Reading the "religious" language of Samuel Johnson's Sermons

Notes

1) Only two sermons were published in Samuel Johnson's lifetime, twenty-five appeared posthumously, and "The Convict's Address to His Unhappy Brethren" appeared in print for the first time in the Yale Edition of Johnson's Sermons. The majority of these sermons were commissioned by members of the Anglican clergy who would then preach them to their congregations; Johnson usually received a modest payment for writing them. Indeed, his long time friend, the Reverend John Taylor of Ashboume, a former lawyer and a tireless ecclesiastical opportunist, commissioned most of Johnson's sermons. Taylor delivered only a few of them in rural Ashboume; most were preached to the educated and politically powerful audience in Westminster where he held several preferments, including the rectorship of St. Margaret's Chapel. The word Sermons as used in this essay is italicized because it refers to the sermons as collected in the Yale edition.

2) Samuel Johnson is following a tradition, which dated back to January 25, 1661, when Parliament ordered the thirtieth of January to be kept as a day of penance and humiliation; moreover, it ordered that a sermon be composed in praise of the martyred Charles I.

3) Additional examples of Johnson's use of liturgical formulae to conclude his Sermons can be found in "Sermon 6," 73; "Sermon 9," 105; "Sermon 25," 271; "Sermon 27," 299; "Sermon 28," 313.

Works Cited

Andrewes, Lancelot. Nativity Sermons. London: n.p., 1614. Blair, Hugh. Sermons. 2 vols. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1780-81. Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Ed. George Birkbeck Hill. Rev. and enl. by L. F. Powell. Vols. I-VI. Oxford: Clarendon, 1934-1950. Gray, James. Johnson's Sermons: A Study. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972. Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language. 1755; rpt., London: Times Books, 1979.

. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Ed. Bruce Redford. Vol. I-V. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992-94.

The Life of Cowley. The Oxford Authors: Samuel Johnson. Ed. Donald Greene. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984.

_. The Rambler. Ed. W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss. Vols. III-V of The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. New Haven: Yale UP, 1969. _. Sermons. Ed. Jean H. Hagstrum and James Gray. Vol. XIV of The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. New Haven: Yale UP, 1978.

Secker, Thomas. Eight Charges Delivered to the Clergy of the Dioceses of Oxford and Canterbury. London: Beilby Porteus and George Stenton, 1769. South, Robert. Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vols. I-VII. Oxford: Clarendon, 1823.

Tillich, Paul. A History of Christian Thought: From its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism. Ed. Carl E. Braaten. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967.

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