Note On The Text Of Barrow’s Sermons

1Only one of Barrow’s sermons appeared in his lifetime, The Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor1 which was published at the request of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, before whom it had been preached, “with what farther he had prepared to deliver at that time”2. The sermon he preached at the Guildhall Chapel on Good Friday, 1677, Upon the Passion of Our Blessed Saviour3, was also published by order of this Court, but was still in the press when Barrow died on May 4, 1677. The next year a collection of his sermons was brought out by Brabazon Aylmer, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions4, with a dedication by Barrow’s father and an advertisement by the “publisher A second collection, Several Sermons Against Evil-Speaking5, appeared in 1678, and a third one, Of the Love of God and Our Neighbour, in 16806, with a similar dedication and advertisement. In 1680 too, but shortly before the third volume of sermons, two more of Barrow’s English works had been printed for Brabazon Aylmer: A Treatise of the Pope’s Supremacy, to which is added A Discourse Concerning the Unity of the Church7 These were “published” by John Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, who was also the “publisher” of the collected sermons8. The Gunpowder Plot sermon published in the first collection also appeared separately in 1679 and in 1679/809, as did the Discourse Concerning the Unity of the Church10 in 1680. The next work of Barrow to be published by Tillotson was A Brief Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer and the Decalogue, To which is added, The Doctrine of the Sacraments, which came out in 168211. In the same year Brabazon Aylmer circulated Proposals12 for the first and second folio volumes of the Works of Barrow, the first to contain all the works in English13 which had already been published, the second to contain the Sermons on the Creed; the subscribers were asked to make their first payment by the 1st of February (1683) since the first volume was then in the press and “to be finished by the 25th of March”, The second volume was announced as in the press in the Term Catalogue for November 168214, and in June 1683 were advertised The Works of the Learned Isaac Barrow... published by the Reverend Dr. Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury15. The third volume of the folio Works, containing forty-five sermons upon several occasions, appeared in 168616, but some of these sermons had been published the year before in an octavo edition printed for Brabazon Aylmer17. A fourth volume, containing Barrow’s Latin Works, appeared in 1687; these were not included in the later editions of the folio Works, in 1700, 1716, 1722, 1741 (corrected), nor in the 1751 octavo edition deriving from the last folio Works.

2The sermons not sent to the press by Barrow himself were thus edited by Tillotson, at the request of or with the consent of Barrow’s father, who signed the dedications18. In 1697, however, Brabazon Aylmer brought out two works which, he says in The Bookseller’s Advertisement, had been overlooked by the Archbishop: a sermon on Col. III.2, to which Aylmer gave the title: A Defence of the B. Trinity19, and A Brief Exposition on the Creed20. We may probably take the bookseller’s word that Tillotson had overlooked the sermon on the Trinity, “which might very easily be in so great a number”21, and there is no reason to doubt that the 1697 edition was set up from Barrow’s autograph sermon22. Yet, one cannot help speculating on the extraordinary flair of Aylmer, which made him discover among such a number of manuscripts one on the very doctrine that was causing so much controversy at the time. Not only did he publish the sermon, but from this he extracted a few significant passages which he published in 1698 as A Brief State of the Socinian Controversy concerning Trinity in Unity23. Clearly, Aylmer’s discovery was prompted by his wish to publish one more item in vindication of the Trinity24, which makes one wonder if Tillotson had not ignored rather than overlooked this manuscript of Barrow’s.

3Doubt has also been cast on Tillotson’s ignorance of the Exposition on the Creed. Alexander Napier, who edited Barrow’s Theological Works in 1859, granted that Tillotson must have been ignorant of its existence “at one period at least of his long editorial labours”; but he argued that it must have fallen “under his notice” while he was preparing the Sermons on the Creed for publication since Napier believed he had found evidence that Tillotson used portions of the Exposition “in order to supplement and connect the series of these Expository Discourses”25. It should be remembered, however, that Barrow turned long parts of the Exposition into sermons (though he revised some passages in the process); moreover, the MS. used by Aylmer for his 1697 edition was not used by Tillotson, who may have drawn from other manuscript sermons now lost in order to “supplement and connect” the series26. All we can say is that Tillotson may have seen a manuscript of the Exposition on the Creed, and decided not to publish it since much of this had been incorporated into the Sermons on the Creed27.

4One of Barrow’s autograph sermons, however, seems never to have come “under the notice” of either Tillotson or Aylmer. Apparently this manuscript was mislaid and only restored to Trinity College, Cambridge, in the nineteenth century. On this manuscript (Trinity College, MS. O.10.a.32) is a note signed by Dr. W. Whewell, the then Master of Trinity College, to the effect that this sermon of Barrow’s was “received from Rev. R. Parkinson, Nov. 1851”. It is not listed in the manuscript Catalogue of Dr. Isaac Barrow’s MSS in Trinity College prepared by Lee (Trinity College, MS. R.17.13). Barrow’s 1859 editor, Alexander Napier, who first printed this sermon in the Theological Works, explained that the manuscript had been “found by the late Dr. Parkinson among the papers of Dr. Byrom, while engaged in pre paring them for publication in the Chetham Society’s Works, and by him restored to Trinity College”28 There is no reason to believe that Tillotson ever knew of this sermon, whose text, like that of the sermon on the Trinity, is Col. III. 2; we can only speculate on the reasons why it was mislaid, though a remark by Ward may give us a clue: Barrow, he says, “was very communicative to all, who desired his assistance, which unhappily proved in some instances a prejudice to the public, by the loss of many of his papers, that were lost and never returned”29.

5Except for the sermons on Bounty to the Poor and on the Passion, and for the two published after Tillotson’s death by Aylmer (1697) and by Napier (1859), all the sermons of Barrow were edited by Tillotson, and in this edition they were read in the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth until Napier published the Theological Works, collated with the extant manuscripts. Tillotson’s procedure in preparing his friend’s works for the press has, however, been repeatedly criticized, most severely indeed by Napier, on whose views later critics have based their strictures30. Napier, in fact, accused Tillotson of tampering with Barrow’s sermons, by making verbal revisions, erasing whole sentences, and rearranging some of the sermons, particularly dividing some into smaller units. The impression one derives from Napier’s preface is that Tillotson’s Barrow was indeed a heavily edited text31.

6Collation of Tillotson’s text with the manuscript sermons he used has revealed, however, that Napier had not done justice to Barrow’s first editor32. Not only did Tillotson select the “best” texts for his edition, but his revisions of them are by no means as far-reaching as Napier would have us think. True, he did sometimes revise, he did divide some of the longer sermons, and he may occasionally have used a short passage from the Exposition; but the verbal revisions are slight and few in number: far from being in the habit of substituting common words for obsolete or latinate ones, Tillotson altered no more than 70 such words in texts which cover about 1500 folio pages, and he retained many. Moreover, though in two or three cases he had no authority for dividing the text, in several others the division had evidently been intended by Barrow. Napier’s excessive strictures are probably to be ascribed to his own failure to notice that in the manuscripts many of the words written above other words crossed out are, in fact, revisions by Barrow himself inked over by Tillotson, and that the breaks in the longer sermons clearly show that Barrow intended to deliver the parts on successive occasions (though he did not end each part with “Amen” nor repeat his text at the beginning of the next). After comparing Tillotson’s edition with the autograph version of the sermons, one must conclude that he was a reliable editor, even though he occasionally—very occasionally—made his friend’s vocabulary conform with current usage. In fact, his long editorial labours deserve nothing but praise from all except carping critics.

7Napier’s editorial policy, on the other hand, is also open to criticism. Through excessive respect for the state of the manuscripts, he failed to interpret and to reach beyond the facts to Barrow’s intentions: though he granted that some of the longer sermons could hardly have been delivered at such length, he printed them as continuous texts even when blanks in the manuscripts imply the intended division. He also failed to note the difference between on the one hand Barrow’s own revisions inked over or reproduced in the margin by Tillotson to help the printer, and on the other emendations by the editor33 Finally, in many cases he gave in footnotes additional matter from other manuscript versions of the same sermons: however interesting such further developments may be to a student of Barrow’s thought, it should be made clear that in some cases at least the sermon had been reshaped from one version to the next, and that the developments appearing in one manuscript do not really fit into the other version. True, this does not often distort the overall structure of Barrow’s sermons since these grow by accretion rather than from a centre; none the less, the impression is misleading. Since no editor can contemplate publishing all the extant versions of the sermons, the only thing to do is to decide which version of each sermon to print. This is clearly what Tillotson did, and after comparing several versions of several sermons one must conclude that he chose the best texts, i.e. those that appear to represent the last stage of composition, even when Barrow had made a fair copy at an earlier stage34. It was not Tillotson’s purpose to give the public an insight into his friend’s method of composition; but in a scholarly edition, such as Napier seems to have intended35, it might have been interesting to find the successive versions36 of one sermon. From these, indeed, one gathers how Barrow went to work and how his sermons grew. For one thing one realizes that for him revising usually meant expanding, adding more “considerations” or developing some point at greater length. One realizes also that the purely verbal revisions were few, generally for the purpose of enlarging rather than in order to obtain greater precision, and that they were seldom dictated by stylistic considerations: Barrow simply found he had more to say on the matter, and more of the same kind, so that one sees him reaching further and further afield and stopping merely for lack of time, indeed often envisaging further considerations even at that point. Though, as Tillotson said, he seems to have exhausted the subjects he treated, obviously he never felt he had reached a final point. Now, Napier told his readers what was Barrow’s method of composition, but he did not illustrate it from the manuscripts: in fact he gave no more than the texts Tillotson had selected (restored to what he thought was their original form), plus additions in footnotes and in one case a second, imperfect, sermon on the same text37.

8The copy text for the sermons printed below is Tillotson’s folio edition—from which the eighteenth-century editions derived—collated with the extant manuscripts which bear the printer’s marks: Against Foolish Talking and Jesting (vol. I, ser. XIV); Upon the Passion of our Blessed Saviour (vol. I, ser. XXXII); Of the Evil and Unreasonableness of Infidelity (vol. II, ser. I; Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. R.10.17, ff. lv to 11); Of Justifying Faith (vol. II, ser. IV; T.C. MS. R.10.17, ff. 30 to 44); Of Justification by Faith (vol. II, ser. V; T.C. MS. R.10.17, ff. 45 to 57)38; Of Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governours (vol. III, ser. XXIV to XXVII; T.C. MS. R.10.19, ff. 140 to 163 v). The copy used is the 1683-1687 Works in the British Museum. A few obvious misprints have been silently emended; variant readings from the MSS. (B.) are given in footnotes, Tillotson’s emendations on the manuscript are referred to as T., while readings of the Works which have no such authority, but which may also derive from Tillotson, are referred to as 1683 for sermons in vol. II and as 1686 for sermons in vol. III.

9Except for Upon the Passion, the titles of these sermons are those Tillotson inserted when preparing the MSS. for the press; these titles have been retained. The sermons on Obedience to our Spiritual Guides and Governours form a continuous text in the MS.; Tillotson divided this into four parts, without altering the text (except for a slight syntactical change in the sentence he divides between ser. XXIV and ser. XXV). Besides altering a few words, he occasionally added a capital or modernized the spelling, but he did not emend the punctuation. This was left to the printer, who kept as close as possible to Barrow’s pointings, but normalized the spelling fairly consistently, no doubt in accordance with printing-house usage.

10The changes in punctuation from manuscript to printed text are few39 and most of them are of three kinds:

1. deletion of the comma before and in a sequence of more than two (and sometimes of two) words and phrases, e.g. B. ‘Christian history, and doctrine’, 1683 ‘Christian history and doctrine’ (p. 410, 1.19, below);
2. insertion of a comma after that is, in fine, or before an interpolated adjunct or qualification, e.g. B. ‘that doctrine, which being supposed true, he cannot’, 1683 ‘that doctrine, which, being...’ (p. 393, 1.23, below);
3. a semi-colon or a colon instead of a period, or vice-versa, e.g. B. ‘in the Lord their God. whence’, 1683 ‘in the Lord their God: Whence’ (p. 383, 1.29, below); B. ‘advantage: it levelleth’, 1683 ‘advantage. it levelleth’ (p. 387, ll. 3/4, below); B. ‘or state: this’, 1683 ‘or state: This’ (p. 387, 1.9, below); B. ‘sullen folks; so that’, 1683 ‘sullen folks: So that’ (p. 387, 1.17, below). Changes of this kind do not, in fact, affect either the meaning or the rhythm of Barrow’s text, since the only difference that may sometimes be involved is the length of the pause. Besides Barrow himself does not always use a capital after a period40, and often uses one after a colon or a semi-colon, so that it is not always clear where he intends to begin a new sentence. The same difficulty arises with parentheses, which Barrow and the printer sometimes use without other marks of punctuation at the end. When Barrow does use a mark of punctuation together with a parenthesis, this mark generally follows the parenthesis, whereas in the printed text it always precedes the parenthesis.

11Apart from these details the compositor(s) followed the text very closely; Dryden’s remark that “the printer has enough to answer for in false pointings” obviously does not apply to Brabazon Aylmer. Though Barrow’s usage may at first perplex the reader, the punctuation of the 1683-1687 Works has been retained in the present edition, except in a few cases where the original pointing is apt to be misleading to-day, or where it has seemed necessary to clarify the author’s meaning.

12The spelling, capitals and italics have also been retained, but not the long s. Neither the printer’s occasional emendations in punctuation nor the variant spellings have been recorded, but it may be of interest to list here some of Barrow’s spellings which the printer normalized fairly consistently.

13Then after a comparative is always emended to than. Genitives singular and (usually) genitives of plurals not ending on a sibilant are printed with an apostrophe, while Barrow spells: our Lords discourse, Gods help, mens revolting, etc. as well as the Apostles proceeding, the hearers discretion, etc. While Barrow always writes do as doe, the e has been crossed out systematically at the beginning of several manuscripts, probably by Tillotson; yet in the printed text the spelling doe is retained for the full verb, while the substitute and the auxiliary are spelt do. In the Works, final -e is often deleted; for instance, Barrow spells: to complaine, to/a designe, to expresse, to heare, to professe, to speake, to thinke, etc.; eare, mischiefe, soule, fooles, meanes, etc.; baptisme, kingdome, blindnesse, etc.; cleare, firme, vaine, etc.; carelesse, faithlesse, etc.; chiefely, duely, truely, etc. Conversely, e is sometimes inserted; thus while Barrow usually spells largly, only, wholsome, the printer spells largely, onely, wholesome. Barrow’s spelling ey is consistently altered to eye (so is eysore to eyesore), a ly to a lye, and themselvs to themselves.

14Final -yes (-yeth, -yed, -yer, -yest) is always altered to -ies (-ieth, -ied, -ier, -iest). Thus Barrow spells: curiosityes, facultyes, infirmityes, mysteryes, testimonyes; denyeth, implyeth, justifyeth; buryed, justifyed, tyed; happyer, happyest, wealthyer, wealthyest, etc. Final -y is also altered to -i before a suffix, thus in: faultynesse, happynesse, naughtynesse; duty full, pityfull; dayly, etc. Similarly, final -y is altered to -ie in some verbs, nouns and adjectives, such as: to ly, to justify, to signify; apostasy, controversy; easy.

15Whereas Barrow often has double consonants at the end of a word41, the printer uses a single letter (though he occasionally keeps the double consonant, e.g. dugg, patt); besides all adjectives in -al (e.g. carnall, graduall, naturall, sociall, universall, etc.), Barrow spells for instance: to admitt, to cavill, to putt, to shunn; sinn, sonn; farr, allmost, to differr. Barrow also spells: to improove, to reproove, to loose, etc., whereas the printer uses a single letter. Conversely, in the middle of a word the printer sometimes uses a double consonant where Barrow has a single letter; thus the manuscripts have to bafle (and occasionally baffle), to medle, to setle, to puzle, while the printed text has to baffle (also to bafle), to meddle, but also to setle and to puzle.

16Prefix in- is sometimes altered to en-, thus in injoin, inquire; similarly de is emended to di in devest. Suffix -or is emended to -our in author, professor, propagator, transgressor, etc. While Barrow spells encountring, administring, the printed text has encountering, administering. The spelling ei is altered to ie in breif, mischeif, cheif, and beleif; join, conjoin, jointly, etc. are usually altered to joyn, conjoyn, joyntly. Finally the following words are emended almost all through: practise (noun) to practice, yeeld to yield, souldyer to souldier, counsail to counsel, accompt to account, wracked to racked, country to countrey, assistance to assistence, allege to alledge, (though allege also occurs). Barrow’s spelling endued was emended by Tillotson on the manuscript to endued, and the printer followed this direction, though in the third volume endewed occasionally appears.

17Most of the emendations thus reflect later spelling usage, but we should not expect absolute consistency in spelling any more than in punctuation. The copy text has for instance: system/systeme, custom/custome, Christendom/Christendome, baffled/bafled, account/accompt, alledge/allege, joyned/joined, etc. (Barrow too uses alternate spellings, for instance: believe/beleive, meerly/merely, cleare/clear, termes/terms, etc.). The variant spellings of the Works have been retained except in one case: the word Saint has been abbreviated as St., though the two abbreviated forms (S. and St.) appear in the manuscripts as well as in the printed text.

18The margins of Barrow’s manuscripts are loaded with references and quotations: the copy text reproduces these faithfully, but such a procedure was impracticable in the present edition42. All references have been transferred to the foot of the page, and superior figures have been inserted into the text, although Barrow himself seldom indicates where the references belong43. These references often include the page of the edition he was using; whenever possible his quotations have been checked with editions more easily available to the modern reader: these will be found between square brackets. Obsolete words have been glossed, and a few notes have been added: these too will be found between square brackets.