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IV.7 - Thomas Fuller, selected works

from PART IV - History and philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2016

William E. Engel
Affiliation:
University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
Rory Loughnane
Affiliation:
Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis
Grant Williams
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa
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Summary

About the author

Thomas Fuller (1607/8–61), a renowned preacher, charmed auditors with his ‘mellifluous discourse’. His clerical career suffered during the Interregnum period because of his moderate religious beliefs and he thus embarked on antiquarian projects, including the first full Protestant history of England's church. His extraordinary memory was fabled.

Joseph's Particoloured Coat

About the text

The text collects eight sermons in addition to the eponymous one of the title, which starts the volume off. ‘Joseph's Particoloured Coat’ is an exegetical sermon, proffering close commentary on each verse of Paul's letter 1 Corinthians 11:18–30. The sermon's relatively fair treatment of putative heretics and schismatics may have recommended a tacit corrective to the uncompromising harshness that Archbishop Laud and his fellow Church of England officers inflicted upon dissenters at the time. The passage in question comments upon verse 26, ‘For as often as ye eat of this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's body til he come’, specifically, the clause ‘ye do show the Lord's body’.

The arts of memory

Fuller describes the Eucharist as an artificial memory that imaginatively returns the celebrant to the scene of Christ's sacrifice. The art of memory opens up the ‘heart’ of memory, so to speak. Fuller exploits its visual orientation in order to convey the Pauline insistence on showing or proclaiming Christ's body.

Textual notes

Thomas Fuller, Ioseph's partie-colored coat containing, a comment on part of the 11. chapter of the 1. epistle of S. Paul to the Corinthians (London, 1640), I3v.

Joseph's Particoloured Coat

Say not then in thine heart, ‘How shall I get to Jerusalem to see the place of Christ's suffering?’ See faith can remove mountains. Mount Calvary is brought home to thee; and though there be μεγά χάσμα, a great gulf, or distance of ground betwixt England and Palestine, yet if thou beest a faithful receiver, behold Christ sacramentally crucified on the communion-table. Say not in thine heart, ‘How shall I remember Christ's Passion? It was time out of mind, 1600 years ago’. Christ here teacheth thee the art of memory, what so long was past is now made present at the instant of thy worthy receiving.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Memory Arts in Renaissance England
A Critical Anthology
, pp. 211 - 215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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References

Wooding, Lucy, ‘Remembrance in the Eucharist’, in Gordon AR, pp. 19–36.
Pritchard, Allan, English Biography in the Seventeenth Century: A Critical Survey (University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 145–53.

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