And today's text is...
I've started classifying the sermons for the anti-Catholic sermon project, beginning with my notes from this past summer's trip to Britain; still to come are my own copies of various sermons. (I'm bracing myself for the task of sorting through a stack of individual issues of the Pulpit.) One of the things I'm tracking is the preacher's choice of text: which books, chapters, and verses proved especially attractive to those Protestants sermonizing on all things Catholic? Here are the multiples I've found so far:
- Revelation (8)--three of them Rev xviii.4: "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
- 2 Thessalonians (7)--all but one of them various verses in 2 Thessalonians ii
- Matthew (5)
- Isaiah (5)
- Luke (4)
- 1 Timothy (4)--two of them 1 Timothy ii.5: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus..."
- Psalms (4)
- John (3)
- 1 Peter (3)
- 1 Corinthians (3)
- 2 Corinthians (3)
- Romans (3)
- Jeremiah (3)--two Jeremiah v.30-31: "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land;/The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?"
- Ephesians (3)
- 1 Thessalonians (2)--both 1 Thessalonians v.21: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."
- Jude (2)--both Jude 3: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."
- 2 Kings (2)
- Deuteronomy (2)
- Hebrews (2)--both Hebrews ix.10: "Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation."
- Galatians (2)
- 1 Samuel (2)
- 2 Samuel (2)
Obviously, the texts range widely over both halves of the Bible (with, equally obviously, the N.T. garnering the lion's share of attention). Looking at the synoptics, I'm not sure what poor Mark did to merit being ignored--I haven't yet found a single text taken from Mark. Given the importance of apocalyptics in anti-Catholic discourse, the repeated turns to Revelation aren't particularly surprising, but it's interesting that 2 Thessalonians ii (a "take heart" chapter) is currently breathing down Revelation's neck. At this phase in the classification process, the texts aren't really forming chronological clusters, but that may change as I add more sermons.