one of the most important books in school, along with the catechism and hymnal, audiences had no difficulty in understanding their points. Argumentation made on a biblical basis protected preachers from possible charges of treason for harsh criticism of the nobility. Preachers thus occupied the position of watchmen over the nobility.187 6. Sermons and Stages of Life Birth, Childhood and Youth The household formed part of public order in early modern society; a form of rule therefore passed to the parents. It was children who really made a marriage into a household, and in the long run they ensured heirs, and that one would be cared for in old age.188 The birth of a child was a big event and signified the fulfillment of a fruitful union.189 Childlessness was taken as a stigma. God’s blessing rested upon every pregnancy, since pregnant women did not get that way only ‘through the orderly joining together of man and wife’: God himself formed the embryo, and the task of the woman was then to bear the child.190 The labour pains of the woman served as a reminder of the wages of Eve’s sin. Through them they felt the punishment for sinning laid down upon them by God.191

187 Cf. Luise Schorn-Schütte, “Zwischen ‘Amt’ und ‘Beruf ’ – Der Prediger als Wächter, ‘Seelenhirt’ oder Volkslehrer: Evangelische Geistlichkeit im Alten Reich und in der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Evangelische Pfarrer: Zur sozialen und politischen Rolle einer bürgerlichen Gruppe in der deutschen Gesellschaft des 18. bis 20. Jahrhunderts Luise Schorn-Schütte and Walter Sparn eds., Konfession und Gesellschaft 12 (Stuttgart, Berlin and Köln, 1997), pp. 1–35; Luise Schorn-Schütte, “Priest, preacher, pastor: Research on clerical office in early modern Europe,” Central European History 33 (2000), 1–39, at pp. 29–36; Dürr, “Images of the priesthood” (see above, n. 43), pp. 92–99. 188 Cf. Rublack, “Lutherische Predigt und gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeiten” (see above, n. 44), pp. 365–369. 189 Summarien I, p. 184 and Summarien III, p. 1601. Cf. Dugan, Images of marriage (see above, n. 114), pp. 123–138. 190 Bonifatius Stöltzlin, Geistlicher Adlerstein, d.i. Christlicher Unterricht, Gebet und Seuffzer für schwangere und gebärende Frauen (9th ed. Ulm, 1747), preface. 191 Stöltzlin, Geistlicher Adlerstein, pp. 1–2. – Cf. Werner Unseld, “ ‘Strafen, von der Seelen auf den Leib gelegt’: Predigt für alle, Seelsorge für Schwangere, Gebärende, Wöchnerinnen,” in Weib und Seele: Frömmigkeit und Spiritualität evangelischer Frauen in Württemberg – Katalog zur Ausstellung im Landeskirchlichen Museum Ludwigsburg vom 16. Mai bis 8. November 1998, Kataloge und Schriften des Landeskirchlichen Museums 8 (Ludwigsburg, 1998), pp. 45–48.

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Baptism played an important role not only in religious practice, but also in the life story of the parents. Through it the birth of the child was publicly acknowledged and at the same time the fruitfulness of the union was proven.192 In the eighteenth century it also became a Protestant practice to baptize newborns two to three days after the birth.193 To live without being baptized would be equivalent to being shut out of society. Only baptism counted as entry into the congregation and as a social legitimization of the birth. The relationship between parents and children was defined by honour and obedience, as described in the fourth commandment, in all confessions.194 Respect for one’s parents was based on the fulfillment of the required obedience. In addition to this, children should ‘behave and speak respectfully to their parents, gloss over their mistakes and faults, and be patient’; especially in old age, when parents were without means, one should be good to them and bless them.195 Parents were required by Protestant preachers to ‘love their children well’, so that the children could take their parents’ love as an example and ‘love them dearly in return and to conduct themselves such that they might at all times go honourably in their sight’196 For their part, parents were meant to cherish their children as a gift from God as ‘dear and worthy’.197 If parents were ‘sorely troubled’ by their children’s accidents, if the crying of the children really tugged at the mothers’ heartstrings, then they were feeling their love towards their children. The care of the mother was also apparent when ‘she cared for, instructed and raised her children heartily, deeply and truly’.198 The concern and care of the father also found its expression when he took the knife away from the child so that he would

192

Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, 190. Cf. Robert W. Scribner, “Die Auswirkungen der Reformation auf das Alltagsleben,” in Robert W. Scribner: Religion und Kultur in Deutschland, 1400–1800, ed. Lyndal Roper, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 175 (Göttingen, 2002), pp. 303–330, at p. 307. 194 Cf. Dugan, Images of marriage (see above, n. 114), pp. 138–58; Françoise DeconinckBrossard, “Representations of children in the sermons of Philip Doddridge,” in The church and childhood, ed. Diana Wood, Studies in Church History 31 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 379–389; Lawrence Wolff, “Parents and children in the sermons of Père Bourdaloue: A Jesuit perspective on the early modern familiy,” in The Jesuit tradition in education and missions: A 450-year perspective, ed. Christopher Chapple (London and Toronto, 1993), pp. 81–94. 195 Summarien VI, p. 1036. 196 Summarien II, pp. 509–10; Hochstetter, Christliche Antritts-Predigt (see above, n. 86), p. 21. Cf. Hoffmann, Die “Hausväterliteratur” (see above, n. 20), p. 134. 197 Summarien VI, p. 1061. 198 Christian Hagmajer, Zwey Abend=Predigten […] (Tübingen, 1728), p. 13. 193

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not hurt himself, but at the same time spoke to him gently, ‘[…] when he cried about it, and gave him something better in order to dry his tears’.199 The father-child relationship was often seen as a representation of the relationship between God and man. Through the analogy of the heavenly and earthly father a reason that inclined towards transcendence was given for the position of the paterfamilias.200 No observable difference appears in Catholicism. Catholic preachers had the corporeal and spiritual well-being of children at heart.201 They admonished parents to care for them thoughtfully and bring them up in a Christian manner. This occurred not only in sermons for St. Nicholas Day, when favoured children received presents, but also in special sermons about childrearing, and on the occasion of the popular symbolic distribution of gifts to the various estates during the New Year’s sermons.202 Andreas Strobl (1641–1706) asked that all parents take care of their children in material respects, but also ‘that they teach them to read and write and to practice an art or profession so that they have the necessary food and clothing, in order that today or tomorrow they could support themselves and find a crust of bread’.203 At the same time the preachers impressed upon children that they should stand by their parents in love and loyalty, just as the fourth commandment demanded. Here as well the preacher appealed to the adult children, evidently because of old people who were often neglected or at least treated as irksome. He illustrated the ungratefulness of children with drastic examples.204 In this context he also adduced further negative aspects of family life, that lead one to the conclusion that inter-generational relationships and relationships between master and servant were in no way always devoid of problems.205 The astonishingly exact depictions of the play of children in the house and out of doors, as well as the toys mentioned there, demonstrate that here was a childhood worthy of the name.206 Preachers were thinking mainly 199

Reuchlin, Kurtze Abbildung (see above, n. 17), p. 250. Cf. Gotthard Frühsorge, “Die Begründung der ‘Väterlichen Gesellschaft’ in der europäischen oeconomia christiana,” in Das Vaterbild im Abendland, ed. Hubertus Tellenbach, vol. 1 (Stuttgart et al., 1978), pp. 110–123, at pp. 114–123. 201 Cf. Moser-Rath, “Familienleben im Spiegel der Barockpredigt” (see above, n. 129), pp. 59–60. 202 Cf. Michael Christoph Benz, Neu-Erklingender Freudvoller Jubel-Schall […] (Stadt am Hof, 1702), p. 24. 203 Andreas Strobl, Ovum Paschale Novum Oder Neugefärbte Oster-Ayr […] (Salzburg, 1700), p. 15. Cf. Moser-Rath, “Lesestoff fürs Kirchenvolk” (see above, n. 68), pp. 51–52. 204 Cf. Moser-Rath, Predigtmärlein der Barockzeit (see above, n. 68), nr. 25. 205 Cf. Holtz, Theologie und Alltag (see above, n. 106), pp. 212–216. 206 Cf. Elfriede Moser-Rath, “Zeugnisse zum Kinderspiel der Barockzeit,” in Jahrbuch des Österreichischen Volksliedwerkes 9 (1962), 194–203. 200

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of the children of city-dwellers and farmers, and not of the families of rulers and aristocrats.207 They often complained about the pampering and mollycoddling of children, of an exaggerated level of care, indeed an ‘infatuation’208 on the part of parents, and urged more strictness. Here as well there was no difference between Catholic and Lutheran sermons, whence the overwhelming majority of examples are derived, particularly from the second half of the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century.209 When children misbehaved, parents were supposed to punish them in a ‘suitable manner’.210 Most preachers called for the use of the switch as an unavoidable and in all cases tried and true aid to raising children.211 Without a doubt, the constraints of employment left parents with little time for giving conscious attention to their children, and yet watchful care is evident. The parent-child bond was at the same time constrained by a severely authoritarian relationship, and corresponded to the social practices of early modern society. The fourth commandment was much mentioned in this context, as for example in Luther’s Großer Katechismus, and was directed mainly at adult children, who were not supposed to deny help and care to their old and sick parents. The emotional relationship between children and parents, in addition to the requirement of obedience, played an important part in the socialization of children. Children were granted much more than minimal care. The family was more than an alliance for the purposes of work; it provided room for emotional protection for children and enabled a feeling of safety and security. The absolutist state made clear, with increasing implementation of compulsory school attendance, that the disciplining of youth was not a private matter.212 Compulsory attendance at elementary school had been attempted

207

Cf. Moser-Rath, “Familienleben im Spiegel der Barockpredigt” (see above, n. 129),

p. 61. 208 Franz Loidl, Menschen im Barock: Abraham a Sancta Clara über das religiös-sittliche Leben in Österreich in der Zeit von 1670–1710 (Vienna, 1938), pp. 195–197. Cf. Hubertus Rauscher, Die Barockpredigten des Jesuitenpaters Wolfgang Rauscher in volkskundlicher Sicht, Ph.-Diss. (München, 1973), pp. 213–214; Leonhard Intorp, Westfälische Barockpredigten in volkskundlicher Sicht (Münster, 1964), p. 106. 209 Cf. Monika Hagenmaier, Predigt und Policey: Der gesellschaftspolitische Diskurs zwischen Kirche und Obrigkeit in Ulm, 1614–1639, Nomos-Universitätsschriften: Geschichte 1 (Baden-Baden, 1989), pp. 201–212. 210 Summarien (see above, n. 119) I, p. 510. Cf. Gerald Strauss, Luther’s house of learning: Indoctrination of the young in the German Reformation (Baltimore, 1978), pp. 176–182. 211 Wolff, Rugitus leonis (see above, n. 129), p. 96. Cf. Christoph Selhamer, Tuba Rustica, Das ist: Neue Gei-Predigen […], vol. 2 (Augsburg, 1701), pp. 12–13. 212 Christoph Ott, Hohe Schul Der lieben Eltern/ Darinnen Die Christlich- und höchst-nothwendige Kinder-Zucht […] gelehret wird (Augsburg, 1657, 3rd ed. 1728), pp. 320–321.

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in the Protestant territories since the second half of the sixteenth centuries. The Große Kirchenordnung, introduced in Württemberg in 1559, contained an attempt at a widespread provision of schools.213 Change at the middle and higher levels of the education system was not considered, and yet a far-sighted interest underpinned an elementary education that sought to treat boys and girls equally. Four subjects (reading, writing, memorization and singing) were taught at German school. The Bible, the catechism and hymns formed the curriculum. In 1729 Duke Eberhard Ludwig (1693– 1733) issued a new set of rules for German schools, which strengthened the function of the school as a place for religious instruction. This occurred as a result of Pietistic influence. The content of the curriculum in Reformed Bern was not noticeably different, where school was decidedly a religiouslybased institution. The intention was that lessons learned at Sunday school would be understood better with the aid of the catechism learned by heart.214 Pietistic influence can be observed in Württemberg from around 1720 on. A ducal Reskript of 1649 attempted to implement compulsory school attendance for the whole year, but resistance was long-lasting.215 It posited a certain norm, but the reality in cities and villages was quite different. Many cities were so-called Ackerbürgerstädte, populated by citizens who farmed land within the city limits, and thus were not far removed from the village way of life and its agrarian structures. The early modern territorial state did not have the capability either to implement established norms that penetrated to the lowest levels of society, or to punish resistance. School sermons, which were held twice a year, were therefore meant to convince parents of the necessity of sending their children to school for the whole year. Many more children attended school in the winter than in the summer. After the middle of the eighteenth century, however, school attendance in the summer as well was the rule. Catholic preachers urged parents to enable their children to go to school; this was far from self-evident, even despite the effort of the authorities. Christoph Selhamer (1640–1708), who was a secular priest active in Salzburg and Weilheim, called for school attendance from the seventh year, even if parents had reservations: ‘If I can’t read and write, why should my child be able to? It’s sour grapes, if they don’t want to grant their 213 Cf. Sabine Holtz, “Stadt – Land – Schule: Ein Beitrag zum Bildungs- und Schulwesen des Alten Reiches,” in Landesgeschichte und Geschichtsdidaktik: Festschrift für Rainer Jooß. Gerhard Fritz ed., Gmünder Hochschulreihe 24 (Schwäbisch Gmünd, 2004), pp. 79–95. 214 Cf. Schmidt, Dorf und Religion (see above, n. 26), pp. 109–113. 215 Landeskirchliches Archiv Stuttgart, A 9, nr. 1.

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children something when they should be seeking to further their children above all else’.216 The primary goal of raising children was thus for each person to be able to fulfill his assigned place in society for the glory of God and for the common good. In the household at that time, if the children ‘had turned out well and were God-fearing’, they were a ‘huge help in times of difficulty’ to their parents.217 The confessions did not differ significantly in their pronouncements.218 Illness, Old Age and Death The results of historical demography make clear how short the average life expectancy was;219 that of men was usually higher than that of women.220 The high birth rate alone, which was demographically moderated by a high infant and child mortality rate, had an impact on female life expectancy.221 Even when social and regional differences are taken into account, the fact remains that death was a fact of life for the people of the early modern period.222 Work that was hard on the body, limited nutrition, poor living conditions, all sorts of illnesses, poor hygiene and much more took a heavy toll on life.223 According to most estimates, old age began at about the age of fifty.224 Many representations of the course of life show this as the summit; it was all downhill from there.225 216 Selhamer, Tuba Rustica (see above, n. 211), pp. 93–95. Cf. Moser-Rath, “Lesestoff fürs Kirchenvolk” (see above, n. 68), pp. 51–52. 217 Summarien (see above, n. 119) III, p. 1602. Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, p. 107. 218 Cf. Moser-Rath, “Familienleben im Spiegel der Barockpredigt” (see above, n. 129), p. 63. 219 Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, pp. 207–15; Arthur E. Imhof, Die Lebenszeit: Vom aufgeschobenen Tod und von der Kunst des Lebens (München, 1988), pp. 54–68. 220 Cf. Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene (see above, n. 56), p. 89; Arthur E. Imhof, Die gewonnenen Jahre: Von der Zunahme unserer Lebensspanne seit dreihundert Jahren oder von der Notwendigkeit einer neuen Einstellung zu Leben und Sterben (München, 1981), pp. 159–71; Maisch, Notdürftiger Unterhalt und gehörige Schranken (see above, n. 123), pp. 281–91, here p. 284. 221 Cf. Imhof, Die gewonnenen Jahre, pp. 35–44; Maisch, Notdürftiger Unterhalt und gehörige Schranken, pp. 284–288. 222 Cf. Peter Borscheid, Geschichte des Alters, 16.–18. Jahrhundert, Studien zur Geschichte des Alltags 7,1 (Münster, 1987), pp. 152–162; Imhof, Die gewonnenen Jahre, p. 89. 223 Christian Brez, Excitatorium Adhortantis se Christiani (Nürnberg, 1722), p. 37. 224 Cf. Münch, Lebensformen in der frühen Neuzeit (see above, n. 140), pp. 452–485, at p. 471. 225 Cf. the copperplate engravings of Gerhard Altzenbach (c.1650), cited in Borscheid, Geschichte des Alters (see above, n. 222), pp. 33–37. Cf. van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag (see above, n. 111) I, p. 199; Münch, Lebensformen in der frühen Neuzeit, pp. 160–9.

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Protestant preachers were extremely ambivalent about what constituted advanced age. In 1676, when bloody dysentery was raging in Tübingen, Balthasar Raith (1616–1683) presented to his congregation a more profound assessment of the relationship between life and death, in which achieving old age alone was not the deciding factor. A ‘blessed end’ relativized the age of the dead person.226 The ideal was a peaceful death; nothing was more feared than a bad, meaning sudden, death.227 This applied equally in Catholicism, where sudden death presented a significant spiritual problem.228 In that case no appropriate preparations for death could take place; neither last rites nor farewells to family or monastic community were possible. One therefore had to pray to God for protection from sudden death.229 Only one thing was certain after death: personal responsibility before the judgement of God. Life was therefore not restricted to the here and now, but also corresponded to a life in the hereafter; a life of eternal duration was promised, if one assumed a favourable judgement. The transience of life was evident to people and was sufficiently confirmed by their own experience. No one could be sure that he would see the end of any given day; death and judgement could come upon him at any time. A fearful end waited for the one who lived unrepentantly.230 Preachers warned people urgently to prepare themselves for death as soon as they reached old age, because illness did not always precede death and many died suddenly. Only those who anticipated death through constant visualization were able not to fear it.231 For preachers, illness was the consequence of sin, just as the health of body and soul could conversely be seen as the highest gift in the world.232 God’s punishment of transgression was experienced as a lessening of existence, as illness or loss. Conversely, forgiveness or remission of punishment was 226 Balthasar Raith, Jm Namen JESU! […] (Tübingen, undated), p. 51. Cf. Michel de Montaigne, quoted from Sherwin B. Nuland, Wie wir sterben: Ein Ende in Würde? (München, 1994), p. 143. 227 Cf. Arthur E. Imhof, “Normen gegen die Angst des Sterbens,” in Leichenpredigten als Quelle historischer Wissenschaften, Lenz ed. (see above, n. 57), pp. 271–284. 228 Cf. Brandtner, “Zu einer Rhetorik des Herzens” (see above, n. 54), pp. 271–273. 229 Maurus Lindemayr, Rednerische Eingänge zu Sonntäglichen Predigten durch das Jahr, auf dessen aus dem Französischen übersetzte Advents- und Fastenpredigten Karls de la Rue […] (Augsburg and Innsbruck, 1772), p. 179. 230 Reuchlin, Kurtze Abbildung (see above, n. 17), pp. 190–191. 231 Matthias Heimbach, Newe Schaw-Bühne des Tods (Köln, 1716), pp. 19–23. Cf. Wisintho Hartlauer, ed., Rudolph Graser: Predigten auf alle Sonn- und Festtage des Jahres, vol. 1 (4th ed. Innsbruck, 1894), pp. 290–298, 513–520. 232 Summarien (see above, n. 119) V, p. 579. Cf. François Lebrun, Les hommes et la mort en Anjou aux 17e et 18e siècles: Essai de démographie et de psychologie historiques, Civilisations et Sociétés 25 (Mouton, Paris and La Haye, 1971), p. 391.

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seen as a furthering and benefit of existence. This understanding of illness as divine retribution did not exclude medical care, however; medicines were an element of God’s creation.233 All small and large catastrophes in the world counted as proof of a God angered by corrupted humanity. This was common to both Protestants and Catholics. Preachers of all confessions believed that one could set people on the straight and narrow by instilling fear of punishment in this life and the next.234 The eternal validity of an irreversible decision after death worked backwards into life. The goal of the preachers was to protect people through punishment immanent in this world from the path to eternal damnation. Ultimately it did not matter for people which eschatological conception they were confronted with after death.235 Judgement simply awaited them, which would decide finally for damnation or for salvation. In the Catholic sermons of Ignatius Ertl (1645–1713) death had become ‘the most terrifying of duellists’.236 7. Sermons and Polemic The confessionalization that all churches engaged in strengthened both the territorial and national identity of the (early modern) state. In consequence relatively closed areas for each confession were created, which still remained in the eighteenth century even despite the cautious beginnings of tolerance in the name of Enlightenment.237 It had already become evident during the religious wars of the seventeenth century that confessional uniformity throughout could not be produced merely by means of force. Many authorities has thus deemed it necessary to tolerate deviation. Followers of another religion were for the most part tolerated at best; they were not allowed to practice their religion openly and had to suffer various disadvantages. Ultimately this meant that the state still practiced enforced adherence to a particular confession even in the eighteenth century. Within closed confessional areas it was not necessary for sermons to exploit polemical disagreements with other confessions. As initial research into 233

Summarien V, pp. 272, 580. Cf. Lebrun, Les hommes et la mort en Anjou, p. 417; Norbert Haag, Predigt und Gesellschaft: Die lutherische Orthodoxie in Ulm 1640–1740, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte. Religionsgeschichte 145 (Mainz, 1992), pp. 314–315. 235 Cf. Holtz, Theologie und Alltag (see above, n. 106), pp. 143–170. 236 Ertl, Amara Dulcis (see abote, n. 103), p. 609. Cf. Brecht: Der Barockprediger Ignatius Ertl (see above, n. 101), p. 69. 237 Cf. Stollberg-Rilinger, Europa im Jahrhundert der Aufklärung (see above, n. 16), pp. 94–113. 234

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the ‘second confessionalization’238 has shown, the confessional factor gained renewed significance in the nineteenth century. The opening up of established confessional areas in the course of territorial revolution and then industrialization probably necessitated renewed confessional division by means of polemical disagreements. In the eighteenth century confessional polemic was most commonly found in areas where the confessions were not firmly separated from one another; the form that deviated from the religion of the state could only be experienced in private. A good example is the crypto-Lutheranism practized in the archbishopric of Salzburg until the expulsion of the Lutherans in 1731–1732.239 Under Empress Maria Theresa (1745–1780) as well, concerted action was undertaken against the Protestants who lived in Upper Austria (Land ob der Enns), Upper Styria and Carinthia.240 For example, the urban population of Schwanenstadt had already been converted back to Catholicism in the seventeenth century, but crypto-Protestantism was practiced by the rural population. For this reason Maria Theresa sent missionaries to the Protestant areas for the conversion of the ‘heretics’. After more than one hundred farmers sent a petition for ‘the free exercise of Lutheranism’ to the empress in 1751, forced expulsions of Lutherans living there followed from 1751 to 1758. In this context, Maurus Lindemayr (1723–1783) was assigned missionary activity by the Prior of the monastery of Lambach.241 Lindemayr spoke decidedly in defence of the transmigration measures. Looking back in 1777 he expressly condoned the separation of families: ‘Recall the years of grief, when large masses of the population who had risen up against the church migrated to Transyslvania. This was a blow to agriculture which was palpable. But one would have felt it even more, had the families not been parted: we now have the infants as good subjects, righteous Catholics’.242 His anti-Protestant position is also evident in his poems, as well as his Treuherzige Unterredung Eines Ländler Bauern, mit seinem Herrn Pfarrer 238

Cf. Olaf Blaschke ed., Konfessionen im Konflikt: Deutschland zwischen 1800 und 1970, ein zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter (Göttingen, 2002); Carsten Kretschmann and Henning Pahl, “Ein ‘Zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter’? Vom Nutzen und Nachteil einer neuen Epochensignatur,” Historische Zeitschrift 276 (2003), 369–392; Lucian Hölscher, Geschichte der protestantischen Frömmigkeit in Deutschland (München, 2005). 239 Cf. Erich Buchinger, Die “Landler” in Siebenbürgen: Vorgeschichte, Durchführung und Ergebnis einer Zwangsumsiedlung im 18. Jahrhundert, Buchreihe der Südostdeutschen Historischen Kommission 31 (München, 1980), pp. 27, 35–37, 62, 153–154. 240 Cf. Brandtner, “Zu einer Rhetorik des Herzens” (see above, n. 54), pp. 259–263. 241 Cf. Brandtner, “Zu einer Rhetorik des Herzens”, pp. 259–263. 242 Maurus Lindemayr, “Domine! Opus tuum,” in: Die Jubelfeyer des tausendjährigen Kremsmünsters, Benediktinerstifts in Oberösterreich […] (Linz, 1778), pp. 146–172, at pp. 168–169.

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(Linz c.1760/65). His Lied vom lutherischen Glauben oder Der katholische Bauer can be understood as a reaction to the Edict of Toleration issued by Joseph II (1765–1790) in 1781. Another scene of Controversialist disagreements was the city of Augsburg, where both confessions lived together on equal terms.243 Polemic served here as a means of shoring up and defending one’s confessional identity.244 Samuel Urlspeger (1685–1772), parish priest at St. Anne’s Church, preached a funeral sermon for a Senior of the Lutheran Ministerium, Gottfried Lorner (1666–1728), who had died on December 7. The sermon, which appeared in print in 1729, was based on a text chosen by Lorner himself, Romans 5:1, ‘Therefore, now that we have been justified through faith, let us continue at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’.245 In his interpretation, Urlspeger preached on the Lutheran doctrine of justification and the salvation that resulted for believers. When discussing examples of the theological steadfastness of the deceased, he came to the subject of dogma. The sermon thus did not only fulfill the usual function of a funeral sermon, but also served to strengthen confessional identity. Lorner had the reputation, far beyond the boundaries of the imperial city of Augsburg, of being a controversialist: he had engaged in confessional polemical disagreements with many representatives of Catholicism, particularly with the Jesuit Kaspar Mändl (1655–1728). Urlsperger referred back to this: ‘There will indeed be many from the opposite religion who will rejoice at my death and mock it; I ask alone of God before you that he have mercy upon you; and convince you that I do not hate your persons; I am now going in freedom to my God; thus nothing can harm me and you can mock me as you wish; you will have to answer for it’.246 Thus Urlsperger made use of the reconciliation expressed by the deceased in the face of death in order to depict the Lutheran position as one tolerant and ready for peace, whereas he described the Catholic camp as intolerant and aggressive.247 243 Cf. Ralf Georg Bogner, “Polemische Leichenpredigt: Die Augsburger Kontroverse um Franz Xaver Pfyffers Schmachrede auf Gottfried Lomer,” in Oratio funebris, ed. Boge and Bogner (see above, n. 22), pp. 211–233, at p. 213, n. 9. 244 Cf. Etienne François, Die unsichtbare Grenze: Protestanten und Katholiken in Augsburg, 1648–1806, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg 33 (Sigmaringen, 1991), pp. 147–149. 245 Translation taken from The New English Bible (Oxford and Cambridge, 1970). Samuel Urlsperger, Den Frieden mit GOtt/ als eine Frucht der Rechtfertigung […] (Augsburg, [1729]), p. 7. 246 Urlsperger, Den Frieden mit GOtt, p. 30. 247 Cf. Bogner, “Polemische Leichenpredigt” (see above, n. 243), p. 215.

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A good two weeks after the obsequies, the Jesuit preacher at the cathedral, Franz Xaver Pfyffer, piped up. Instead of the usual controversialist sermon held on Holy Innocents’ Day (December 28), he also gave a funeral sermon for Lorner, which also appeared in print.248 Following Lorner’s example, Pfyffer polemicized against the central points of Lutheran doctrine.249 This sermon in its turn did not go unanswered. Lorner’s son-in-law, Johann Martin Christel (1690–1752), sometime theologian and deacon at the Barfüsser church in Augsburg, composed a response. In further activity, the Jesuit preacher at the cathedral, Franz Neumayr, was defended in a funeral sermon preached against the reproaches of his Lutheran adversaries.250 Then in 1782 the prince-bishop of Augsburg forbade controversialist sermonsa ltogether.251 Contrary to these observations, polemic also existed outside of areas that were confessionally non-homogeneous. Johann Benedikt Carpzov presented himself as a Lutheran hardliner in his Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten (Leipzig 1703). He made use of every opportunity for strife that his sermon structure252 offered, speaking against both Catholicism and the Reformed Church. Carpzov caricatured the Catholic service with the saying, ‘passa, passa nice and fast and then always quickly off again’.253 He called the ‘papist’ doctrine of purgatory a ‘fable’; to him, the reports ‘of phenomena of the souls of the dead’,254 which confirmed this doctrine, were fabrications. According to his opinion, they only served to illuminate255 the ‘lies’ of this religion. Carpzov also criticized the Reformed doctrine of predestination.256 He judged the internal enemies of Lutheranism almost more harshly; they had already at the time of the Reformation been

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Franz Xaver Pfyffer, Die Saul der Kirchen/ Jn einer Leich-und Lob-Predig Zu Ehren deß Weyland (Titul) Herrn M. Gottfrid Lomers (Augsburg, 1729). 249 Pfyffer, Die Saul der Kirchen, p. 21. 250 Cf. Bogner, “Polemische Leichenpredigt”, p. 217, n. 20. 251 Cf. Peter Rummel, “Fürstbischöflicher Hof und katholisches kirchliches Leben,” in Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg: 2000 Jahre von der Römerzeit bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Gunther Gottlieb et al. (Stuttgart, 1984), pp. 530–541, at p. 537. 252 Carpzov, Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten, quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit (see above, n. 39), p. 375. 253 Carpzov, Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten, quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit, p. 394. 254 Carpzov, Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten, quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit, p. 397. 255 Carpzov, Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten, quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit, p. 397. 256 Carpzov, Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten, quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit, p. 373.

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disparagingly characterized as Anabaptists, enthusiasts and maniacs.257 It was understandable that Carpzov reacted with concentrated polemic against Johann Michael Wansleben’s (1635–1679) Gute botschaft, having understood it as ‘a holy encouragement to leave the Protestant pack of blasphemers’.258 Controversialist sermons such as these stand as an example of ‘engineered differentiation’.259 They were actually directed at those who belonged to the same faith and served as ‘support and fortification against papist horrors’.260 Sermons preached on the occasion of Reformation festivals were peculiar to Lutheranism.261 They served to reinforce the sense of self of the reformers as well as to differentiate the confessions. In addition, Catholic sermons on saints262 can be interpreted not only as ‘the dynastic programme of the Habsburgs’, but also as the ‘wish of the Counter-Reformation’.263 Despite his controversialist tendencies it was no problem for the Protestant Martin Geier (1614–1680) to borrow effective examples from well-tried Catholic authors.264 Theological controversies conducted by 257 Carpzov, Evangelische Vorbilder- und Frag-Predigten, quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit, pp. 385–88. 258 Johann Benedikt Carpzov, Schrifftmäßige Predigt/ von/ Der grossen Hure/ auf dem siebenköpffigten/ und zehenhörnigten/ Thier […] (Leipzig, 1687), quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit (see above, n. 39), pp. 453–520 (comment pp. 697–718). 259 François, Die unsichtbare Grenze (see above, n. 244), pp. 143–144. 260 Carpzov, Schrifftmäßige Predigt (see above, n. 258), quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit (see above, n. 39), p. 460. 261 Cf. Michael Basse, “Luthers Geschichtsverständnis und dessen geschichtstheologische Rezeption im Kontext der Reformationsjubiläen von 1817 und 1917,” Lutherjahrbuch 69 (2002), 47–70; Johannes Burkhardt, “Reformations- und Lutherfeiern: Die Verbürgerlichung der reformatorischen Jubiläumskultur,” in Öffentliche Festkultur: Politische Feste in Deutschland von der Aufklärung bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, ed. Dieter Düding, Peter Friedemann and Paul Münch (Hamburg, 1988), pp. 212–236; Hans-Dieter Schmid, “Reformations- und Lutherfeiern in Hannover, 1617–1883,” in Feste und Feiern in Hannover, ed. Hans-Dieter Schmid, Hannoversche Schriften zur Regional- und Lokalgeschichte 10 (Bielefeld, 1995), pp. 57–84. Cf. François, Die unsichtbare Grenze, pp. 153–167. 262 Cf. Kastl, Das Schriftwort in Leopoldspredigten (see above, n. 41), pp. 4–24. Cf. Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit (see above, n. 39), pp. 121–145 (on Florentinus Schilling, Oesterreichischer Marggraff. Das ist: Lob- vnd Ehrnpredigt vber das leben/ vnd thaten deß heiligen Leopold (Vienna, 1653) ) and pp. 147–164 (on Abraham a Sancta Clara, Austriacus Austriacus Himmelreichischer Oesterreicher Der Hochheilige Marggraff Leopuldus […] (Vienna, 1673) ). 263 Eybl, Abraham a Sancta Clara (see above, n. 4). Cf. Abraham a Sancta Clara, Neuerwöhlte Paradeys-Blum, Von der Allerdurchlauchtigsten Ertz-Hauß Oesterreich […]. Das ist: Danckbarliche Lob- und Lieb-Verfassung von dem glorreichesten H. Joseph (Vienna, 1675). 264 Cf. Martin Geier, Allgegenwart Unsers Allsehenden Gottes (Pirna, 1691), quoted from Welzig, Predigten der Barockzeit (see above, n. 39), pp. 79–102 (comment pp. 531–582).

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means of sermons were far from the rule. For example, the collected works of Ignatius Ertl (1645–1713) contained only one sermon that dealt with confessional issues. He directed his sermons at an exclusively Catholic public that was no longer interested in confessional quarrels.265 Johann Michael Sailer (1751–1832), as well, did not engage at any point in his Pentecost sermons with – admittedly thematically related – issues of schism.266 8. Sermons and Social Control Given the fact that churches tried in their sermons not only to impress Christian norms and values upon their listeners, but also to control these norms and in some cases to exact punishments through the use of synods and ecclesiastical courts, they made a considerable contribution to social control in early modern society. Preachers contributed to stability and order in society and operated in a way that promoted social discipline. Offences that were pursued by the ecclesiastical court committees were measured against both Tablets of the Law.267 Their punishments served to restore social peace (in the case of slander or malicious gossip), public order (in the case of violence or public nuisance), domestic harmony (in the case of marital or family disputes, or questions concerning the raising of children or their guardianship), and professional and economic cooperation. Spiritual and secular spheres could thus intersect. Conflicts over jurisdiction appear to have been a marginal issue, however. In issues of premarital and extramarital sex, as well as of theft, the committee on ecclesiastical discipline in any case only had the authority to establish the facts of the case. Most Enlightenment thinkers did not place the function of religion in doubt; they saw it as a partner in the maintenance of moral order. They in fact saw religion in this respect as indispensable for society. It was not the eighteenth century that first witnessed the church’s goal of playing a normative role in everyday life. Before this point it attempted to transmit guidelines on how to live one’s life in the familial and domestic as well as in the political and economic domains. Already around 1700 the Lutherans had achieved bourgeois or outer respectability. Pietists saw

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Cf. Brecht, Der Barockprediger Ignatius Ertl (see above, n. 101), p. 64. Cf. Saul: “Prediger aus der neuen romantischen Clique” (see above, n. 24), p. 40. 267 Cf. generally Heinz Schilling ed., Kirchenzucht und Sozialdisziplinierung im frühneuzeitlichen Europa, Zeitschrift für historische Forschung: Beihefte 16 (Berlin, 1994). 266

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this as external behaviour that conformed to norms, in which internal conviction was lacking. They wanted to prepare the way for the coming reign of Christ through a saintly life. They therefore subjected themselves to strict morally ascetic measures, whose main characteristic was intensive self-examination. English Methodism was engaged in a similar project; in addition, Jansenism, a Catholic renewal movement, was characterized by strict moral ideas and practical social engagement.268 These renewal movements had an effect on the churches despite sometimes separatist tendencies. In so doing they intensified already-exisiting efforts towards a Christian way of life. Pietism demanded a stronger degree of self-reflection; this intensified control over how life was lived. An account had to be rendered not only to the synod, but in private dwellings as well people had to reflect on their own ups and downs.269 Many recorded their thoughts in journals.270 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, synods were seen as institutions that policed behaviour; because of their religious character they were especially suited to pursuing the goals of the state: ‘the handling of justice, peace and quiet, social order, the welfare of the countryside and of the lower classes, the pursuit of good and the rejection of evil’.271 Pressing synods into service particularly showed that the goal of the state could no longer be based on religion. The task of the state, namely to hinder moral decay and to preserve public discipline and order, was now buttressed by the fear of undermining the happiness of the family and the state, and no longer by the otherwise palpable wrath of God. The social discipline function of the committees on ecclesiastical discipline remained untouched by this. The opportunity for an extensive consideration of confessional norms always arose when the interests of the church and nobility on the one hand and leading social groups on the other hand coincided. Norms were made use of in congregations in order to preserve and deepen social, economic and political differences. In the hands of the local elites, who were free to

268 Cf. Stollberg-Rilinger, Europa im Jahrhundert der Aufklärung (see above, n. 16), pp. 109–110. 269 Cf. Holtz, Theologie und Alltag (see above, n. 106), pp. 362–371. 270 Ulrike Gleixner, Pietismus und Bürgertum: Eine historische Anthropologie der Frömmigkeit. Württemberg 17.–19. Jahrhundert, Bürgertum Neue Folge: Studien zur Zivilgesellschaft 2 (Göttingen, 2005), pp. 124–145. 271 Friedrich Christian Ludwig Reyscher, Die Wirksamkeit und Behandlung der Kirchenkonvente und Gemeinde-Sitten-Gerichte, der Verwaltung der Stiftungen und des Armenwesens in Württemberg (Reutlingen, 1826), p. 9.

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decide what to do with their opportunities for economic and political influence, they were a suitable means of strengthening their own position and at the same time of expressing their distance from the lower classes. Only those principles of order and regulations on discipline that dealt with the perception of the lower classes as well as of their leading social groups were adapted. In so doing they were thoroughly successful in using norms and behaviours established by the church for their own purposes; for example, they were able to convert extramarital relationships, forbidden in reality, to their own interests.272 Certain age and gender groups made active use of church norms and implemented them when it came to questions of neighbourhood, marriage and sexuality. In this context it must be stated that the activity of committees of ecclesiastical discipline however was not limited to social discipline for long. Increasingly they took on the responsibility of congregational administration and of social welfare, particularly for the poor. 9. Conclusion In conclusion, one can state that it was not only the church but also the (absolutist) state that had an interest in the devoutness of their subjects. Only a devout subject, that is one who was under the thumb of his church and its preaching, was a reliable guarantee of public stability.273 Sermons became an instrument of social discipline in the service of church and state. Even when preachers agreed with the goals of the authorities, however, they did not let themselves simply be used as an extension of the secular authorities. They made used of their independent position to admonish and warn both subject and authority. Admonishment and warning were integral elements of a system of norms founded in social life that was meant to provide security and impart perspectives on the future; the transgressions of the individual could threaten society as a whole. Sin and misdemeanours were expressions of the lack of security of the world.274 After the middle of the eighteenth century mass media provided competition for sermons. Increasing literacy and a print market growing under 272 Cf. Andreas Maisch, “ ‘Unzucht’ und ‘Liederlichkeit’: Sozialdisziplinierung und Illegitimität im Württemberg der Frühneuzeit,” in Ländliche Frömmigkeit: Konfessionskulturen und Lebenswelten, 1500–1850, Norbert Haag, Sabine Holtz and Wolfgang Zimmermann eds. (Stuttgart, 2002), pp. 279–306. 273 Cf. Breuer, “Der Prediger als Erfolgsautor” (see above, n. 180), p. 35. 274 Cf. Holtz, Theologie und Alltag (see above, n. 106), pp. 257–270.

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the influence of the Enlightenment led to the displacement of sermons.275 Increasingly fewer people were instructed by means of oral communication. The printed word became an item of mass consumption, in the form of newspapers, journals and a swelling flood of book titles. The content of these book was changing as well: the proportion of religious literature steadily declined, while belles-lettres correspondingly increased. This in no way meant that sermons had given up their mission to speak to all levels of society, but they were on the verge of losing their significance, in the cities more quickly than in the countryside. A pluralism of opinions was on the rise. At this point many different media competed to offer direction on how to live one’s life. Until then, churches, by means of their preaching, had put a continuous case for discipline and moralization in train, to which many of the mandatory and self-evident norms and modes of behaviour of modern secular society can trace their roots.

275 Cf. Stollberg-Rilinger, Europa im Jahrhundert der Aufklärung (see above, n. 16), pp. 94–113.

FROM EMBODYING THE RULES TO EMBODYING BELIEF: ON EIGHTEENTHCENTURY PULPIT DELIVERY IN ENGLAND, GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS Herman Roodenburg 1. Introduction Having no films, but only such visual sources as pictures and prints to go on, we shall never know how a sermon was delivered in the eighteenth century – how a priest, a minister or a rabbi modulated his voice, how he used his eyes, hands, arms or, for that matter, the whole body when addressing the faithful. The scant data we have derives from written records: various church documents, the occasional eyewitness account, and – the main source for this chapter – manuals on pulpit oratory. For the Dutch Republic, some examples can be found in the Reformed Church’s records. They occasionally inform us on the exams of licentiates, which included an assessment of their bodily eloquence. Church councils looking for a new minister also evaluated a candidate’s delivery. Those with a strong, resonant voice and a wide range of expressive gestures had a far better chance of being appointed than colleagues with a husky or halting voice. A weak constitution was not recommended, either, for normally a good sermon required a fair amount of physical exertion. In the harsh winter of 1650, the Amsterdam church council actually proposed building a fire in the consistory so that the ministers ‘descending exhausted and sweating’ from the pulpit would not catch cold. In a similar vein, in 1780, an Amsterdam wigmaker advertised wigs that would stay put even during the ministers’ most furious gesticulations.1 Only rarely do we come across an eyewitness account: for example, notes taken down by a churchgoer who paid more attention to the preacher’s

1 Herman Roodenburg, Onder censuur. De kerkelijke tucht in de gereformeerde gemeente van Amsterdam, 1578–1700 (Hilversum, 1990), p. 79; R.B. Evenhuis, Ook dat was Amsterdam, 5 vols. (Amsterdam, 1965–1978) IV, 37. Cf. the lawyer and man of letters Justus van Effen (1684–1735) who disapprovingly quotes a village minister boasting that he never preaches for more than an hour and comes down from the pulpit ‘hardly more heated and worn out’ than upon going up. See Hollandsche Spectator 3 (1734), p. 256.

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sermo corporis than the sermo delivered.2 In the spring of 1634, the physicist Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) recorded the many gestures of Hugh Peters (1598–1660), a minister at the English Church in Rotterdam who certainly had the gift of oratory. Beeckman, one of the Republic’s few Ramists and a long-time friend of René Descartes, had a special interest in the nature of emotions and how they are displayed through the orator’s voice, countenance and gestures. In his notes, he described the minister’s fervent gesticulation in detail and approvingly wrote: ‘He depicts the matter well with his gestures’.3 Peters was a devout Puritan who before emerging in the 1640s as a major leader among Oliver Cromwell’s Independents, would leave Rotterdam for the New World, moving to Salem in New England. Peters’ style of preaching may be said to have followed William Perkins (1558– 1602) and his Prophetica, sive De sacra et unica ratione concionandi (1592). According to Perkins, the ‘father’ of Elizabethan Puritanism, preachers should always be ‘fervent and vehement’ in their delivery.4 A similar kind of oratory was defended by other contemporary authors, among them the Jesuit Nicolas Caussin (1583–1651). In his De eloquentia sacra et humana (1617), Caussin even allowed for grinding one’s teeth (when in anger), turning up one’s nose (when scornful) or stamping one’s feet (when embittered).5 If we may believe a third manual on oratory, the Traitté de l’action de l’orateur (1657) by the Geneva-born clergyman Michel le Faucheur (1585–1657), such vehement preaching came to be perceived as improper by the middle of the seventeenth century.6 What, actually, do these manuals tell us? When studying pulpit oratory, one may well take notice of Diana Taylor’s distinction between the ‘archive’ and the ‘repertoire’. Archival memory, according to Taylor, exists in the form of documents, maps, literary 2 For an interesting analysis of such accounts, collected from a variety of European countries, see the contribution by Van Eijnatten to this volume; also Urs Herzog, Geistige Wohlredenheit. Die katholische Barockpredigt (Munich, 1991), pp. 302–311. 3 Isaac Beeckman, Journal tenu par Isaac Beeckman de 1604 à 1634, C. de Waard ed. (3 vols.; The Hague, 1939–1945) III, p. 342; also quoted in A.Th. Van Deursen, Bavianen en slijkgeuzen. Kerk en kerkvolk ten tijde van Maurits en Oldenbarnevelt (Assen, 1974), p. 44. 4 Quoted in James Thomas Ford, “Preaching in the Reformed Tradition”, in Larissa Taylor ed. Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period (Leiden, 2001), p. 76. Perkins’ treatise was translated into Dutch in 1606 as William Perkins, Prophetica, dat is een heerliick tractaet van de heylighe ende eenighe maniere van predicken, trans. Vincent Meusevoet (Amsterdam, 1606). 5 Nicolas Caussin, De eloquentia sacra et humana (Paris, 1643). 6 Michel le Faucheur, Traitté de l’action de l’orateur (Paris, 1657).

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texts, letters, archaeological remains, bones, videos, films and compact discs. Conversely, the repertoire exists as embodied memory in the form of performances, gestures, orality, dancing and singing. The archive/repertoire divide exceeds that of written-versus-spoken language, for the archive encompasses more than merely written texts (think of paintings and drawings of church services that still exist today), just as the repertoire contains performances both verbal and nonverbal. What makes them different is their means of transmitting knowledge: the archive through supposedly enduring materials; the repertoire through the embodied action of the people actually involved. The relationship between the two modes of transmission, Taylor concludes, is not sequential. The repertoire does not disappear as the archive gains ascendancy; on the contrary, they usually work in tandem.7 Distinctions such as these are vital to qualifying the role of written culture.8 We should be aware, for instance, that manuals on preaching – the best source we have to document the phenomenon – were, at best, a prompt to performance. The manuals were nothing more than a mnemonic device: actual delivery was essentially a matter of observation, imitation and exercise. Once internalised – or rather, literally incorporated – delivery also became a matter of bodily memory. It had a performative force that, as every priest or minister came to realise, no published sermon could equal. As lamented by the English pastor John King (1559?–1621) in a preface to his own sermons: ‘[I] have changed my tongue into a pen, and whereas I spake before with the gesture and countenance of a living man, have now buried my self in a dead letter of less effectual persuasion’.9 It is inevitable, then, that this chapter – like all investigations into delivery, sacred or not – will, at best, just brush the subject; the repertoire itself is lost for good. As historians, we may try to reconstruct the contemporary delivery (labelled interchangeably in the Latin parlance of the time as actio or pronuntiatio). But we are in no better position than, for example, the Amsterdam professor of rhetoric Petrus Francius (1645–1704), who believed he could recognise the ancients’ bodily eloquence manifested in

7 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham 2003), pp. 18–22. 8 For a similar distinction (between inscribing and incorporating practices), see Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 72–78. Though critical of Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’, Connerton also profits from his work. 9 Quoted in Bryan Crockett, “The Act of Preaching and the Art of Prophesying”, in Sewanee Review 105 (1997) I, p. 48.

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the gestures of a famous actor at the Amsterdam schouwburg.10 What has survived is the ‘archive’, a handful of non-animated images and a fair share of texts – of which the manuals on pulpit oratory are the most significant. These manuals may shed light on what their authors were thinking at the time and how their views evolved. Sometimes they even offer us a glimpse of the repertoire by holding up an individual preacher’s delivery as an example that is worthy or unworthy of imitation. Until recently though, scholars have largely neglected this archive. Traditionally, historians of rhetoric, like those of homiletics, have been more interested in reading texts than reading gestures of the body. Considering the nature of the sources at hand and the inchoate state of the present research, the aim of this chapter is a modest one. I will focus on what seems specific to pulpit oratory in the eighteenth century, its break into sentiment and sensibility: an inclination to cherish the fifth department of ancient oratory, that of actio or pronuntiatio, while dismissing all but the most general rules on the subject. As argued by manuals that emerged in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth, a good preacher should not think too much about the rules. As long as his delivery answered to the prevailing codes of politeness, a preacher’s ‘fire’ as embodied in his voice, countenance and gestures, took precedence over the rules. What was at stake was all a matter of the preacher’s sensibility, his capacity for emotion and emotional expression, a nd the religion being veritably communicated through his body.11 Emerging around the middle of the eighteenth century, particularly in England, these views superseded older and more rule-based notions of sacred oratory. Authors on oratory in general shared these views, as did authors on stagecraft in France, England, the Netherlands and Germany. Thus, a newfound appreciation for unpolished delivery evolved. Eloquence could come to be appreciated among itinerant preachers, Methodists and other Pietists all over Europe. Though often going against the contemporary codes of politeness and propriety, a plain eloquence as such worked to move the hearts of the faithful, and in doing so, instil them with virtue and religion. More precisely, in what follows I will describe how French thinking on delivery, especially in the work of Le Faucheur, was received during the 10 Ben Albach, Langs kermissen en hoven. Ontstaan en kroniek van een Nederlands toneelgezelschap in de 17de eeuw (Zutphen, 1977), pp. 81, 147–148; C.L. Heesakkers, “Petrus Francius en het toneel. Latijnse testimonia”, in A.C.G. Fleurkens, W. Abrahamse, M. Meijer Drees eds., Kort tijt-verdrijf. Opstellen over Nederlands toneel (vanaf ca. 1550) aangeboden aan Mieke B. Smits-Veldt (Amsterdam, 1996), pp. 243–250. 11 For the eighteenth-century meanings of ‘sensibility’ and ‘sentiment’, see Joseph Roach, The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting (Newark, 1985), pp. 98–100.

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eighteenth century in England, Germany and the Netherlands. Le Faucheur was the first author to successfully merge the orator’s delivery with notions of civility. He left room for the passions, yet embedded them in a long list of rules governing the body, such as voice pitch, use of eyes and the raising of one’s arms and hands. Le Faucheur’s ideas would inspire the British ‘elocutionary movement’, in which actio or pronuntiatio came to be seen as simply surpassing ancient rhetoric’s other four departments: inventio, dispositio, elocutio and memoria. Gradually, Le Faucheur’s classicist rules would be abandoned and the movement would put the orator’s sensibility first. As I will argue, a very similar development (albeit several decades later) can be traced in both Germany and the Netherlands. This phase was all part of a wider movement in the history of preaching that strove towards verbal clarity and both rational and emotional accessibility, as promoted by the Latitudinarian divines Bishop John Wilkins (1614–1672) and Archbishop John Tillotson (1630–1694). Fighting the often arcane and all too stilted preaching of their time, they stressed the importance of persuasion and edification by putting the audience and their reception of the sermon first.12 After the middle of the century, however, there came a turning point which was no doubt informed by the elocutionary movement, the period’s cult of sensibility and contemporary German Pietism. After an initial focus on reason and rational argument, the manuals on pulpit oratory gradually began to shift their emphasis to that of sentiment and sensibility. 2. Delivery Regained As Wilbur Samuel Howell complained, typical of the British elocutionary movement was its almost exclusive interest in delivery or, to use the movement’s own terminology, ‘elocution’. Howell clearly deplores the whole episode. In advocating only the last of ancient rhetoric’s five departments, the movement marginalised the other four. Its adherents liked to quote Demosthenes who, according to Cicero, considered delivery to be the first, the second and the third among the accomplishments of an orator.13 12 Isabel Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780, vol. I (Whichcote to Wesley) (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 37–38; Paul Goring, The Rhetoric of Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Culture (Cambridge, 2005), p. 37. 13 Wilbur Samuel Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (Princeton, 1971), p. 172.

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The elocutionists’ emphasis on delivery was exclusive – and new. Once their writings on rhetoric were rediscovered at the beginning of the fifteenth century, Cicero and Quintilian’s influence took off. Together with the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, they became primary models for every self-respecting Renaissance scholar and, for that matter, all contemporary eloquence. However, few fifteenth- and sixteenth-century authors on rhetoric devoted much space to delivery. With the exception of the German humanist Jodocus Willich (1501–1555), no one wished to quote Cicero or Quintilian on actio, rejecting the ancient precepts as anachronistic.14 Another humanist, the reformer Philipp Melanchton (1497–1560) wrote: ‘delivery today is very different from that among the ancients’.15 Albeit across the religious divide, the Catholic rhetorician Bartolomeo Cavalcanti (1503–1562) agreed. Though these rhetoricians all deemed actio or pronuntiatio important, they relegated it to daily practice. Pointing to the period’s motley displays of gesture – the Babel of vernaculars – and finding no support in the writings of Cicero or Quintilian, they simply refrained from theory. Delivery was based on convention, not on any formally articulated rules.16 In the second half of the sixteenth century, such views were gradually abandoned. From then on, scholars started to believe that a general set of rules could – and should – be developed. Proponents writing on the eloquence of the church included various authors such as the Catholic priests Luis de Granada (1505–1588) and Lodovico Carbone (d. 1597), as well as Wilhelm Zepper (1550–1607), a Calvinist minister at the Nassau court in Dillenburg. In both Protestant and Catholic churches, the sermon came to acquire a more prominent position. It also generated a new interest in the uses of physical eloquence, consequently also encouraging Protestant and Catholic schools (especially of the Jesuit order) to incorporate in their curricula school plays and general training in actio.17 Discussions on delivery were also taken up by other scholars such as the Italian lawyer and historian 14

Jodocus Willich, Liber de pronvnciatione rhetorica doctus & elegans (Basel, 1540). Philipp Melanchton, Elementorum rhetorices libri duo (Wittenberg, 1531), quoted in Ursula Maier-Eichhorn, Die Gestikulation in Quintilian’s Rhetorik (Frankfurt and Bern, 1989), p. 38. 16 For the present and the three following paragraphs, see Dilwyn Knox, “Ideas on gesture and universal languages, c. 1550 – c. 1650”, in John Henry and Sarah Hutton eds., New Perspectives on Renaissance Thought: Essays in the History of Science, Education and Philosophy in Memory of Charles B. Schmitt (London, 1990), pp. 101–136. 17 Dilwyn Knox, “Order, reason and oratory: rhetoric in Protestant Latin schools”, in Peter Mack ed., Renaissance Rhetoric (London, 1994), pp. 63–80; Erika Fischer-Lichte, Semiotik des Theaters. Eine Einführung (3 vols.; Tübingen, 1995) vol. II. 15

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Giovanni Bonifacio (1547–1635) in his L’arte de’cenni (1616) and the German lawyer and Calvinist Johannes Althusius (1557–1638). As Dilwyn Knox has suggested, much of this new interest in theory may have been furthered by the spread of Ramism. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, the French logician and philosopher Pierre de la Ramée (1515–1572) proposed a simplified classification of the existing disciplines, which included a restructuring of classical rhetoric. In this system, the five departments were abolished; more precisely, inventio and dispositio were assigned to logic, while memoria was dispensed with altogether. What remained were elocutio (in its original meaning of mastering stylistic elements)18 and pronuntiatio which in and of itself heightened the positions of the two departments. Indeed, in Rhetorica, published in 1552, Ramée’s pupil Omer Talon (ca. 1510–1562) opined that pronuntiatio deserved an even higher position than elocutio, for unlike written or spoken communication, gestures formed a universal language that was shared by the whole of humanity. According to Knox, this new methodological ordering, combined with the period’s voyages of discovery, led Talon and a whole range of authors to believe in the universality of gesture and its being informed by general principles. Gesture offered a welcome and interesting means to overcome the confusion of spoken languages. Le Faucheur concurred. As stated in the first English translation of his work: ‘by Gesture, we render our Thoughts and our Passions intelligible to all Nations, indifferently, under the Sun. ‘Tis as it were the common Language of all Mankind’.19 3. Embodying the Rules Born in Calvinist Geneva, Le Faucheur (1585–1657) spent most of his life in France, serving as a clergyman in Montpellier, Charenton and Paris. Though he published other writings, Le Faucheur is best remembered for his posthumously publicised book Traitté de l’action de l’orateur (1657). The Traitté inspired many authors writing in the last decades of the seventeenth century and the first decades of the eighteenth, not only in France, 18 For a discussion of elocutio and the elocutionists’ use of the term, see Howell, Eighteenth-Century Logic, pp. 147–151. 19 [Michel le Faucheur], An Essay upon the Action of an Orator (London, [1702]) p. 171. On the work’s dating to 1702, see Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic, pp. 165–168. For readability’s sake, I have taken all quotations of Le Faucheur from this first, generally quite faithful translation.

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but also in England, the Netherlands and Germany. With its new and refined rules for delivery, the work offered more than just another miscellany of what Cicero, Quintilian and other ancients had to say on the subject.20 Even Howell praised the book as ‘one of the most respectable works in the whole history of the elocutionary movement and one of the leading treatises on delivery in the history of rhetorical theory’.21 Unlike the eighteenth-century British elocutionists, Le Faucheur did not believe that the other four departments of the rhetorical programme were a matter of lesser concern. He did regret, though, that the ancients wrote relatively little on delivery. They provided few rules at all (although Quintilian did propose rules for the bar), and naturally, they had no rules for the pulpit. Le Faucheur subsequently aimed to fill this lacuna, as well as to elaborate on Quintilian’s rules for the bar.22 Orators, according to Le Faucheur, should stir the passions, and delivery – more so than any of the other departments – could help achieve this aim. It was believed that preachers and lawyers could learn from the stage. They should observe how actors can modulate their voices (Le Faucheur praised lively intonation), and how they use their eyes, hands and entire body. From actors preachers could even pick up how to break into tears. As the French pastor admitted, such ‘worldly’ care for voice and gesture did not go uncontested. After all, religion is a spiritual thing, while voice and gesture are sensual and exterior. But one can hardly ban all sensuality from church; if that would be the case, church music should also be expelled. Moreover, the Bible tells us of the thunderous voices of St. John and St. James and the tears of St. Paul – the apostles already knew all about delivery. Le Faucheur’s Traitté aimed to demonstrate how preachers might touch the hearts of the faithful ‘not only with their discourse and Style, but in some measure also by the decency of their Speaking and the Fineness of their Action’. Proclaiming the glory of God, they may use their voice, countenance and gestures in a holy and salutary manner. At the same time,

20 For a typical and well-known example of such miscellanies, see Louis de Cressolles, Vacationes autumnales, sive de perfecta oratoris actione et pronunciatione (Paris,1620); on this work, see Marc Fumaroli, “Le corps éloquent. Une somme d’actio et pronuntiatio rhetorica au XVIIe siècle: Les Vacationes Autumnales du P. Louis de Cressolles (1620)”, in XVIIe Siécle 33 (1981), pp. 237–264; in 1783 Hugh Blair described a similar text, Gerardus Vossius’ Oratoriarum Institutionum Libri Sex (1616) as ‘one heap of ponderous lumber (…) enough to disgust one with the study of eloquence’. 21 Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic, p. 168. 22 [Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, pp. 8–9.

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they should take care not to be blinded by their own graceful action, not to turn ‘the Pulpit of Jesus Christ into a Theatre of their own Pomp and Vanity’.23 Le Faucheur’s interest in the techniques of actors and, specifically, their ability to rouse the passions of their audiences, may have been new, but his interest in the passions was not. The seventeenth-century Puritan Perkins condemned acting in a passage that already looked forward to Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) and the method school of acting.24 He urged the preacher to have a direct emotional involvement in his sermons: ‘Wood, that is capable of fire, doth not burn, unless fire be put to it: and He must first be godly affected himself who would stir up godly affections in other men. Therefore what motions a sermon doth require, such the Preacher shall stir up privately in his own mind, that he may kindle up the same in his hearers’.25 Similarly, Le Faucheur stated: ‘The Orator (…) ought first of all to form in himself a strong Idea of the Subject of his Passion; and the Passion it self will then certainly follow in course; ferment immediately into the Eyes, and affect both the Sense and the Understanding of his Spectators with the same Tenderness’.26 As he explained, this held true for the entire body, not only the eyes. Nonetheless, Le Faucheur saw eyes as the channel through which the passions were most contagiously exposed: ‘this Fire of your Eyes easily strikes those of your Auditors, who have theirs constantly fixt upon yours; and it must needs set them a-blaze too upon the same Resentment and Passion’.27 Much of this emphasis on emotional involvement derived from the oratory of the ancients and their notion that the best speakers are those who actually believe what they say. As Quintilian had already written: ‘Pectus est, quod disertos facit, et vis mentis’ (It is the heart which makes the orator, and his strength of mind).28 Celebrating such emotionalism, Le Faucheur seems to anticipate the eighteenth century’s culture of sensibility. At the same time, the emotional investment Le Faucheur expected was well defined; he added a long and detailed list of rules on how to use one’s voice and body in accordance with

23

[Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, pp. 14–22. Method acting, in which the character’s motivations and emotions are first thoroughly analysed in order to reach psychological realism and authenticity, was developed by Stanislavksi around 1900 to be perfected in the 1940s and 1950s by Lee Strasberg. 25 Quoted in Crockett, “The act of preaching”, p. 45. 26 [Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, p. 189. 27 [Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, pp. 184–185. 28 The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, trans. H.E. Butler (4 vols.; London, 1920–1922) IV, Bk. 10, Ch. 7, p. 15. 24

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the contemporary codes of civility, propriety and stateliness. Le Faucheur championed a ‘natural’ delivery, by which he meant refraining, on the one hand, from vulgarity and extremes of force, and on the other hand, from affectation and pomp. Against the vehement gestures promulgated by Perkins, Caussin and Beeckman, Le Faucheur proposed a pulpit oratory consonant with the rules of civility, something which contemporary manuals on the subject often described as the ‘science of conversing agreeably’.29 As Le Faucheur explains, the orator should ‘neglect nothing that may render him more accomplisht and agreeable to his Auditors’.30 His views may be situated in what Marc Fumaroli has described as a ‘new age of conversation’, taking its inspiration from the writings of Jean Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654), among others, and advocating a written French that is as natural as spoken French.31 Balzac moved in the circles of Madame de Rambouillet (1588–1665), as did Valentin Conrart (1603–1675), secretary to Louis XIII and one of the founders of the Académie Française. Although Conrart has on occasion been attributed as the Traitte’s author, he actually only supervised its publication after his friend’s death in 1657.32 Le Faucheur’s treatise appears to be the first manual that successfully integrates pulpit oratory with both contemporary codes of civility and a view on how to deploy the passions to the greater honour and glory of the Lord. This integration may explain its long-lasting popularity well into the eighteenth century. Around 1750, however, especially in England, ‘natural’ delivery came to be perceived as ‘unnatural’. It was dismissed as ‘affected’ and overly rule-based which, considering Le Faucheur’s intentions, seems a bit unfair. Though he presented his rules as strict prescriptions, the Genevan also pointed out that delivery was a matter of practice, habit and internalisation. Once the orator started speaking he should forget about the rules, for ‘the very thought of Rules and the care of observing them would mightily distract and amuse him upon that Conjuncture’. To acquire a good habit of speaking in public, the orator should first

29 Peter Burke, The Art of Conversation (Cambridge, 1993); Herman Roodenburg, The Eloquence of the Body. Studies on Gesture in the Dutch Republic (Zwolle, 2004), pp. 49–55. 30 [Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, p. 217; see also p. 211: ‘and as for his Action they are well enough satisfied, if it be but reasonable and agreeable, and do not offend their Ears or their Eyes’. 31 Marc Fumaroli, “De l’Age de l’éloquence à l’Age de la conversation: la conversion de la rhétorique humaniste dans la France du XVIIe siècle”, in Bernard Bray and Christoph Strozetski eds., Art de la lettre et art de la conversation à l’époque classique en France (Paris, 1995), pp. 217–232. 32 Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic, pp. 162, n.35 and 254.

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master the rules by testing them in private and then actually begin exercising them as soon as possible, before an ‘ungenteel habit’ might develop. By carefully selecting elders for imitation he might learn ‘to fly the Bad and follow the good ’.33 Such interest in training ‘habits’ reminds us of what Rebecca Bushnell has described as the contemporary ‘gardening metaphors’, notions that compare raising children to the practices of pruning, bending and weeding in the garden. According to Bushnell, there were actually two sides to humanist pedagogy. Repression was one side; the other was a respect for nature’s claims – a child’s ‘nature’, ‘seeds’ and ‘inclinations’. Similarly illustrating this, Erasmus wrote that, unless they are cultivated from the start, the shoots will grow wild: it will be the bad and not the good inclinations that will harden into habit.34 At the centre of such pedagogy was a requisite for ‘naturalness’, or at least, the semblance of naturalness and spontaneity. According to Le Faucheur, ‘all Affectation is odious … it must appear purely Natural, as the very Birth and Result both of the things you express and of the Affection that moves you to speak them’. Like his eighteenth-century critics, he already knew about the performativity of delivery, along with the feelings and meanings generated therein. Le Faucheur even seems to anticipate Pierre Bourdieu and Paul Connerton, and their concepts of habitus, habit and habitual memory.35 4. Britain: the Elocutionary Movement The Traitté was to become a major influence on the British elocutionary movement, with its beginnings traced to 1702, the year in which the first English translation of Le Faucheur’s manual came out. Though there is no mention of its author, the translation is clearly of Le Faucheur’s Traitté; the anonymous translator followed the original almost to the letter. It also appeared in a second edition in 1727 and a third edition in 1750. In 1710, the work was even adapted for the stage, namely Charles Gildon’s The Life

33 [Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, pp. 208–209; cf. Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic, pp. 175, 178. 34 Rebecca W. Bushnell, A Culture of Teaching: Early Modern Humanism in Theory and Practice (Ithaca (NY), 1996), pp. 98–103. 35 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, 1977); Connerton, How Societies Remember. Cf. Roodenburg, The Eloquence of the Body, pp. 17–23; Roodenburg, “Pierre Bourdieu: Issues of Embodiment and Authenticity”, in Etnofoor 17 (2004), pp. 215–226.

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of Mr. Thomas Betterton. Gildon (1665–1724) did not offer his audience so much the biographical account suggested by the production’s title, but rather, a summary of the translated Traitté delivered from the mouth of the famous actor.36 Whether Thomas Betterton (c. 1635–1710) ever even read the author is unknown, but it seems clear that Gildon was convinced of the actor’s capacity to embody Le Faucheur. Betterton’s performance managed to incarnate Le Faucheur’s defence of entwining passion with dignity, and of emotions working all the more powerfully through an orator’s bodily restraint. Gildon may have recognised in Betterton’s acting style enough of the Genevan’s penchant for propriety and stateliness to make him a creditable spokesman for his own ideas on the stage. As we will see, Gildon (who was an actor as well) took an interest in studies on delivery much as others were doing at the time. Around 1700, scholars discovering the importance of rhetoric as displayed through voice and gesture began to comment on the stage, while actors simultaneously came to realise they could learn from these learned writings and contemporary historical painting. Across Europe, actors began collections of drawings and paintings with the primary aim of documenting ‘postures’ that could be incorporated in their acting. Some took up drawing and painting themselves. Conversely, painters such as Gerard de Lairesse (1640–1711) took an active interest in the stage, while preachers, hoping to improve their method of delivery, took lessons with actors. From the last decades of the seventeenth century onwards, and frequently inspired by Le Faucheur, authors on the pulpit, the stage and the bar all sought to adopt the contemporary codes of civility that were moulded by exercises such as dancing, fencing and horseback riding. These very corporal activities were considered integral to the cultivation of that other eloquence: a natural, elegant and stately body.37 Le Faucheur’s translator saw the connections as follows: In fine, This Book is no Enemy to Good Breeding, and it intrenches upon no Mans Education or Profession. The Dancing-School indeed teaches Gesture or Motion wonderfully well, and the Ballance of the Body to Perfection; but it can never do the whole Business of an Orator nor accomplish him with all necessary Action either for the Pulpit or the Barr, till the Feet can speak Figures 36 Charles Gildon, The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, The Late Eminent Tragedian (London, 1710); cf. Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic, pp. 182–189; Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, pp. 122–127. 37 See Dene Barnett, The Art of Gesture: The Practices and Principles of 18th Century Acting (Heidelberg, 1987), pp. 121–135; Roodenburg, The Eloquence of the Body, pp. 83–109.

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and the Hands plead Causes. ‘Tis certain however, that Eloquence does not lay in the Heels, nor Rhetorick in Frisking and Gesticulation.38

In other words, rhetoric and civility should be integrated to meet in mutually advantageous ways. As the Traitté ’s translator continued to say, the work: will make as excellent a School-Book for Boyes as any extant; to reform the vitious Habits of their Pronuntiation; to refine the affected Rudeness of their Behaviour; to polish the natural Clownishness of their Gesture, and to give them a true Light at last into the main end and design of Rhetorick, which is to express themselves distinctly and handsomely in their Exercises upon all Occasions.

In short: ‘it will not be thought unworthy of any Young Gentlemans Pocket or Study, who has any value for the Graces of Action, and the Charms of Eloquence’.39 Le Faucheur’s rules would remain influential for much of the eighteenth century. However, things started to change around 1750 when, for instance, James Fordyce (1720–1796) proposed a pedagogical technique different from that of the Genevan. Fordyce was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who, already famous for his oratory in his home country, moved to London. There, he quickly attracted a crowd of admirers, among them long-time friend Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) and the actor David Garrick (1717–1779). Fordyce is the supposed author of a short and anonymous tract entitled An Essay on the Action Proper for the Pulpit (1753).40 The essay goes so far as to eulogise Garrick, articulating ideas corresponding with his innovations on the stage, specifically, the introduction of a more ‘natural’ style than that of Betterton and his followers. The work marks a crucial phase in what Paul Goring has described as the ‘sentimentalisation’ of delivery, which puts a premium on the affective power of religious oratory. Playing a crucial role here is the preacher’s voice and his gesture as a means to arouse the passions of the audience and work directly on their hearts. According to Howell, Fordyce merely echoed Le Faucheur, but he apparently overlooked the Essay’s real intentions. Fordyce actually rejected the Genevan’s didactics of internalising the rules, instead proposing training in pulpit performance that is grafted upon ‘genuine feeling’. Religion would 38

[Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, sig. A8r-Abv. [Le Faucheur], Essay upon the Action, sig. A9r.-A11r. 40 [James Fordyce], An Essay on the Action Proper for the Pulpit (London, 1753). Both the British Library catalogue and the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) attribute the essay to Fordyce. 39

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thus become visible through the preacher’s passions, manifesting themselves through the modulation of voice, in his eyes, gestures and bearing. A sermon ought to be emotionally contagious, and it was only the preacher’s habitus – his ‘warm and worthy heart’ – that could effect such contagion.41 As Goring explains, Fordyce’s new didactics worked by means of a preacher nurturing virtuous passions. If such emotions were genuine – truly felt – they would naturally and automatically mark themselves upon his body. Religion could only touch the hearts of the faithful through such marks that were manifested through the preacher’s sentimental body: ‘When they seem all possessed, expanded, exalted with those beautiful and sublime Perceptions which she inspires; when their Countenances brighten and their Eyes glow with her sacred Spirit … is it possible for the Auditors … not to be charmed into Love, or awed into Veneration?’42 The most important factor in affecting hearts was the orator’s eyes, especially when they welled up with tears. Fordyce’s ideal preacher, so writes Goring, was a lachrymoseone .43 In accordance with the open cultural climate, where actors were thoughtfully looking at drawings and paintings, even collecting them as inspirations to improve their gestures and postures, Fordyce illustrated his own arguments with Raphael’s St. Paul Preaching in Athens, a highly esteemed painting at the time. Fordyce praises Raphael for his masterful portrayal both of the apostle’s religiously inspired body and his hearers whose hearts are touched by the spiritual and bodily performance before them.44 Closely related to Fordyce’s didactics were those of the Irish educator Thomas Sheridan (1719–1788). Writing not only on the eloquence of the church, but also on eloquence in general (in addition to many other subjects), this former actor and charismatic public speaker defended his ideas in several books and numerous lectures throughout England and Scotland. In 1762, he published his Lectures on Elocution, an eight-part collection of his lectures.45 Sheridan advocated general reform of the English language. On the one hand, he aimed ‘to revive the long lost art of oratory’, as he called it; on the other, he sought to finally establish a standard English pronunciation. 41

Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, pp. 52–59, esp. 56–57. [Fordyce], An Essay on the Action, p. 25. 43 Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, p. 57. 44 [Fordyce], An Essay on the Action, p. 26. 45 Thomas Sheridan, A Course of Lectures on Elocution: Together with Two Dissertations on Language; and Some other Tracts relative to those Subjects (London, 1762). 42

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Within this ambitious and much lauded programme, Sheridan developed ideas very similar to those of Fordyce. Like the Scottish minister, he valued spoken over written languages, the former being the gift of God, the latter the invention of man. Living speech, voice and gesture could transmit our emotions. As he argued in his Lectures: ‘All writers seem to be under the influence of one common delusion, that by the help of words alone, they can communicate all that passes in their minds. They forget that the passions and the fancy have a language of their own, utterly independent of words, by which only their exertions can be manifested and communicated’.46 It is only through body language – ‘sensible marks’ like ‘tones, looks, and gestures’ – that emotions residing in the mind of one man may be communicated to that of another.47 Like Fordyce, Sheridan did not attach much value to Le Faucheurian rules, preferring instead an elocutional didactics in which a speaker strives to put feeling first. The philosophy was that if a speaker could succeed in emotionally identifying with the subject of his speech, he would grasp how good oratory works, how the pertinent emotions would be marked upon body and face through his bearing and gestures: ‘Let him speak entirely from his feelings; and they will find much truer signs to manifest themselves by, than he could find for them’.48 A third interesting figure was the Presbyterian preacher Hugh Blair (1718–1800). In 1783, he published his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, a collection of lectures he gave while serving as the first Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh.49 It seems he was not a very impressive speaker, his voice being weak and his delivery, poor. His writings, furthermore, indicated he was better at synthesising than innovating. As he all too modestly acknowledged: ‘There is little in the lectures that is original’. But by adopting ideas on delivery very similar to those of Fordyce and Sheridan, Blair still contributed substantially to the elocutionary movement.50 Until well into the nineteenth century, not only in England, but also in Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere, his Lectures would serve as one of the major textbooks on the market.51 46

Sheridan, A Course of Lectures, p. x. Sheridan, A Course of Lectures, pp. 99–100. 48 Sheridan, A Course of Lectures, p. 121. 49 Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (2 vols.; London, 1783). 50 On Blair and Sheridan, see Edward P.J. Corbett and James L. Golden eds., The Rhetoric of Blair, Campbell, and Whately (New York, 1968), p. 14. 51 Hugh Blair, Vorlesungen über Rhetorik und schöne Wissenschaften, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1785–1798); Blair, Lessen over de redekunst en fraaie wetenschappen, 3 vols. (Deventer, 1788–1790). 47

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Though not as radical as Fordyce and Sheridan, Blair identified with their encouragement of delivery, ‘for beyond doubt, nothing is of more importance’. He also agreed that, in the moment of speaking, orators should forget about the rules and merely follow nature. Ultimately, Blair stressed the orator’s own sensibility. As he wrote: ‘No kind of language is so generally understood, and so powerfully felt, as the native language of worthy and virtuous feelings. He only, therefore, who possesses these full and strong, can speak properly and in its own language, to the heart’. Furthermore, Blair continued: ‘On all great subjects and occasions, there is a dignity, there is an energy in noble sentiments, which is overcoming and irresistible. They give an ardour and a flame to one’s discourse, which seldom fails to kindle a like flame in those who hear; and which, more than any other cause, bestows on eloquence that power for which it is famed, of seizing and transporting an audience’. As Blair concluded: ‘A true orator should be a person of generous sentiments, of warm feelings, and of a mind turned towards the admiration of all those great and high subjects, which mankind are naturally formed to admire’.52 Blair thus demonstrates another notion of delivery fully similar to Fordyce’s and Sheridan’s, though distinct from Le Faucheur’s. Typical of the elocutionary movement as a whole, it matches the period’s interest in ‘sensibility’, in man’s inherent capacity for emotion and his disposition to respond to sensation. It also relates to the contemporary pursuit of energy and vividness which, according to Geoffrey Carnall, had its ‘most convincing application in the context of theatre and oratory, rather than in the written word’.53 As Joseph Roach has shown, these notions and other similar ones came to be articulated by theoreticians of the theatre, such as Luigi Riccoboni (1674–1753) (who boldly wrote about ‘Enthusiasm’ and ‘Divine Madness’), Pierre Rémond de Sainte-Albine (1699–1778) and the English physician, actor and playwright John Hill (1706–1775). These ideas were also expressed by Garrick, who wrote of the heart’s ‘instantaneous feelings, that Life blood, that keen Sensibility, that bursts at once from Genius, and like Electrical fire shoots thro’ the Veins, Marrow, Bones and all, of every Spectator’. Clearly, eighteenth-century pulpit oratory should be studied in connection with contemporary theories on acting as well as physiology and the passions.54 52 Quoted after Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (3 vols., Basel and Paris, 1801) II, pp. 224, 385; III, pp. 6–8. 53 John Butt, The Mid-Eighteenth Century, Geoffrey Carnall ed. (Oxford, 1979), pp. 495, 505–506. 54 Roach, The Player’s Passion (see above, n. 11), pp. 93–103; Carnall and Garrick also quoted there.

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Oratory, upon its break into sentiment and sensibility, was of course also closely related to contemporary literature. Among the religious orators celebrated for their actio was the Anglican clergyman Laurence Sterne (1713–1768). In 1759, he published the first parts of his ‘sentimental’ novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1759). The book would bring him international fame, with his most ardent admirers lovingly calling him ‘Tristram’. One such fan was the political radical John Wilkes (1725–1797) who, in reference to Demosthenes, urged a friend to go hear the well-known preacher: ‘Tho’ you may not catch every word of Tristram, his action will divert you, and you know that action is the first, second, third, &c parts of a great orator’. Answering to Fordyce’s ideal of the lachrymose orator, Sterne was a master at rousing the emotions of the faithful. Another contemporary noted how he ‘never preached (…) but half the congregation were in tears’.55 In his novel, Sterne also poked fun at contemporary manuals on delivery. Through the bodily eloquence of Corporal Trim, one of the book’s main characters, he offered an amusing parody of Le Faucheurian rules (for instance, the description of Trim delivering a speech bending forward so ‘as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the horizon’). However, in the same endearing character Sterne also depicted the perfect orator, the untrained amateur attaining eloquence by first living the very passions he must transmit. No gesture proved more touching than Trim throwing down his hat while speaking about the fickleness of life! As Goring has written, Sterne and other authors of sentimental fiction such as Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) or Henry Mackenzie (1745–1831) were masters at ‘staging’ somatic eloquence, thus reducing their readers to tears.56 As we will see, even this shared weeping (often the novels were read aloud before company) was recommended as an instrument to enhance the sensitivity of the heart. 5. Praising ‘Enthusiasm’ Inextricably bound up with the period’s quest for sensibility, seen as an innate sort of vitality, was an interest in those champions of unpolished ‘enthusiastic’ oratory.57 Their rhetorical qualities were suddenly taken

55 56 57

Both accounts quoted from Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, pp. 185–185. Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, pp. 144–145. See especially Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, Ch. 2.

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seriously because they offered a fine illustration of how orators could instrumentalise the passions and thus work directly on the hearts of their audiences. For example, in his British Education, published in 1756, Sheridan praised ‘the wild uncultivated oratory of our Methodist preachers’, and even suggested that their ‘canting and frantick gestures might be more forcible than the best regulated oratory’.58 Considering the Methodists’ dubious reputation and the condemning terms of ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘madness’ that were often employed to describe their gatherings at the time, Sheridan’s appreciation was a provocation more than anything else. Methodists were hotly discussed, although they comprised no more than 24,000 adherents in the 1760s and the majority belonged to the lower classes of both town and country. They were censured as much as they were feared for a perceived lack of physical control witnessed, for example, in the seemingly involuntary convulsions they underwent while hearing the sermon. Gradually, however, Methodist preachers also came to be admired for their oratorical gifts, their genius in stirring up the feelings of the faithful. Most famous among the preachers were the two leaders of the movement in England, John Wesley (1703–1791) and George Whitefield (1714–1770). Most appreciated was Wesley’s actio, always forceful though able to avoid giving in to Whitefield’s extreme emotions. In his twelve-page Directions concerning Pronunciation and Gesture (1749), Wesley even borrowed from Le Faucheur.59 Yet, Sheridan’s praise of the Methodists’ ‘canting and frantick’ ways, which many of his contemporaries equated with ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘madness’, was a gamble. Perhaps Sheridan realised this himself, for six years later, in his Lectures, he took a more cautious stance, assuring readers that his own idea of bodily eloquence was a polite and restrained one. Emotional and passionate, though not manic, this eloquence did not advocate the violent gesticulation cherished by the Methodists.60 In the decades to follow, such polished esteem for a delivery unpolished would become standard phrase. In his influential Essai sur l’éloquence de la chaire (1777), Archbishop of Paris Jean-Siffrein Maury (1746–1817) praised the delivery of Jacques Bridaine (1701–1767), an itinerant preacher who worked mostly in the Midi.61 Much later, in 1817, the Dutch professor

58 Thomas Sheridan, British Education: or, The Source of the Disorders of Great Britain (London, 1756), pp. 91, 153. 59 Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, p. 73 n.39. 60 Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, p. 112. 61 Jean-Siffrein Maury, Essai sur l’éloquence de la chaire (2 vols.; Paris, 1777) I, p. 144.

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of rhetoric Joannes Matthias Schrant (1783–1866) wrote approvingly of the ‘simple and unesteemed preachers, known in England by the name of Methodists, and in Italy by that of Improvisatoris (…), travelling the country or the streets of cities, and preaching penance’. Among them were ‘men inspired by an apostolic spirit, true orators of the people (…) who know no other fruits than conversion, no other acclaim than tears’.62 Naturally, no cultured reader of Maury, Schrant or any of the other authors on pulpit oratory expected to have himself converted by such preachers. Praising their artless delivery had the express function of putting polite delivery on the table, of making it less artful and appear less grafted upon Le Faucheurian rules. More than he did with the Methodists and their variety of Pietism, Schrant actually identified with the views of Johann Ludwig Ewald (1748– 1822), a German Reformed minister whose beliefs merged the German tradition of Pietism with the late Enlightenment. Of course, what all Pietists, including the Methodists, had in common was religious subjectivism. It made them natural allies in the search for a more affective oratory of the pulpit. Mostly channelled through the contemporary cult of sensibility, the actual impact of the British elocutionary movement in Germany and the Netherlands may well have been equally informed by contemporary German Pietism.63 6. Affective Oratory in Germany Well received both in Germany and the Netherlands, Ewald’s many publications included, among others, studies on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, church and educational reforms and the social position of women and Jews.64 For many years, Ewald conducted a lively correspondence with 62 Fenelon’s Gesprekken over de welsprekendheid in het algemeen, en over die van de kansel in het bijzonder, J.M. Schrant ed., (Amsterdam and Zaltbommel, 1817), pp. 70–71; see also the comments by Johannes Clarisse in Johann Ludwig Ewald, Over de uiterlijke kanselwelsprekendheid, trans. and ed. J. Clarisse (Zutphen, 1814), pp. 203, 210–211. 63 On Pietism taken in this integral sense and encompassing not only Methodism and German Pietism, but also the Dutch ‘Further Reformation’ with its eighteenth-century aftermath, see Martin Brecht, “Einleitung”, in: M. Brecht et al eds., Geschichte des Pietismus (4 vols.; Göttingen, 1993–2004) I, pp. 1–5; W.J. op ‘t Hof, Het gereformeerd piëtisme (Houten, 2005), pp. 14–35. 64 On the striking popularity of German theological writings in the Dutch Republic, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, see Joris van Eijnatten, “History, Reform, and Aufklärung. German Theological Writing and Dutch Literary Publicity in the Eighteenth Century”, in Zeitschrift für neuere Theologiegeschichte 7 (2000), pp. 173–204.

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two Pietists, Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801), also famous for his studies on physiognomy, and Philipp Matthäus Hahn (1739–1790). Later on, he also adopted ideas from Johann-Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827).65 Many of these inspirations, especially Kantian philosophy, may be traced in Ewald’s influential Ueber Deklamation und Kanzelvortrag, published in 1809 and translated into Dutch five years later.66 Like Le Faucheur, Ewald was well aware that his manual offered what was essentially a prompt to delivery.67 A distinction between the ‘archive’ and the ‘repertoire’ was here also made, albeit in his own terms. On the work’s very first page, he warns the young man with preacherly aspirations that his manual cannot replace actual exercise. Even after having read, studied, grasped and memorised the text – or, for that matter, all texts on the subject – the man will be no more of a good orator than a man who has read all the best existing violin manuals is a good violinist, or a man who has read all the best existing voice manuals is a good vocalist. In sum: ‘there is little to read here, but much to do’.68 ‘Oratory,’ explained Ewald, ‘is the capacity to act on other people’s selves through one’s own self and appearance – through ideas and sensations, and

65 Hans-Martin Kirn, Deutsche Spätaufkläring und Pietismus. Ihr Verhältnis im Rahmen kirchlich-bürgerlicher Reform bei Johann Ludwig Ewald (1748–1822) (Göttingen, 1998), pp. 53–86, 324–352. See also Johann Anselm Steiger, Johann Ludwig Ewald. Rettung eines theologischen Zeitgenossen (Göttingen, 1996). 66 Johann Ludwig Ewald, Ueber Deklamation und Kanzelvortrag. Skizzen und Ergüsse; auch zum Leitfaden akademischer Vorlesungen brauchbar (Heidelberg, 1809); Ewald, Over de uiterlijke kanselwelsprekendheid, J. Clarisse ed. (Zutphen, 1814); a second, revised edition of this translation was published in 1839 as Ewald, Voorlezingen over de uiterlijke kanselwelsprekendheid (Arnhem, 1839). On Kant’s influence on the German theology of his time, see C.W. Flügge, Versuch einer historisch-kritischen Darstellung des bisherigen Einflußes der kantischen Philosophie auf alle Zweige der wissenschaftlichen und praktischen Theologie (3 vols.; Hannover, 1796–1798). 67 The precise impact of Le Faucheur’s Traitté on German oratory still needs investigation. It was never translated into German, but did see a Latin edition in 1690: Michel le Faucheur, De actione oratoria sive de pronunciatione et gestu liber utilissimus (Helmstadt, 1690). In the eighteenth century, German manuals on pulpit oratory often seem to refer to the Traitté; both Le Faucheur and Francius are mentioned in Johann Jacob Engel’s influential Ideen zu einer Mimik (2 vols.; Berlin, 1785–1786). 68 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, pp. 3–4: ‘Diese kleine Schrift soll und kann dem Jünglinge keine Uebung ersetzen: sie soll ihn vielmehr überzeugen, daß er Uebung im Lesen, Deklamiren, in der anständigen Stellung des Körpers und in der Gestikulation bedürfe: daß er ohne sie, nie ein Redner werden könne. Und wenn er diese Schrift und alle Schriften über äusseren Vortrag gelesen, studirt, gefaßt und behalten hätte (…), so wird er dadurch eben so wenig einen guten Vortrag bekommen, wie mann durch das Lesen der besten gedruckten Violin- und Singschule, ein guter Geiger oder Sänger werden wird (…). Es ist hier wenig zu lesen, aber viel zu thun’.

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through language, facial expression and bodily movements’.69 Accordingly, it is the task of the religious orator ‘to act through appearance on the self, to lead a throng of people to morality, to warm them to the high merit of virtue, of true religiosity’.70 Ewald distinguishes between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ subjects, and from among the instruments available to both. The process as a whole presupposes reciprocity or ‘sympathy’, as he calls it, for what is ‘needed’ or ‘coveted’ by the one is ‘imparted’ by the other. Not surprisingly, we are reminded that man is a rational and a sensual being. People (certainly the ‘uneducated mass’) are motivated more by sensory impressions than by rational ideas. That is what makes delivery so allimportant. As the German writer Jean Paul (the pseudonym of Johann Paul Richter, 1763–1825) asked: ‘Why should the devil enlist all sensuality and God none of it?’71 Central to Ewald’s thinking – and almost echoing the elocutionists’ emphasis on the orator’s ‘fire’ – is that the self comes first. Before he ascends the pulpit, the preacher should turn to his inner self in order to ‘collect’ all that may affect appearance: ‘There has to be a life which must enliven, a warmth which must warm, a strength which must strengthen’. And he continues: ‘One should never imagine to act on the self through appearance alone’, such ‘hypocrisy’ will work ‘nothing durable and lasting’.72 Of course, rules are indispensable: a knowledge of counterpoint was necessary for Mozart, and Michelangelo needed to understand anatomy. But as Ewald reiterates, first something has to well up in an inner life before the self can enliven at all. What orators need, then, is a ‘sensitivity of the heart’, an openness ‘to be lifted, touched and enflamed’ by what their audience should also ‘lift, touch and enflame’. Ewald quotes Quintilian on the orator’s heart as well as Goethe’s Faust: ‘But from heart to heart you will never create, if from your heart it does not come’.73 69 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, p. 9: ‘Beredsamkeit ist die Fertigkeit, durch sein Inneres und Aeusseres, durch Ideen und Empfindungen, durch Sprache, Minen und Körperhaltung, auf das Innere Anderer zu wirken’. 70 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, p. 8: ‘(…) durch Einwirken des Auessern auf das Innere, eine Menschenmasse zur Sittlichkeit lenken, sie erwärmen für den hohen Werth der Tugend, der ächten Religiosität’. 71 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, pp. 29–31. 72 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, pp. 17–18: ‘Es muß ein Leben seyn, was beleben, eine Wärme, die erwärmen, eine Kraft, die stärken soll. Nie lasse man sich doch einfallen, durch bloß Aeusseres auf das Innere zu wirken. Diese Heuchelei, wenn sie auch bis zur höchsten Kunst geht, wirkt nichts dauerhaftes, bleibendes’. 73 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, pp. 86–87: ‘Es gibt eine gewisse Reitzbarkeit des Herzens (…), die ein Haupttalent des Redners ausmacht.’ ‘Es ist die Fähigkeit, sich schnell in jede Art von Empfindung zu versetzen, die mann jetzt ausdrücken soll und will; die

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If a young man does not know such sensibility, then Ewald has some devastating advice for him: ‘If you are not touched by any poem, drama or choral song, if a simply ‘majestic’ and purely sung hymn leaves you cold and always left you cold, if you do not warm more to a touching song read or a heart-rending story told to you than to a newspaper article read or a town gossip told to you, then go and study cameralistics, loiter in the chaos of positive laws and in the labyrinth of legal proceedings; go and become a botanist, a transcendental philosopher, an algebraist, build machines, houses, mills, measure heaven and earth, do what you like. But renounce the calling to spread religiosity through public oratory among your people’.74 Ewald’s realisation was that some people have more sensitive hearts than others, though the heart may – and, in fact ought to – be cultivated by everything enlivening the emotions. Ways to do so include conversing with sensitive people and reading aloud heartrending texts, to either oneself or like-minded others. Ewald does not mention Richardson or Sterne, but he recommends Shakespeare, Klopstock, the young (sentimentalist) Goethe, Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans, as well as Fénelon and Lavater. Music and singing, especially, could also enhance one’s sense of the heart. The aspiring clergyman should take every opportunity to hear vocal music. If he himself is a practitioner, he might perform songs written by Christan Gottlieb Neefe (1748–1798) on texts of Klopstock, hymns by Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752–1814), arias and duets from Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Schöpfung and Mozart’s Requiem. All pieces would deepen the sensitivity of the heart.75

Geschmeidigkeit, jetzt selbst belebt zu werden, von dem was Andere beleben, selbst gehoben, gerührt, entflammt zu werden von dem was Andere heben, rühren, entflammen soll.’ For the Quintilian quote, see above, n. 28; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. Eine Tragödie (Tübingen, 1808), p. 43: ‘Doch werdet Ihr nie Herz zu Herzen schaffen, wenn es euch nicht von Herzen geht’. 74 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, pp. 87–88: ‘Wenn du darum von keinem Gedicht, keinem Drama, keinem Chorgesange gerührt wirst; wenn dich der einfach “erhabene”, reingesungene Kirchengesang kalt läßt und immer kalt ließ; wenn du bei dem Vorlesen eines rührenden Liedes, bei dem Erzählen einer herzdurchdringenden Geschichte nich wärmer wird, als bei dem Vorlesen eines Zeitungsartikels oder bei dem Erzählen einer Stadtträscherei; so studire Kameralwissenschaften, treibe dich im Chaos der positifen Gesetze, und im Labyrinth der Prozeßformen herum; botanisire, transzendentalisire, algebraisire; baue Maschinen, Häuser, Mühlen, – miß Himmel und Erde aus, – treibe, was dus willst. Nur lasse dich von dem Berufe, Religiosität, auch durch öffentliche Reden zu verbreiten in deinem Kreis’. 75 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, pp. 88–91; Ewald also mentions the composer Carl Heinrich Graun (1704–1759) and his passion cantata, Tod Jesu (1755), and the poet Christoph August Tiedge (1752–1841) and his Urania (1801), containing poems ‘composed in heaven’.

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Finally, there are the notions of friendship and love, the former of which was preferred by Ewald. An intense bond with another young man who shares life’s joys and sorrows with you, opens his heart to you and will caution, encourage and restrain you, was believed to function better than a woman’s love. After all, in the former kind of love, the emotions remained more chaste, spiritual and powerful.76 At the end of his manual, Ewald compares the oratory of the pulpit with the stage techniques of an actor, as many authors before him, such as Le Faucheur, had done. As Ewald explains it, crucial to the preacher is Miene, the expression indicated in his eyes, forehead, mouth and all the animate aspects of his face. Revealed here are vanity, humility, frivolity, absentmindedness, timidity, complacency, feeling and concern. But Miene, a person’s facial expression, and Mienenspiel are two distinct concepts, for the preacher, unlike the actor, plays nothing. The preacher should take care to be truly moved by the emotion he is expected to express; failing to do so means he is merely playing and proffering forth no more than some Mienenspiel – precisely what actors do.77 Though Ewald does not mention Diderot, he implicitly refers to the Paradoxe sur le comédien, in which the French philosophe and encyclopaedist, distancing himself from Garrick’s art of the stage, argued that acting was not about feeling, but only mimicking gesture, posture and expression.78 In fact, Diderot offered a perfect argument for why religious orators would profit from visiting the theatre and how, while actors were faking, preachers were not.79 In consonance with such views, Ewald emphasises that imitation should be absolutely forbidden – it is a negative, artificial thing. By contrast, one’s delivery should seem totally genuine, a convincing alliance of politeness and nature: ‘Everything has to grow so natural to the young man, as if he never moved otherwise, could not move otherwise’.80 For as long as the aspiring preacher is conscious of the rules and fears failure, he will be far less convincing. But, according to Ewald, that will change because in the end: ‘the rules (…) will turn into a kind of instinct in him. No longer does he need to watch his movements. He will perform those rules so lightly, so 76

Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, pp. 91–92. Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, p. 110: ‘Also muß es das Hauptbemühen des öffentlichen Religionslehrer seyn, in dem Augenblick des Redens wirklich von der Empfindung ergriffen zu seyn, die er auszudrücken hat, wenn er anders durch seine Miene wirken will’. 78 On Diderot and his Paradoxe, see Roach, The Player’s Passion (see above, n. 11), pp. 133–136. 79 On faking and the Paradoxe, see William Ian Miller, Faking It (New York, 2003), pp. 195–200. 80 Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, p. 118. 77

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fluently, and so flexibly, yet move with certainty, propriety and expressiveness, and as perfectly as can be’.81 It seems another instance of Bourdieu’s notion of the habitus, whereby exercises turn into bodily automatisms, and ‘history’ turns into ‘nature’. 7. Affective Oratory in the Netherlands Compared to other German texts on sacred oratory, Ewald’s innovations were remarkable. He may have profited from earlier authors on the subject, especially Gotthilf Samuel Steinbart (1738–1809), Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741–1792) and a couple of authors publishing in the 1790s.82 But for most of the eighteenth century, the German manuals tend to emphasise the practical rules elaborated by Le Faucheur and his successors. The texts published in the Netherlands reveal a similar pattern, though they usually refer less to Le Faucheur than to Petrus Francius (1645–1704), professor of rhetoric (and also of history, Greek and Latin) at the Amsterdam Athenaeum Illustre. Francius reaped a great deal of fame after his Specimen eloquentiae exterioris was published in 1697. The book did not only offer a new edition of Cicero’s oration Pro Archia, but also provided a set of 39 rules concerning pronunciation and a set of 56 rules on delivery.83 Surveying the presence in Francius’ library of Balzac and a selection of manuals on civility, from Baldassare Castiglione and Giovanni della Casa to Antoine de Courtin and the Chevalier de Méré, he was as much an exponent of the ‘new age of eloquence’ as Le Faucheur. He may have found new models within the eloquence of the church in the writings of Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694), René Rapin (1621–1687) or Etienne Dubois de Bretteville (1650–1688), whose works were also present on his shelves.84 Rapin, 81

Ewald, Ueber Deklamation, p. 118. Gotthilf Samuel Steinbart, Anweisung zur Amtsberedsamkeit christlicher Lehrer unter einem aufgeklärten und gesitteten Volke (Zülichau, 1779); Carl Friedrich Bahrdt, Versuch über die Beredsamkeit nur für meine Zuhörer bestimmt (Dessau and Leipzig, 1782); Franz Christian Cordes, Ueber die Action angehender Prediger auf der Kanzel (Wittenberg and Zerbst, 1791); Johann Gottlob Marezoll, Ueber die Bestimmung des Kanzelredners (Leipzig, 1793); Johann Gottfried Pfannenberg, Ueber die rednerische Action mit erläuternden Beispielen; vorzüglich für studierende Jünglinge (Leipzig, 1796); Christoph Friedrich von Ammon, Anleitung zur Kanzelberedsamkeit (Göttingen, 1799). Clarisse mentions a translation of Marezoll’s manual by the Groningen professor of theology, Eelco Tinga (1762– 1828): Over de bestemming van den kerkelijken redenaar (Franeker, 1804); I have not been able to trace a copy of this book. 83 Petrus Francius, Specimen eloquentiae exterioris, ad Orationem M. T. Ciceronis Pro A. Licin. Archia accomodatum (Amsterdam, 1697). 84 Catalogus librorum Petri Francii (Amsterdam, 1705), pp. 224, 230, 233–234. 82

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whom Francius met in Paris in 1669 while on his grand tour of France, lamented the lack of sacred eloquence as much as Francius did. ‘It is a striking thing,’ Rapin wrote, ‘that among the persons devoting themselves to preaching one finds so few who distinguish themselves’.85 Leafing through De Bretteville’s L’eloquence de la chaire et du barreau, we come across many of the rules mentioned by both Le Faucheur and Francius. Francius’ Specimen was well received in the Netherlands. Indeed, it may have prevented Le Faucheur’s Traitté from becoming as influential in the Dutch Republic as it had in Britain. In 1701, the Specimen was translated into the vernacular and included in a convolute containing the first Dutch translation of the Traitté as well as another text on delivery, also in Dutch, taken from Jean Le Clercq’s Parrhasiana.86 Clearly, as the first English translation of the Traitté is dated 1702, it was only in these years that Le Faucheur’s merging of oratory and civility found a larger audience in the two countries. In the Netherlands, however, the Traitté may well already have been known among the French-speaking elite.87 Like the English translation, the convolute would see two reprints in the first half of the century, in 1741 and 1748,88 followed in 1753 by a new Latin edition of the Specimen alone.89 However, as the Dutch manuals on sacred oratory reveal, Le Faucheur’s and Francius’ rules would be valid until the end of the century. According to a number of sources, from Francius’ pupil Franciscus Fabricius (1663–1738) to Jan Konijnenburg 85 René Rapin, Les oeuvres du P. Rapin, qui contiennent les Reflexions sur l’Eloquence, la Poetique, l’Histoire et la Philosophie (2 vols.; Amsterdam, 1707) II, pp. 61–62. 86 Verhandeling van de uitspraak en gebaarmaaking van eenen redenaar door Michiel Le Faucheur; als mede Bestieringen aangaande de uitspraak en gebaarmaaking door Petrus Francius, en ten laatsten, Aanmerkingen aangaande de uitspraak, uit de Parrhaziana, trans. J. van Zanten (Haarlem, 1701). Like Francius, Le Clercq expresses his admiration for the Traitté, which he calls ‘a masterpiece of its kind’. Unlike Francius, he also knew the author’s name. 87 Howell mentions two French editions of the Traitté published in Leiden in 1686 and in Amsterdam in 1697; see Howell, Eighteenth-Century Logic (see above, n. 13), p. 163 n.86; other French editions were published in France itself. 88 Michel le Faucheur, Verhandeling van de uitspraak en gebaarmaking van eenen redenaar. Als mede Bestieringen aangaande de uitspraak en gebaarmaking door den here Petrus Francius; en ten laatsten Aanmerkingen aangaande de uitspraak uit de Parrhaziana. Ten nuttigen gebruike voor godgeleerde, regtsgeleerde, en alle openbare redenvoerders opgesteld, trans. J. van Zanten (Amsterdam, 1741); Le Faucheur, Verhandeling van de uitspraak en gebaarmaaking van eenen reedenaar (Groningen, 1748). 89 Petrus Francius, Specimen eloquentiæ exterioris, ad Orationem M.T. Ciceronis Pro A. Licin. Archia accomodatum (Groningen, 1753). Rather surprisingly, the Traitté even went through another Dutch edition as late as 1845: Michel le Faucheur, Over de voordragt des redenaars, of Over de uitspraak en het gebaar. Naar het Fransch, met aanteekeningen door J.M. Schrant (Leiden, 1845).

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(1758–1831),90 what must be emphasised are the rules and the preacher’s dignity – his deftigheid – not the sensitivity of the heart, his or his hearers’.91 Judging by the manuals, it would even seem as though it were only Ewald’s text, translated and amply commented on by the Reformed minister Johannes Clarisse (1770–1846), which would force a break into sentiment and sensibility.92 But the manuals only tell us one side of the story. Like Schrant, Clarisse looked up to Ewald and his adoption of Kant’s philosophy. His comments served to inform readers on the Kantian terminology employed by Ewald, explaining the philosopher’s notion of Sinnlichkeit, or sensory perception, and cautioning that, without any knowledge of the critical philosophers, no theologian would still be able to understand his discipline.93 Though he also criticises Ewald for his discussion of ‘sympathy’ or for overly graphic and rather irreverent terms (such as Verkörperung Gottes) that are occasionally used to described the working of God on man’s inner self, Clarisse fully endorses the German’s views on the relevance of the emotions and the preacher’s sensibility. As he rhetorically asks: ‘What will he bring forth (…) whose heart is not touched itself, is not filled, warmed, cheered, formed and enlivened itself by the truths of the Gospel and their reverential embrace?’94 He also dutifully lauds the Methodists, especially Whitefield, who knew how to appeal to the heart 90

Franciscus Fabricius, De heilige redevoerder (Leiden, 1728); Fabricius, Orator sacer (Leiden, 1733); Jan Konijnenburg, Lessen over het leeraars-ambt in de christelijke kerk (Utrecht, 1802); on Fabricius, see P.J. Schuffel, ‘From minister to sacred orator. Homiletics and rhetoric in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century Dutch Republic’, in: The Low Countries as a Crossroads of Religious Beliefs, Arie-Jan Gelderblom et al eds. (Leiden, 2004), pp. 221–245. 91 See for instance Salomon van Til, Methodus Concionandi (Utrecht, 1717); Taco van den Honert, Rhetorica ecclesiastica in usum auditori domestici conscripta (Leiden, 1742); Henricus van Ravesteyn, De Nasireer Gods tot den heiligen dienst toegerust, of heilzame raadgeving aan studenten, proponenten en jonge leraren, hoe zy in het huis Gods met vrugt kunnen verkeeren (Amsterdam, 1743); Jan Wagenaar, Zeven lessen over het verhandelen der Heilige Schrift in de godsdienstige byeen-komsten (Amsterdam, 1752). 92 Johann Ludwig Ewald, Over de uiterlijke kanselwelsprekendheid, uit het Hoogduitsch, met breedvoerige aanteekeningen door J. Clarisse (Zutphen, 1814); Ewald, Voorlezingen over de uiterlijke kanselwelsprekendheid (Arnhem, 1839). Clarisse did a thorough job. He supplemented his translation with numerous observations of his own, often on the oratory of the pulpit in the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic. Moreover, in referring to a host of ancient and modern authors on delivery, he turned Ewald’s elegant treatise into a weighty compendium aimed at all ministers in spe. While the original totalled 123 pages, Clarisse’s translation totals almost 400 and a second edition, published in 1839, over 500 pages. Interestingly, Clarisse was a pupil of Utrecht professor of theology Gisbertus Bonnet (1723–1805), who took acting lessons to improve on his delivery. 93 Ewald, Uiterlijke welsprekendheid, pp. 10–12, 108–109. 94 Ewald, Uiterlijke welsprekendheid, p. 29: ‘Wat zal hij voortbrengen (…), wiens hart niet zelf getroffen is, niet zelf vervuld, verwarmd, bemoedigd, bewerkt, levend gemaakt is door de waarheden van het Evangelie en derzelver eerbiedige omhelzing?’

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and the senses. While other preachers’ audiences were yawning and sleeping in church, witness the caricatures by Rowlandson, Whitefield’s hearers were moved to tears.95 Interestingly, neither Clarisse nor Schrant praised any of the Dutch Pietists. Similarly, the Dutch ‘spectatorial papers’, modelled after Richard Steele’s and Joseph Addison’s The Spectator, used to condemn all preachers appealing more to the passions than to reason. They especially denounced the mid-century ‘Nijkerker troubles’ (Nijkerker beroeringen), a striking number of revivals, similar to the earlier Scottish revivals, in which the faithful were reduced to tears and lost all control over their bodies.96 Commenting on the instruments available to the young preacher to foster his sensitivity of the heart, Clarisse recommends not only the music already mentioned by Ewald, but also reading the works of Sterne, Fielding, Richardson, the young Goethe and the Dutch sentimentalist writer Rhijnvis Feith (1753–1824). Similarly, Sterne’s Corporal Trim is held up as a model of pure, natural eloquence. However, Clarisse also cautions against shedding too many tears in the pulpit: it will hamper the preacher’s pronunciation, causing him to fiddle with handkerchiefs and, above all, enervating his ‘manly dignity’. Similar objections were raised by Schrant, in his comments on Fénelon. He criticises those colleagues who considered ‘novels and all kinds of sentimental pieces’ as homiletic handbooks, or that one colleague who used to appeal to the sentimentalist poet Edward Young (1683–1765) as if he were one of the apostles.97 However, like Clarisse, he subscribes to Quintilian’s ‘Pectus est, quod disertos facit’. In a central passage quoting not only the Roman orator, but also Ewald and Blair, he finally concludes: ‘The heart must feel, and the mouth must speak the overflow of the heart: that is oratory’.98

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Ewald, Uiterlijke welsprekendheid, p. 210. Dorothee Sturkenboom, Spectators van hartstocht. Sekse en emotionele cultuur in de achttiende eeuw (Hilversum, 1998); Joke Spaans ed., Een golf van beroering. De omstreden opwekking in de Republiek in het midden van de achttiende eeuw (Hilversum, 2001). 97 Schrant ed., Fenelon’s Gesprekken over de welsprekendheid (see above, n. 62, pp. 25–26, 32. Young was the author of the melancholy Night Thoughts (1742–1745), one of the most popular poems of the period and also translated into Dutch; for a general background, see Annemieke Meijer, The Pure Language of the Heart: Sentimentalism in the Netherlands 1775–1800 (Amsterdam, 1998). 98 Schrant ed., Fenelon’s Gesprekken over de welsprekendheid, pp. 72–73: ‘Het hert moet gevoelen, en van dat gevoel moet de mond overvloeijen: dat is welsprekendheid.’ Cf. p. 26, where Schrant, again quoting Ewald and Blair, opines: ‘Therein lies the great aim of the orator: to work on the inner self of others and to rouse their passions.’ (‘Daar in bestaat het grote doel des Redenaars: op het innerlijke van anderen te werken en hunne harstogten op te wekken.’) 96

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By the time Clarisse and Schrant recorded their comments on Ewald and Fénelon, the impact of the British sentimentalists, like that of Feith and the Dutch sentimental poets and novelists, had lost much of its former significance. Both ministers preferred Ewald’s synthesis of German Pietism and Kantian philosophy, though they could see affinities between Ewald’s thinking and the older developments in the elocutionary movement and the cult of sensibility. It may explain why they both appealed to this prior history and at the same time, writing in the 1810s, felt compelled to dissociate themselves from their colleagues’ sentimentalist exaggerations, or what was often referred to as the ‘Herveyan’ style of preaching, after the English clergyman and former friend of Wesley, James Hervey (1714–1758).99 8. Conclusion In this exploratory chapter, I have sketched some contours of eighteenthcentury pulpit delivery in England, Germany and the Netherlands, arguing how from mid-century onwards, manuals and other writings on the subject start to emphasise the preacher’s sensitivity of the heart, his disposition to literally embody belief in his voice, eyes, hands, arms and the whole body. Important vectors that emerged were the British elocutionary movement, the cult of sensibility, and late German pietism. The manuals on pulpit oratory offer a crucial and fascinating source for studying these developments. We may study the manuals from the stance of intellectual history, as did Howell. Or, we may adopt a Foucauldian stance, as did Goring, bringing in the body, though construing it merely as a surface, another text we can read in order to grasp broader cultural changes.100 When viewed from the perspective of embodiment (Taylor’s approach, though also Bourdieu’s and Connerton’s), we gain insight into the body as another important medium of transmission.101 We realise that these manuals, much like those on civility, only served as a prompt to

99 Jelle Bosma, Woorden van een gezond verstand. De invloed van de Verlichting op de in het Nederlands uitgegeven preken van 1750 tot 1800 (Nieuwkoop, 1997), pp. 315–316. Hervey reaped fame with his Meditations among the Tombs, Reflections on a Flower-garden, and Contemplations on the Night. His work was often translated into Dutch. 100 Goring, Rhetoric of Sensibility, pp. 18–19. 101 For a more recent approach, focusing on religion and embodiment and introducing the helpful notion of ‘sensational forms’, see Birgit Meyer, Religious Sensations: Why Media, Aesthetics and Power Matter in the Study of Contemporary Religion (Amsterdam, 2006).

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performance; delivery was first and foremost a matter of observation, imitation and incorporating practices. Everything was meant to look ‘natural’ and, at the same time, be ‘polite’. How to accomplish this task could also be learned by looking at historical paintings and, more than anything else, by watching the stage. Of course, in accordance with the axioms of neo-classicism, ‘nature’ should be helped; that is what all the exercise was about. Consequently, what was understood to be ‘nature’ constantly changed. What was regarded ‘natural’ or authentic by one generation was often considered ‘affected’ or even ‘fake’ by the next. To be taken seriously, preachers were to follow the codes of civility, or at least follow them precisely enough so as not to be dismissed as ‘affected’ or, on the other end of the spectrum, ‘uncultured’ (as the average village priest and itinerant preachers were considered). Yet, naturalness should also reveal a spiritual dignity that transcended the codes of civility. And, like actors, preachers were expected to know how to play to the passions of their audiences, though without forgetting their sense of dignity. This complicated task, which is returned to in every manual on the oratory of the pulpit, is what made practice so important. The discussions all revolve around constantly changing notions of authenticity. When looked at superficially, Blair’s or Ewald’s treatises hardly seem to differ from Le Faucheur’s Traitté. They keep emphasising the importance of a literal incorporation of the rules, of no longer having to reflect on them at the pulpit. But what changed was the prominence of the rules. Once the emotional accessibility of the sermon was recognised as being no less, or even more, important than its rational accessibility, it was the preacher’s sensibility that was put forward. And with this, there came a new, more subjective and corporeal twist to the notions of fake and authenticity.

GETTING THE MESSAGE: TOWARDS A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE SERMON Joris van Eijnatten 1. Introduction An analysis of audience reception of sermons based on surveys held in the 1970s among Roman Catholic churchgoers in West Germany yielded the following results.1 The ability of a preacher to captivate his audience strongly influenced appreciation of his sermon. The credibility or intelligibility of his message proved to be a less significant factor. The audience’s approval was greater if the preacher focused explicitly on the Bible. There was no clear correlation between the sermon’s duration and audience appreciation. Most of the audience tended to pay attention to the sermon in its entirety, although relatively few people actually remembered what they heard.2 The limited ability to recollect the content of the sermon was, according to most people, a consequence of its (imperfect) quality. The research suggested a relation between the level of education and the ability to remember. Those members of the audience who personally knew the preacher or had a more positive image of him tended to value the sermon more highly. Furthermore, a direct relation was found between age and approbation; the older the churchgoer, the greater his or her appreciation. The researcher’s general conclusion was that for German Catholics in the 1970s, the sermon was not a very significant part of church life. We may add that, in the age of gramophone, tape recorder, radio and television, audience responses to sermons apparently depended largely on who preached how to whom, and that what was actually preached may not have been as significant to hearers as the preacher probably would have liked it to be. Although there is a large and still burgeoning literature on the effects of mass media, especially television, little research has been done on audience 1 J.G.M. Sterk, Preek en toehoorders. Sociologische exploratie onder katholieke kerkgangers in de Bondsrepubliek Duitsland (2 vols.; Nijmegen, [1975]). 2 The figures concerning attention span were: 60% (attention to sermon in its entirety), 34% (partial attention), 6% (almost no attention); the figures for recollection were: 22% (substantial recollection), 35% (moderate recollection), 43% (little recollection).

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reception of sermons.3 Our knowledge of church audiences in the preelectric age is practically negligible.4 The reason why audience reception before the twentieth century is largely uncharted territory is quite simple. Sociologists and anthropologists avant la lettre did not think of holding the kind of surveys their colleagues do today. In consequence, applying the approaches of communication researchers to the past is, to a large degree, contingent on finding appropriate source material. Such source material does, in fact, exist. Cultural historians have long made use of diaries, autobiographies, letters, travel journals and even fictional accounts – in brief, all documents containing personal reflections, which have appropriately been called ‘ego documents’5 – to gather information on the attitudes and opinions of people in the past. Some ego documents provide material concerning the response of audience members to ‘media events’ such as the sermon. They allow us to take the point of view of the listener or reader and gauge his or her reaction to the sermon; such reactions may take the form of an emotional response, a reasoned attitude or concrete behaviour. Crucial to the use of ego documents is the assumption that writers are sufficiently reflective and willing to actively interpret what is communicated to them in church.6 This kind of audience response to the sermon as an ‘oral media event’ has not been methodically examined.7 The object of this chapter is to pioneer the use of this material in order to better understand the sermon’s role as a means of communication. It offers a provisory outline of a cultural history of the sermon. 3 Related research includes J. Donald Ragsdale and Kenneth R. Durham, “Audience Response to Religious Fear Appeals”, in Review of Religious Research 28 (1986), pp. 40–50; the authors found that ‘high fear appeals’ were appreciated more than ‘low fear appeals’, especially among listeners with strong religious beliefs, and that women listeners remembered more when the sermon had a ‘high fear appeal’. 4 One of the few systematic approaches is Ned Landsman, “Evangelists and Their Hearers: Popular Interpretation of Revivalist Preaching in Eighteenth-Century Scotland”, in The Journal of British Studies 28 (1989), pp. 120–149. 5 Cf. Rudolf Dekker ed., Egodocuments and history. Autobiographical writing in its social context since the Middle Ages (Hilversum, 2002). 6 I am assuming here that ego documents are to historians what surveys are to sociologists; a discussion of the methodological issues involved is necessary, but extends beyond the aims of this article. 7 On theatre audiences, see e.g. Richard Butsch, The Making of American Audiences from Stage to Television, 1750–1990 (Cambridge, 2000). There is little to be found on sermon audiences in e.g. Antoni Mączak, Travel in early modern Europe (Cambridge, 1995); Jean Viviès, English travel narratives in the eighteenth century. Exploring genres (Aldershot etc, 2002); Marie-Madeleine Martinet, Le voyage d’Italie dans les littératures européennes (Paris, 1996); Bärbel Panzer, Die Reisebeschreibung als Gattung der philanthropischen Jugendliteratur in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main etc, 1983).

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One way of systematically analysing audience response to media events is a method in communication studies called the ‘uses and gratifications approach’. According to the classic account, the uses and gratification approach is concerned to point out ‘(1) the social and psychological origins of (2) needs, which generate (3) expectations of (4) the mass media or other sources which lead to (5) differential patterns of media exposure (or engagements in other activities), resulting in (6) need gratifications and (7) other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones’.8 In this approach to audience reception of mass media, the intentions of the message’s producer (the preacher) and the content of his message (the sermon) are of secondary importance. The focus is on members of the audience who actively select those portions of the message they consider relevant to their personal life, and who may interpret it in individual ways, using their own frame of reference rather than the producer’s. Apart from suggesting that audiences are active interpreters of what they hear, see or otherwise witness, the uses and gratifications approach has several other characteristics. It assumes that a medium competes with other means of need gratification, in other words, that audience use of media is intentional. This assumption would seem to apply less to sermons, since church attendance was largely a social obligation. On the other hand, in the eighteenth-century, the sermon as a medium increasingly competed with other means of communication in gratifying religious, social or other needs. As an alternative to church services, people (especially those in urban settings) may have preferred to read the Bible, for example, or attend a conventicle, or even socialize in a coffee house. They did not necessarily just happen to be in the place where the sermon was held. In any case, if they wanted to fulfil personal needs or at least reciprocate the preacher’s effort in holding the sermon, they had to concentrate on what was being said. The question is, therefore, whether sermons gratified eighteenthcentury listeners as much (or as little) as churchgoers in twentieth-century West Germany. Gratification, whatever its corresponding need, can be achieved in at least three different ways: by disclosure of message content (listening to what is said), exposure to medium (being present at a sermon), or participation in the ritual of media performance (taking part in activities

8 The definition stems originally from E. Katz, J.G. Blumler and M. Gurevitch, “Utilization of mass communication by the individual”, in J.G. Blumler and E. Katz, The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research (Beverly Hills CA, 1974), pp. 19–32, at p. 20.

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surrounding a sermon). The various means through which hearers are gratified implies, of course, that a sermon may answer to very different needs. These do not necessarily have to be religious; they may pertain to any sphere of personal and social life. Thus, motives for attendance vary.9 They may be primarily cognitive, in order to acquire knowledge and understanding. They may be affective, resulting from the need to achieve an emotional or pleasurable experience, or to escape from ‘real life’ as a way of releasing tension. Thirdly, attendance may reflect a need to develop or reaffirm personal identity, to strengthen individual confidence or stability. Finally, sermon-goers may seek social affirmation in contacts with their community or family, or by developing personal relationships. In a sense, these motives for audience attendance correspond with the threefold aim of classical rhetoric: docere, to teach or persuade the intellect; delectare, to delight the mind; and movere, to touch the emotions. This chapter examines eighteenth-century audience reception by employing aspects of the uses and gratifications approach to obtain an understanding of the kind of reflection on the sermon one might find in ego documents. Since ego documents are relatively rare, and reflections on sermons even rarer, this account makes use of quite a wide variety of sources, mainly English, French and Dutch. The aim is to apply the different motives distinguished in uses and gratifications theory to ego documents written by people from different confessions in different national contexts. The following is therefore divided into four sections – respectively dealing with cognitive pursuits, emotional needs, personal fulfilment and social affirmation – each of which reflects a particular kind of need and its corresponding gratification. 2. Cognitive Pursuits One evident reason why people attended sermons was to gratify certain cognitive needs. Audience members wanted religious knowledge and insight, and the pulpit was one way of acquiring it. This may seem an open door, and it certainly agrees with the self-image and ambitions of preachers. According to one eighteenth-century theologian, a sermon should ‘explain the whole of religion’, which in effect meant that preachers were expected to 9 These motives were outlined in E. Katz, M. Gurevitch and H. Haas, “On the use of the mass media for important things”, in American Sociological Review 38 (1973), pp. 164–181.

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instruct, solve difficulties, unfold mysteries, penetrate into the ways of divine wisdom, establish truth, refute error, comfort, correct, and censure, fill the hearers with an admiration of the wonderful works and ways of God, inflame their souls with zeal, powerfully incline them to piety and holiness (…).10

It is important, however, to keep in mind that sermons could be used differently than those who delivered them intended. For example, sermons were sometimes used, not to understand the ‘whole of religion’, but to learn a foreign language. In order to have his English pronunciation corrected, a Dutch correspondent of the diarist James Boswell (1740–1795) read Samuel Clarke’s sermons out loud to a British exile.11 The future president of the United States John Adams (1735–1826) resolved to visit taverns, the courts and the theatres when next he visited France, and ‘go to Church, whenever I could hear a Sermon. These are the Ways to learn the Language’.12 Once in Paris, an abbé gave to Adams, on his request, a list of ‘the purest Writers of french’. Typically, he suggested, apart from Bossuet’s Histoire universelle, writings by La Fontaine, Molière, Racine and Rousseau, and ‘Le petit caerene [carême] de Massillon’ and ‘Les sermons de Bourdaloue’.13 John Adams also points to other uses to which the eighteenth-century sermon was put. For example, sermons provided topics for conversation. In Massachusetts, in 1759, discussing ‘News, War, Ministers, Sermons &c.’ was an integral part of social life.14 ‘Mr. Royal Tyler began to pick chat with me’, wrote Adams, who recorded the dialogue: ‘Mr. Adams, have you ever read Dr. Souths sermon upon the Wisdom of this World? No. I’le lend it to you. – I should be much obliged’. Such conversations were not simply a way of politely whiling away the time. Tyler did actually bring the book, and Adams carefully read it, ‘(…) and excellent Sermons they are. Concise and nervous and clear.’ Despite the political overtones, observed Adams, ‘there is a Degree of Sense and Spirit and Taste in them which will

10 Jean Claude, An essay on the composition of a sermon (trans. by Robert Robinson of Traité de la composition d’un sermon; 2 vols.; 3rd ed. London, 1788) I, p. 5. 11 Frederick A. Pottle ed., Boswell in Holland 1763–1764. Including his correspondence with Belle de Zuylen (Melbourne, London, Toronto, 1952), p. 359 (I.A.E. van Tuyll van Serooskerken to Boswell, 16-02-1768). 12 John Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams, L. H. Butterfield ed. (4 vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1962) II, p. 361 (Thursday, 22-04-1779). 13 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams II, 315 (Tuesday, 26-05-1778). The reference is to the sermon collection Petit carême (1745) by the Oratorian Jean-Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742), and to sermons by the Jesuit Louis Bourdaloue (1632–1704). 14 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, p. 97 (Spring 1759).

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ever render them valuable’.15 If sermons were appreciated for their content, this did not mean that the specifically religious information they contained was always considered most important. Sometimes sermons were treated at best as a form of socially relevant knowledge. In the ‘Bible, in the common sermon Books that common People have by them and even in the Almanack and News Papers’, commented Adams, could be found the ‘Rules and observations’ men needed to enlarge their understanding. Responsible citizens who kept abreast in this manner would be capable of electing a government.16 Useful Learning Listeners above all expected sermons to communicate religious knowledge, or, as some critics would have it, to at least create the impression that what they communicated was worth listening to. Enlightened Protestants criticized their orthodox fellowmen for their inordinate love of pseudoscholarship, and all Protestants took Catholics to task for the same reason. If we are to give credence to such accounts, eighteenth-century audiences often felt rewarded by displays of learning from the pulpit. Italians may have loved clownish preachers best but they esteemed learned ones most, asserted the Spanish priest-turned-Anglican Antonio Gavin (no dates) in the early eighteenth century. His harsh attack on Catholic custom is revealing for what it tells us about the radicalism of converts and the bias of Protestants. But Gavin does offer us a vivid if slanted view of Catholic preaching based on first-hand experience. One category of preachers Gavin treats is that of the erudite priest. In his sermons, this type of preacher made ample use of belles pensées, which (in Gavin’s opinion) meant that he avoided as much as possible the ‘natural sense’ of things. Rather, he resorted to an exegesis of Scripture that was ‘forcé, subtil, curieux, & recherché’. He also set great store by the authority of such Church Fathers as Chrysostome, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, next to Aquinas and Bellarmine. It flattered the erudite preacher’s vanity to prove to the people that his belles pensées were in perfect agreement with the views of the great men of the Church. Unfortunately, this type of preacher often failed to check his sources, and more often than not he

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Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, p. 362 (Sunday, 19-08-1770). Robert South had preached at Westminster Abbey on 1 Cor. 3:19 (‘For the Wisdom of this World, is Foolishness with God’, 30-04-1676). 16 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, 220 (Saturday, 1-08-1761).

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made dubious claims. Gavin, who had once heard a Benedictine at the Santa Prassede in Rome cite Saint Jerome, later took great pains to find that quotation in the writings of the Church Father. Needless to say, he was unable to find it.17 It is not difficult to find similar critiques of the Protestant love for learning, which apparently was just as widespread in Massachusetts as it was in Italy. Overly learned knowledge is useless knowledge, believed John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the son of John Adams. Parson Timothy Hilliard (1746–1790) once preached two sermons, on the very same Sunday, on the armour of God (Eph. 6:11). ‘The shield, and the helmet, the sword and the arrow, afforded subject for description, and application’. Adams Jr. was at a loss to indicate the use of such sermons. Hilliard’s objective was merely to show that it is man’s duty to avoid sin. For Adams Jr., this was a self-evident principle which no preacher needed to explain. He exclaimed, ‘how barren must the imagination of a man be, who is reduced to give descriptions of warlike instruments, to fill up a discourse of 20 minutes!’18 Enlightened observers qualified sermons on doctrine as equally useless. What surprised Louis-Antoine, Marquis de Caraccioli (1721–1803), was that preachers were inclined so vehemently to defend a truth already so well established. They filled their sermons with invectives against freethinkers who never attended sermons anyway, using arguments that only served to plant doubts in the minds of the hearers. It was for this very reason that the King of Sardinia had forbidden a preacher from Paris to preach in defence of Christendom.19 Not all members of the intellectual elite will have considered argumentative, apologetic sermons a waste of time; but a substantial number (relatively speaking, since they constituted a small minority of churchgoers) probably rejected doctrinal sermons of the excessively ‘mystical’ kind. The Independent clergyman James Murray (1732–1782), writer of the anti-Methodist Sermons to Asses (1768), once attended a meeting of dissenting ministers at Founders’ Hall in London. There he heard a dull and tedious (and presumably Methodist) sermon.

17 [Antonio Gavin], Histoire des tromperies des prestres et des moines de l’Eglise Romaine (2 vols.; Rotterdam, 1693) II, pp. 111–112, 115–117. 18 John Quincy Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams, David Grayson Allen, Robert J. Taylor, Marc Friedlaender, Celeste Walker eds. (2 vols., Cambridge (MA), 1981) II, p. 158 (Sunday 11-2-1787). 19 [Louis-Antoine Caraccioli], Letters on the manners of the French, and on the follies and extravagances of the times. Written by an Indian at Paris (2 vols.; London, 1790) (translation of Lettres d’un indien à Paris (1789) by Charles Shillito) II, pp. 205–206.

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Some London ministers claimed to have ‘great intimacy with the Spirit’, but this was not immediately apparent to Murray. The sermons he had heard were ‘indigested rhapsodies, destitute of sentiment, and crowded with absurdities.’ Their preachers employed scriptural texts much too freely and used a ‘mystic jargon’ that would have better suited a medieval scholastic.20 Sermons on exotic themes similarly raised questions as to their utility. Ironically, such sermons were also often best remembered precisely because of their extraordinary subject matter. In a French sermon on the countenance of Mary Magdalene, for instance, the preacher cited numerous authorities who claimed that she was beautiful, and as many who maintained that she was not. In the end, the priest solved the conundrum he had created for himself by concluding that Mary’s face changed according to the way she lived.21 Boswell is representative of the men of the world who did not consider preaching in traditional, old-fashioned vein to be particularly useful. He reports on a Glassite sermon event, where someone ‘harangued with a clear, strong voice and a fluence of words. But he uttered strange doctrine. He in explicit terms asserted predestination and election’, a subject Boswell detested. ‘The only circumstances in this meeting not of a piece with their dreary creed was very fine singing in parts. It reminded me of a choir of monks or nuns.’ Fortunately, that afternoon Hugh Blair preached ‘beautifully and rationally’ from another pulpit.22 At a Bereans’ meeting Boswell heard John Barclay ‘lecture drearily and wildly’, a ‘vulgar cant’ that did not differ much from that of the Glassites.23 He entered Adam Gib’s ‘seceding meeting-house’ in 1785 to ‘gratify my curiosity in experiencing to some degree the vulgar and dreary fanaticism of the last century in Scotland.’ The experience was not as bad as he had feared, although his curiosity was gratified more than his conscience. ‘They did not preach long, and there was nothing wild, but just the common old-fashioned Presbyterian way of haranguing’.24 20 [James Murray], The travels of the imagination; a true journey from Newcastle to London, in a stage-coach (London, 1773), p. 130. 21 [NN], Travels into France and Italy. In a series of letters to a lady (2 vols.; London, 1771) II, p. 128. These comments were provoked by the traveller’s visit to the Barbarini palace in Rome, where he saw the painting of Mary Magdalene by Guido Reni (1575–1642). 22 Hugh M. Milne ed., Boswell’s Edinburgh Journals 1767–1786 (Edinburgh, 2001), pp. 395–396 (Edinburgh, Sunday 21-05-1780). 23 Milne ed., Boswell’s Edinburgh Journals 1767–1786, pp. 437–438 (Edinburgh, Sunday 2-09-1781); the reference is to John Barclay, 1734–1798. 24 Milne ed., Boswell’s Edinburgh Journals 1767–1786, p. 536 (Edinburgh, Sunday 8-01-1786).

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The condescending and often derogatory observations of the Enlightened elite demonstrate, of course, that traditional preaching still captivated larger audiences, perhaps because of its familiarity or because it corresponded to or sustained the identities of certain religious groups. The more ‘Enlightened’ immediately recognized the orthodox Presbyterian method even if they did not appreciate it. In his early twenties, John Adams noted in his diary: Heard Mr. Maccarty. He is particularly fond of the following Expressions. Carnal, ungodly Persons. Sensuality and voluptuousness. Walking with God. Unregeneracy. Rebellion against God. Believers. All Things come alike to all. There is one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked. Shut out of the Presence of God. Solid, substantial and permanent joys. Joys springing up in the Soul. The Shines of G[od]s Countenance.25

He added no further comment; indeed, the young Adams often reproduced a sermon’s message in extenso without remarking on it.26 Adams did develop outspoken opinions in later years. An excellent sermon, in his view, amounted to ‘plain common sense. But other sermons have no sense at all. They take the Parts of them out of their Concordances and connect them together Hed and Tail’.27 As was to be expected, one of the main themes in eighteenth-century responses to (or comments on) sermons concerns the weight preachers should accord to doctrine in relation to morality. The general opinion was that the less they spoke about doctrine, the more useful sermons were. In one of his letters,28 the abbé Jean-Bernard Le Blanc (1707–1781) told a story about two Englishmen meeting in a coffeehouse on a Monday to discuss, over a bottle of French wine, the sermons they had heard the day before. One was the ‘devout and constant hearer’ of an Anglican preacher, the other the ‘zealous attendant’ of a Presbyterian teacher. They so furiously debated various points of theology (beginning with predestination) that they drew the attention of two ‘lewd women’ with whom they began a frivolous conversation. After a while they continued their discussion, at one point even drawing swords. In the end the drunks parted as friends. Suppose, continued Le Blanc, that the preachers had held moral sermons, 25 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, p. 28 (Worcester, Sunday 23-05-1756); Thaddeus Maccarty (1721–1784). 26 E.g. Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, p. 31 (Worcester, Sunday 30-05-1756) and pp. 43–44 (Worcester, Sunday 22-08-1756). 27 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, p. 73 (Tuesday ?-01-1759). 28 Jean Bernard Le Blanc, Letters on the English and French nations (2 vols.; London, 1747; translation of Lettres d’un François, 1745) I, pp. 374–378 (Letter XLVIII), at 376–378.

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say, on libertinism and drunkenness on the Sunday before. There would then have been no dissension in the coffeehouse. Le Blanc’s point is clear. Preachers should devote themselves more to ‘forming manners and correcting vice’, than treating topics their audiences, and often they themselves, do not understand. The anecdote associates doctrine with vice (drink, prostitutes and violence), and morality with virtue (peacefulness). Adams Jr. typically distinguished between two kinds of preaching, ‘the one, doctrinal, the other, practical.’ He, too, insisted that the latter was the more useful. ‘The abstruse points of religion, have so long been disputed upon, that it is probable every argument that can be of use on either side, has been repeatedly offered; and the preacher can do little more than give his own opinion’.29 Reporting on sermons he had heard, he wrote in his diary: ‘The discourses were moral, and practical; and I prefer hearing none at all, to hearing those of any other kind’.30 A minister who preached on Rom. 15:3, ‘for even Christ pleased not himself ’, first explained what the text’s meaning was not, and then what it was. In this particular case the juxtaposition of negative and positive explanations was appropriate, since the text might otherwise have been misconstrued, but really the approach was very old-fashioned. ‘In former times a Minister would take, an hour to prove, negatively, that the Lord, was not Job, nor Satan, nor in short any thing but God. This absurd custom, is now I believe, universally abolished’.31 Not all worldly-wise travellers and diarists were as patronizing. Italian publics were gratified by other sermon genres than the moral, and these proved to be just as effective in disseminating ethical counsel. As inhabitants of warmer climes, declared the Prussian historian and traveller Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz (1743–1812), the Italians are governed by two ‘powerful passions’, love and vengeance. Such moral topics could well be tackled from the pulpit, but hardly any preacher devoted sermons to them. Italian sermonizers considered the miracles of the saints to be ‘themes of a much sublimer nature’. And apparently these themes bore fruit, since the principle of neighbourly love was ingrained in the Italian people.32 English Protestants tended to equate Italy and the Italians with backward Catholicism, but there were some exceptions. In the 1780s, one

29

Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams I, p. 373 (Sunday 18-12-1785). Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams I, p. 407 (Sunday 19-02-1786). 31 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams I, p. 385 (Sunday 8-01-1786). 32 Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, A picture of Italy (translation by Joseph Trapp of vols. 4–5 of England und Italien, 1785) (2 vols.; London, 1791) I, p. 11. 30

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Signor Paoletti, a curate and ‘practical farmer’ in the neighbourhood of Florence, had the habit of instructing his audience on agriculture after the sermon; the members of his congregation were free to leave the church if they so wished. The curate’s archbishop took him to task for his troubles, despite the fact that the priest neglected none of his duties. The British agriculturalist Arthur Young (1741–1820) faulted Leopold, the Enlightened Grand Duke of Tuscany, for not reprimanding the archbishop. The duke would have done well to ‘encourage an attention to agriculture in the clergy’, and in addition to reward a good farmer and worthy priest, who so adroitly combined the sacred with the secular.33 Apposite Devices Perhaps we may draw two general conclusions from the previous section: first, different audiences require different message content; and, second, sermons will be appreciated most when they fit the expectations and/or understandings of the audience. If most clergymen were bound by both profession and conviction to point out that homiletics is something quite distinct from rhetoric, they were not at all averse to oratorical tricks of trade. Serious Protestants, of course, valued concentration on the Bible. Evelyn in 1680 censured a sermon by the Dean of Sarum, In which he assembled so many Instances out of heathen histories, and greate persons, who had quitted the Splendor and oppulence of their births, fortunes, and grandures, that he seemed for an houre and halfe to do nothing else but reade Common-places, without any thing of Scripture almost in his whole sermon, which was not well.34

Again, we may surmise that at least some audience members will have been pleased to obtain such elaborate information on defunct persons of distinction. Catholics delighted in telling trivial stories – at least, that is what Protestant travellers typically liked to report. The French lawyer and writer Pierre Jean Grosley (1718–1785), not exactly an impartial observer, made this point in his account of a journey through Italy. At a Jesuit meeting there, he once heard tell of a beautiful young princess who had devoted 33 Arthur Young, Travels, during the years 1787, 1788, and 1789. Undertaken more particularly with a view of ascertaining the cultivation, wealth, resources, and national prosperity, of the kingdom of France (2 vols.; 2nd ed. London, 1794) II, p. 273. 34 John Evelyn, The diary. Now first printed in full from the manuscripts belonging to Mr. John Evelyn ed. Esmond Samuel de Beer ed. (6vols.; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1955) IV, p. 197 (26-03-1680).

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body and soul to the Virgin. Predestined to wed the heir of a neighbouring state, she implored the Virgin to help her keep her vows. Her prayers were soon answered, for on the night before her wedding she lost an eye and became a leper, making her somewhat less eligible for marriage. The preacher’s imagination amply provided his audience with the gruesome details necessary to paint the fair lady’s miserable plight.35 Looking back, it was clear to Grosley why a French Jesuit had advised him not to attend this particular meeting. Yet, to many if not most listeners, the moral of this tale was probably perfectly clear. God still works miracles, devotion is more important than beauty or status, and true faith will triumph over worldly politics. Sermons for the common people, held in Rome on street corners by apprentice preachers belonging to religious orders, were badly organized and poorly delivered. Such ‘declamations’ mostly treated purgatory, hell or similar subjects, and their proofs were derived exclusively from tales; in fact, according to Grosley, the populace derived most of its religion from these stories.36 A Corsican parish priest, preaching on ‘They go down alive into the pit’ (Ps. 54:16, Vulgate), and having described the horrors of inferno, told his audience the tale of how Catherine of Siena had personally wanted to block the mouth of hell to prevent people from falling into it. ‘Our priest did very well’, concluded Boswell.37 But stories were told on Protestant pulpits as well. Evelyn, a particularly meticulous listener, sometimes noted the story used to illustrate the sermon’s message instead of the message itself. In a sermon on the way Christ rejected Satan’s temptations (Matt. 4:4, ‘It is written’), the preacher spoke about Augustine’s wish to have the text ‘written on the Wall of his bed-chamber, that when he should be speechlesse he might have it ready to repell him [i.e. the devil]’.38 Listeners, as we saw, felt that sermons should fit the audience. What a preacher believed to be suitable was not necessarily accepted as such by his public. Evelyn’s country curate in 1703 preached on pride & Luxury of Apparell, which could be applied to none save my Wife & Daughter, there being none in all the parish else, but meane people, who [had no] more than sufficient to cloth them meanely enough &c upon which I told the Doctor that I conceived the sermon had ben more proper to

35 Pierre Jean Grosley, Observations sur l’Italie et sur les Italiens, données en 1764, sous le nom de deux Gentilshommes Suédois (4 vols.; London, 1770) III, pp. 34–35. 36 Grosley, Observations sur l’Italie III, pp. 35–36. 37 James Boswell, An account of Corsica (London, 1769; 3rd ed.), pp. 298–299. 38 Evelyn, Diary, De Beer ed. III, p. 39 (20-08-1651).

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St. James’s or some other of the Theatrical Churches in Lond, where the Ladys & Women were so richly & wantonly dressed & full of Jewells (…).

The curate, ‘falling into a very furious passion’ on being called to order in this manner, made a point of preaching exactly the same sermon a week later. He knew perfectly well that Evelyn’s wife and children dressed modestly, as did his domestics. To make matters worse, he did not so much as mention ‘the pride of the Clergy, their long powdered Perruks, silke Casso[c]ks, Covetousnesse’. The sermon, Evelyn admitted, had been very learned. It was ‘fit for a Gallant Congregation; but by no meanes with our poore Country people’.39 This was a personal matter, although Evelyn made it quite clear that, regardless of his own role in the affair, he did not consider the sermon appropriate for a country audience. Yet part of the audience may well have found the preacher’s public scolding of a distinguished local landholder rather exciting. Evelyn usually knew, or thought he knew, what was good for church audiences. In a sermon on Mary Magdalene in 1695, a preacher spent ‘too much time’ on controversial issues. Evelyn believed that there was no ‘neede of insisting on a nicity among the Country people here’.40 Eighteenth-century connoisseurs often supposed they knew best and had no compunction in laying down rules even as total outsiders. Travelling through Scotland, the Englishman Edmund Burt (d. 1755) observed that the Calvinist clergy there mostly treated grace, free will and predestination in their sermons. ‘They might as well talk Hebrew to the Common People, and I think to any Body else’, he remarked.41 Again, many people may have had a better grasp of learning than the elite supposed. ‘There is not a Page in Flavels Works without several sentences of Latin’, noted John Adams, commenting on a long-dead Puritan preacher. ‘Yet the common People admire him. They admire his Latin as much as his English, and understand it as well’.42 In any case, a good preacher took care to offer his audience a pertinent message. On their part, audiences frequently knew very well which preachers offered them their money’s worth. In London, in April 1688, a celebration of the Holy Communion at court was interrupted by ‘the 39 Evelyn, Diary, De Beer ed. V, p. 542 (18-07-1703). In the end, the curate apologized. 40 Evelyn, Diary, De Beer ed. V, p. 216 (25-08-1695). 41 Edward Burt, Letters from a gentleman in the north of Scotland to his friend in London (Dublin, 1755), p. 101. 42 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, p. 73 (Tuesday ?-01-1759); John Flavel (1628–1691).

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rude breaking in of multituds into the Chapell, zealous to heare’ a Lenten sermon on sin and repentance by Thomas Ken (1637–1711), bishop of Bath and Wells. He preached ‘with his accustom’d action, zeale & Energie, so as people flock’d from all quarters to heare him’.43 When Evelyn attempted to hear a sermon by Thomas Sherlock, dean of St. Paul’s, he found that ‘the presse of people was so greate that I durst not venture’, and went instead for his Sunday sermon to St. Martin, Ludgate Hill.44 There was a downside to popular preachers who attracted large audiences. Some performed so regularly that they could not help but repeat themselves. As Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) pointed out, only itinerant preachers could really afford the luxury of frequent reiteration. Repetition had the advantage that discourses were very finely honed. In the case of the revivalist George Whitefield (1714–1770), ‘every Accent, every Emphasis, every Modulation of Voice, was so perfectly well turn’d and well plac’d’ that listening to a sermon was like listening to music.45 Ordinary preachers had to beware most of repeating sermons time and again, at least if they wanted to avoid irritating listeners. ‘The sermon we had this afternoon I have heard Mr. Porter preach 7 times with very little or any alteration’, wrote Thomas Turner (1729–1793), a busy shopkeeper and conscientious diarist in Sussex, England.46 Overexposure to the same media content at least had the effect that regular churchgoers knew few sermons very well, and in the long run this may have been more fruitful than knowing many sermons superficially. It was said (reported Adams Jr.) that the Masschussetts preacher Anthony Wibird (d. 1800) had written very few sermons, and that he was therefore obliged to preach ‘them over and over in continual succession.’ Some ladies complained that his sermon on Rom. 8:1 ‘was an old one, which, had been delivered so many Times, that, they had it, almost by heart’.47 One churchgoer said that he had heard old parson Wibird’s sermon on Luke 19:10 ten times before. John Quincy Adams expected no complaint if Wibird read printed sermons written by others. ‘But to hear one thing continually repeated over which does not deserve, perhaps, to be said more than once, is very fatiguing’.48 In the end, Adams Jr. simply stopped listening. ‘I did 43

Evelyn, Diary, De Beer ed. IV, pp. 577–578 (1-04-1688). Evelyn, Diary, De Beer ed. V, p. 279 (5-12-1697). 45 Alan Houston ed., Franklin. The autobiography and other writings on politics, economics, and virtue (Cambridge [etc.], 2004), p. 90. 46 David Vaisey ed., The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754–1765 (Oxford/New York, 1984), p. 64 (Whitsunday 22-05-1763, on Luke 24:49). 47 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 3 (Sunday 19-03-1786). 48 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 20 (Sunday 23-4-1786). 44

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not hear much of it: and indeed I very seldom do’.49 When Wibird did take the trouble to write a new sermon, Adams Jr. was agreeably surprised. His sermon on John 1:47 ‘was new, and one of the best that I ever heard him deliver, full of judicious reflections, and wise instructions’. He considered it proven that although Wibird was deficient as a moral teacher, it was ‘not for want of sufficient abilities’.50 Repetitiveness also marred the performances of Timothy Hilliard, but in a different way. It was not, observed Adams Jr., that Hilliard’s sermons on Acts 7:9 were bad. On the contrary, the ‘Sermons were good, but there is such, a sameness in almost all the Sermons, I hear preach’d, that they are Seldom very entertaining to me’.51 He appeared to use a variety of texts to preach one and the same sermon. Hilliard suffered from a common defect of preachers: ‘there is one favourite point, (often self evident) which they labour, to prove, continually; and beyond which they seldom, have much to say’.52 If Hilliard chose to speak on, for instance, 1 Peter 1:3–4, Adams Jr. needed to know no more. ‘The text was enough for me; I heard nothing of the Sermon. It is the old Story, over and over again so repeatedly that I am perfectly weary of it’.53 In January 1787 Adams Jr. again complained: ‘It is a long time since he has given us any variety’. On the other hand, parson Hilliard ‘writes short Sermons, which is very much in his favour, in cold weather’.54 3. Emotional Needs Gratification of affective needs was a second major reason for attending sermons. As we have seen, audiences appreciated sermons that fit their understandings; but a sermon also had to fit their mood. People looked for an emotional or pleasurable experience, or a release of tension by having the hardships, problems and vicissitudes of daily life put into perspective by a religious leader. Preaching before such audiences, funeral orators, of course, had a field day. Their task in performing was meaningfully to 49

Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 66 (Sunday 16-7-1786). Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 119 (Sunday 29-10-1786). 51 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 23 (Sunday 30-4-1786). 52 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 42 (Sunday 28-5-1786). Cf. Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 89 (Sunday 3-9-1786): ‘I do not believe that Mr. H. has one new idea, in ten Sermons upon an average’. 53 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 63 (Sunday 9-7-1786). Cf. Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 96 (Sunday 3-9-1786): ‘I seldom hear much of Mr. H.’s Sermons, except the Texts’. 54 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, pp. 148–149 (Sunday 14-1-1787). 50

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canalise emotions. The preacher who spoke on Phil. 1:21 (‘For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain’) at the funeral of Evelyn’s daughter Mary concluded ‘with a modest recital of her many vertues, and especialy her signal piety, so as drew both teares, & admiration from the hearers’. Evelyn was gratified, since his daughter’s life fulfilled a higher purpose. Eulogies, he believed, served above all ‘the edification & encouragement of other young people’.55 To do so, sermons had to appeal to the emotions. The Unitarian minister Ebenezer Gay (1696–1787), a septuagenarian who preached shortly after the death of his own brother, was anxious that he, too, must soon ‘put off this Tabernacle’, and that this would probably be his last sermon. ‘I have not heard a more affecting, or more rational Entertainment on any Sabbath for many Years’, wrote John Adams, who, as we have seen, emphasized cognition. Little did he know that the ‘good old Gentleman’ would live to be 91.56 Like deaths, calamities evoked affective needs among anxious audience members. Take, for example, earthquakes, such as those in London in March 1750. Eighteenth-century publics usually interpreted them as divine judgements. Clergymen, believed Horace Walpole, fourth earl of Orford (1717–1797), not only responded to such anxieties, but wilfully reinforced them. ‘All the women in town’, wrote that master of irony, commenting on the 1750 earthquakes, ‘have taken them up upon the foot of judgments; and the clergy, who have had no windfalls of a long season, have driven horse and foot into this opinion’. Thomas Secker (1693–1768), bishop of Oxford, was one preacher who purposely initiated ‘a shower of sermons and exhortations’. When he noticed that women were leaving town so as to avoid the next quake, he began to be alarmed about the possible absence of his Easter congregation and the concomitant loss of income. He therefore advised his female flock ‘to await God’s good pleasure in fear and trembling’. Surprisingly, even the bishop of London, Thomas Sherlock (1678–1761), added to the general distress with a pastoral letter, ‘of which ten thousand were sold in two days’. Walpole considered it an absurd pamphlet, as if earthquakes were meant ‘to punish bawdy prints, bawdy books (…), gaming, drinking (…) and all other sins, natural or not’.57 Again, this account only confirms the popularity of sermons and pastoral pamphlets in difficult times.

55

Evelyn, Diary, De Beer ed. IV, p. 430 (16-03-1685). Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams I, p. 345 (Tuesday, 24-10-1769). 57 Horace Walpole, The Yale edition of Horace Walpole’s correspondence, W.S. Lewis ed. (47 vols.; New Haven, CT, 1954–1983) XX, pp. 133–134 (to Horace Mann, Arlington 56

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A suitable discourse on a suitable text will have done much to gratify hopeful audiences at other occasions as well. During a visit, in the entourage of Prince Edward, to an institution for fallen women, Walpole attended a sermon by William Dodd (1729–1777). The latter (who, incidentally, would later be hanged for forgery) harangued ‘entirely in the French style, and very eloquently and touchingly’. The female inmates ‘sobbed and cried from their souls’, and so did the women in Walpole’s company.58 Emotionalism was associated at the time with varieties of religious ‘fanaticism’. In such cases, elite commentators expected intense and immediate audience response not only from women, but especially from the ignorant, ‘in whom it instils a Kind of Enthusiasm, in moving their Passions by sudden Starts of various Sounds’.59 These examples raise interesting questions regarding the role of gender and class in sermon reception. We may also ask whether fulfilment was the consequence of a good sermon or of the expectations entertained beforehand by the audience. One way of examining this is to look at the sermon as part of a larger ritual. Performed Ritual The rituals into which all sermons were integrated might well produce gratification where the sermon as such did not. An impressive backdrop could alleviate even the dismay of not hearing the sermon at all. ‘It was a good decent show to me to see the Judge in his robes, scarlet faced with black, at public worship’, wrote Boswell. ‘I did not hear one sentence of the sermon, the crowd made such a disturbance. But although that disturbance somewhat hindered my devotion, I had it tolerably well excited by the service and by recollecting that here I first heard cathedral worship’.60 A service at Westminster Abbey elicited the following comment from him: ‘The solemnity of the grand old building, the painted glass windows, the noble music, the excellent service of the Church and a very good sermon, all contributed to do me much good’.61 The smallest English parish church, Street, Monday 2-04-1750). The pamphlet at issue was Thomas Sherlock, A Letter to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster (…) on occasion of the late Earthquakes (London, 1750). 58 Walpole, Correspondence (Yale edition) IX, pp. 273–274 (to George Montagu, Arlington Street, 28-01-1760); the institution was Magdalen House. 59 Burt, Letters from a gentleman in the north of Scotland, p. 105. 60 Joseph W. Reed and Frederick Pottle eds., Boswell. Laird of Auchinleck 1778–1782 (New York, Toronto, London, 1977), p. 10 (Carlisle, Sunday 23-08-1778). 61 William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Frederick A. Pottle eds., Boswell for the Defence 1769– 1774 (Melbourne, London, Toronto, 1960), p. 114 (London, Sunday 12-04-1772).

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such as that at Mamhead near Exeter, had something gratifyingly ‘venerable and ornamental about it’.62 Even John Adams felt tempted when visiting an Anglican church. ‘The Scenery and the Musick is so callculated to take in Mankind that I wonder, the Reformation ever succeeded’.63 In the Catholic world, sermons could be integrated into very elaborate rituals, and most evidently so in the case of mission sermons. These consisted of an intensive programme of various religious activities, including sermons, processions and other collective ceremonies, organized at intervals to inspire and motivate believers. It is instructive to examine the way contemporaries commented on the entourage and action in Catholic missions.64 Their remarks make clear how elite observers viewed these popular events (they more often than not made disparaging comments), but above all demonstrate the extent to which the sermon was only one element in a popular and complex ceremony. The fact that representatives of both church and state attached great significance to missions enhanced the status of the sermons preached. An account by Jean Baptiste Labat (1663–1738), a well-travelled Dominican, shows how ecclesiastical and local interests coincided. He describes an extraordinary mission the aim of which was to bring the people of Livorno to penitence and reform, apparently after having been exposed to, and corrupted by, ‘des gens de Religions differentes’.65 First the vicar-general of Livorno requested permission from his superior the Archbishop of Pisa. The Archbishop then discussed the matter with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who immediately appointed a famous Jesuit preacher to lead the mission. To give the operation sufficient weight, the Archbishop, the Grand Duke and the latter’s cousin, a Cardinal, together attended various sermons, discussions and instructions. Since the church proved to be too small to accommodate the large number of people who came to listen to the able and extremely eloquent preacher, a canopy was put up outside in the square. A dais with a chair and a large cross served as the ‘Tribunal’ from which the preacher thundered against public vice. Labat describes another mission in Civitavecchia, which began several days after Easter and lasted fifteen days.66 This time the pope himself had 62

Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle eds., Boswell in search of a wife, 1766–1769 (London, 1957), p. 360 (London, Sunday 5-11-1769). 63 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams II, p. 150 (Sunday, 9-10-1774). 64 Cf. Charles C. Noel, “Missionary Preachers in Spain: Teaching Social Virtue in the Eighteenth Century”, in The American Historical Review 90 (1985), pp. 866–892. 65 Jean Baptiste Labat, Voyages du P. Labat de l’ordre des ff. precheurs en Espagne et en Italie (8 vols.; Amsterdam, 1731) II, pp. 157–158. 66 Labat, Voyages du P. Labat VII, pp. 24–42.

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chosen the preacher, an excellent and zealous man of about forty years of age belonging to the Maltese Mission. He had under his tutelage a young priest acting as catechizer, and together they organized a grand and splendid performance. Having arrived by carriage, they took off their shoes, removed their cloaks, and placed on their shoulders large collars made of black leather (rather like those worn by pilgrims to Santiago di Compostella, but without the shells, noted Labat). Each then picked up a large bell and approached the city gate. There they were awaited by a religious delegation from the town, the Company of Blue Penitents,67 clothed in sackcloth, their faces covered. Addressing the preacher, the Prior of the Company formally exchanged the Company’s crucifix for the preacher’s bell. The procession subsequently began its march to the church, headed by two former Priors wielding blue gilded batons. They were followed by the company members, two by two. The missionary, bearing the crucifix and chanting the litanies of the Holy Virgin, was the last in line, flanked on the right by his catechizer and on his left by the Prior, both of whom carried bells.68 The parish priest, after receiving the procession at the entrance to the local church, offered the missionary holy water. The latter then climbed into the pulpit to read the papal instructions concerning the mission and explain the temporary powers bestowed on him. These powers included the privilege to bless the mission on its completion by erecting a large cross. He also possessed the right to grant an indulgence to all those who confessed, received communion, or had otherwise participated in the mission. He exhorted everybody to attend his sermon, which was to be held at one o’clock that night. The missionary and his assistant were then led to their quarters. Their luggage was brought to them, including a box containing the missionary’s portable crucifix, disassembled into pieces that could be put together when the need arose.69 At a quarter to one, the bells began to toll and the church rapidly filled with people. To give the preacher more room, a square dais covered with a Turkish rug had been put up in the church next to the pulpit. There the missionary held a lengthy but excellent discourse on 2 Cor. 6:1, ‘We beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain’. The sermon pleased Labat greatly, except for the fact that the preacher insisted on addressing the audience as mio caro populo – as if they had all been ‘begotten in Jesus Christ’ (Cor. 4:15). But this was the only blemish on an 67 68 69

Compagnie des Pénitents Bleus. Labat, Voyages du P. Labat VII, pp. 24–25. Labat, Voyages du P. Labat VII, pp. 25–27.

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otherwise immaculate performance. The preacher succeeded in touching the audience, especially the women, who ‘selon la coûtume’ weeped and repeatedly cried misericorde! misericorde! People whose emotions got the better of them were obliged to leave the pews. Following the sermon, the church doors were closed and the lights dimmed. Several helpers distributed instruments of penitence (brought by the missionary in one of his boxes) among the audience. The preacher himself used a whip made of five iron links; others wielded knotted ropes or leather thongs to flog themselves. This continued for at least fifteen minutes, the preacher urging the people not to spare themselves in chastising the enemy of God. The people then went home and the missionary to his lodgings to eat. ‘Je croi qu’après une telle fatigue,’ observed Labat drily, ‘ils ne manquoient pas d’appetit’.70 Judging by the number of people who confessed, the sermons were extremely successful. They were repeated every two nights. In the mornings and evenings the missionary preached in the square, where a theatre had been built. The ground there was covered with tents, so that the people could stand in the shade. Since processions and flagellations continued during the mission, Labat began to wonder how the missionary, who, after all, used a whip of iron, was able to carry on his work with so much energy. According to Labat, he handled his whip in such a way that he made much noise without really hurting himself. Labat did not blame the preacher for his ‘pious fraud’. After all, he had not come to exhort himself, but to bring others to penitence. It is quite clear, however, that Labat himself had little affection for these exuberant displays of mortification, and he even incurred the missionary’s displeasure after he had convinced his own colleagues that the clergy themselves were not obliged to participate.71 Despite the somewhat derogatory observations on weeping women, excessive flagellation and pious pretence it is clear from Labat’s account that the ‘sermon event’ itself was embedded in a whole series of religious practices, and that audience gratification depended in part on the way the audience participated in the broader context in which the sermon took place. The elaborate ceremonial is precisely the reason why observers chose to comment at length on mission sermons. Gavin, too, described regulars, often Capuchins, who ‘preached the mission’. Typically, these monks applied to the Holy See for permission to preach in certain towns and provinces. The pope then invested them with the power to extend indulgences and give absolution. 70 71

Labat, Voyages du P. Labat VII, pp. 27–29. Labat, Voyages du P. Labat VII, pp. 29–34.

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Apart from demonstrating the extent of his own prejudice, Gavin’s description of mission sermons reveals the highly effectual rhetoric of gifted and specialized preachers. He once witnessed a Capuchin preach the mission at Montefiascone, near Viterbo. The heavily bearded Capuchin, who according to Gavin had the grotesque look common to his order, was dressed to the event. He wore a large red skull-cap (symbolizing the ‘tongues like as of fire’ in Acts 2:3) as a sign of his zeal to convert souls, held a large crucifix while preaching and bore a rope around his neck. The general aim of such mission sermons was to get as many people as possible to weep, claimed Gavin, and hence the preacher used the most emotional language at his disposal to describe the passion of Christ. He painted an impressive picture of Jesus’s beautiful snow-white hands bound by pitiless brutes. Soon the whole church was in tears (first the women, then the men). At this juncture the Capuchin knelt down, lifted his hands to heaven, grasped the rope around his neck as if strangling himself, and cried out in a dismal and grisly voice: ‘mercy, mercy’. He repeated this about forty or fifty times, his audience joining in; and this resulted in a horrendous noise pervading the church for about fifteen minutes. Usually such missions continued for several weeks, after which the villagers erected a huge cross and received the departing preacher’s blessing.72 It is a pity, perhaps, that many eighteenth-century accounts of Catholic mission sermons are so critical, disdainful or ironical; but it is evident that displays of ritualized oratory attracted a great deal of attention. Moreover, it would be wrong to suppose that Protestant sermons were not integrated into formal ceremonies. The rituals in which they were embedded were more frugal. It was the lack of pomp and circumstance that made Boswell express misgivings about the sermon of even a preacher as talented as Hugh Blair; but he only deplored the less ornate character of Presbyterian worship. In May 1763 he went to a meeting of dissenters in Monkwell Street, London, hoping it would do him good, but ‘Blair’s New Kirk delivery and the Dissenters roaring out the Psalms sitting on their backsides, together with the extempore prayers, and in short the whole vulgar idea of the Presbyterian worship, made me very gloomy’. He hastened to St. Paul’s, where he arrived in time to hear ‘the conclusion of service, and had my mind set right again’.73

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[Gavin], Histoire des tromperies II, pp. 133–138. Frederick A. Pottle ed., Boswell’s London Journal 1762–1763 (Melbourne, London, Toronto, 1952), p. 259 (London, Sunday 15-05-1763). 73

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We may conclude this section as we began it. Affective gratification was not necessarily the result of good discourse. Boswell, who as a youth had temporarily lapsed into Roman Catholicism (almost throwing away every prospect of a career), often showed his appreciation for the environment in which preaching was done. A ‘very good sermon’ at the Temple Church in London, in combination with music ‘and the good building put me into a very devout frame, and after service my mind was left in a pleasing calm state’.74 ‘The idea of the Knights Templar lying in the church was solemn and pleasing’, Boswell wrote some years later.75 ‘Between ourselves’, he divulged to his future wife, ‘the Church of England worship is infinitely superior to our Presbyterian method. I at present have my mind raised to heaven by the grand churches, noble organs, and solemn service of the churches around me’. He looked forward to an oratorio that was to be performed the next day.76 It is important to realize that many eighteenthcentury audience members valued sermons as part of a larger performance, like soliloquies in a play. When Horace Walpole went to hear John Wesley preach, he spoke of going to Wesley’s ‘opera’, where ‘boys and girls with charming voices’ sang endless hymns.77 Amusing Entertainments Walpole’s comparison between the pulpit and the stage was an echo, as we shall see, of eighteenth-century ‘Enlightened’ discourse; but it also points to the general expectation that sermons gratify affective needs that were not necessarily, or only, of a religious nature. The fact that English Protestant travellers were put off by what they regarded as the unrestrained theatricality of Romish ritual tells us a lot about Protestant assumptions (or bias), but also about popular techniques of reaching audiences. The first sermon Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715), bishop of Salisbury, heard during his stay in Italy in 1685 was one delivered by a Capuchin friar in Milan. The speaker’s ‘many comical Expressions and Gestures’ surprised him, but he

74 Pottle ed., Boswell’s London Journal 1762–1763, p. 237 (London, Sunday 10-04-1763). 75 Brady and Pottle eds., Boswell in search of a wife 1766–1769, p. 280 (London, Sunday 3-09-1769): ‘The noble music raised my soul to heaven, though it was not Stanley’s day, who officiates as organist every other Sunday’; the reference is to the organist John Stanley (1712–1786). 76 Brady and Pottle eds., Boswell in search of a wife 1766–1769, p. 297 (Oxford, Tuesday 5-09-1769). 77 Walpole, Correspondence (Yale edition) XXXV, p. 118 (to John Chute, Bath, 10-10-1766).

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was astonished most by the conclusion. Italian pulpits contained a crucifix on the side of the altar; having addressed it extensively, the Capuchin ‘in a forced Transport took it in his Arms’. He hugged it and kissed it, but not before carefully blowing away the dust that had accumulated on it (Burnet was able to observe this detail because he sat right under the pulpit). The friar carried the cross ‘with a long and tender Caress, and held it out to the People’.78 Descriptions of Catholic sermons testify both to the prejudice of the narrator and the popularity of the performer. Take, again, Gavin. Italian churches were always full of people, he claimed, since the people liked the burlesque sermons that made them laugh.79 He had often attended sermons in the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. These sermons were held by the Dominican fathers, that is, members of what was supposed to be an ordo praedicatorum. One very old Dominican preacher, Gavin wrote, was really just a clown who made his audience roar with laughter. He used to walk about in his pulpit (which in Italy were both long and large), thumping with his hands and feet, rolling his eyes and gesturing in a ridiculous way. Gavin’s account of the actual sermon, which treated Abraham’s rejection of Hagar in Genesis 21, in fact demonstrates the excellent theatrical talents of an experienced performer. Both content and action made a lasting impression on Gavin, for he was able to reproduce both: Messieurs, dit-il, suivez moy, & venez vous promener avec moy dans l’Ecriture Sainte. Alors faisant trois pas dans la chaire ayant une main à son côté, il s’arrêta tout court au quatrième, & comme un homme qui dans une affreuse solitude verroit de loin venir une femme, il s’arrêta fort long-temps sans rien dire, & regardant fort attentivement jusques à ce que l’objet fût plus proche, il commença à dire: Qui est-ce que je vois? N’est-ce pas là une femme? Et restant encore un grand espace de temps, il dit: Oh Dieu! il me semble que c’est Agar la Servante d’Abraham.80

Italian preachers clowned in the pulpit even on Easter Sunday, when they usually chose the word ‘Halleluia’ to preach from. Ordinarily signifying ‘praise the Lord’, during Easter it was understood to mean ‘get ready to laugh’. Gavin once attended a sermon of this kind at St. Peter in Bologna, where, in the presence of the archbishop, the preacher discussed the moment at which Mary Magdalene arrived at Jesus’s grave. How may we

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Gilbert Burnet, Travels through France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland (London, 1750), p. 108. 79 [Gavin], Histoire des tromperies II, pp. 96–97. 80 [Gavin], Histoire des tromperies II, pp. 91–93.

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reconcile, he queried, Mark 16:2 (‘unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun’) with John 20:1 (‘when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre’)? He solved the conundrum by ascertaining that Mary must have approached the grave around noon. Everyone knows, he exclaimed, that ladies do not get up early on Sundays. Italian ladies certainly never attend Mass unless it is celebrated around midday. To drive home his point, he described in impertinent detail a lady’s Sunday toilet, from rubbing her eyes and stretching her arms in bed to combing her hair and making faces in the mirror. Ladies, moreover, tend to be extremely talkative. It would logically have taken a great deal of time before Mary left her home. Imitating a chatty female, the preacher soon had the archbishop himself holding his sides with laughter. According to Gavin, such profanations (as he regarded them) were common enough.81 For many people laughter may simply have been a pleasant side effect of an otherwise serious event. Any sermon held at an extraordinary occasion or delivered by an extraordinary preacher may have been regarded as a source of entertainment, giving both pleasure and instruction. The extent to which the sermon was regarded as a form of entertainment is evident from the way eighteenth-century writers associated it with more obvious forms of amusement. Travellers, for example, moved effortlessly from the stage to the pulpit, or vice versa, in their portrayals of urban life. Piozzi’s comments on a sermon were followed by his description of a play enacted by some friars and a musical performance of Metastasio’s La Passione di Gesù Cristo.82 It is said that the English clergy make ‘admirable sermons’ with the aim of instilling virtue in the people, wrote Karl Ludwig, Freiherr von Pöllnitz (1692–1775), in his observations on English entertainments. He set out these views in a section describing horse racing and prize fighting in and around London.83 To the general public of eighteenth-century towns, open-air sermons were a form of street entertainment. According to Gavin, Italy possessed a kind of preacher that could not be found elsewhere in Catholic Europe. The so-called ‘preachers of the square’ took advantage of the fact that in the towns, people strolled through the streets in the evenings, when the 81

[Gavin], Histoire des tromperies II, pp. 142–145. Hester Lynch Piozzi, Observations and reflections made in the course of a journey through France, Italy, and Germany (2 vols; London, 1789), I, pp. 77–79. 83 Karl Ludwig von Pöllnitz, The memoirs of Charles-Lewis, baron de Pollnitz. Being the observations he made in his late travels from Prussia thro’ Germany, Italy, France, Flanders, Holland, England, &c. in letters to his friend (2 vols.; London, 1737) (translated by Stephen Whatley from Mémoires de Charles-Lewis, baron de Pöllnitz, 1734) II, p. 469. 82

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worst heat was over. They would gather in the square, where preachers joined the singers, acrobats, quacks and fortune-tellers in entertaining the public. As soon as the daily action began, a monk would walk into the square bearing a large cross and sounding a bell. He then climbed into a portable pulpit and started to preach. People immediately rushed to hear him, leaving the comedians to their tricks. Initially, Gavin was surprised at this apparent display of piety, until he understood that, because of their pleasing discourses and ridiculous gestures, preachers were merely considered more entertaining than jugglers. In the end, both charlatans and preachers were in the business for the money, the one by selling potions, the other by convincing the public to give to charity. Gavin once heard a company of monks claiming that this kind of open air preaching was, in fact, a fulfilment of Prov. 1:20, ‘Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets’, and a proof of the truth of the Catholic religion.84 Horace Walpole looked upon Wesley’s popularity among the upper class as a fad supported by wealthy people who needed entertaining to get them through the week. It was the pulpit one day and the theatre the next: ‘what will you lay [bet] that next winter he is not run after instead of Garrick?’, wrote Walpole.85 Unsurprisingly, Walpole himself found little amusement in sermons. He thought they were boring and incapable of gratifying polite society. He informed a correspondent that he had no particular desire for attending church: I have always gone now and then, though of late years rarely, as it was most unpleasant to crawl through a churchyard full of staring footmen and apprentices, clamber a ladder to a hard pew, to hear the dullest of all things a sermon, and croaking and squalling of psalms to a hand organ by journey-men brewers and charity children.86

Sermons, then, did not always live up to expectations; but many churchgoers went to sermons in the expectation or the hope that they would at least entertain. Having had quite enough of one preacher, Adams Jr. went to hear another, ‘who entertained me much better, though, I am not a great admirer of his doctrine’.87

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[Gavin], Histoire des tromperies II, pp. 123–125. Walpole, Correspondence (Yale edition) IX, p. 74 (To George Montagu, Strawberry Hill 3-09-1748). 86 Walpole, Correspondence (Yale edition) XXXIV, p. 115 (to Lady Ossory, Strawberry Hill, Monday 08-08-1791). 87 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 376 (Sunday 9-03-1788). 85

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Delivery François-Timoléon de Choisy (1644–1724), an abbé-in-training bound in 1685 on a long voyage to Siam, was an avid learner who knew that one day he too must climb into the pulpit. His shipboard diary illustrates the importance contemporaries attached to the how of preaching in relation to the what. It was impossible to make an impression doing the one without taking into consideration the other. On his voyage to Siam, De Choisy closely attended the sermons of his colleague missionaries. Bénigne Vachet, who spoke after dinner one day, was somewhat long-winded, but at least he was sincere and meant what he preached. ‘Il n’est pas éloquent, mais à l’étendre et à le voir, on ne doute pas qu’il ne pense tout ce qu’il dit’.88 De Choisy had a clear liking for plain sermons, such as those of Father Jean de Fontaney, who ‘a dit de bonnes choses, simples, intelligibles, de pratique’, and did so with modesty. Likewise, the abbé François de Langlade de Chayla preached a sermon that ‘était de fort bon sens, familière, propre à des matelots à qui il faut se faire entendre’.89 A specialist in mathematics and astronomy, Fontaney was nonetheless capable of preaching the Passion on Good Friday, and to do so ‘à la Bourdaloue’. Father Le Comte, too, ‘se bourdalise beaucoup […] Il est éloquent, familier et touchant’. People were anxious that he might catch a cold, they so delighted in hearing him.90 Basset preached rather well on the torments of hell. If he continued in the same way, noted De Choisy, he would not preach for long. ‘Il se met en colère à l’exorde; il n’est poitrine de fer qui puisse résister à des mouvements si impétueux’. His superiors had to calm him down. This particular subject invariably raised the emotions of the speaker. Father Jean-François Gerbillon also preached on hell ‘avec beaucoup d’esprit’. He would not be able to do so in China, remarked De Choisy, for what would the Chinese say when one talked about common sense and just reason while unchaining the passions?91 When De Choisy, forty-two years old, finally got down to preaching himself, he congratulated himself on his own performance. He was pleased that he had felt no fear at all, and that he had not slavishly read his notes word for word. ‘J’ai dit beaucoup de choses que je n’avais point 88 François-Timoléon de Choisy, Journal du voyage de Siam, Dirk Van der Cruysse ed. (s.l., 1995), pp. 68 (Sunday 8-04-1685). 89 De Choisy, Journal du voyage de Siam, 71 (on Fontaney: Sunday, 15-04-1685), p. 60 (on De Chayla: Sunday, 25-03-1685). 90 De Choisy, Journal du voyage de Siam, p. 73 (on Fontaney: Friday, 20-04-1685), p. 122 (on Le Comte: Sunday 8-07-1685). 91 De Choisy, Journal du voyage de Siam, p. 127 (on Basset: Sunday 15-07-1685), p. 136 (on Gerbillon: Sunday 29-07-1685).

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écrites, et c’est la manière que je veux suivre: on n’a point peur de manquer’. When preaching extemporaneously, the sentences may not be as clear as they would be otherwise, ‘mais souvent le style naturel est plus touchant que l’étudié, et il ne faut que toucher. Malheur au prêcheur qui veut plaire à l’esprit et qui néglige le coeur!’92 Judging from the many observations by eighteenth-century hearers, Choisy hit the head on the nail. Preaching had to be both authentic and delivered in style. Sadly, for both preachers and hearers, there was no accounting for taste. Jean Jacques Rutledge (1742–1794) witnessed quite a few of the more popular preachers in Paris, and thought their eloquence artificial. Compared, however, to English preachers, the French sermons possessed esprit, style, movement, order and harmony. English sermons, by contrast, were burdened with depressing and deadly boring pedantry.93 Although he drew a different conclusion, Muralt agreed that the attitude of English preachers in the pulpit differed from that of the French. The English preacher was modest and almost appeared afraid of the audience; he spoke sedately and offered a short and sensible discourse. By contrast, the French preacher swelled with ‘Ecclesiastick Pride’: he begins with turning his Head on all Sides, and looking arrogantly on his Hearers, as if he would inspire them with Respect for his Person, his Discourse is long and tiresome, full of Fancies and Flowers of Rhetorick, he lays about him furiously, and cries out like a Man unprovided with good Reasons to persuade, or Dignity to give Weight to what he advances.94

No eighteenth-century churchgoer would have denied the importance of delivery; but a sermon that was all delivery and no content would not do either.95 The Rev. Jacob Foster (1732–1798), who preached from Isa. 53:1, was a most ‘extravagant fellow’, thought Adams Jr. ‘His Discourse was a mere Declamation, without any connection, or train of Reasoning’. He argued that religion should not ‘be communicated by raising the Passions’, and that Christianity, more than any other religion spoke to the understanding. At the same time, 92

De Choisy, Journal du voyage de Siam, p. 335 (Sunday, 3-03-1686). [Jean Jacques Rutledge], Premier et second voyages de Milord de *** (…) Par le Ch. R *** (3 vols.; London, 1782) III, p. 134. 94 Béat Louis de Muralt, Letters describing the character and customs of the English and French Nations. With a curious essay on travelling (London, 1726) (translation of Lettres sur les Anglois et les François et sur les voïages, 1726), pp. 7–8. 95 Cf. Bossuet’s inconsistency in this respect: Jean-Claude Vuillemin, “Strategies et apories de l’éloquence sacrée: l’oeuvre oratoire de Bossuet”, in Seventeenth-Century French Studies 17 (1995), pp. 25–36. 93

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joris van eijnatten he made an Attempt, (a most awkward one I confess) to be pathetic: talk’d, of a Grave, a winding sheet, and a Place of Skulls, all of which amounted to nothing at all, which was likewise the Sum total, of his whole Sermon. Yet this Man, is a Popular preacher, in the Place where he is settled.

His popularity, observed Adams Jr., proved the accuracy of Boileau’s maxim that ‘Un Sot trouve toujours, un plus sot qui l’admire’.96 A Mr. Smith began his sermon well enough with a discourse on the dove of Cant. 2:14 (‘thy countenance is comely’). Towards the end of his sermon ‘he grew extremely vociferous’, as he usually did, so that ‘it was a continued strain of declamation’. Smith did not take much trouble in preparing his sermon. He simply began, ‘and when embarassed with any contested point, screaming, is his only resource’.97 An inappropriate delivery could spoil a sermon the content of which in itself was fine. ‘Mr. Mellen’s manner is more affected, than that of any preacher I ever saw’. His sentiments were liberal, his composition good; ‘but all is entirely spoilt by his manner of speaking’.98 Similarly, an otherwise first-rate sermon on the deceitfulness of sin was, in John Adams’s opinion, marred by the preacher’s performance. The man’s Air and Action are not gracefull – they are not natural and easy. His Motions with his Head, Body and Hands are a little stiff and affected. His Style is not simple enough for the Pulpit. It is too flowery, too figurative – his Periods too much or rather too apparently rounded and laboured. – This however Sub Rosa, because the Dr. passes for a Master of Composition, and is an excellent Man.99

Adams, an experienced observer of preachers, sometimes volunteered harsh verdicts in his diary. A certain Sprout possessed ‘a great deal of Simplicity and Innocence’ but ‘very little Elegance or Ingenuity’. In prayer, ‘he hangs his Head in an Angle of 45 over his right Shoulder’. In sermon, he throws himself into a Variety of indecent Postures. Bends his Body, Points his Fingers, and throws about his Arms, without any Rule or Meaning at all. He is totally destitute of the Genius and Eloquence of Duffil [Duffield], has no Imagination, No Passions, no Wit, no Taste and very little Learning, but a great deal of Goodness of Heart.100 96 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, pp. 98–99 (Sunday 24-9-1786); Adams quotes from Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, L’art poétique (1674), Chant I, final line. 97 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams I, p. 414 (Sunday 12-03-1786). 98 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 54 (Sunday 25-6-1786). 99 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams II, p. 71 (Sunday, 20-12-1772). 100 Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams II, pp. 175–176 (Sunday, 17-09-1775).

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Goodness, honesty, simplicity and zeal – in brief, authenticity – compensated for lack of oratorial talent. In the Baptist Church, Adams had ‘heard a trans Alleganian – a Preacher, from the back Parts of Virginia, behind the Allegany Mountains. He preached an hour and an half. No Learning – No Grace of Action or Utterance – but an honest Zeal. He told us several good Stories’.101 The ‘whining sort of Tone’ employed by Samuel Deane (1733–1814) from Falmouth ‘would have injured the Sermons if they had been good’. In this case, evidently, the tone could do no injury at all.102 If delivery was really bad and Adams not in the mood, he easily withheld a preacher the benefit of the doubt. The Rev. William Patten (1763–1839), a young clergyman from Rhode Island, came to preach on Prov. 3:17, a promising theme (‘Her ways are ways of pleasantness’). ‘I never felt so disagreeably, in hearing any Preacher’, wrote Adams Jr. He look’d as if he had already, one foot in the grave, and appeared plainly, to suffer while he spoke. His diction was flowery, but he spoke, in a whining manner, lowering his voice, about an octave, at the last Syllable of every Sentence.103

A sermon badly delivered was a good reason to leave the church before the service had ended. Boswell, who made a point of sampling every pulpit in London, observed that the preacher at St. Bride’s Church ‘was so very heavy and drawling’ that he and his friend went away, ‘rather unsettled and in a bad humour’.104 According to some commentators, it wasn’t at all what one said that was important but the way that one said it. There was a young preacher at Orléans who bore himself well, had ‘a voice of Thunder, a noble Gesture, and all the other Graces of Declamation which charms the Auditors and keeps ‘em attentive’. He once climbed into the pulpit to hold a sermon, only to discover that he had forgotten to bring his notes with him. Disconcerted by his carelessness, he nevertheless considered it shameful to fetch them, and therefore resolved to speak; but since he did not know what to say, he composed a discourse on the spot using only ‘imperfect, or disjoynted’ words such as ‘But if, Wherefore, Pass me on, Moreover, My Beloved, In fine, &c’. His delivery, meanwhile, was impressive. He cried 101

Adams, Diary and autobiography of John Adams II, p. 156 (Sunday, 23-10-1774). Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, p. 80 (Sunday 20-8-1786). 103 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams II, pp. 9–10 (Sunday 26-03-1786). 104 Pottle ed., Boswell’s London Journal 1762–1763, p. 242 (London, Sunday 17-04-1763). 102

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out with all his strength, made exclamations, thumped with his hands and stamped with his feet, while the church’s roof echoed ‘the thunder of his Voice’. The audience sat in silence, straining to hear what the preacher said. Naturally, they could make neither head nor tail of the sermon. This observer pointed out that the hearers attributed their inability to understand the preacher to their location in the church. Rather than fault the preacher, they decided to get better seats next time.105 The anecdote is rather far-fetched, but it does make the point that impressive delivery could make people believe that a sermon was worthwhile. Crede quod habes, & habes, believe that you have it, and you have it, noted the same author. He had been to a church in London, where he witnessed a crowd ‘sighing and sobbing’ in the porch ‘at what I’m sure it was impossible to hear one Word of ’. The moral: ‘He that knows how to give himself an Air of Importance, and to set off his Ware, may rate the Market as he listeth, and shall find Fools enough to give him his Price’.106 If the content of a sermon could not be understood, it could at least still divert an audience: contemporary observers could make this point without detracting from preacher, event or audience. At the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia, Philip Thicknesse (1719–1792) attended high mass to hear ‘one of their best orators’. The sermon was in Spanish, ‘and though I did not understand the language sufficiently to know all I heard, I understood enough to be entertained, if not edified.’ Thicknesse was impressed by the ‘decency’ of the congregation, who took no notice of the English party.107 Protestant ministers used rhetorical techniques to entertain their audiences as much as Catholics did. An older Edinburgh minister acted out the following dialogue on the Fall to entertain his audience: First he spoke in a low Voice. – And the L.G. came into the garden and said – Then loud and angrily – Adam where art? Low and humbly – Lo, here am I, Lord! Violently – and what are ye deeing there? With a fearful trembling Accent – Lord I was nacked, and I hid mysel. Outrageously – Nacked! And what then Hast thou eaten, &c. 105 [Charles Cotolendi?], An agreeable criticism, of the city of Paris and the French; giving an account of their present state and condition (London, 1704), pp. 69–70. The account includes some further remarks ‘by a French gentleman’, presumably Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, Seigneur de Saint-Evremond (1610–1703). 106 [Cotolendi?], Agreeable criticism, of the city of Paris, pp. 70–72. 107 Philip Thicknesse, A year’s journey through France, and part of Spain (2 vols.; Dublin, 1777) I, p. 219.

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Edmund Burt considered this conversation between Adam and his Maker a profanation of Scripture, since it pictured the Lord God as an impatient, angry master.108 Admitting that such rhetorical techniques probably convinced nineteen out of twenty of the ‘ordinary People’, Burt inadvertently underlined the fact that traditional Calvinist preaching techniques were quite effective.109 Again, one conclusion we may draw from the above is that different audiences appreciated, and therefore required, different deliveries. In eighteenth-century accounts, recommendations to this effect were sometimes highly gendered. To tempt wealthy female aristocrats to a sermon, noted one writer, required a specific kind of approach. Preachers did well to obey the rules of fashion, pronouncing ‘amphibolous’ (equivocal) discourses that consisted of ‘far-fetched phrases, a loose and rambling style, and a sort of poetry reduced to prose’. Addressing all kinds of topics in their sermons, ranging from politics and finance to fashions and recent publications, preachers to this type of audience sought to maximize effects by ‘theatrical declamation’ and ‘studied gesture’.110 The assumption was, apparently, that the attention of female listeners was particularly hard to hold, and that one had to resort to mundane subjects and extravagant methods to succeed. Class was another factor determining the composition of (and therefore the reception by) audiences. The traveller Grosley wondered at the ‘voiles de l’éloquence ultramontaine’ exemplified by a preacher he encountered in Venice in 1764. A Dominican of a respectable age and physiognomy – doubtless a doctor, thought Grosley – climbed into the pulpit to dish out a number of far-fetched stories about ‘le Saint du jour’ to the common people. With the tone, emphasis and verbosity of a raconteur on St. Mark’s Square, he entertained his audience with the story of a highwayman who daily said his rosary. The thief was killed while exercising his occupation, without, however, having confessed. One day, St. Dominic arrived at the foot of the oak where the robber had been buried. The saint uttered his name, and the bandit responded by rising from the grave, upon which Dominic confessed and absolved him and took his soul to heaven. It saddened Grosley that such an Enlightened man, a theologian by profession, performed as a common street acrobat;111 but the audience was happy enough. 108 109 110 111

Burt, Letters from a gentleman in the north of Scotland, p. 106. Burt, Letters from a gentleman in the north of Scotland, pp. 106–107. [Caraccioli], Letters on the manners of the French II, pp. 203–204. Grosley, Observations sur l’Italie, II, pp. 50–51.

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joris van eijnatten 4. Identity Fulfilment

One day in the autumn of 1778, Boswell was happy to find ‘a most decent clergyman (Mr. Michael Todd), with a gown and band, and a distinct manly utterance’ at a country kirk in Dreghorn. ‘He lectured very well’, and Boswell’s spirits ‘instantaneously recovered’. Boswell was not quite certain whether his mental recuperation was caused by the preacher’s appearance, his performance or his message. ‘Our minds, like our stomachs, are restored to soundness sometimes by one thing, sometimes by another, we know not by what operation’.112 Sermons were an important religious means of reaffirming personal identity or otherwise gaining personal assurance, the third category of needs dealt with in this chapter. At the same time, we should keep in mind Boswell’s comment that sermons were only one means among others. Even Benjamin Franklin was susceptible to the influence of sermons, although he, like Horace Walpole, used them to reaffirm his personal detachment from things religious as well as his abiding interest in them. He claimed, for example, that the power of George Whitefield’s oratory had made a lasting impression on him. The people loved Whitefield, Franklin noticed, in spite of ‘his common Abuse of them, by assuring them that they were naturally half Beasts and half Devils’. Irreligious audience members became devout after hearing Whitefield, and ended up singing Psalms in the evenings. Whitefield’s ‘Eloquence had a wonderful Power over the Hearts and Purses of his Hearers’, so that even Franklin came under his spell: I happened (…) to attend one of his Sermons, in the Course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a Collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my Pocket a Handful of Copper Money, three or four silver Dollars, and five Pistoles in Gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the Coppers. Another Stroke of his Oratory made me asham’d of that, and determin’d me to give the Silver; and he finish’d so admirably, that I empty’d my Pocket wholly into the Collector’s Dish, Gold and all.113

Sermons could have a forceful psychological or spiritual effect on the more religious members of an audience. James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an

112 Reed and Pottle eds., Boswell. Laird of Auchinleck 1778–1782, p. 42 (Kilmarnock, Sunday 8-11-1778). 113 Houston ed., Franklin, pp. 87–88.

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eighteenth-century slave who was later set free, provides the following account of the distress caused by his former owner’s preaching: (…) one Sunday, I heard my master preach from these words out of the Revelations, chap. i. v. 7. ‘Behold, He cometh in the clouds and every eye shall see him and they that pierc’d Him.’ These words affected me excessively; I was in great agonies because I thought my master directed them to me only; and, I fancied, that he observed me with unusual earnestness – I was farther confirm’d in this belief as I looked round the church, and could see no one person beside myself in such grief and distress as I was (…).114

To ascribe such ‘agonies’ exclusively to Puritans, Pietists or Methodists would be both to misconstrue these religious traditions and misconceive the spiritual experiences of others. On the other hand, the role of sermons in reinforcing and developing personal identity can be very aptly illustrated by examining a Puritan-Pietist diary; believers in this tradition had particular expectations of sermons, and made a habit of writing at length about their spiritual labours. One such diary, titled An abstract of the remarkable passages in the life of a private gentleman (1708), has been ascribed to Daniel Defoe as well as a certain Thomas Woodcock. The subtitle explains the book’s content (‘Relating to Trouble of Mind, some violent Temptations, and a Recovery’) and purpose (‘In order to awaken the Presumptuous, convince the Sceptic, and encourage the Despondent’). When the spiritual state of this troubled gentleman allowed him to go to church, he happened to hear there a discourse on the glory of the resurrection. He concluded that he was damned, although presumably this was not the message the preacher intended him to receive. The ‘Anguish of this Thought gnaw’d my Heart all the Remains of that Evening, with more pungency than the Fear of Hell had before’. Having fallen into deep despair, he was in due course prevailed upon to go to church again, which he did very reluctantly. He had no high opinion of the preacher who held the sermon (‘having observ’d him strangely perfunctory in his Performances’). Nevertheless, it was as if he ‘heard a Voice from Heaven, till Terror and Astonishment possessed every Part of me’. He concluded that God spoke to him through the preacher’s mouth, so that ‘the Shades of Death and Hell’ seemed to close

114 James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, A narrative of the most remarkable particulars in the life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African prince, written by himself (Bath, 1770), p. 20.

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in on him more than ever. He spent much time ‘in hideous Fansies about future Torments’, and fell physically ill.115 He remained distressed, But at length God was pleas’d to give me a glimmering Hope. One Day as I was reading a Sermon of that holy Prelate A.B. Leighton’s God blessed some Passages much to my Reviving: I heard a Sermon a little after, which gave me more: I sat under it with Terror; in the close, St. Austin’s Sickness before his Conversion was mention’d; in which he was represented, as one desperate (…).

Augustine’s case resembled his own, and this knowledge helped him a little. It was an accidental meeting with a friend, however (and not a sermon), that first brought about a real change in his spiritual state. From that moment he could see ‘God in his Providence; in Sermons, suiting his Word to my Wants; in ordinary Conversation; in Dangers, Deliverances; in Afflictions, Mercies; in the Works of Nature and Grace’.116 If this diarist is, in fact, representative of Pietism, we would have to conclude that the sermon was only one medium among many through which religious needs were gratified. A totally different example of the way sermons contributed to identity construction or self-fashioning may be found in the diary entries of Otto van Eck (1780–1798). Otto was a Dutch youth from an upper middle class background whose parents were bent on giving their son an upbringing and education that complied with a rational, Enlightened form of Christendom. They tried to stimulate and steer his personal development by supervising his writing and scrutinizing his diary. Since sermons played an important role in his education, the way Otto appreciated sermons was largely determined by the expectations of his father and mother. He made a point of mentioning the instruction and edification he had received from sermons. Together with his parents, he frequented the chique Walloon (French Presbyterian) church in Voorburg near The Hague. Today I went to church at dominee Cussy, who by the example of Peter showed us how unhappy is the man who allows himself to be dominated by sensual desires. This morning I went with my father to church in Voorburg at dominee Cussy, who took his material from Psalm 33:13, that God from heaven sees everything done by men, governs their fate and fashions their hearts.

115 [Anon], An account of some remarkable passages in the life of a private gentleman (London, 1715), pp. 65–80. 116 [Anon], Account of some remarkable passages, pp. 121–130. The reference presumably is to Alexander Leighton (c.1570–1649).

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This morning I went with Papa and Mama to the French church in Voorburg at dominee Geraud, who showed us that we shall remain unhappy despite the greatest treasures, if we are not rich in God, that is if we do not know and love God. The text was Luke 16 verse 16 and following.117

This is not to say that Otto was always as attentive as his parents would have wished him to be. For instance, he noted with his usual disarming sincerity that he had been so engrossed by the preparations for celebrating the Lord’s Supper that he failed to listen to the preacher, and consequently had nothing to tell his parents when he got home.118 His mother sometimes scolded him, saying that his failure to understand the sermon was due to his behaviour in church, which she found unsatisfactory.119 His father chided him for not being quiet and attentive (although on this occasion Otto prided himself on having remembered the text, which was Acts 24:1).120 Otto’s failure to get the minister’s message was not always his own fault, but the fact that he felt obliged to mention this at all demonstrates the importance his parents attached to the role of sermons in his religious and moral development. Dominee Bril’s sermon on Job 19 was incomprehensible.121 A week-day visit to a Herrnhutter colony meant that he had to listen to a sermon in German. He understood little of it.122 Otto, moreover, was hard of hearing. At church in Delft, he had been unable to hear a minister’s sermon; like his father, he preferred dominee Cussy, who spoke more loudly.123 A ‘reverend N.N.’, who once replaced Cussy at Voorburg, spoke so softly that Otto understood nothing.124 Hence Otto’s high regard for Géraud, who spoke so loudly and clearly that I understood him well. Papa wished that I might become such a minister, so that he could enjoy twice the happiness in coming to listen with so great a rapture.125 117

Arianne Baggerman and Rudolf Dekker eds., Het dagboek van Otto van Eck (1791– 1797) (Hilversum, 1998), p. 26 (Sunday 28-5-1791), p. 28 (Sunday 5-6-1791), p. 46 (Sunday 25-9-1791). The dominees or ‘reverends’ mentioned are Jacques Jonathan Cussy (?–1797) and Samuel Géraud (1749–1828). 118 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 33 (Sunday 3-7-1791). 119 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 122 (Sunday 29-9-1793). 120 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, pp. 133 (Sunday 17-11-1793). 121 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 52 (Sunday 25-10-1791); Johannes Bril (1740–1801, minister at Rijswijk). 122 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 110 (Wednesday 14-8-1793). 123 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 31 (Sunday 19-6-1791). 124 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 36 (Sunday 24-7-1791). 125 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, pp. 40–41 (Sunday 21-8-1791).

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Otto found the prospect of becoming a preacher rather daunting, but he seems to have enjoyed talking with his parents about Géraud’s ‘fine sermon’ on Phil 3:20 in the carriage on the way home. Otto makes it clear in his diary that sermons were of personal use to him when preachers spoke ‘clearly and understandably’. His entries show that he was able to reproduce the message even when his parents had not attended church with him.126 He once blamed his missing the gist of a fast day sermon partly on his own deafness and partly on his lack of attention. This displeased his father, who bade him read a fast day sermon held fifteen years previously.127 We shall look at two more examples of the way sermons contributed to identity construction. Adults like the shopkeeper Thomas Turner, who justified himself in his diary only to himself and not, like Otto, to his parents, similarly noted the texts on which the preacher had spoken. ‘We had, both forenoon and afternoon, excellent discourses wherein that necessary and excellent duty of repentance was strongly and pathetically recommended and enjoined to be done if we hope for salvation (…)’.128 Sermons met Turner’s spiritual needs, but he also used them as a means of keeping track of time in a hectic social environment. He used his diary to make a comprehensive report of the day’s events, keeping account of the money he put in the collection bag and recording the texts chosen for sermons. Turner did not comment frequently on what he had actually heard, but he does seem to have paid close attention. For example, he was quite able to reproduce an account of the relations between sin and calamity (and between virtue and welfare) delivered from the pulpit on a day of public fast and humiliation some months after the Lisbon earthquake.129 It did take a close reading of one of Tillotson’s published sermons in his own home to bring about some serious reflection on his own spiritual state: Oh! may the God of all goodness give me the grace to mind what I read, that the same may sink deep into my heart and mind, and that I may every day become a better Christian. Oh! How weak and feeble are my best resolutions.130

126 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 113 (Sunday 25-8-1793) and p. 115 (Sunday 1-9-1793), on Willem de Roo (1753–1813), minister at Tiel. 127 Baggerman and Dekker eds., Dagboek van Otto van Eck, p. 166 (Sunday 26-3-1794); Otto read a sermon by Samuel Eschauzier (see also p. 245: Sunday 20-9-1795). 128 Vaisey ed., Diary of Thomas Turner, p. 26 (Sunday 8-02-1756, on Rom. 4:3 and Job 7:20). 129 Vaisey ed., Diary of Thomas Turner, p. 26 (Friday 6-02-1756, on Ps. 18:3). 130 Vaisey ed., Diary of Thomas Turner, p. 65 (Friday 8-10-1756).

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Turner made a note of those sermons heard in church that he found worth his time. ‘We have had I think two extreme good sermons this day preached unto us’, is a typical comment.131 James Boswell, finally, illustrates the way some eighteenth-century diarists felt compelled to indulge in concentrated self-reflection after attending a sermon. Several early observations made in 1762 on three consecutive Sundays portray him very nicely as the candid and engaging, but selfdoubting diarist he remained throughout his life. On the first Sunday he noted: I went to Mayfair Chapel and heard prayers and an excellent sermon from the Book of Job on the comforts of piety. I was in a fine frame. And I thought that God really designed us to be happy. I shall certainly be a religious old man. I was much so in youth. I have now and then flashes of devotion, and it will one day burn with a steady flame.132

One week later, acknowledging his sinful proclivity to transgress against Christian norms (women and drink not being the least of his sins), he offered a personalized account of the effects of that morning’s sermon: I went to St. James’s Church and heard service and a good sermon on ‘By what means shall a young man learn to order his ways’, in which the advantages of early piety were well displayed. What a curious, inconsistent thing is the mind of man! In the midst of divine service I was laying plans for having women, and yet I had the most sincere feelings of religion. I imagine that my want of belief is the occasion of this, so that I can have all the feelings. I would try to make out a little consistency this way. I have a warm heart and a vivacious fancy. I am therefore given to love, and also to piety or gratitude to God, and to the most briljant and showy method of public worship.133

Even when he did not apply the preacher’s message to his own individual state of mind, his unease in personally failing to live up to the religious standards is as palpable as his honesty is disarming: I then went to St. George’s Church, where I heard a good sermon on the prophets testifying of Jesus Christ. I was upon honour much disposed to be a Christian. Yet I was rather cold in my devotion. The Duchess of Grafton attracted my eyes rather too much.134 131

Vaisey ed., Diary of Thomas Turner, p. 111 (Sunday, 18-09-1757). Pottle ed., Boswell’s London Journal 1762–1763, pp. 45–46 (London, Sunday 21-11-1762). 133 Pottle ed., Boswell’s London Journal 1762–1763, pp. 53–54 (London, Sunday 28-11-1762). 134 Pottle ed., Boswell’s London Journal 1762–1763, p. 68 (London, Sunday 5-12-1762). Cf. Milne ed., Boswell’s Edinburgh Journals 1767–1786, p. 270 (Edinburgh, Sunday 132

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Boswell makes clear how eighteenth-century ego documents sometimes evince a discrepancy between socialization (or the self-imposition of social rules) and individual identity. Lying in bed on a Sunday and having no wish to get up, he pondered: ‘I had a slight conflict between what I really thought would do me most good and the desire of being externally decent and going to church’. He solved his dilemma by reading the Bible in the morning, and going out to hear Blair in the afternoon.135 After a night of gambling and heavy drinking, he woke up with a hangover but nonetheless went to church. There he listened to one of Blair’s moral discourses ‘on a man who has ruined himself in life by foolish conduct’. He applied this to himself, but it made him uneasy, until he remembered Dr. Johnson’s advice for such situations, and thankfully considered ‘how many had done worse than I had done’.136 Sermons, then, affirmed identities in various ways. They contributed to one’s conversion experiences or religious education; they might help to regulate one’s daily existence; and they provoked reflection on one’s commitment to the moral life. In each of the cases briefly discussed above, the hearer reinterpreted the sermon to suit his own or other people’s needs. The Pietist did not necessarily require sermons, and construed the ones he did attend as part of his own personal conversion process. Otto ensured that his own sermon reception corresponded to the pedagogical requirements of his parents. Turner fitted sermons into the daily order of village life, while Boswell employed sermons as a means of moral self-control. 5. Social Affirmation Partly for social reasons, fast day sermons tended to attract many people. The following entry in Turner’s diary is for Friday, 17 February 1758: ‘This fast-day to all outward appearance has (in this parish) been observed with a great deal of decorum and, I hope, true piety, the church in the morning being more thronged than I have seen it lately’.137 Turner seems sceptical as to whether there was more to sermon attendance than mere outward

10-11-1776), on ‘licentious schemes’ regarding Annie Cunninghame, due to which he failed to hear Blair’s sermon. 135 Milne ed., Boswell’s Edinburgh Journals 1767–1786, p. 121 (Edinburgh, Sunday 17-07-1774). 136 Milne ed., Boswell’s Edinburgh Journals 1767–1786, p. 245 (Edinburgh, Sunday 25-02-1776). 137 Vaisey ed., Diary of Thomas Turner, pp. 136–137 (Friday 17-02-1758).

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appearance and decorum. His entry for Friday 16 February 1759 repeats the same observation: ‘The fast in this place hath seemingly been kept with great strictness and, I hope, with a sincere and unaffected piety, our church in the morning being crowded with a numerous audience’.138 As we saw above, sermons on calamities gratified the affective needs of worried audience members; at the same time, they strengthened community bonds. People attended fast day sermons to seek social affirmation in times of (potential) crisis, seeking consolation from the preacher as spokesman for the community. Communities Run-of-the-mill weekly sermons were no less significant than occasional sermons in establishing social relations. Contemporaries frequently associated sermons with the obligations of the bourgeois life. The typical devotion of upper-class women in Paris, claimed Caraccioli, required that they were accompanied to church by a couple of footmen. The latter provided their mistress, upon entering into the church, with a prayer book carried in a bag of velvet fringed with gold, and made way for her through the crowd. My lady’s prime objective was ‘to hear a fashionable discourse pronounced by a fashionable priest’. By contrast, the piety of a plain bourgeoise was ‘to stand humbly and unobserved at the church door, in a neat and simple dress’.139 Incidentally, we find again that sermon attendance was associated with both gender and class. As for Boswell himself, he associated church attendance in part with what he called ‘decency’, or social propriety, for instance when he wrote: ‘I was at church all day decently’.140 Of course, obligations could be performed so routinely that observers might question their efficacy. During Lent, as a ‘Sicilian’ wrote in a critique of city life in Paris, ‘the People run in the Morning to Sermon with great Devotion, and after Dinner to the Comedy with the same haste’.141 In some circles, attending particular sermons was the trendy thing to do. The Methodist ‘new light is extremely in fashion’, wrote Walpole. ‘Whitfield preaches continually at my Lady Huntingdon’s at Chelsea; my Lord 138

Vaisey ed., Diary of Thomas Turner, p. 175 (Friday 17-02-1758, on Ps. 122:6). [Caraccioli], Letters on the manners of the French II, pp. 202–203. 140 Milne ed., Boswell’s Edinburgh Journals 1767–1786, p. 81; also Charles Ryskamp and Frederick A. Pottle eds., Boswell: The ominous years 1774–1776 (Melbourne, London, Toronto, 1963), p. 31 (Valleyfield, Sunday 30-10-1774). 141 [Cotolendi?], An agreeable criticism, of the city of Paris, p. 27. 139

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Chesterfield, my Lord Bath, my Lady Townshend, my Lady Thanet and others, have been to hear him’.142 Sermons offered occasions for outward display. In Europe, claimed the revolutionary Brissot (who himself was given to republican austerity and virtue), people came primarily to see and be seen.143 In small towns, where social control was stronger than elsewhere, anybody’s absence was conspicuous. When the Rev. John Shaw (1748–1794) went to preach in Bradford and a Mr. Smith took his place, Adams Jr. noticed that several persons attended whom he had never seen before. ‘There are a number of gentlemen in Town, who, make it a Rule, never to attend divine Service here, if Mr. Shaw preaches’, remarked Adams. ‘What narrow illiberal prejudices attend us, almost in every Circumstance of our lives’.144 Church services were social occasions, and part of the fabric of daily life. People made appointments at church. On Easter Day at Saint Paul’s, Boswell had himself shown to a seat near the London publisher John Rivington (1720–1792). ‘He invited me to his family dinner, a fillet of veal and a pudding, but I told him I was engaged with Mr. Johnson’.145 Social rank implied social obligations, the observance of which confirmed social roles. Even the notorious rake John Wilkes (1725–1797) attended sermons in order to confirm his social status. It seemed that Wilkes’s ‘dignity of alderman has dulled him into prudence’, wrote Walpole. Recently, he had ‘done nothing but go to city banquets and sermons, and sit at Guildhall as a sober magistrate’.146 The Church of England clergyman James Woodforde (1740–1803) regularly noted in his diary the absence of members of the Custance family at the church in Weston Longville, Norfolk, and sometimes provided an explanation as well. ‘None from West House at Church this Morn’ being bitter cold Frost with high Wind and Snow’, he wrote in December 1788. ‘Very small Congregation at Church this Morn’.147 142 Walpole, Correspondence (Yale edition) IX, pp. 73–74 (To George Montagu, Strawberry Hill 3-09-1748). 143 J.P. Brissot de Warville, New travels in the United States of America, performed in MDCCLXXXVIII (2nd ed.; London, 1794), p. 74 (to Étienne Clavière, Boston 30-71788); Brissot cites Ovid, Ars Amatoria I, p. 99: ‘spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae’. 144 Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams I, p. 370 (Sunday, 11-12-1785). 145 Wimsatt and Pottle eds., Boswell for the Defence 1769–1774, p. 181 (London, Sunday 11-04-1773). 146 Walpole, Correspondence (Yale edition) XXIII, p. 208 (to Horace Mann, Strawberry Hill, 6-05-1770). 147 James Woodforde, The Diary of a Country Parson 1758–1802, John Beresford ed., (London etc., s.a.), p. 240 (Sunday, 21-12-1788).

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Court sermons, of course, were still highly ritualized in the eighteenth century; a person’s presence or absence could be highly symbolic. The Journal of Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau (1638–1720), marks out Easter sermons at the court of Louis XIV as particularly significant events. The sermons were part of a series of religious ceremonies involving the king, who, among other things, washed the feet of the poor on Maundy Thursday and touched the sick on Holy Saturday. Lent (as well as Advent) preachers were carefully chosen well in advance of the actual event, such as in 1700: M. L’évêque de Metz présenta au roi la liste des prédicateurs, afin que S.M. choisisse ceux qui prêcheront l’avent et le carême prochain. Le roi a nommé pour l’avent le P. Maure, qui n’a jamais prêché ici, mais qui est en grande réputation, et pour le carême le P. Massillon, qui prêcha ici l’avent dernier. Ces deux prédicateurs sont Pères de l’Oratoire; on choisit toujours les prédicateurs en ce temps-ci afin qu’ils aient le loisir de travailler à leurs sermons.148

It was a tradition at court that whoever preached on Candlemas was ‘toujours le prédicateur qui doit prècher le carême’.149 The seating arrangements during such events were meticulously taken care of, as on Good Friday, 1700: Pendant le sermon, M. de Souvré, maître de la garde-robe, étoit assis derrière la chaise du roi, en la place de M. de La Rochefoucauld, grand maître de la garde-robe, qui est absent. Il y a présentement cinq places derrière la chaise du roi, celle de capitaine des gardes, celle du grand chambellan, qui est à la droite du capitaine des gardes, celle de premier gentilhomme de la chambre, qui est à la gauche, et au-dessous du grand chambellan, la place du grand maître de la garde-robe et celle du premier aumônier.150

Audiences The few examples given in the previous section show the extent to which sermon audiences were extensions of local communities. Even the clothes one wore confirmed one’s social status, denominational affiliation or other

148 Philippe de Courcillon, Journal du marquis de Dangeau (19 vols.; Paris, 1854–1882) VII, p. 274 (17-03-1700). The persons mentioned are the bishop of Metz Henri-Charles du Camboust (1665–1732); père Le Maure is presumably the Jesuit Charles de La Rue (1643–1725). 149 Courcillon, Journal du marquis de Dangeau I, p. 116 (2-02-1685). 150 Courcillon, Journal du marquis de Dangeau VII, p. 289 (Good Friday, 9-04-1700). The persons mentioned are Louis-Nicolas Le Tellier, marquis de Souvré (1667–1725) and François VII de La Rochefoucauld (1634–1714).

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relation to the social community.151 Wearing one’s hat in church partly defined one’s confessional identity. To an Anglican, a clergyman preaching with his hat on was little better than ‘a Monster from Hell’, commented the traveller Henri Misson (no dates). To prevent disturbances, the French Protestant churches in London started to prohibit their clergymen from preaching with their heads covered. This led to differences among the 22 consistories, especially between moderates (who removed their hats in conformity with English custom) and hardliners (who refused to compromise).152 Misson knew of a French minister from one of the moderate congregations who had been asked to preach in a church of stricter observance. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to take his hat into the pulpit and started preaching without it. Scarce had he begun his Exordium, when behold ten or twelve Arms rose all together from the Pew where the silly old doting Elders sat, making Sign after Sign, together with an odd Kind of a stifled Murmur, to let him know that it was not customary among them to preach without a Hat.

The preacher understood the signals from the audience, but was in a quandary as to how to obtain his hat.153 If Anglicans looked upon wearing headdress in church as ‘the greatest Indignation, as an infamous and abominable Thing’, Jews, by contrast, considered the whole issue ludicrous. They ‘enter their Synagogues as they’d go into a Fair’. Genevan and French Calvinists stuck to a middle course. They took off their hats upon entering church and kept their heads uncovered when the commandments were read, psalms sung and prayers said. Nobody took offence if anybody put on his hat during the sermon. ‘Here you see’, concluded Misson, ‘is Custom and Fancy on every Side’.154 Travellers like Misson were aware of the fact that audiences responded as social groups belonging to specific local communities. While in the United States, Brissot, for example, visited a Quaker meeting. He had to wait in ‘profound silence’ for more than an hour before one of the elders finally began to preach. This man rose from his bench, pronounced four words, remained silent for a minute, and then spoke four words more. He 151 Leigh Eric Schmidt, “ ‘A Church-going People are a Dress-loving People’. Clothes, Communication, and Religious Culture in Early America”, in Church History 58 (1989), pp. 36–51. 152 Henri Misson, Memoirs and observations in his travels over England (London, 1719) (translated by John Ozell from Mémoires et observations faites par un voyageur en Angleterre (1698), pp. 83–84. 153 Misson, Memoirs and observations in his travels over England, pp. 84–85. 154 Misson, Memoirs and observations in his travels over England, p. 82.

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continued preaching in this manner until he had completed his sermon. Apparently, this was the way Quakers usually preached. Whether I judged from habit or reason, I know not; but this manner of speaking appeared to me not calculated to produce a great effect: for the sense of the phrase is perpetually interrupted, and the hearer is obliged to guess at the meaning, or be in suspense; either of which is fatiguing.

It was important, Brissot thought, to take into consideration the nature of the audience. Both ancient orators and modern preachers addressed hearers who were ‘enervated and enfeebled’, people who did not wish to take the trouble of giving thought to what was said. Public speakers were therefore obliged to attend to the imagination, the passions and reason, pleasing their listeners in order to move them: ‘it is by pleasure that they draw you after them’. Quakers, by contrast, were used to meditating and reflecting. They had no need for ‘sounding phrases and long sermons’. Since the aim of preaching was to convert, ‘it ought rather to lead to reflection, than to dazzle and amuse’.155 It was not always immediately evident to outsiders why audiences responded in the ways they did. Rutledge recounts how he went with some friends to witness a Jesuit preacher whose eloquence attracted ‘toutes les dévotes de Paris’.156 Expectations ran high, if only because of the substantial admission fee. In Paris, the price of a seat in church was proportional to the extent to which the preacher was in vogue. This particular speaker performed in one of the largest churches in the city, and the fee equalled that of a ticket to the theatre. Rutledge obtained a seat near a company of respectable women, each of whom was fitted out with an enormous purse made of crimson velvet edged with golden tassels, a sign (according to Rutledge) both of ostentation and devotion. The man who climbed into the pulpit was majestic and venerable; he exuded an air of contemplation and penitence. His strong, noble traits reminded Rutledge of the paintings of the Apostles’ heads by Rubens and Raphael. Speaking in a dignified and resolute voice, he began with an introduction so worthy of his august office that Rutledge would have advised any English preacher to take lessons from him.157

155

Brissot de Warville, New travels in the United States, pp. 162–164. Cf. Marie-Claude Leleux, “Les predicateurs Jesuites et leur temps a travers les sermons prononces dans le Paris religieux du XVIIIe Siecle, 1729–1762”, in Histoire, Economie et Société 8 (1989), pp. 21–43. 157 [Rutledge], Premier et second voyages, III, pp. 128–130. 156

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However, not everyone in the audience was as taken with the performance as Rutledge. A group of abbés spitefully parodied the preacher’s words. ‘Quel style!’, said one; ‘quelle capucinade’, responded another.158 A second group of hearers repeatedly grumbled ‘au blasphême! à l’hérésie’. Rutledge begged his readers’ pardon for again comparing the pulpit with the stage, but it seemed to him that the indecent tumult in church, together with the spluttering and coughing and blowing of noses, strongly resembled the noisy parterre at the Comedy. It only became clear to him on leaving the church why the sermon had been attended by such commotion. Jansenists had come there purposely to hiss and anathematize.159 Sermons, in summary, were social events that affirmed social boundaries, between the community and the external world, between rank and class, or between in- and outsiders. 6. Conclusion This chapter has employed the ‘uses and gratification’ model to classify and interpret audience responses to sermons gleaned from eighteenth-century ego documents. Responses to the sermon as a ‘media event’ were divided into four categories, labelled respectively cognitive (providing knowledge and understanding), affective (offering an emotional or pleasurable experience), affirmative on a personal level (strengthening personal identity) and affirmative on a social level (reinforcing community ties with the community). As far as cognition is concerned, sermons sometimes gratified hearers in unexpected ways; they might use ‘sacred’ oratory to learn a language, for example, or as a topic for conversation. The more ‘Enlightened’ observers often distinguished between useful and useless knowledge. They regarded doctrine, mysticism and exaggerated learning as a waste of time, and had a distinct preference for commonsensical sermons, especially those that treated moral issues. Audience members who explicitly associated themselves with traditional communities or denominations valued the older preaching methods. Views differed on the best way to disseminate religious knowledge. Not everyone, for example, appreciated story telling. Both the message and the preaching technique should fit the audience. Repetition clearly irritated churchgoers and was to be avoided. 158 159

Capucinade = moralistic discourse. [Rutledge], Premier et second voyages III, pp. 130–134.

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Particularly prominent in ego documentary material is the gratification of affective needs. Sermons helped people to come to terms with personal or communal hardships, including deaths and calamities. Emotional responses were hard to predict, although audience members sometimes appreciated precisely those preachers whom they expected to stimulate emotionalism (or what eighteenth-century writers called ‘enthusiasm’). In such cases, the prospect of gratification helped determine (emotional) audience response. Reception depended also on the extent to which sermons were integrated into elaborate rituals. Mission sermons, for example, often involved a high degree of audience participation. Even in Protestant settings, affective gratification was not necessarily the result of good discourse. Not infrequently, churchgoers (especially the more educated ones) regarded sermons as a form of entertainment that gave both pleasure and instruction. The pulpit was often compared to the stage. Hence the stress put on delivery; no sermon delivered without minimal attention to rhetorical technique gratified any eighteenth-century audience. Sermon-goers acknowledged that different audiences required different deliveries. Gender and class figure prominently in contemporary attempts to distinguish different kinds of audiences. Sermons helped to confirm personal identities. They played a role in conversion experiences and the religious education of youths, contributed to regulating the daily pattern of life, and brought about reflection on personal behaviour. People attended sermons to seek social affirmation, in times of crisis but also during the normal run of events. Sermons were woven into the fabric of daily life at all levels of society. Sermon audiences were extensions of local communities. The way one participated in sermons confirmed one’s social status, denominational affiliation or other aspects of social identity. The most important question, perhaps, is what we can learn from ego documents about audience reception. Do they allow us to better understand the role of the eighteenth-century sermon as a means of communication? Do they shed light on the character and social background of the various writers? Or do they merely offer an insight into the commonplaces and clichés of the period? Probably ego documents do all three things, although the extent to which will depend on the kind of material we examine. Compared to travel accounts, diaries (such as those of Boswell, Otto or Adams Sr.) and letters (for example Walpole’s) will in most cases reflect a briefer time lapse between the ‘sermon event’ itself and a writer’s report on it. We might therefore expect travel accounts to be better thought-out and less subject to immediate impressions, and diaries and letters to be less

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susceptible to being influenced by clichés, topoi and particular trends. However, it is highly questionable that this is indeed the case. It is quite easy, for instance, to separate Catholics from Protestants and the traditionally orthodox from the ‘Enlightened’, regardless of whether one reads a diary, a letter or a travel journal. Examining the eighteenth-century sermon through ego documents offers a worthwhile perspective on the way sermons functioned in society, the personal views of audience members, and the cultural representation of sermons. It will require extensive research to sort out these various themes in the abundant ego documentary material available, and to relate the findings to other aspects of audience reception. The result will be a cultural history of the sermon.

INDEX

abbots, and nobility, 160n Abimelech, biblical, 26 Abraham a Santa Clara ( Johann Ulrich Megerle), 22–7, 89, 294 Abraham, biblical, 365 absolution, 362 Absolutism, 244, 256, 299 abstinence, 163; see also fasting Académie Française, 89, 237, 322 Ackerbürgerstädte (farmer towns), 300 acting, preaching and, 320–1, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 335, 338n, 340, 364, 367; see also Elocutionary, theatre Adam, biblical, 373 Adami, Johann Samuel, 175n, 184, 185 Adams, John Quincy, 347–8, 349, 352, 356, 357, 367, 369, 370, 371, 382, 387 Adams, John, 38, 39, 349, 351, 355, 358, 360, 370, 371 Addison, Joseph, The Spectator, 339 adiaphora (indifferent things), 114 Advent, sermon for, 3, 82, 105, 153, 165, 383 afterlife, 302 Age of Absolutism (Sweden), 45 Ages of Liberty (Swedish), 45, 253 Alexander, Carl, duke, 293 Allegany Mountains (Virginia), 371 alms, 281 Althusius, Johannes, 319 Amadeus, duke of Savoy (Leo X), 25 America, 13n, 314 America, political sermons from, 226n American Revolution, 13n, 38–9, 41, 42, 232, 234 Amsterdam, 167, 168, 313, 315, 316, 337n Amsterdam, Athenaeum Illustre, 336 Anabaptists, 52, 307; see also Mennonites Analogy of Religion, 99 Andrewes, Lancelot, 12, 110n Anglicanism, 3, 11, 13, 100, 101, 146, 168, 220, 225n, 226, 228, 230, 231,

233, 234, 244, 274–5, 348, 351, 360, 384; see also Church of England Anglo-Catholics, 13 Anglo-Saxon, language, 116 Anne of Austria, queen consort of France, 147, 147n Anne, queen of Great Britain and Ireland, 168, 169 Annecy, 141n Annunciation, of the Virgin Mary, 270 anticlerical reforms, 224 Anti-donatism, 64 Antwerp, 166 Apostles, 385 Aquinas, Thomas, 10, 143n Aristotle, 10, 134, 198 Arminians, 39; see also Remonstrants Arnauld, Antoine, 336 De la fréquente communion, 156 Arndt, Johann, 180n, 181, 198 Arnold, Gottfried, xi, 177, 198–9, 216 artisans, 31 Ascension, 3, 270 Asia, 7 Asseburg, Rosamunde Juliane von der, 187 Assumption, of the Virgin Mary, 270 atheism, 221n, 224 Atlantic, 35, 207 Atterbury, Francis, Bishop, 98 audience, of sermons, see sermon audience Augsburg Confession, 51 Augsburg, 167, 305 Augustine, St, 11, 97, 107, 120, 143n, 149, 354 Augustinians, 89 Discalced, 23 Austria, 24, 31, 244, 304; see also Germany, Prussia Austrian War of Succession, 244 Ave Maria, 28, 134, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146, 154, 279 awakenings, 4

390

index

Babylon, biblical, 147 Baelter, Sven, 253 Bahrdt, Carl Friedrich, 336 Balaam, biblical, 25 Baltic, 201 Balzac, Jean louis Guez de, 322, 336 Bamburgh, 102n baptism, 4, 52, 62, 140, 297 Baptist Church, 147, 371 Barbarini (Rome), palace of, 350n Barclay, John, 350 Barfüsser (Augsburg), church, 306 Barnabites, Order of, 26, 88 Baroque, sermon style, ix, xi, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 17, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 53, 88, 90, 91, 110, 133, 134, 273; see also sermon style: rhetoric Barra, Antonio dalla, bishop of Aversa, 290 Bartels, August Christian, 242 Basel, 274 Bastille, 239 Batavian Republic, 247, 248, 249, 259 Bath, Lord, 356, 382 Baumgarten, Siegmund Jacob, Evangelische Glaubenslehre, x, 70–1 Bavaria, 286 Baxter, Richard, Saints’ Everlasting Rest, 100 Bayerische Gesellschaft zur Pflege der geistlichen Beredsamkeit (Munich), 92 Bayley, Peter, 7, 8, 104 Beeckman, Isaac, physicist, 314, 322 behaviour, Christian: as Christ’s presence in the world, 266 definition of, 266 family vs. servants, 267 household duties, 267 Belgium, 265 belles-lettres, 104, 100n, 311 Belley, 134, 137 Benedictinism, 92, 349, 372 Bengel, Johann Albrecht, 74, 203 Bereans, meeting of, 350 Bergner, Anders, 254 Berlin, 78, 243 Charité, 196 Tiergarten, 196 Bern, 300 Bernard of Clairvaux, St, 140, 161–2 Bernard, A., 234 Bernardino of Siena, 136n Berthelsdorf, 66, 199 Besold, Christoph, 175n

Bethel, biblical, 23 Bethlehem, 135 Betke, Joachim, 178 Betterton, Thomas, 324, 325 Beutel, Albrecht, 174 Beveridge, William, bishop of St. Asaph, Thesaurus Theologicus, 104 Bible, 3, 4, 21, 32, 34, 73, 104, 267, 269, 287, 295–6, 300, 320, 343, 345, 353, 380 epistle and gospel readings from, 16 exegesis, 6, 66, 133; see also homilies importance of, 65 translation of, into Dutch, 41n use of, in political sermons, 239 Bible, citations from: Genesis, 6, 102 1:3–30: 59 3:4–6: 59 3:19: 6 21: 365 28:19: 23 Exodus 3:5: 24 Judges 9:50–54: 26 1 Kings 8: 50 Ezra 6: 50 Job 7: 20: 378n 19: 377 Psalms, 385 2:10: 146 33:13: 376 54:16: 354 71:17: 50 90: 288 Proverbs 1: 20: 367 3:17: 371 8:15: 144 24:5: 30 31:10: 24 Ecclesiastes 1:2: 148 Canticum 2:14: 370 Isaiah 53:1: 369 57:2: 33 Jeremiah 26:6–7: 147 Daniel 3:26: 23 Hosea, 37 Joel, 6 2:12–13: 6 Matthew, 6, 7 4:4: 354 6:16: 6

index 13:3–9: 84 13:45: 7 16:18: 23 20: 159 21: 144 21:1–11: 82 22:2–3: 67 22:21: 153 25: 162 Mark 4:39: 24 16:2: 366 Luke, 142 2: 157 2:41–52: 82 6: 142 10:38–42: 71–2 14:16–24: 156 16:16: 377 19:10: 356 John 1:47: 24, 357 3:16–21: 82 5:35: 141 8:31–32.47: 70 10:27: 70 14:23: 63, 70 20: 366 Acts 2:3: 363 7:9: 357 24:1: 377 Romans 1:16: 63 4:3: 378n 5:1: 305 8:1: 356 13:2: 239 15:3: 352 15:4: 16 1 Corinthians 2:1–4: 72 2:2: 67 3:6–7: 75 3:19: 348n 13:1: 279 2 Corinthians 5:1–10: 29 6:1: 361 Galatians, 99 Ephesians 5:22–6:9: 286 6:11: 349 Philippians

391

1:21: 358 3:20: 378 Colossians 3:16: 80 3:18–4:1: 286 4:15: 361 1 Timothy 2:12: 26 2 Timothy 3:16–17: 16 4:3: 185n Hebrews 11:24–25: 168 13:7: 33 James 5:1: 155 5:2–3: 155 1 Peter 1:3–4: 357 Revelation, 102 14:5: 149 19:10: 69n Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris), 167 Bill of Rights, 39 Birch, Thomas, 168 Bischoff, Melchior, General Superintendent of Coburg, 29 bishops, and nobility, 160n Bitzel, Alexander, ix Black, Jeremy, 222 Blair, Hugh, xiii, 98, 111, 115, 116, 121, 339, 341, 350, 363, 380 Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 327 blasphemy, 163 Blaufuß, 199 Bohemia, 23, 66 Boismont, Abbé, 234 Bologna, 365 Bonifacio, Giovanni, L’arte de’cenni, 318–19 Bonnet, Gisbertus, 338n Book of Common Prayer (1662), 43, 44 Book of Homilies (Church of England), 14 book trade, 42 Borge, Birgit, 29 Borromeo, Charles, archbishop of Milan, St, 136, 139–40, 141 Bosanquet, Mary, 212 Bosma, Jelle, 48, 246 Bosner, Rolf Georg, 29 Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, Bishop of Condom, Bishop of Meaux, vii, ix, xi, 11, 12–13, 89, 90, 119n, 133, 134, 137–8, 167, 170, 171, 172, 241, 256, 273, 274, 279, 369n

392

index

Discourse on Universal History, 138, 347 Four Articles, 138 Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture, 138, 145 anti-Quietists, 138 audiences of, 143 exemplary life of, 150 funeral orations (for Queen Henriette-Marie), 145–7, 151; (for Duchess Henriette-Anne), 148–9, 151; (for Queen Marie-Thérèse), 149 funeral sermons of, 28, 29, 30, 138, 145–6 Lenten sermon (Wednesday 1662), 145n on death, 145 on kingship, 144–5 on the rich and the poor, 142–3 publication of sermons, 138 publications of sermons, 151–2 relations with the Dauphin, 137–8, 145 reputation of, 150–2 sermons for the royal court, 144–6; (Palm Sunday 1662), 144–5 themes used by, 142, 143n, 147 use of biblical references, 142–3 use of historical figures, 139–42; see also Charles Borromeo, Bernard of Clairvaux use of similes and metaphors, 142 Boston (Massachusetts), 36 Boswell, James, 347, 350, 354, 359, 363, 364, 371, 374, 379–80, 381, 382, 387 Boudet, Antoine, 138, 151 Bourbon, monarchs of, 167, 227 Bourdaloue, Louis, S.J., xi, 29, 98, 122n, 133, 134, 169, 170, 171, 172, 273, 347, 368 audiences of, 160n, 166 Bretonneau’s assessment of, 166 critical commentaries of, 167 editions and translations of, 153, 165–6 on ambition, 159–61 on charity, 161–3 on Christian behaviour, 160–1 on concupiscence and restitution, 154 on evangelism, 120 on grace and human freedom, 159–60 on humility, chastity and piety, 161–3 on kingship, 164 on nobility, 160–3

on responsibilities of secular/clerical leaders, 161–2, 163–4 on restitution and salvation, 154–6 on saints and sanctity, 163–4 on salvation, 159 on the Eucharist, 156–7 on the poor, 161–3, 164 sermon analysis of, 153–4 sermon composition of, 154 and n sermons of, 153–6; (Pentecost season), 153–6; (Corpus Christi), 156; (on St. Louis), 163–4; (on Francis de Sales), 164 theme of vocational freedom, 157–8, 159–60 Bourdieu, Pierre, 323, 336, 340 Bradford, 383 Brag, Carl Johan, 255 Brandenburg-Prussia, 195, 196, 203 Braunau (Brevnov), nr Prague, 92 Braunschwig-Wolfenbüttel, 76 Bregnsbo, Michael, 251 Bremen, 83 Bretonneau, François de Paul, S.J. editions of Bourdaloue’s sermons, 165–6 preface to, 153, 165 Breviary, 6 Bridaine, Jacques, 330 Bridport (Dorset), 99 Briggs, Henry, 108 Bril, 377 Brilioth, Yngve, 16 Brissot, 382, 384 Bristol, 99 Britain, xi, xiii, 19, 205, 209, 337 British Library (London), 167 Browne, Lionel, 99, 100 Brüder-Unität, 66 Brunsveld de Blau, Theodorus, 249 Brussels, 166 Buckner, John, Bishop, 233–4 Bullen, Christian, 180n Bullinger, Heinrich, and the Confessio Helvetica posterior, 60 Burkhardt, Johannes, 263 Burnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury, 121, 168, 364 Thirty-nine articles, 99 Discourse of the Pastoral Care, 99 Burt, Edmund, 355, 373 Bushnell, Rebecca, 323 Butler, Joseph, 99

index calamities, sermons for, 36, 41, 303, 358, 381 calendar, liturgical, 16 Calvinism, ix, xii, 3, 4, 13, 14, 21, 28n, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 83, 94, 104, 119, 147, 229, 236, 247, 248, 318, 319, 355, 384 Camboust, Henri-Charles du, bishop of Metz, 383n Cambrai, 105 Cambridge, 100 Clare College, 168 Magdalene College, 97 Trinity College, 102n, 107n Camus, Jean-Pierre, bishop, xi, 8, 9, 134, 167, 171 literary and historical figures used by, 136–7; see also Ignatius of Loyola and Charles Borromeo, Francis de Sales metaphors often used by, 136, 171 on Christ in the Eucharist, 135 on confession and communion, 135–6 sermon style of, 134–5 sermons for Corpus Christi, 135 use of biblical allusions in, 135–6 Candlemas, sermons for, 383 Canterbury, 168 Capuchins, 88, 119, 264, 270, 275, 290, 362, 363, 364, 365 Caraccioli, 381 Carbone, Lodovico, 318 Carinthia, 304 Carnall, Geoffrey, 328 Carpzov, Johann Benedikt, 174, 182, 271 Evangelische Vorbilder- und FragPredigten, 307–8 Carpzov, John Benedict the Younger, Hodegeticum, 16, 18 Cartesian philosphy, 120 Casa, Giovanni della, 336 Casimir, Anselm, prince archbishop of Mainz, 29, 30 Castiglione, Baldassare, 336 casuistry, 171 Catalonia, 372 catechism, sermons for, 4, 21, 47, 52, 266–7, 271, 295, 300, 361 Catherine of Alexandria, 24 Catherine of Siena, St, 24, 26, 354 Catholicism, anti-, 114 Catholicism, x, xii, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 21, 22, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 42, 58, 61, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 96, 98,

393

105, 106, 107, 112, 113, 114, 119, 122, 127, 135, 145, 146, 151, 167, 169, 171, 172, 175n, 220, 223, 234, 235, 263, 264, 265, 267, 270, 271, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 283, 289, 290, 293, 298, 299, 302, 303, 304, 305–6, 307, 308, 318, 343, 348, 352, 360, 364, 367, 372, 388 Caussin, Nicolas, 159n, 322 De eloquentia sacra et humana, 314 Cavalcanti, Bartolomeo, 318 Cavander, Christian, 253 celibacy, 198n, 284 censorship, 254 Centre Sèvres (Paris), 166, 167 Chandler, Edward, 100 Charenton, 319 Charles I, king of England, 14, 37, 42–3, 146–7 Charles II, king of England, 42, 111, 112, 146, 147, 148 Directions concerning preachers, 112 Charles XII, king, 45 Charles, St, see Borromeo Chelsea, 381 Cheminade, Christian, 235–6 Chesterfield, Lord, 382 Chiaramonti, Barnaba, cardinal, 240 children, 283, 285, 286, 287, 296, 297, 308, 323 childhood games, 298–9 Christian instruction for, 267 discipline of, 299 education of, 298, 299–301 in church, 270, 278, 280 relationship with the father, 298 China, 368 Christ Jesus, 11, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, 63, 67, 73, 76, 80, 82, 135, 142, 143, 144, 158, 162, 164, 165, 170, 352, 354, 363 Christel, Johann Martin, 306 Christmas carols, 22 Christmas, sermons for, 3, 51, 270 Christology, 76 Chrysostom, St, 97 Church of England, 13, 14, 37, 43n, 121, 127, 208, 211, 213, 364, 382; see also Anglicanism Chydenius, Anders, 254 Cicero, 11, 97, 255, 317, 318, 320 Pro Archia, 336 civic occasions, sermons for, ix, 34–5, 38, 42

394

index

Civil War (English), 146, 147 Civitavecchia, liturgical ceremony at, 360–2 Clarisse, Johannes, xiii, 338–9, 340 Clarke, Samuel, 347 Classicism, viii, xi, 112, 341 Claude, Jean, 108 Claudius, Matthias, 83 Claus, Joseph Ignaz, 272 Clausthal, 196 Clavière, Étienne, 382n Clement XIV, pope, 167 Coalter, Milton, 205 Coccejus, Johannes, 74 collegia biblica, 73 collegia pietatis, 180 Collins, Thomas, 99 commonplace book of, 99–100, 102–3 commonplace books, 98–100, 102–4 Commonwealth, 12, 13 Company of Blue Penitents, 361 Condom, 89, 137–8 Confessio Augustana, 59 Confessio Helvetica posterior, 60 confessions, xii, 39, 60, 61, 226, 361, 362 congregation, see sermon audience Congregationalists, 13n Connerton, Paul, 323, 340 Conrart, Valentin, 322 consecrations of churches, sermons for, 50 Conservative party (Tory), 43 Constitution of the United States, 39 Constitutional Church, French, 220, 239 contemplation, 277 Continental Congress, 39 Controversialism, 305, 306, 307 conventicles, 180, 181, 185–6, 196, 213, 216, 34; see also Pietism conversions, 19, 26, 41, 64, 66, 89, 148, 149, 163, 165, 171, 190, 191, 203, 207, 380, 387; see also Francke, Pietism Conybeare, John, bishop of Bristol, 99 Cooke, John, rector of Wentrop (Salop), The Preacher’s Assistant, after the manner of Mr. Letsome, 102, 103 Copenhagen, University of, 251 Corpus Christi, sermons for, 135, 156 Corsica, 354 Council of State, 44 Council of Trent (1545–1563), ix, 5, 61, 88, 90, 91, 93, 107, 161, 235, 275, 284 councils, church, sermons for, 49, 106, 313 Counter Reformation, ix, 10, 105

Courcillon, Philippe de, Marquis de Dangeau, Journal, 383 courts, sermons for ecclesiastical, 308 legal, 383 royal, 254 Courtin, Antoine de, 336 covenant theology, 36–7, 38 Coyer, Abbé, 235–6 Cromwell, Oliver, 147, 314 Crosby, Sarah, 212 crucifix, 365 Crusius, Christian August, 74 Sammlung Geistlicher Abhandlungen, 74–5 crying, preaching and, 339 Cunninghame, Annie, 380n Cussy, Jacques Jonathan, 375, 377 Custance, family of, 382 D’Aviano, Marco, 275 Daughters of Charity, 162 Dauphin (son of Louis XIV), 89, 137–8, 145, 149 David, Christian, 200, 201 David, king, biblical, 25, 165 Davies, Horton, 15 De Boismont, Nicolas Thyrel, 237–8 De Bretteville, Etienne Dubois, 336 L’eloquence de la chaire et du barreau, 337 De Chantal, Jane, 141n De Chayla, François de Langlade, 368 De Choisy, François-Timoléon, 368 De La Rue, Charles, 383n De Sales, Francis, St, 140–1, 154–5 Introduction to the Devout Life, 141, 165 Deane, Samuel, 371 death, 301–2 Last Judgement, 302, 303 afterlife, 302 Deconinck-Brossard, Françoise, x, 230, 231 dedications, 23 Defoe, Daniel, 374–6 Deism, 151, 221n Delft, 377 Delilah, biblical, 25 Delmé, Philippe, The Method of Good Preaching, Being the Advice of a French Reform’d Minister to his Son, 108 Demosthenes, 317, 329 Denmark, 251 Descartes, René, 314

index Descrains, Jean, 8 Detmold, 83 devil, sermons for, 48 devotional literature, 179, 274 diaries, xiii Diderot, 335 Diet Finnish, 254 Swedish, 256 Dijon, 137 Dillenburg, 318 Dillingen, 93 Dippel, Johann Konrad, 197, 216 disasters, see calamities Discalced Augustinians, 23; see also Augustinians dispositio (argument), 5, 101, 105 biblical text for, 105–6 Dissenters, 3, 13n, 34, 39, 50, 121, 247, 275, 349, 363 divorce, 284 doctor, of divinity, 43 Dodd, William, 359 Doddridge, Philip, 97, 101, 109 on plain vocabulary, 116 on pronunciation, 126 on sermon memorization, 121 on sermon style, 115–16 Dominic, St, 373 Dominicans, 360, 365, 373 Donne, John, 7, 12, 110n Dort, Synod of, 21 Dössel, 195 Downame, John, 37 Downey, James, 12 Dreghorn, 374 Dresden, 17 drunkenness, 352 dueling, 164 Is this the correct spelling? Is it duelling? Durham University, 104 Dutch Reformed church, 205, see also Reformed Church Dutch Republic (Republic of the Seven United Provinces), xiii, 30, 37n, 41, 48 226, 313 church councils/synods in, 49 compared with England, 43 compared with Sweden, 46 Dutch Israel, 34, 45, 49 Dutch Revolt, 51 fasting in, 39–40, 41; see also fasting funeral sermons in, 33 state sermons from, 21, 42, 43–4, 51

395

war with England, 48 wars with France, 42 Dutch, language, ix, 21, 314n, 337 dysentery, bloody, 302 earthquakes, sermons for, 358, 379, see also calamities Easter Monday, sermon for, 82 Easter, sermons for, 3, 51, 82, 270, 358, 360, 365, 382, 383 Edict of Nantes, Revocation of, 145n Edict of Toleration (1781), 305 Edinburgh, 372 University of, 98, 327 education, see schooling Edward, prince, 359 Edwards, John, 119 Edwards, Jonathan, 206–7, 231 Faithful Narrative, 207 Edwards, O.C., ix efficacia verbi divini (efficacy of the divine Word), Lutheran sermon theology, 63; see also Lutherans Egardus, 198, 208 Egypt, biblical, 163, 168, 233 Eichstädt, University of, 29 Eijnatten, Joris van, xiii, 248 Eisenach, 72 Eisenberg, 72 Eisenlohr, Christoph Peter, 71, 72 Eisenlohr, Johann Jakob, 71, 72 election day, sermons for, 36 election, divine, 350 elocutio (style), 101, 319 Elocutionary Movement, in British pulpit delivery, 317, 318, 320, 323–9, 340 acting and, 320–1, 324, 326, 327, 328, 335, 340; see also acting characteristics of, 326, 327, 329, 339 influences on, 323 natural vs. rules, 328 painting and, 324, 326, 328, 340 sensibility, cult of, 328–9, 340 theatre and, 328 see also Enthusiasm embassies, 52 emblems, see sermon style: emblematic Emotionalism, 320, 359 Enfield, William, 104 Engel, Johann Jacob, 332n England, x, xii, xiii, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 34, 96, 98, 112, 113, 147, 148, 167n, 168, 169, 170, 233, 251, 316, 317, 320, 340, 346, 352

396

index

England, political sermons in: 42–3, 48, 228–34, 258 depicting England as a model of Enlightened Christianity, 234, 244, 248 expressing social consciousness of government, 233 expression of national community, 233 French Catholicism and, 233, 234 interpretation of, 230–1 reason and religion complimentary in, 228, 248 Sweden and, 46 the Netherlands and, 43 English Church (Rotterdam), 314 English, language, 319, 323, 337, 347, 355 reforms of, 326–7 Enlightenment, viii, x, xii, 11, 12, 20, 32, 40, 47, 49, 52, 58, 69, 72, 74, 83, 84, 87, 88, 91, 92, 93, 134, 151, 171, 203, 207, 219, 224, 228, 246, 248, 265, 274, 277, 304, 308, 331, 348, 351, 374, 376, 388 Anglo-Dutch interpretation of, 223 as practical modernity, 224 as secularization, 223–4 definition of, 222 interpretation of, 220–1 relationship with religion, 220, 221–3, 224 religious Enlightenment, 224 sermon theology of, 58, 75–7, 78, 80, 81–3, 88, 219–21 see also sermons: political Enthusiasm, 329–31, 359, 387 characteristics of, 328, 330 Epiphany, 3 Epistles, 175, 271 Erasmus, 10, 98, 323 Ernesti, Johann August, 74 Ertl, Ignatius, 281, 303, 308 Erweckungsbewegung, 215 Eschauzier, Samuel, 378n Esslingen, 175n, 264 Estates, social, in Sweden, 45 Eucharist, 14, 52, 62, 88, 135–6, 149, 154, 156–7, 163, 377; see also Holy Communion Europe, ix, x, xi, xii, 201, 204, 235 Evangelical Awakening, 14 Evangelism, ix, 14, 15, 19; see also Revivalism

Evans, Caleb, British constitutional liberty (1776), 229 Eve, biblical, 296 Evelyn, John, 353, 354, 355, 358 Ewald, Johann Ludwig, xiii, 83, 331, 338, 339, 340, 341 Ueber Predigerbildung, Kirchengesang und Art zu predigen, 83–5 exegesis, 6, 30; see also homilies Exeter, 147 Extreme Unction, 149 Eylert, Rulemann Friedrich, 245–6 Eyptians, biblical, 135 Fabricius, Franciscus, 337 Faenza, Andrea da, 264 faith conversion and, 66 human reason and, 70–2 sermons and, 59, 65, 73, 89 Falmouth, 371 family, sermon collections for, 275 fasting, 4, 39, 163 sermons for, 36, 39–40, 41, 44, 381 see also abstinence father-child relationship, 298; see also children Fauchet, François-Claude, 234, 238–40 Feith, Rhijnvis, 339, 340 Fénelon, François, 108, 116–17, 122, 138, 273, 334, 339, 340 Dialogues on Eloquence, 103–4, 105, 106, 112, 125 Fielding, 339 Filles de la Providence, 142, 143 Finland, 198n, 216, 251, 254, 256, 259 Finnish War, 255 flagellation, 362 Fléchier, Esprit, 133, 273 Fleury, Claude, 106–7 Florence, 353 Fontana, Fulvio, 275 Fontaney, Jean de, 368 Fordyce, James, xiii, 125, 327, 329 An Essay on the Action Proper for the Pulpit, 325–6 forgiveness, 303 Forssenius, Aners, sermon of 1769, 254 Foster, Jacob, 369 Foucault, Michel, 340 Founders’ Hall (London), 349 Four Articles (on the liberties of the Gallican Church), 138

index France, x, xii, xiii, 6, 9, 10–11, 12, 28, 29, 34, 42, 88, 89, 98, 104, 112, 113, 122, 133, 137, 138, 145, 148, 150, 160, 162, 163, 164, 168, 169, 170, 222, 233, 240, 249, 256, 273, 316, 319, 337, 346, 347, 353, 354, 359, 369, 384 France, political sermons in: 220, 226, 234–40, 258, 259 against the background of the Revolution, 237–40 influence of Council of Trent on, 235 influence of Enlightenment on, 235–6 nationalism expressed in, 237–40 semi-philosophical preaching in, 237 Francis, St, 170 Francius, Petrus, 315, 337, 332n Specimen eloquentiae, 336, 337 Francke, August Hermann, x, xi, 19, 66, 173, 187, 194, 197, 198, 200, 205, 214 audience reaction to, 190–1 Franckesche Stiftungen, 190 individual sermon publications of, 189–90 influence of, 190–1 on appropriation, 188 on conversion, 188, 190, 191, 192, 203, 213 on Erbauung, 192, 198, 202, 203, 215 on importance of the preacher as models of Christian behaviour, 191–3, 203 on rhetoric, 193 on role of preachers to convert, 191–2 on salvation, 191, 193 on the importance of the sermon, 192, 202 sermon collections of, 189–90, 190–1 sermons of, 187–90 Francke, Send-Schreiben vom erbaulichen Predigen (1724), 191–3, 203 François VII de La Rochefoucauld, 384n Frängsmyr, Tore, 253 Frankfurt a. d. Oder, 81; University of, 295 Frankfurt/Main, 63, 180 Franklin, Benjamin, 208, 356, 374 Frederic the Wise, Elector, 31 Frederick I, king, v Frederick II, 244 Frederick the Great, 34 Frederick V of Denmark, 34 free press, 42 free will, 159–60, 355

397

Frelinghuysen, Theodorus Jacobus, 205 French Academy, 138, 150, 151n, 171 French Prophets, 197 French Revolution, 228, 233, 234, 236, 238, 240, 245, 252, 257, 258, 259, 265 French, language, 116, 117, 133, 150, 168, 171, 322 friars, 9, 11 Frisch, Johann David, 293–4 Fritsch, Ahasver, 175n Fuchs, Wolfgang, 29, 30 Fumaroli, Marc, 322 funerals, sermons for, ix, 4, 6, 21, 27–34, 138, 153, 168, 175, 176, 274, 305, 306, 357 Gallican Church, in France, 138, 239 Garrick, David, actor, 14, 325, 328, 335, 367 Gavin, Antonio, 348–9, 362, 363, 365, 366 Gay, Ebenezer, 358 Gaza, biblical, 25 Geier, Martin, 307 Geneva, 13, 134, 165, 314, 322, 384 Georgia (USA), 208 Géraud, Samuel, 377, 378 Gerber, 184 Gerbillon, Jean-François, 368 Gerhard, Andreas, of Ypres (Hyperius), 16 Gerhard, Johann, Superintendent in Heldburg, 29, 30 German, language, 17, 24–25, 28, 30, 31, 32, 51, 57–8, 90, 92, 166, 189, 197, 202, 205, 265, 273, 275, 332n, 377 Germany, ix, xi, xiii, 20, 21, 23, 31, 76, 195, 234, 243, 251, 273, 274, 275, 277, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 327, 331, 340, 343, 345 Germany, incl. Prussia and Austria (see also Prussia), political sermons in: 225n, 240–6, 258 intellectual context of, 240–1 influence of French Revolution on, 241 the Frühaufklärung, 241, 258 practical and rational tenor of, 241–3 relationship between preacher and audience, 242 moral emphasis of, 243 importance of community over individual, 244 war sermons, for Prussia, 244 pan-German nationalism as Godinspired, 245–6

398

index

Germany, preaching in, 331–6 affective oratory, concepts of: 331–6 as a public event, 174 contemporaneous complaints about, 184–5 delivered by ministers only, 175–6 emergence of Pietism in, see Pietism excessive emphasis on, 178 importance of, 174 lay prophecy and, 179–80; see also lay preaching Orthodox, 174n Pietists, 173–7; see also Pietism Pietists’ criticism of, 181–2, 187 Predigtamt (office of preaching), 174 printing vs. preaching of, 176–7 Probepredigt (trial sermons), 174 Gib, Adam, 350 Gideon, biblical, 25 Gideon, Charles, The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, 324 Gifftheil, Ludwig Friedrich, 179 Giftschütz, Franz, 93 Gisbert, Blaise, 90, 91, 127 Glanvill, Joseph, 101, 105, 108, 114–15, 116, 117 Glassite sermon, 350 Glastonbury, 99 Glaucha, 66 Glorious Revolution, 12, 42, 168, 169 Gneisenau, August Graf Neithardt von, 295 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 27, 334, 339 Faust, 333 Good Friday, sermon for, 368, 383 Goring, Paul, 325, 340 Gospels, 175, 271 Gotha, 81 Göttingen University, 73 Gottsched, Johann Christoph, 203 Grund-Riß, 203n Governor’s Council, 36 Gowrie brothers, 43n grace, doctrine of, 62, 63–4, 99, 159–60, 229, 355 preaching and, 65, 68, 71, 87, 90–1 Grafton, Duchess of, 379 Granada, Luis de, 318 Grapius, Zacharias, 183, 185 Graser, Rudolph, 92, 273 Praktische Beredsamkeit der christlichen Kanzel, 274 gratification, 345–6

Graun, Carl Heinrich, Tod Jesu, 334n Grays Inn, 122n Graz, Amandus von, 279 Great Awakening, 42, 206, 207, 209 Great Church of Stockholm, 46 Great Church of the Hague, 44 Greece, 133, 134, 164 Greek, language, 116, 117, 133, 185n, 315, 336 Greschat, 183 Gretchen, 27 Grill, Georg, 279 Groningen, 336n Gronniosaw, James Albert Ukawsaw, 374 Grosley, Pierre Jean, 353, 354, 373 Großer Kirchenordnung, 300 Großgebauer, Theophil, 178, 182 Grünberg, 183 Gunpowder Plot, 42 Günther, Anton, prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, 190, 199n Gustavian monarchy (Sweden), 254, 255, 256, 257 Gustavus III, 253 Guyon, Madame, 138 Haag, Nobert, 174 Habsburg Empire, 25, 93, 227, 245, 307 pietas Austriaca and, 294 Hagar, biblical, 365 Hagenmaier, 185 Hague, the, 376; see also Great Church of the Hague Hahn, Philipp Matthäus, 332 Halenius, Engelbert, 254 Hall of State (royal palace, Stockholm), 46 Halle, theological school for Pietism at, 19, 67, 70, 187, 188, 189, 190, 194, 195, 196, 201 Hamburg, 186n Händel, Georg Friedrich, Messiah, 334 Hanoveri, 196 Haydn, Joseph, Schöpfung, 334 Heathcote, Ralph, The use of reason asserted in matters of religion, 229 Hebrew, language, 185n, 355 Heidelberg, 83 Heidelberg Catechism, 21 Heimlicher, church official, 269 Helmstedt University, 73, 78 Henriette-Anne, duchess of Orléans, queen of France, 146, 147–8, 151 Henry IV, king, 146 Herdegen, Konrad, 275

index Herder, Johann Gottfried, 21 heresies, 52, 90, 145, 147, 164, 167, 304 Heringa, Johannes, 249–50 Hernhut, 66, 67, 87, 88, 199, 200, 377 Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine (Moravian Church), 66 Hervey, James, 340 Hildegard of Bingen, 24 Hill, John, 328 Hille, Johann Friedrich Conrad, 82 Hilliard, Timothy, 349, 357 Hoburg, Christian, 178, 185n Hochstetter, Andreas Adam, 278 Hogarth, William, The Sleeping Congregation (engraving), 110, 125 Höger, Franz, 264 Hohenau, Ernst Christoph Hochmann von, 194–5 Hohenzollern, royal court, 227 Hole, Robert, 231 Holland, see Dutch Republic Holstein-Gottorp, royal court, 227 Holtz, Sabine, xii, 32, 174, 193 Holy Communion, 279, 355, 361; see also Eucharist Holy Innocents’, feast day of, 306 Holy Roman Empire, 17, 265 Holy Saturday, 383 Holy Spirit, 63, 67, 68, 279 preaching and, 198, 204 Holzmann, Johann Donat, 245 homilies, exegetical, viii, 3, 4, 6, 11, 13, 16, 20, 21, 30, 33, 47, 57, 60 Horace, 100, 126, 134 Horst, Georg Conrad, 82 hospitals, 164 Houdry, Vincent, 104–5, 112, 162 Hough, Thomas, The happiness and advantages of a liberal and virtuous education (1728), 229 House of Orange, see Orange household authority and submission, 286 dissolution of, 283 importance of children, 286; see also children importance of, xii, 282, 296 marriage solidarity vs. happiness, 285 Protestant vs. Catholic, 284 relationships within, 298 religious guidelines of, 308 social discipline of, 310 superiority of the husband, 286–7 various forms of, 283–4

399

Houses of Parliament, 43, 44, 46 House of Lords, 43, 227 House of Commons, 43 Howard, Leonard, The religious and politick prudence of Hezekiah (1759), 229 Howell, Wilbur Samuel, 317, 320, 340 Huguenots, 98n, 99, 112, 236, 241 Huntingdon, Lady, 381 Hussite Unitas Fratrum, 199 Hutcheson, Francis, System of Moral Philosophy, 100 hymnal, 295 hymns, 50, 213, 300 Hyperius, see Andreas Gerhard Ignatius of Loyola, St, 136, 137 Ihalainen, Pasi, xii, 21, 42, 44–5, 48 illiteracy sermon listening and, 270, 275, 278 sermon strategies for, 276 illness, as a consequence of sin, 302–3 Ilminster (Somerset), 99 imitation, in sermon writing, 100–1 immigrants, from the Netherlands, 205 Independent Churches, 13n, 97, 109, 147, 314, 349 indulgences, 362 Ingolstadt, 93 Innsbruck, 167 Inspirationists, 197, 216 Internationalism, 249 inventio, classical rhetoric, 96–105 Ireland, 14, 233, 326 Isla, José Francisco de, Historia del Famoso Predicador Fray Gerundio de Companazas, 9 Israel, biblical, 34, 41n, 45, 232, 244; see also Dutch Israel Israelites, biblical, 135, 147, 165 Italian, language, 167 Italy, xiii, 6, 88, 241, 273, 318, 348, 349, 352, 364–5 Itinerant preachers, 194–6, 201, 206, 209–10, 211, 212, 213, 316, 330, 356; see esp. George Whitefield Jacobins, 239 Jacobites, 98 Jacoebee, W. Pierre, 133, 134 James I, king of England, 42 James II, king of England, 12, 42, 168, 169 James, St, 155, 320 Jansenism, 9–10, 106, 156, 159, 309, 386

400

index

Jeff erson, Thomas, president of the United States, 38, 39 Jena University, 72 ‘jeremiad’ (sermons for fasting days), ix, 36; in America, 39 Jeremiah, prophet, 36 Jerome, St, 349 Jerusalem, biblical, 82, 144, 165, 170 Jerusalem, Friedrich Wilhelm, x, 76 Die selige Erleuchtung der Welt durch Christum, 76–7 Zweyte Sammlung einiger Predigten, 77 Jesuits, 9, 10, 29, 31, 88, 90, 98n, 103n, 104, 113n, 119, 127, 137, 153, 156, 159, 162, 165, 166, 167, 171, 270, 275, 290, 305, 306, 307, 314, 318, 347n, 353, 354, 360, 383n, 385 Jews, 39, 331, 384 John Chrysostom, 11 John the Baptist, 180n, 270 John, Duke, elector of Saxony, 31 John, St, 320 Johnson, Samuel, Dr., 7, 325, 380, 382 Johnston, George, Religion plain, not mysterious (1733), 229 Jones, William, The religious use of botanical philosophy (1784), 229 Joseph II, 305 Joseph, biblical, 157 journals, 309 Kant, Immanuel, 331 Kantian philosophy, 332, 338, 340 Karlsruhe, 71, 83 Kempis, Thomas à, Imitation of Christ, 148 Ken, Thomas, bishop of Bath and Wells, 356 Khinsky, Wenzel Norbert Oktavian, count of Wchinitz and Tettau, 23 Kimnach, Wilson H., 207 King, John, 315 kingship, and subjects, 290–6 Kingswood, coalfield, 208 Klopstock, 334 Klosterneuburg, 23, 29 Knights Templar, 364 Knox, Dilwyn, 319 Kornrumpff, Johann Valentin, 90–1 Krause, Reinhard, Die Predigt der späten deutschen Aufklärung (1770–1805), 20 Kremsmünster, 92

Kriegsmann, 186n Kuhn, Thomas, 192s La Bruyère, 115, 119–20 La Fontaine, 347 Labat, Jean Baptiste, 360–2 Lairesse, Gerard de, 324 laity, 176, 178, 179, 180 Lambach, monastery of, 304 Lambert, Frank, 209 Lamy, Bernard, La Rhétorique ou l’art de parler, 106, 108, 112 Lange, Joachim, 193 Last Judgement, 169, 302, 303 last rites, 302 Latin, language of, 30, 32, 103n, 109, 110, 116, 117, 133, 166, 272, 273, 315, 332n, 336, 337, 355 Latitudinarianism, 12, 229, 230, 231, 316 Laubach, 195 Laud, William, archbishop of Canterbury, 37 laughter, and preaching, 365–6 Lavater, Caspar, 83 Lavater, Johann Kaspar, 332, 334 law school, 280 law, and religion, 308 Lawson, John, 105–6, 112, 114 Lectures concerning Oratory, 96–7, 108, 115, 121 lay preaching, xiii, 179–80, 181, 185, 186, 187, 194, 196, 199, 200, 201, 204, 207, 210, 212 lay prophecy, 179 Le Blanc, Jean-Bernard, Abbé, 351 Le Clercq, Jean, Parrhasiana, 337 Le Comte, 368 Le Faucheur, Michel, 316–17, 321–2 Traitté de l’action de l’orateur, 112, 314, 319–20, 323, 337, 341; English translation of, 324, 325 oratorical doctrines of, 327, 329, 330, 331, 332 and n, 336 Le Tellier, Louis-Nicolas, marquis de Souvré, 384n Lebrun, François, 235 lectionaries, 3, 105 lectures (biblical homilies), 4 Lehmann, Hartmut, 179 Leiden, 337n Leipzig, 74, 185n Lent, sermons for, 3, 105, 119n, 143, 145n, 153, 159, 165, 356, 381, 383

index Leo X, duke Amadeus of Savoy, 25 Leopold I, Kaiser, 31 Leopold, grand duke of Tuscany, 353 Leopold, St, sermon for, 22, 23–4, 25–6, 27 Lesser, Friederich Christian, sermon of 1750, 243 Letsome, Sampson, 101 A Defence of Natural & Revealed Religion, 101n Preacher’s Assistant, 101n, 102, 103, 118n Leube, 183 lexicometry, 116 libertinism, 352 Liège, 113n, 166 life expectancy, 301 Lincolns Inn, 122n Lindemayer, Maurus, 92, 273–4, 304 Lindmark, Daniel, 197 Lisbon, 378 literacy, 42 Livorno, 360 Locke, John, 230 Lockean philosophy, 99, 100, 120, 230, 231, 256 Loferer, Georg, 275 Löffler, Josias Friedrich Christian, 81–2 London, 98n, 167, 168, 208, 325, 355, 358, 366, 371, 372, 384 Lorenz, Johann Gotthilf, 243 Lorner, Gottfried, 305, 306 Löscher, Ernst Valentin, 183 Louis IX, king of France, 145, 146, 149, 162, 163 Louis XIII, king of France, 145, 322 Louis XIV, king of France, 133, 137, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 151, 164, 167, 238, 383 Louis XV, king of France, 238 Louis-Antoine, marquis de Caraccioli, 349 Louvre (Paris), 143, 237 Lucretius, 11, 100 Ludgate Hill (London), 356 Ludwig, Eberhard, duke, 300 Ludwig, Karl, Freiherr von Pöllnitz, 366 Lusatia, 66 Luther, Martin (the Reformer), ix, 17, 18, 31, 58–9, 60, 67, 177, 186, 198, 288 preaching style of, 15–16 ‘Preparing to Die’ (1519), 31 Großer Katechismus, 299 Von Ordnung Gottesdiensts in der Gemeinde, 60

401

Lutheran Orthodoxy (Scholasticism), sermon theology of, x, 15–17, 18, 20, 59, 61, 69–70, 72, 74, 76, 93 Lutheran Pietism, see Pietism Lutheranism, xii, 3, 4, 6, 11, 20, 29, 30, 39, 51, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 187, 192, 199, 200, 203n, 244, 252, 254, 255–6, 257, 263, 264, 265, 267, 269, 270, 280, 288–9, 291, 292, 294, 299, 304, 305, 308 Danish, 252 funeral sermons of, 31–37 German, 251 Prussian, 220, 253 Swedish, 45, 220, 253 Lütkemann, 198 Lyon, 134 MaCarty, 351 Mackenzie, Henry, 329 Madison, James, president of the United States, 39 Magdeburg, 196 Mallet, Sarah, 212 Maltese Mission, 361 Mamhead (nr Exeter), church, 360 Mändl, Kaspar, 305 manuals, of pulpit oratory, 322, 338, 340 Manzador, Pius, Unterschiedliche Ehrenreden, 26–7 Marguetel de Saint-Denis, Charles, seigneur de Saint-Evremond, 372n Maria Barbara, queen, 9 Marie de Medici, 146 Marie-Thérèse, queen, 149, 150 Marillac, Louise de, 162 marriage, extra-, 309 marriage, xii, 284, 285 as described in the Württembergischen Summarien, 284 happiness vs. household solidarity, 285 importance of children for, 286, 296 romantic ideals of, 285 superiority of the husband, 286–7 Martin, Lucinda, 202 Martinmas, sermons for, 281 Mary Magdalene, 350, 355, 365, 366 Mary, daughter of Evelyn, 358 Mary, queen of England, 12, 43n, 168 Maryland (USA), 113n Mascaron, 133 mass media, sermons and, 343, 386 Mass, see Eucharist, Holy Communion Massachusetts (USA), 208, 347, 349, 356

402

index

Massillon, Jean-Baptiste, 98, 133, 241, 347n, 383 Materialism, 221n Mather, Cotton, 36n Mather, Increase, 36n Maundy Thursday, 383 Maury, Jean-Siffrein, archbishop of Paris, 151 Essai sur l’éloquence de la chaire, 330 Mayfair Chapel (London), 379 Maynard, Dr, 122n McGiffert, Michael, 37 McManners, John, Death and the Enlightenment, 151 Meaux, 11, 138, 151 medicine, 303 Mediterranean, 235 Megerle, Johann Ulrich, see Abraham a Santa Clara Melanchton, Philipp, humanist, 15, 318 Mellen, 370 memento mori, sermon theme, 51 mendicant friars, 9 Mennonites, 39, 52, 247, see also Anabaptists Mentges, Johann Martin, 278 Méré, Chevalier de, 336 Metastasio, La Passione di Gesù Cristo, 366 Methodism, anti-, 349 Methodism, xiii, 14, 121, 123, 210, 212, 213, 309, 316, 330, 338, 374, 381; see also Wesleys Methodist Conference (1744), 212 Metz, 113n, 138, 383 Michael, archangel, 270 Michelangelo, 333 Midi, 330 Midianites, biblical, 25 Milan, 140, 364 military, 31 millennialism, 38–9, 41 Miller, Perry, 13 Minkema, Kenneth P., 207 Mirabeau, 239 miracles, 76, 352, 354 missions/missionaries, xiii, 361, 362, 363, 368 sermons for, 270, 275, 295, 304, 360, 362, 387 Misson, Henri, 384–5 Mobachius, Joachim, 40 Molière, 347 Molinier, Etienne, 7, 9

Möller, Johan, sermon of 1779, 254 monarchy, sermons for, 4 monasteries, 22, 284 monasticism, 276–7 Monkwell Street (London), 363 Montefiascone, nr Viterbo, 363 Montesquieu, 237, 256 Montpellier, 319 Montserrat (Catalonia), monastery, 372 Moravians, 66, 199–204, 216 Diaspora, 201 importance of the sermon in, 200 and n, 202 music in the liturgy of, 202 on the Holy Spirit, 216 on the litany of the wounds, 201 role of women in, 200n, 201–2 spreading ideas of, 201 worship of, 202 Zinzendorf as ‘the Disciple’, 200; see also Zinzendorf mortification, 362 Moses, biblical, 163, 165, 168–9 Mosheim, Johann Lorenz von, x, 21, 73, 76, 241, 242, 253 Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, 73–4, 182, 203, 214 Mozart, 333 Requiem, 334 Muessig, Carolyn, vii Müller, Heinrich, 176, 178–9, 198 Munck, Thomas, 222 Munich, 92 Muralt, 369 Murray, Gustaf, 256–7 Murray, James, Sermons to Asses, 349–50 music, 32, 320, 350, 360, 364 preaching and, 334, 339 Nadere Reformatie, 205 Nantes Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), 89, 112, 145n, 236 Naples, 290 Napoleonic wars, 243 Nassau (Dillenburg), court of, 318 Nathan, biblical, 23 National Assembly of France, 238 National Convention of France, 239 nationalism, ideology of, 40, 42, 46, 49, 303 natural philosophy, 231 Nebuchadnezzar, king, biblical, 147 Neefe, Christian Gottlieb, 334

index Neo-Classicism, viii,xi, x, 12, 110n, 113, 115; see also Classiscism neology, x, 20, 58, 76, 78, 223n, 241, 243, 252, 255 Netherlands, the, 205, 223, 241, 243, 248, 249, 251, 265, 316, 317, 320, 327, 330, 331 and n., 340, 346, 347, 376 Netherlands, the, political sermons of: 225n, 246–50, 258 anthroprocentric, 247 community of morally responsible individuals, 248–50 emphasis on moral responsibility, 247 emphasis on reason and utility, 247 importance of liberty, 250 influence of German and English preaching on, 247 patriotism, 249–50 printing of, 247 religious nationalism, 247–8 Netherlands, preaching in, 336–40 affective oratory: 336–40 importance of rules and dignity before sensibility, 337–9 music and, 339 ‘Nijkerker troubles’, 339 see also Dutch Republic Neumayr, Franz, 307 New Brunswick, 205 New England, 4; see also Puritans New Jersey, 205 New World, 201 New Year, 270 sermons for, 51, 281, 298 Newtonian philosophy, 231 Nicholas, St, feast day of, 298 Nicolai, Friedrich, 278 ‘Nijkerker troubles’, in the Netherlands, 339 Nîmes, 167 Nitschmann, Anna, 202 Nitschmann, David, 200 nobility, 31, 160n, 160 Nölting, Johann Hinrich Vincent, 242 Nonconformists, 100, 114, 121, 230 Norfolk, 382 Norris, John, 98 North America, 201, 204, 205, 208, 209, 213 Northampton (Massachusetts), 206 Northampton Academy, 97, 100, 109, 116n, 123 Northumberland, 102n

403

Norway, 251 novel, as a literary genre, 149n Nowak, Karl, 87 Öchslin, Johannes, 293 Offenbach, 83 old age, 301–2 Oporin, Joachim, 203n Orange, House of, 34, 44, 51, 52 oratorios, 364 Oratory of St. Philip, 88 oratory, art of, 326–7, 329, 332–3; see also preaching ordination, 175n, 205n ordo praedicatorum, 365 Orford, 358 organs, 50 Orléans, 371 Orthodoxy, xi, x, 175n, 177, 182, 193, 203, 241; see also Lutheranism Outram, Dorinda, 222 Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 382n Oxford English Dictionary, 109 Oxford, 208 Magdalen Hall, 101n Paderborn, 278 painting, preaching and, 324, 326, 328, 340 Palm Sunday, sermon for, 144–5 panegyric, 27, 32 Paoletti, Signor, 353 Parentation, funeral thanksgiving, 32 Paris, 92, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 142, 153, 165, 166, 319, 330, 337, 347, 349, 369, 381, 385 Paris, Albert de, 119 parody, 9, 10 Passau, 277 passions, and preaching, 320–1 Passiontide, sermons for, 51, 271 paterfamilias, religious and social duties of, 275, 276, 283, 298 Patriot Revolt (Netherlands), 48 Patriotic Period (Netherlands), 45 Patristics, 133 Patten, William, Rev., 371 Paul de Rapin, 99 Paul, Jean, see Johann Paul Richter Paul, St, 137, 279, 320 Paul, Vincent de, 112, 162 penance, 69, 149, 156, 162–3, 175, 360, 362 Pennsylvania, 200

404

index

Pentecost, sermons for, 51, 82, 270 pericopes, 3, 16, 17 Perkins, William, 321, 322 Prophetica, 314 The Arte of Prophesying, 13 persecutions, of non-Catholics, 89 Peschke, 190, 192 Pestalozzi, Johann-Heinrich, 332 Peter, St, biblical, 25, 155 Peters, Hugh, 314 Pettersson, Abraham, 253 pews, in church, 280 Pfyffer, Franz Xaver, 306 Pharaoh, biblical, 165 Pharisees, biblical, 170 Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), 208 Philip IV, king of Spain, 149 Philip, duke of Orléans, 146 Philippi, Friedrich, 280 Philistines, biblical, 25 Pietà, painting of, 7 Pietism, viii, ix, x, xi, 4, 17–18, 19–20, 41, 66, 67, 69, 173, 174, 175n, 177, 180, 190, 192, 193, 205, 207, 208, 211, 213, 214, 221n, 241, 244, 251, 253, 266, 300, 308, 309, 316, 317, 331, 339, 340, 374, 376, 380 conventicles (collegia pietatis), 180, 181, 185–6, 196, 213, 216, 345 disturbances of, 187 ecclesial, 188, 192, 200, 202, 204, 205, 213 emergence of in Germany, 180 Enlightenment and, 203 Erbauung and, 192, 198, 202, 203, 213, 215 importance of conversion, 188, 190, 191, 192, 203 legacy of, 202–3 Orthodoxy and, 183–4, 185, 192–4; see also August Hermann Francke, Spener preachers as models of Christian behaviour, 191–3, 203, 213 Radical, 197–9, 204; see also Moravians, Radical Pietism role of women in, 201–2 sermon style of, 181, 187, 193, 214 sermon theology of, 58, 63–4, 66, 69, 73–4, 75, 76, 84, 87, 88 Spener’s proposals for, 181 universal priesthood of lay preachers, 185, 186; see also lay preaching

pilgrimages, 270, 361 Piozzi, 366 Pisa, 360 Pittroff, Franz Christian, 93 Pliny, 7 poetry, 7, 12 Polyanthea, 103n Pompey, 7 poor, the, 281, 290 Port-Royal, Jansenist school of, 106 Portugal, 5, 119 Postdam, 245 postils, see sermon collections Prague, 92 Prague, University of, 93 prayers, 19 national days of, 42, 44 preachers as models of Christian behaviour, 64, 126, 191–2 authority of, 263–4, 279 clothing appropriate for, 384–5 conversion role of, 191–2 for the court, 294 itinerant, 194–6, 201, 206, 209–10, 211, 212, 213, 316, 330, 356; see esp. George Whitefield popularity of, 356 responsibilities of, 292, 296, 308 preaching acting and, 320–1, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 335, 338n, 340, 364, 367; see also Elocutionary archives of, oral vs. written, 314, 315 art of (artes praedicandi), x classical ideal of, 166 devoted to ministry, 175 ecstatic, 197–8 entertaining, 366–7 evangelical, 15, 19 extemporaneous, 206, 207, 208, 209, 369 in Germany, see Germany: preaching in in the Netherlands, see Netherlands: preaching in Latitudinarian, see Latitudinarianism laughter and, 365–6 lay, see lay preaching manuals of delivery, 329; see also preaching delivery music and, 125, 126, 202, 334; see also music

index open-air, 201, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211n, 360, 366–7 oral vs. printing, 271, 327; see also printing purpose of, 10, 57, 59, 62, 174, 303 Reformation attitudes towards, 21, 71 revival, see Revival preaching somnambulant, 197 theatre and, 208, 365, 385, 386, see also George Whitefield traditional, 173 transferred to paterfamilias, 275, 276 wigs and, 313 preaching delivery, x, xii-xiii, 122–7, 313, 314, 318, 322 actio/pronuntiatio, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 329, 330, 340–1 bodily elegance, 324–5 comparison with musical performance, 125, 126 extemporaneous, 121 eye contact, 122–3 from memory, 121–2 gestures, 125, 271, 319 integration of passions and rules in, 322, 324 large script, 122–3 painting and, 324, 326, 328, 340 passions and, 320–1 practice, 322 pronunciation, 126–7 rhetorical method for, 319 tonal variation 127 see also Elocutionary Movement, Enthusiasm, oratory predestination, 160, 229, 307, 350, 351, 355 Predigtamt (German office of preaching), 174 pregnancy, 296 Presbyterianism, 13n, 99, 125, 210, 325, 327, 350, 363 printing press, 165, 168, 171, 173 printing, of sermons/devotional literature, 176, 181, 189, 190, 196, 202, 208, 209, 211, 223, 265–7, 268, 271, 274, 310–11 publishers of, 22, 43, 44–5, 46, 50 Probepredigt (trial sermons), 174 Prokop of Templin, 279 prophecy, 197, 216, 216; lay, 179–80, 186, 187; see also lay preaching, preaching:ecst atic

405

Protestant Dissenters, see Dissenters Protestantism, x, 5, 9, 11, 17, 28, 29, 37, 41, 42, 47, 58, 61, 72, 88, 90, 92, 94, 96, 106, 114, 119, 127, 145n, 146, 167, 168, 169, 171n, 173, 175, 199, 210, 212, 225, 236, 241, 266, 270, 274, 278–9, 290, 297, 302, 304, 318, 348, 349, 352, 354, 363, 364, 372, 384, 387, 388 Providentialism, 230 Prussia, xii, 227, 242, 243, 244, 295, 352; see also Germany Prussia, political sermons from, 244, 259 Cabinets-Ordre (1739), 203 context of war, 245–6 German nationalism centred in, 246 ideology of the state propagated in, 246 psalms, 363, 374 Psalters, 49, 50 metrical, 49 States, 50 pulpit oratory, manuals of, 313, 314, 315, 322 Purification, of the Virgin Mary, 270 Puritanism, 3, 4, 13, 111, 205, 212, 314, 321, 355, 374 Puritans, New England, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39 fasting in, 39, 40; see also fasting importance of sermons for, 35 moral theology of, 42 Purselt, Conrad, 270 Quakers, 186, 202, 384–5 Querfurt, 90 Quietists, 138 Quintilian, 97, 318, 320, 321, 333, 339 Racine, 347 Radical Pietism, 194–9, 204, 216 itinerant preaching, 194–6, 201 characteristics of, 196–7 publishing projects of, 196 role of the Holy Spirit for, 198, 204 importance of lay preaching, 204; see also lay preaching Raith, Balthasar, 302 Rambouillet, Madame de, 322 Ramée, Pierre de la, 319 Ramism, 314, 319 Raphael, painter, 385 St. Paul Preaching in Athens, 326 Rapin, René, 336–7

406

index

Raritan valley, 205 Rationalists, 203n, 215, 242 Rauscher, Wolfgang, 291 Rautenstrauch, Frank Stephan, 92, 93 reconciliation, 305–6 Red Sea, biblical, 135 Reformation, ix, 10, 32, 50 51, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64, 67, 69, 70, 74, 75, 78, 82, 83, 84, 87, 173, 174n, 177, 180, 190, 263, 269, 272n, 283, 284, 307, 360 Reformation, Counter-, 307 Reformed Church, 11, 38, 39, 40n, 45, 50 59, 200, 203n, 289, 300, 307, 313 application of preaching doctrine, 265, 267 Bern 269 Dutch, 43, 220, 247, 248, 331n, 338 German, 331 primacy of practice, 263 sermons for special feasts, 270 Sunday sermon, 269 Reformers, 15, 16, 20, 21, 30, 60 reforms, 42, 63, 89, 93, 283 Regensburg, 93 Reichardt, Johann Friedrich, 334 Reinbeck, Johann Gustav, 203 relics, 163 religious wars, 303 Rémond de Sainte-Albine, Pierre, 328 Remonstrants, 247; see also Arminians Renaissance, 3, 5, 98, 318 Reni, Guido, 350n repentance, 4, 41, 42, 179, 302, 378 Reskript (1649), 300 Restoration, 13, 43, 111, 113 Restoration, post-, 110n, 111 Revivalism, viii, xi, 173, 204–18, 231, 356 continental, 206 emphasis on conversion, 206 North American (Reformed), 206 preaching forms of, 210 role of women in, 210; see also women Scots-Irish, 206 see also Wesley, Whitefield Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, see Nantes Revolutionary Wars, 245 rhetoric, xiii, x, 3, 90, 95, 120, 315, 316, 318, 319, 331, 346; see also Baroque, sermon style: rhetoric Rhetorica ad Herennium, 318 Rhine, 265 Rhineland, 196

Rhode Island, 371 Riccoboni, Luigi, 328 Richardson, Samuel, 329, 334, 339 Richter, Johann Paul, 333 Riksdag (Swedish Diet), 43, 45, 46, 255, 257 Rivington, John, 382 Roach, Joseph, 328 Rochefaucauld, 383 Rogel, Anna, 198n Rollin, Charles, Lettres, 100, 112 Romanticism, 243 Rome, 23, 133, 134, 164, 349, 354 Rooden, Peter van, 39, 40, 44, 248, Roodenburg, Herman, xii, x Rosén, Gabriel, 255–6 Rothe, Johann Andreas, 66 Rotterdam, 314 Rousseau, 236, 238, 255, 347 Rowlandson, 339 Royal Order, 45 Royal Society, 12, 111 Rubens, painter, 385 Rudolf I, 25 Russia, 191n Rutledge, Jean Jacques, 369, 385–6 Sailer, Johann Michael, 93 St. Anne’s Church (Augsburg), 305 St. Asaph, 104 St. Bride’s Church (London), 371 Saint-Denis (Paris), 148, 149 St. George’s (London), church, 379 Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie (Paris), 136, 139 St. James’s (London), church, 379 Saint-Louis (Paris), church of the Jesuits, 153, 166 St. Margaret’s Church (Westminster), 43 St. Mark’s Square (Venice), 373 St. Martin, Ludgate Hill (London), 356 St. Mary’s Church, Wittenberg, 271 Saint-Merry (Paris), 135 St. Michael’s (Jena), 72 St. Patrick’s (Dublin), 98, 116 St. Paul’s (London), cathedral, 168, 356, 363, 382 St. Peter’s (Bologna), 365 saints, sermons for feast days of, ix, 3–4, 6, 22, 26, 27, 33, 153, 270, 307 Salem (Massachussets), 36n, 314 Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, François de, 241

index Sallust, 11 salvation, sermons and, 20, 58–60, 61, 62, 65, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73, 77, 87, 88, 91, 303, 305 Salzburg, 300, 304 somnambulant, 216 Samson, biblical, 25, 26 Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (Rome), 365 Santa Prassede (Rome), 349 Santiageo di Compostella, 361 Saracens, in Egypt, 163 Sardinia, king of, 349 Sarum, 168, 353 satires, 9 Saugnieux, Joél, Les jansénistes et la renouveau de la predication dan l’espagne de la seconde moitie du XVIIIe siècle, 10 Saurin, Jacques, 98 Savoy, duchy of, 134, 165 Saxony, 67, 184, 199 Sayn-Wittgenstein, 196 Scandinavia, 197n, 201 Scandinavia (see also Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland), political sermons of: 226, 243, 251–7, 258 censorship, 254 concept of Lutheran state church in, 251 concept of the citizen, 254 Finnish developments, 254 moral emphasis of, 251 natural religion in, 254 Norwegians, Danes, and Germans as separate identities, 252 on reason and revelation, 254 patriotism, 252 political ideas expressed in, 251–2 Swedish developments, 252–3 Scheffer, Johan Frederik, 41 Schian, Martin, 182 Schiller, Jungfrau von Orleans, 334 Schimmer, Georg, 271 Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst, vii, x Glaubenslehre, 87, 94 Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand (1818), 267, 268 Reden Über die Religion an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern, 86–8 Schleiff, 179 Scholasticism, see Lutheran Orthodoxy

407

schooling, 299–301 Schrant, Joannes Matthias, 331, 338, 339, 340 Schwanenstadt, 304 Scotland, 14, 234, 325, 339, 355 Secker, Thomas, bishop of Oxford, 358 secularization, of society, 42 Segneri, Paolo, 290 self-denial, 19 self-examination, 309 Selhamer, Christoph, 300 sensibility, cult of, 328–9, 333–4, 337–9, 340 Sentimentalism, 339, 340 separatism, radical, 198n sermon audience, viii, xiii, 82, 118–19, 124–5, 271, 278, 345, 346, 383, 386 attendance of, 278, 279, 345, 382 children attending, 270, 230; see also children class and gender associations, 281, 373, 381, 384, 386, 387 communities, 381–4 different audience requires different sermon style/content, 118–19, 137, 278, 280, 281, 353, 357, 385, 386, 387 entry charges for, 385–6 eyewitness accounts (‘ego documents’) of, 344, 379, 387, 388 illiterate, 270, 275 pew privileges of, 280 reactions to: 344, 374–80, 385–7; assessment of, ‘uses and gratifications approach’, 345, 346, 386–8; (cognitive pursuits), 346-; (emotional needs), 346, 357–74; (identity/personal fulfilment), 374–81; (social affirmation), 346, 381–6 recollection of, 343 responsibilities of, 264 sermon strategies for, 276 servants attending, 280; see also servants social occasion, 382, 386 women attending, see women sermon collections, 184, 189, 268, 271–2, 273, 275, 276 occasional sermons, 176 individual sermons, 176 Postillen (lection-based postils ordered by church year), 176, 179, 184, 189, 273, 279

408

index

sermon composition, 111, 113 diagram of sermon structure, 128–30 dispositiones, 109, 193n divisions of, 98–9 elocution, 109 exordium, 23, 135, 140, 142, 144, 146, 150, 154; Ave Maria, 113, 135, 140, 142, 146, 154 inventio: Biblical text, 108–9; explanation of biblical text, 109–10 schematic parts of, 16 treatises on, 107–9 sermon content: 118, 273, 343, 347, 373; see also sermons: political exotic themes, 350 on doctrine vs. practicality/morality, 351, 387 on nature and farming, 278 on the afterlife, 47 on the Bible, 21 on the passions, 47 on various subjects, xi, xii, 47–8 on vice vs. morality, 352, 387 preservation of social order, 281, 308; see also social order authorities and subjects, 290–6 confessional polemics, 303–8 cooperation of state and church, 269–78, 295 impact of clerical criticisms on government, 294 marriage and household, 281–7 nationalism expressed in, 226, 227, 228, 237–40, 303; see also sermons:p olitical on the poor and the rich, 281 stages of life, 296–303; (birth, childhood and youth), 296–301; (illness, old age and death), 301–3 wealth and poverty, 289–91 work, 287–9 references to daily life, 266, see also behaviour references to inner belief, 266 social morals: 280–91 sermon style, 110–11, 112, 115–21 amplification of, 23 Anglican, ix; see also Anglicanism audience determined, see sermon audience Baroque, see Baroque, sermon style: rhetoric

classical, xi, 32, 133–72, esp. 133–4, 171–2 comparison (comparatio), 24–5 distribution (distributio), 26 emblematic, ix, 4, 8, 17, 88, 193, see also emblems emotional, 359 evangelistic ‘awakenings’, ix, 14 expository, 19 Gerundianismo, 4, 9, 10 heroic method, 198n naming (nominatio), 22 neoclassical, 115, 229, 231, 236, see also Classicism, Neo-classicism, sermon style: classical ornamented, 32 Pietist, see Pietism plain style’, ix, 114–18, 119, 120, see also sermon style: classical poetics and, 8–9 Puritan, 13–14; see also Puritanism rational argumentation, 74 repeating the same one, 356 rhetoric (classical oratory), xiii, 3, 5–6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 18, 26, 27, 29, 60, 74, 86, 90, 95, 96, 100–1, 105, 120–1, 177, 182, 193, 363, 372–3, see also Baroque, rhetoric thematic, 5–6, 11, 16, 21, 23, 24, 28, 30, 193 topical, 19 use of allusions, 9 witty, 7 sermons acting and, 320–1, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 335, 338n, 340, 364, 367; see also Elocutionary as a literary genre, 173, 177, 219 as an oral media event, 344, 386 as entertainment, 366–7 as part of liturgical ritual, 359–64, 387 Baumgarten’s view on, 70–1 biblical exegesis in, 3, 6; see also homilies by lay preachers, see lay preaching by women, xiii, 47 Catholic understanding of, 61 church setting of, 16 civic, 38 commonplace books and, see commonplace books communication of, viii conversion through, 87 daily life and, xii

index delivery of, 369, 370–1, 372, 375, 387; see also preaching didactic function of, xii, 20, 21, 57, 59–60, 62, 72, 73, 78–9, 82, 90, 276–7, 347, 376–8, 380 duration of, 175n, 270, 271, 276, 313n English orators, 98 Enlightenment and Reformation views compared, 83 Enlightenment, 219, 225 evangelistic, ix, 4 exegetical homilies, 3 faith and, 73; see also faith for Advent, 3, 105, 153, 165, 383 for Ascension, 3 for Ash Wednesday, 106 for baptism, 52 for calamities, 358, 381 for Calvinists, 3 for Candlemas, 383 for Catechism, 22, 47, 52 for charity, 47 for Christmas, 3 for church councils, 49 for commemorations, 49–50 for consecrations, 7, 50for Corpus Christi, 135, 156 for court, 255, 383 for crises, 36 for disasters, 4 for Easter, 3, 382, 383 for ecclesiastical occasions, 51 for election days, 36, 38 for embassies, 52 for Epiphany, 3 for fasting, 36, 38, 39–40, 41, 44, 381 for funerals, ix, 6, 21, 27–31, 31–4, 138, 153, 168, 175, 176, 274, 305, 306, 357; see also funerals for Good Friday, 368, 383 for historical events, 49–50, 51 for Jubilee Speeches, 49–50 for Lent, 3, 105, 119n, 143, 145n, 153, 159, 165, 356, 381, 383 for Martinmas, 281 for militia, 38 for missions/missionaries, 270, 275, 360, 362, 387 for moral behaviour, 52–3 for New Year, 281, 298 for overseas regions and activities, 52 for Palm Sunday, 144–5 for political events, ix, 4, 34–5, 42 for practical life, 11

409 for saints’ days, ix, 6, 22, 26, 27, 153, 270, 307 for school, 300 for Sunday, ix, 3, 5, 16, 22, 28, 38, 105, 153, 175, 255, 269, 271 for thanksgiving, 4 for the Eucharist, 52 for the monarchy, 4 for the Virgin Mary, 4 for various occasions, 49, 51 for war, 244 for weddings, 175, 277 for weekdays, 3, 4, 5, 16, 22 French orators, 98 heart-felt discourse (Methodist), xiii historical, vii Holy Spirit and, 60, 63, 75 homiletic, see homilies house-, 267 illustrations for, 6, 7 impact of French Revolution on, 265 importance of, xii, 72, 83, 84, 175, 192, 263 inspiration and, 82, 84 language used for, xi, 272–3 Luther’s view of, 58–9 Lutheran, 3; see also Lutherans metaphysical, 7, 11, 13 monastic, 276–7 moralizing of, 65–6, 67, 69, 78, 80, 81, 84, 94 mysticism, 61, 349, 350 obligatory, 279 open-air, see preaching panegyrical, 6 place of in liturgical worship, 199 pneumatic quality of, 65 practical application of, 263 printing of, see printing Protestant theology of, 63–88 pulpit fines, 271 reforms of in France, 89, 91, 92 renewal of, 219–20 Roman Catholic theology of, 88–93 salvation and, 65, 77, 78, 87, 91 serial, 269 specialized, 363 Spener’s view on, 65 state, 42–6, 51, 227–8, 247, 251, 269–78, 295 street, or ‘declamations’, 354, 362, see also preaching: open-air theology of (eighteenth-century), ix, x ‘thesaurus’, 104

410

index

types of, 22, 30, 358 women and, see women sermons, political: xii, 48–4, 220, 221–8, 257–9, 268 as a response to Enlightened modernity, 224 concept of nationalism expressed in, 226, 227, 228, 237–40 contents of, 225: contemporary topics, 225; language, 225; reason, 225; social progress, 225; use of Enlightenment debates, 225 countries of origin, 220 English, 42–3, 44, 46, 228–34, see also England’s political sermons expression of official state ideology, 227–8 French, 234–40, see also France’s politcalser mons national ceremonies for, 22 Netherlands, 43–5, 246–50, see also the Netherlands’ political sermons Prussia and Austria, 240–6, see also Germany’s political sermons publications of, 227–8 reflecting current affairs, 223, 225 Scandinavia, 251–7, see also Scandinavia’s political sermons Sweden, 45–6 servants, in the sermon audience, 270, 275, 276, 280, 283, 287 Seven Years’ War, 232, 244 sex, 308 Shakespeare, William, 334 Sharp, family, 102, 107 Sharp, John Jr, 102n, 104, 110 Sharp, John Sr, Archbishop, 102n Sharp, Thomas Jr, 102n, 107n, 108 Sharp, Thomas Sr, 102n, 109, 115 Shaw, John, Rev., 383 Sheridan, Thomas, xiii British Education, 330 Lectures on Elocution, 326 Sherlock, Thomas, bishop of London, 356, 358 Shipley, Jonathan, bishop, 232 Siam, 368 Sicily, 381 Sieker, Christian Wilhelm, 295 Silesia, 66 simony, 163 sin, 35, 42, 59, 87 singing, preaching and, 202; see also music Sisters of the Visitation, 141

Slavs, 23 Smith, Hilary Dansey, 5 Smith, Mr, 383 social order, xii, 280–1, 308; see also sermon content: social order clothes of, 281 heavenly analogy, 281 hierarchy of, 281–2, 294 home as centre of, 281–2 justification of social inequality, 289 loyalty of subjects to ruling class, 290–6 paterfamilias, 282; see also paterfamilias royalty/aristocracy vs. farmers/city dwellers, 298–9 social discipline, 308, 309 social outreach, 21 Society of Jesus, see Jesuits Socinians, 147 Solomon, king, biblical, 24, 25, 145 South, Robert, 98, 348n Souvré, 383 Spain, 4, 5, 6, 9, 150, 235n, 348 Spalding, Johann Joachim Religion eine Angelegenheit des Menschen, 78 Über die Nutzbarkeit des Predigtamtes und deren Beförderung, 20–1, 241, 242 Spanish, language, 372 Spanner, André, 103n Spener, Philipp Jakob, x, xi, 17–20, 67, 180, 181, 183, 185, 186n, 187, 189n, 194, 197, 198, 199, 200, 214 on conversion, 68 on criticisms of preaching, 181–2 on funeral sermons, 32 on grace, 63–4 on preachers’ rebirth, 64 on the sermon, 65 Pia Desideria, 181–2 Spiritualists, 178 Sprat, Thomas, Bishop, 98 Sprout, 370 stadhouder (functionary in Dutch Republic), 45, 51 Stanislavski, Constantin, 321 States General, Dutch, 39, 44, 247 States of Holland, 44 Steele, Richard, 339 Steiger, Johann Anselm, 17, 29, 30 Steinbart, Gotthilf Samuel, 336 Sterne, Laurence, 334, 339

index The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 105, 329, 339 Stevenson, William, 103 Stift, Stuttgart, 293 Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop, 98 Stockholm, Great Church of, 46 Stölzel, Wilhelm Friederich, 243 Stout, Harry, 35, 41, 208 Strobl, Andreas, 286, 298 Strom, Jonathan, xi, 18 Stuttgart, 190, 293 Styria, Upper, 304 Sunday, sermons for, ix, 3, 5, 16, 21, 28, 38, 153, 175, 255, 269, 271 sunflower, symbol of, 17 Sussex (England), 356 Swabia, 274 Sweden, xii, 37n, 197, 251, 256 Sweden, political sermons from, 42, 45–7, 225n, 252–7, 258, 259; see also Scandinavia Ages of Liberty, 253 aspects of natural religion in, 254 Christian patriotism in, 255–6 concepts of freedom, 256 German influences on, 253–4 influenced by Mosheim, 253 limited signs of Enlightenment in, 252–3 responsibilities of the individual, 257 traditional approaches of, 254 Swedish Clerical Estate, 227, 256 Swedish, language, ix, 252 Sweeney, Douglas A., 207 Swift, Jonathan, dean of St. Patrick’s (Dublin), 98 on different styles for different audiences, 118 on plain vocabulary, 116–17 on sermon memorization, 122 on the sleeping congregation, 125 Switzerland, 236, 241 synods, 308, 309 Dort, 21 Dutch, 49 Syriac, language, 185n Tablets of the Law, 291, 308 Tacitus, 11 Talon, Omer, Rhetorica, 319 Taunton Academy, 99 Taylor, Diana, 314–15 Taylor, Larissa, viii, ix Teller, Romanus, sermon of 1742, 243

411

Teller, Wilhelm Abraham, Predigten und Reden, 79–81 Temple Church (London), 364 Templecombe (Somerset), 99 Ten Commandments, sermons for, 47 Tennent, Gilbert, 205, 206, 210 on unregenerate clergy, 206 revival preaching of, 206 The Danger of An Unconverted Ministry (1740), 206 Teresa of Avila, 24 Terror of 1793, in France, 239 Tertullian, 11 Thame (Oxfordshire), 101 Thanet, Lady, 382 thanksgiving, sermons for, 41 Theatines, 88 theatre, preaching and, 270, 328, 344n, 385, 386; see also acting Thebez, biblical, 26 theft, 308 Theresa, Maria, Empress, 304 Thicknesse, Philip, 372 Thirty Years War, 17 Thomas, John, Liberality in promoting the trade (1733), 230 Tiber, river, 25 Tiedge, Christoph August, Urania, 334n Tillotson, John, archbishop of Canterbury, viii, ix, xi, 11, 12, 14, 15, 21, 97–8, 110, 122, 134, 167, 172, 228, 241, 252, 317, 378 biography of, 168 Catholic tenor of, 170 compared with Bossuet, 12–13 elite audiences of, 168, 169, 172 funeral oration for, 168 ‘Of Doing All to the Glory of God’ (sermon), 170 ‘Of the Form and Power of Godliness’ (sermon), 170 on moral Christian behaviour, 170–1, 172 on plain vocabulary, 117–18 on restitution, 169–70 on self-denial and piety, 169 quality of casuistry in, 171 sermon on Moses (1687), 168–9, 170 sermons of, editions and translations of, 168 Tinga, Eelco, 336n Tobias, biblical, 25 Todd, Michael, 374 Tory party, 230; see also Conservative

412

index

Toulouse, 167 tower, symbol of, 17 Townshend, Lady, 382 Transylvania, 304, 305 travel accounts, xiii Trent, Council of (1545–1563), ix, 5, 61, 88, 90, 91, 93, 107, 161, 235, 275, 284 Tridentine, 10, 88, 91, 105 Trim, in Tristram Shandy, 105 Trinitarianism, 75 Troschel, Jakob Elias, 243 Trusler, John, 123 Tübingen, 174, 193, 264, 278, 302 Tuchtfeld, Victor Christoph, 195–6 Turkey, 361 invasion by, 273 Turner, Thomas, 356, 378–9, 380 Tuscany, 290, 360 Tyler, Royal, 347 Ulm, 174, 190n, 277 Unitarianism, 104, 358 United States, 384, see also North America Universal History, 100 universities, 32, 33, 43 Upper Lusatia, 66, 199 Upper Silesia, 66 Urlsperger, Samuel, 190, 305–6 Ursulines, 88 usury, 163 Utrecht, 338n Vachet, Bénigne, 368 vaderland (nation), 40 Van Eck, Otto, 376–8, 380, 387 Van Eijnatten, Joris, see Eijnatten, Joris van Van Rooden, Peter, see Rooden, Peter van Venice, 167, 373 Versailles, 167n Viaticum, sermon character, 136 Victoria, queen, 42 Vieira, Antonio, 119 Vienna, 22, 26, 89, 93, 93, 294 Virgil, 100, 255 Virgin Mary, 4, 7, 11, 23, 113, 134, 135, 140, 144, 157, 270, 279, 354, 361 Annunciation, 270 Assumption, 270 Purification, 270 Virginia, 39, 371 virtue, 27 Viterbo, 363

Vogt, Peter, 202 Voltaire, 151, 167, 236, 237 Von Archenholz, Johann Wilhelm, 352 Voorburg, nr The Hague, 376–7 Vossius, Gerardus, Oratoriarum Institutionum Libri Sex, 320n vows, 22 Wagner, Tobias, 175n, 183n Epistel-Postill, 264 Wahrhaffte und umständliche Historie von der Schwedische Gefangenen in Rußland, 191 Wake, Dr, 122n Wales, revivals in, 14 Walloon (Huguenot), 247 Walloon (London), church, 98n Walloon (Voorburg, nr The Hague), church, 376 Walpole, Horace, earl of Orford, 14, 358–9, 364, 367, 374, 381, 387 Wansleben, Johann Michael, Gute botschaft, 307 War of 1812, 39 war, sermons for, 244 Warrington Academy, 104 Washington, George, president of the United States, 38, 39 Weales, Thomas, dean of St. Sepulchre, 110 wealth, xii, 289, 290 weddings, sermons for, 4, 175 Weilheim, 300 Weißenborn, Christoph, 72 Kirchen-Redner, 72–3 Weißenborn, Jesaja Friedrich, 72 Weißenborn, Johann, 72 Wells, 356 Welzig, Werner, 22, 23, 26, 27, 29 Wenceslas, St, sermon for, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26–7 Wentrop (Salop), 102 Wesley, John, 14–15, 19, 173, 210, 231, 340, 364, 367 Directions concerning Pronunciation and Gesture, 330 on lay preaching, 212 on women as lay preachers, 212 preaching style of, 210–11 publications of sermons, 211 Sermons on Several Occasions, 211 Wesleys, family, 107, 208, 210 Westminster Abbey, 43, 348n, 359 Weston Longville (Norfolk), 382 Westphalia, Peace of (1648), 17

index Wetterau, 197 Whigs, 43, 99, 230 Whitefield, George, 14, 15, 205, 330, 338, 339, 356, 374, 381 ‘Grand Itinerant’, 207 on New Birth and conversion, 207 preaching style of, 207–9 publications of, 209, 210 Whitehall (London), 168 Wibird, Anthony, 356–7 wigs, and preaching, 313 Wilhelmina of Prussia, queen to William V, 51 Wilkes, John, 382–3 Wilkins, John, bishop, 317, 329 Ecclesiastes, 111 William III, stadhouder, 34 William IV, stadhouder, 34 William of Orange, 42 William V, king, 51 William, David, The morality of a citizen (1776), 230 William, king of England, 12, 43n, 168 Willich, Jodocus, German humanist, 318 Winkelprediger, 186 witches, 36n Witt, Friedrich Jakob, 293 Wittenberg, 271 Wittgenstein-Schwarzenau, 195 Wolfenbüttel, 271 Wolffian philosophy, 252 women as Methodist lay preachers, 212, 213 cloister and, 284 funeral sermons for, 31 in the Great Awakening, 210n in the ministry, 210

413

in the Moravian offices, 200n in the sermon audience, 175n, 278, 373 lay, among Quakers, 186 life expectancy, of, 301 novel associated with, 149n ordained, 199 sermons by, xiii, 47 social position of, 331 views of preachers on, 24, 26 Woodcock, Thomas, 374–6 woodcuts, 32 Woodforde, James, 382 Worcester, Thomas, xi, 28 work, 287–9 worship, 21 Württemberg, 74, 175n, 203, 270, 272, 293, 300 Württembergischen Summarien, on marriage, 284 Wurz, Joseph Ignaz, 273 Young, Arthur, 353 Young, Edward, 339; Night Thoughts, 339n Zaretti, Vincenzo Maria, 290 Zepper, Wilhelm, 318 Zinzendorf, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von, x, xi, 20, 66–7, 199, 200, 201, 202 on Christ’s reconciliation, 68 on moral improvement, 68–9 on the deeds of Christ, 68 on the Holy Spirit, 68–9 on the sermon, 67–8, 69 Zion, 35 Zürich, 278 Zwingli, 60