View Item

This is the text of a sermon preached in the small town of Bantry on 23 December 1720 by Richard Davies concerning an outbreak of plague in the large Mediterranean port of Marseilles. It was printed in Cork early in 1721.

Davies told his congregation (and, later, his readers) that God had shown them a great mercy by visiting the plague upon the French in the first instance. This gave them a chance to repent their sins.

Davies admonished his audience for doing little to show their thanks to God for his great mercies to them, including the crowning achievement of the Revolution of 1688. He urged them to use the misfortune of Marseilles to demonstrate their loyalty to ‘his Majesty King George and his illustrious Family’.

As with the pamphlet (item X in this exhibition) about the floods in The Netherlands in 1624, news was here filtered through the religious and political concerns of the day.

Citation:
Repentance our best Preservative against the Plague: In a Sermon Preached at Bantry (Cork, 1721).,
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed December 6, 2025,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/484