Two Sermons Preached in the Parish Church of Nonington, Kent, January 17, 1864 being the Sunday following the Funeral of John Pemberton Plumptre, Esq. — A Closer Reading

James's Cumulative Structure and Direct Address

Herbert James builds his sermon through a series of parallel clauses that accumulate weight: “He has given Christ … He has given the Word … He has given the Holy Ghost … And He has given Christians indeed.” This anaphoric pattern, repeated across several paragraphs, creates a liturgical rhythm that reinforces the idea of ordered divine purpose. James frequently shifts into direct address with “brethren,” pulling the congregation into the argument. He also uses rhetorical questions—“Have you ever known any one that has thus followed Christ?”—to create a moment of suspense before pointing to Plumptre as an example. The sermon’s pace is deliberate, moving from general doctrine to specific application, and its voice is that of a pastor reasoning step by step.

Hoare's Defensive Exegesis and Figurative Reading

Edward Hoare begins by confronting a potential objection: that Revelation 14:4 (“these are they which were not defiled with women”) seems to disparage marriage. He resolves this by insisting on a symbolic interpretation, equating “spiritual fornication” with alliance to sin, worldliness, and popery. This move allows him to praise Plumptre’s “wonderful consistency” and avoidance of “unhallowed alliance.” Hoare’s language is more combative than James’s—he uses phrases like “no pandering to the world; no dallying with popery”—and his sentences are shorter, creating a quicker, more emphatic rhythm. The shift from James’s measured exposition to Hoare’s pointed defense marks a clear change in narrative pace within the volume.

Shared Imagery and the Portrait of a Life

Despite their stylistic differences, both preachers converge on a set of recurring images: light, salt, a guide, a follower. James describes the Christian as “a light to see by; salt to be savoured by; a leader to be marked; a guide to be followed.” Hoare picks up the same thread, calling Plumptre “one that was set apart unto God” and emphasizing his single-minded aim “to follow Christ.” Both sermons appeal to the congregation’s personal knowledge of the deceased, with James inviting testimony from “servants in his house … dependants on his estate … a magistrate and country gentleman … the House of Commons.” This appeal to shared memory grounds the abstract theology in a specific, local life, though the excerpts reveal only the outlines of that life, not its full detail.

Readers approaching these sermons will find two distinct pastoral voices responding to the same loss. James’s sermon rewards attention to its layered structure and direct appeals, while Hoare’s offers a more confrontational, symbol-driven reading of Scripture. Noticing how each preacher handles the transition from text to application—one through gradual accumulation, the other through immediate defense—illuminates the range of Victorian funeral oratory. The volume itself, brief and focused, invites comparison between the two approaches rather than a single unified portrait of the deceased.

That damp January, I sat with the two sermons for Mr. Plumptre, struck by how quietly Hoare spoke of purity—not as a prize, but as a steady habit. Rain blurred the window. I set the book down, reached for something else on the shelf, and found The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament — Edition Insights instead. Funny how one devotion leads into another, without asking.