'Preached in much pain': Sick Preachers and Sickly Preaching in Seventeenth-Century England

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 24; pp. 30 - 47
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2020
• Subjects: 17th century; Clergy; Illnesses; Older people; Puritanism; Sermons; Speaking; United Kingdom > UK; England
• ISSN: 0954-0970

The term 'Puritan' is deployed here to encompass Church of England and later Nonconformist ministers who espoused the significance of preaching God's Word as a pastoral duty.4 Recent scholarship supports this broad approach, demonstrating important continuities in 'Puritan' and 'Nonconformist' experiences.5 Examining Puritan preaching across the seventeenth century is a deliberate attempt to overcome the popular division in scholarship between pre- and post-Restoration sermon praxis.6 By taking a larger historical view, one encounters surprising continuities in pulpit performances amongst a variety of denominationally diverse ministers. The Presbyterian clergyman Henry Newcome plaintively wrote of a Sabbath in 1674: 'I preached twice and repeated at night, and was abundantly tired'.19 Preaching for lengthy periods of time could have serious physical side-effects - as the lifespan of a preaching ministry could be as high as five decades or longer. Nearing the end of his life, during the late 1670s, the veteran John Angier of Denton (father-in-law of Oliver Heywood) resigned himself to the fact that his ministry was coming to a close as he was 'scarce able to get into the Pulpit for Age, and Weakness accompanying it'.24 Seniority brought mental as well as physical deterioration. Dotage was a clear sign that Jolly's 'spirits, strength, and gifts [were] failing'.25 Congregants also complained that elderly ministers, no longer able to project their voices, delivered inaudible sermons.26 Effective and affecting preaching, it seems, was a young man's game.