Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia Volume 1

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General Books, 2013 - History - 206 pages
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... From this digression, which I am sure the reader will pardon, I return to the more immediate object of this article. As I am engaged in presenting my recollections of the state of things in the Church of Virginia, I think this a proper time for some notice of the character of the sermons which were preached and the books which were read among the Episcopalians of Virginia. This was the period when the poet Cowper upbraided the clergy of the English Church with substituting morality for religion, saying, -- " How oft, when Paul has served as with a text, Has Plato, Tully, Epiotetus preached!" In the Church of Virginia, with the exception of Mr. Jarrett and perhaps a few others, I fear the preaching had for a long time been almost entirely of the moral kind. The books most in use were Blair's Sermons, Sterne's Works, The Spectator, The Whole Duty of Man, sometimes Tillotson's Sermons, which last were of the highest grade of worth then in use. But Blair's Sermons, on account of their elegant style and great moderation in all things, were most popular. I remember that when either of my sisters would be at all rude or noisy, my mother would threaten them with Blair's Sermon on gentleness. The sickly sensibility of Sterne's Sermons (and especially of his Sentimental Journey) was the favourite style and standard of too many of our clergy. After entering the ministry I heard several of such most faulty exhibitions of Christian morality. It is no wonder that the churches were deserted and the meeting-houses filled. But the time had come, both in the English and American Church, for a blessed change. There is something interesting in the history of one of the ways in which it was introduced into the Church of Virginia. The family of Bishop Porteus...

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