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ABSTRACT
The Nonconformist ministers ejected from London parish churches in 1662 gained a reputation three years later, during the plague, for being heroes, whereas the Church of England clergy were accused of deserting the city. Nonconformists took over the churches to preach to the population but were poorly rewarded for their pains by the Five-Mile Act. This article contends that the Nonconformists’ reputation for heroism rested on the activities of a handful of preachers whose sermons were publicised by clerical figures such as Richard Baxter, eclipsing a more nuanced discourse of pastoral responsibility. The aim is to shed light on the identity and activities of those writers and on the way the epidemic affected the future of Nonconformity. More broadly, the article argues that an appraisal of the religious context of the mid-1660s can supplement existing plague studies, which have primarily focused on social history and the history of medicine.
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Notes
1 Gadbury, De Cometis, 47. For astrologers and plague predictions, see Pfeffer, “Astrology, Plague, and Prognostication.”
2 Ibid, 38.
3 Vincent, God’s Terrible Voice, 29; Baxter, Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, 2: 290; Allin, ‘Letters’.
4 For the present purposes, see in particular Gilman, Plague Writing; Grell and Cunningham, Religio Medici; Killeen, “Hezekiah”; Miller, The Literary Culture; Moote and Moote, The Great Plague; Totaro and Gilman, Representing the Plague; and Wear, Knowledge and Practice, 275–349.
5 Matthews, Calamy Revised. On 1662, see Keeble, Settling the Peace of the Church.
6 Bell, The Great Plague, 149.
7 Dunan-Page, “Vulnerability and Fear”; Grell and Cunningham, Religio Medici; Killeen, The Political Bible; Pfeffer, “Astrology, Plague and Prognostication.”
8 Buti, Colère de Dieu.
9 Altham, n. fol.
10 On Defoe, see Healy, “Defoe’s Journal”; Peraldo, “Telling Figures”; and Seager, “Lies, Damned Lies.”
11 Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, 226.
12 See for instance Patrick, Works of Symon Patrick, vol. 9, Vincent’s God's Terrible Voice, 1722 edn; and Dobson, The Preachers.
13 Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, 225.
14 Vincent, 24; Baxter, Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, 2:307; and Goldie, Roger Morrice, 17.
15 Burnet, History, 1: 259.
16 Claydon, “Latitudinarianism.”
17 Vincent, God’s Terrible Voice, 50.
18 Dobson, The Preachers, 34.
19 Baxter, Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, 2: 305.
20 Ibid, 2: 306.
21 On Franklyn, see Camden, Franklin Family Papers, 14–16,
22 De Krey, London, 90.
23 Dyer, Christs Voice. See Calamy, Account, 2: 605; Calamy, Continuation, 1: 147, 338–9, 349; and Calamy Revised.
24 Calamy, Continuation, 2: 605, 705.
25 Ibid., 1: 19.
26 Quakers paid a heavy tribute to the plague. Among the many publications lamenting their plight, see [Crane], A Lamentation; Coale, Englands Sad Estate; Salthouse, A Brief Discovery; and Whitehead, No Remission.
27 Shaw, The Voice, sig. [a]2v-a3r.
28 Baxter, Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, 2: 290–1.
29 Baxter, Breviate, 76. On the reasons that were put forward to justify leaving an infected town, see Grell, “Conflicting Duties.” On Baxter and medicine, see Cooper, “Richard Baxter.”
30 On confined houses, see The Shutting Up; and Newman, “Shutt Up”. On visiting the sick, see Daniel, “Preached.”
31 Baxter, Breviate, 87.
32 Clarke, Meditations, 17; Willis, A Help for the Poor, 21; Vincent, God’s Terrible Voice A3r; and Defoe, Due Preparations, 82.
33 Patrick, Works of Symon Patrick, 9: 445; 3: 648.
34 Baxter, Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, 1: 496.
35 Ibid., 2: 441.
36 Ibid., 1: 492.
37 On plague nurses and female ‘searchers’ of the dead, see Pelling, “Nurses and Nursekeepers”; Munkhoff, “Searchers of the Dead”; and Thorpe, “At the Mercy.”
38 For epistolary pastoral, see Busfield, “Protestant Epistolary Counselling”; and Searle, “Writing Authority.”
39 7 September 1665; ‘Allin’s Letters.’
40 5 August 1665; Ibid.
41 [Slater], Plague Checkt, sig. A3v.
42 Calamy, Continuation, 39–40.
43 [Slater], Plague Checkt, 55.
44 On Baxter and Doolittle, see Searle, “Writing Authority.”
45 Doolittle, A Spiritual Antidote, 2.
46 Ibid., 50.
47 Burden, A Biographical Dictionary, 140–52.
48 Vincent, God’s Terrible Voice, 1722 edn, sig. A3r. Evans is best known today for his list of Nonconformist congregation, DWL MS 38.4.
49 Vincent, God’s Terrible Voice, 1722 edn, sig [A]3v.
50 Greaves, “Meade [Mead], Matthew.”
51 Meade, Solomon’s Prescription, 70.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid., 71–4.
54 Ibid., 75.
55 Ibid., 85.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anne Dunan-Page
Anne Dunan-Page is Professor of Early-Modern British Studies at Aix-Marseille Université and a member of the Research Centre for the English-Speaking World. Her research interest lies in the field of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century religious dissent. Her books include The Cambridge Companion to John Bunyan (2010), L’Expérience puritaine. Vies et récits de dissidents, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle (2017) and Church Life, Pastors, Congregations, and the Experience of Dissent, co-edited with Michael Davies and Joel Halcomb (2019).