Ithuriel's Spear : Barbauld, Sermons and Citizens 1789-93

This article focuses on the years between the start of the French Revolution and the beginning of war between Britain and France. I argue that pulpits and printed sermons became a key battleground for important debates about how to interpret the past, present and future of British liberty and the British monarchy. Religion and ideas of liberty were so mutually constitutive that sermons became a focal point for the future of the nation. I discuss a range of related sermons and texts alongside Anna Laetitia Barbauld's Civic Sermons to the People (1792) and Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation (1793).