Welsh Journals

These are, however, minor blemishes or omissions, and cannot detract from the essential value of the book. It should become a necessary primer for every teacher and student anxious to undertake a broadly-based study of the history of Tudor and Stuart Wales. WILLIAM H. JOHN City of Cardiff College of Education. IN GOD'S NAME: EXAMPLES OF PREACHING IN ENGLAND, 1534-1662. By John Chandos. Hutchinson. 1971. Pp. 586. £ 6. In this collection, John Chandos, versatile author, editor and broad- caster, turns his hand to the power of the spoken word in the pulpit of Tudor and Stuart England. It represents his first incursion into this field and is designed as a substantial aperitif to his analysis of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sermons, now in progress, which will ultimately bear the suggestive title, 'The Sword in the Mouth'. There is much to savour in this attractively-produced volume. Sermons range from the racy colloquialisms of Latimer to the polished homilies of Andrewes, from the pungent allusions of 'silver-tongued' Henry Smith to the captivating prose of Jeremy Taylor. But the author's greatest service is the uncovering of a host of lesser-known preachers, whose style and techniques have received considerably less attention from historians. Chandos's compila- tion is liberally sprinkled with some absolute gems. Having sampled one, the reader is irresistibly drawn on to the next. The sermons themselves are copiously annotated, and few abstruse classical allusions slip through the author's dragnet without the benefit of his elucidation. Each sermon is prefaced by a succinct account of the career and characteristic style of the preacher concerned. Some of these are sparkling vignettes, for the author clearly has an eye for distinctive traits and the odd juicy tale. But there are also some dubious judgements and strange conjectures. Not all historians would echo his encomium to Strafford's rule in Ireland, and is it really tenable (or even worthwhile) to argue that the Civil Wars might have been avoided had Henry, prince of Wales, lived to be king in place of Charles I, on the grounds that Henry was a 'better social mixer' and more in tune with the intellectual currents of early Stuart society ? In his all-too-brief introduction, the author tends to ignore the social and economic issues that lay behind many sermons, and his jejune attempt to explain the collapse of the Puritan cause in psychological terms fails to convince this reviewer at least. The most serious deficiency of the book, however, is the author's thinly-veiled prejudices. His sermons were selected according to four criteria: literary merit, sheer accessibility, historical interest, and those that were able to stand as curiosities in their own right. Chandos is primarily concerned with literary merit, with the result that Anglican preachers are awarded pride of place while the Puritans receive short shrift. He finds the Puritan sermon generally leaden, prolix and tedious. Seasoned pulpit artists like John Owen, Richard Sibbes and Anthony Farindon, whom he considers 'well-nigh unreadable,' are thus banished from his pages. Chandos misses the point that Puritans deliberately cultivated the 'plain style' (which does not mean that it was unattractive)