Critical Introduction

See the text of .

Thomas Adams’ describes an ideal London. As the City of Peace, London becomes New Jerusalem, in which urbs, communitas, and res publica combine in a unified vision of religious and civil peace. Adams communicates this interpretation of God’s will with London’s familiar terrain, making his doctrine more understandable to his audience. Simultaneously, Adams invests London’s space, inhabitants, and government with divine meaning. However, beneath Adams’ attempts to glorify the city, the reader can detect undercurrents of unease. Ultimately, Adams’ London is two-faced: it is both glorious and disquieting, holy and unholy, unified and divided.

Adams was a prolific and popular seventeenth-century preacher and author; he produced nineteen collections of sermons and three treatises between 1612 and 1652. At the height of his popularity, Adams preached on several occasions at Paul’s Cross. In 1625, he read sermons for the lord mayor’sI.e., Sir Allan Cotton. election and the bishop of London’sI.e., George Mountain. visit. He also spoke at Whitehall two days after the death of King James. Reportedly called the prose Shakespeare of Puritan theologians by Robert Southey , Adams developed a highly satirical prose style that drew on contemporary dramatic conventions.

In an era characterized by religious contention, advocates that peace be the paramount aim of religion. It is a thoughtful work for and about the citizens of early modern London. By using familiar London landmarks, it illuminates how citizens might become better city-dwellers. The frequent use of Latin, along with Biblical and classical allusions, implies an ecclesiastical audience, but the inclusion of translations and verse glosses suggests that Adams intended his text to reach a popular readership as well.

’s central conceit is the association of London’s urbs with various peaceful themes. The city walls are allegorized as Unity and Concord, Bishopsgate as Innocence, Ludgate as Patience, Aldgate as Beneficence, Cripplegate as Recompense, and the Thames as Prosperity. These associations suggest that the City of Peace, or New Jerusalem (Adams sig. B11r), is realized within London. The new names of these urbs invest the architecture of London with divine meaning. The walls no longer merely delineate the boundary of London proper; they unify the inhabitants as a holy body (Adams sig. C4r). The association of Bishopsgate with the clergy serves as a physical reminder of the blamelessness of God’s servants (Adams sig. C6v). Ludgate’s prison is no longer a mere jail for freemen and clergymen; it becomes a place where Londoners learn to patiently suffer the world’s ills (Adams sig. C10r). Aldgate, with its statues of Peace and Charity and its proximity to two almshouses, becomes a model of divine charity. Cripplegate, which was apparently named after its crippled beggars, is invested with the virtues of compensation and renewal following sin. Finally, the Thames, as the provider of commerce and material goods, becomes the Ocean of God’s Bountie (Adams sig. H7v).

While London as an urbs is generally eulogized, Adams includes two representations of evil and civic strife: Newgate and Moorgate, symbols of Contention. Newgate, as London’s oldest prison, represents the birth of strife (Adams sig. E7r) in London, while Moorgate, as a location for the banishment of all those fitter for the societie of Moores and Pagans (Adams sig. E6v), represents all that is alien to London.

These contentious gates operate solely as portals out of the city. All of the symbolic elements of the city structure function as agents of movement: the virtuous gates as inward thresholds, the walls as prohibitors of movement and upholders of the status quo, and the contentious gates as means of expulsion. The Thames occupies a dual position, with its capacity to [come] flowing in with commodities, [and go] loaden backe with injuries (Adams sig. H8r). Effectively, virtue is presented as something that exists outside of London and therefore must be imported; conversely, the city itself produces nothing but vice. This treatment of the urbs of London, as both a worldly expression of God’s will and a producer of strife and filth, signals the text’s ambivalence about the city.

The city walls, even as they form the urbs, simultaneously denote the border of a totalizing communitas of London citizens. In his description of the walls as Unity and Concord, Adams proposes that it is in a Citie, as in a Bodie (Adams sig. B12v). As a unified physical body, citizens must all exercise their functions for the good of the whole (Adams sig. C2r). Individual differences are permitted, for some are stronger, as the armes and legges (Adams sig. C1r), but all must combine to provide for the supportation of the weaker (Adams sig. C1r). It is not merely through entering the urbs of the city, but by sacrificing private desires for the general good that the faithfull citizens of Peace (Adams sig. C1r) are determined. However, the city as a connected body of disparate members is not merely the ideal condition of the Holy City; it is an unavoidable condition of city life. Whether in practice the London body pursues the good of all its component members, or chooses to starue the whole Body, to fatt a toe (Adams sig. C2v), is uncertain. Once again, despite Adams’ predominantly laudatory tone, his trepidation regarding London’s actual merit emerges as he concedes that Many euill men may haue one will in wickednesse (Adams sig. C4r). Furthermore, it becomes apparent that the fundamental reason for civil unity is to protect the city from an enemie’s entrance (Adams sig. C4r). Far from being united, Adams’ Londoners constantly threaten to pecke out one another’s eyes (Adams sig. C5r). London is no longer a New Jerusalem, but a composite Judah and Israel that, in warring against itself, is overcome by enemies (Adams sig. C6r-C6v). The undercurrent of strife once again corrupts the holy and perfect city of peace.

Adams’ representation of London as res publica also corresponds with the general tendency of to depict London as the City of God in miniature, while concurrently revealing an embedded trepidation regarding its virtue. If the ruler of New Jerusalem is God, then the ruler of London must be a little God (Adams sig. F12r); the section on the Prince of Peace (Adams sig. F11v) is essentially an extended tribute to King James and an argument for his divine right to rule. In the City of Peace, all must obey (Adams sig. F12r) both the God-on-Earth of the King, and the Gospel-on-Earth of the law (Adams sig. G5v). London becomes an amalgamated expression of the royal court and the court of law, attended by Plenty her Treasurer, Liberalitie her Almoner, Conscience her Chancelor, Wisdome her Counseller (Adams sig. I7r). Adams explicitly upholds Magistracie, or [the] lawfulnes of authoritie (Adams sig. F4v-F5r); at the same time, he expresses distrust regarding the legal process. In a lengthy diatribe against lawyers and legal abuses, Adams depicts London’s res publica as infested with a smooth-fac’d company (Adams sig. E6v) of civil antagonists. Language saturated with references to feeding, diseased bowels, and foul air (Adams sig. F3r-F3v) denotes a res publica that is not a reflection of the Gospel, but instead a disorder in the body of London.

The London of is a complicated tangle of urbs, communitas, and res publica. London, an amalgamation of New Jerusalem and Babel, is both divine and dangerous. Adams employs London as an analogy in order to clarify his opinions regarding holiness and peace, and his treatise demonstrates considerable theological knowledge and an unquestionable desire to contribute to social well-being. However, more than a model for peace, provides a revealing indication of early modern confusion regarding this changing city. Adams’ concluding image of London is as Solomon’s Jerusalem verified, but his most apt image of London might be his allusion to anamorphic pictures: London is like certain Pictures, that represent to diuers beholders, at diuers stations, diuers formes Looking one way, you see a beautifull Virgine: another way, some deformed monster (Adams sig. H8r).

Textual Note

(STC 112) was printed in octavo format in 1622 by Augustine Matthews for John Grismand. It was entered into the Stationers’ Register on 3 May 1622. The imprint line tells us that the book was to be ſold at his Grismand’s Shop in Pauls Alley, at the Signe of the Gunne. According to the , only three copies survive; they are held by the British Library, the Bodleian, and the Huntington Library. Our text is a semi-diplomatic transcription of the EEBO digital surrogate of the Bodleian copy.

The sermon was later reprinted in the folio collection of Adams’ works: (1629; STC 105).