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Preaching and Publication — Chronology and the Style of Thomas Hooker's Sermons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Winfried Herget
Winfried Herget
Affiliation:
Anglistiches Institut Universität des Saarlandes “Saarbruecken”
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Extract

In 1630 Thomas Hooker left England to avoid further prosecution by Archbishop Laud. Before him lay an uncertain future, first in Holland, and then, after 1633, in America; behind him, years of increasing recognition as one of the most effective Puritan preachers, especially while he was a lecturer at Chelmsford in Essex. Yet by 1630 only two of Hooker's works had been published: The Poore Doubting Christian Drawne Unto Christ, and the “Epistle to the Reader” in John Rogers' The Doctrine of Faith. Both appeared in 1629.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 231 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1972

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References

1 London, 1629. Hooker's name is not given. According to the table of contents of The Saints' Cordials two sermons on John 6:45 could be expected. The separate title-page of The Poore Doubting Christian announces only “one sermon.”

2 2 1635, 4 1637, 6 1641. Walker, George Leon, Thomas Hooker: Preacher, Founder, Democrat (New York, 1891), 184Google Scholar, mentions 1632, 1659, 1667 as the years in which further editions came out before the 12th edition in 1700. Thomas Prince is responsible for the first American edition in 1743; another American edition appeared in 1845. In almost all of these editions changes and additions have been made.

3 This is the first time that Hooker's name is spelled out instead of giving only the initials T. H. The Soules Preparation is even entered as by F. H. (Oct. 29, 1631). The Equal Waies of God by T. H. entered on Dec. 6, 1631 probably does not refer to Thomas Hooker but should rather be ascribed to Thomas Haynes.

4 That The Soules Humiliation was preached in England can also be inferred from Firmin, Giles, The Real Christian (London, 1670), 19Google Scholar; Firmin tells of a conversation between Nathaniel Ward and Hooker “when Mr. Hooker preached those sermons about the Souls preparation for Christ, and Humiliation.” Ward was curate of St. James's, Piccadilly from June 1626 to February 1628, and after that at the rectory of Stondon Massey in Essex. He was removed in 1633. (DNB)

5 Foure Learned and Godly Treatises (London, 1638), 115Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 4f.

7 Ibid., 45f.

8 Cf. the title-page of The Soules Possession of Christ (London, 1638)Google Scholar, which does not, however, give the title of the funeral sermon.

9 Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archeology and Natural History, VIII (1894), 234Google Scholar (Parish Registers at Clare).

10 The Soules Effectual Calling deals only with one of the four sorts of hypocrites that are mentioned. “Spirituall Love and Joy,” 220ff., also treats the other three, followed by “uses” and “hindrances.”

11 The Soules Implantation (London, 1637), 155Google Scholar. Similarly, though less amplified: The Soules Effectual Calling, 202.

12 “The Signes of Gods Forsaking a People” is the nineteenth of the XXIX Choice Sermons on Several Texts of Scripture (London, 1657)Google Scholar, bound in The Works of W. Fenner, Printed for W. Gilbertson, 1657. Mather, Cotton in his Magnalia (London, 1702)Google Scholar, Book III, § 15, p. 62, reports: “Amongst Mr. Fenner's Works, I find some imperfect and shattered, and I believe, Injurious Notes of a Farewel Sermon upon Jer. 14.9 … Which Farewel Sermon was indeed, Mr. Hooker's, at his leaving of England.”

13 Walker, op. cit., 189f.

14 The Christians Two Chiefe Lessons (London, 1640)Google Scholar, sig. A 2v, sig. A 3. Walker thinks that Thomas Shepard may have been the “one that was inwardly acquainted with the Author.”

15 A Comment Upon Christ's Last Prayer (London, 1656)Google Scholar, title-page and half-title.

16 The Application of Redemption … The Ninth and Tenth Books (London, 1657), sig. C 4Google Scholar.

17 In The Soules Preparation (London, 1632)Google Scholar the table of contents is followed by this note: “Christian Reader, thou hast here some Sermons brought to light, which by reason of the Authors absence, are presented to thy view, both with some lesser escapes, and in more homely termes, than his judicious eye would have suffered.” Hooker was in Holland at the time of publication.

18 The manuscript is held by the Connecticut Historical Society. It has been transcribed by Douglas H. Shepard.

19 Op. cit., Book III, § 23, p. 66.

20 Sprague, William B., Annals of the American Pulpit (New York, 1857–1869)Google Scholar, I, 91. Sprague gives 1647 as the year in which Higginson transcribed the sermons, but he does not give the source of his knowledge.

21 Op. cit., sig C 3v.

22 Ibid., sig. C 4v. CottonMather, op. cit., Book III, §23, p. 65, rephrases this: “Afterwards he preached more largely on those Points, in a more popular way at Chelmsford, the Product of which were those Books of Preparation for Christ, Contrition, Humiliation, Vocation, Union with Christ, and Communion, and the rest, which go under his Name; for many wrote after him in Short-Hand; and some were so bold as to publish many of them, without his Consent or Knowledge; whereby his Notions came to be deformedly misrepresented in multitudes of passages …”