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Excerpt from The Sermons of Thomas Adams, the Shakespeare of Puritan Theologians: A Selection Edited by John Brown Thomas Adams, a Selection from whose Sermons is here given, was an English divine of the 17th Century whom Southey pronounced to be the 'prose Shakespeare of Puritan theologians... scarcely inferior to Fuller in wit or to Taylor in fancy.' Another eminent writer, of later date, claims for Adams that 'he stands in the forefront of our great English preachers, and while not so sustained as Jeremy Taylor, nor so continuously sparkling as Thomas Fuller, is yet surpassingly eloquent and brilliant, and much more thought-laden than either.' Our earliest personal knowledge of this Puritan preacher is derived from the title-page of one of his sermons published in 1612, which describes him as 'a preacher of the Gospel at Willington' which is a rural parish in Bedfordshire, four miles east of Bedford town. The neighbourhood of Willington vicarage was not even then without some literary associations of its own. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The essays in this volume demonstrate how effectively different -- indeed seemingly contradictory -- theoretical paradigms can work with Shakespeare's plays to excavate issues of power and punishment.