‘Speaking to God in His Phrase and Word’: Alice Thornton’s Biblical Sources

Blog article published by Suzanne Trill on 24 February 2025  Biblical referencesTEIdigital edition

My very first encounter with Alice Thornton’s writing was way back in 1988 when Elspeth Graham, Elaine Hobby, Hilary Hinds and Helen Wilcox were working on the anthology that was to become Her Own Life: Autobiographical Writings by Seventeenth-Century Englishwomen (HOL). Helen was my PhD supervisor, and Elspeth gave a presentation on the trials of editing the Book of Remembrances from the Yale microfilm at an informal gathering of early modernists at a colleague’s flat.^[1] Fascinated by the issues it posed, I read the selection that appeared in HOL, included it in my PhD (where I looked at women’s use of the psalms in the early modern period) and one of my earliest publications bore a title very similar to that of this blog.^[2]

For, on her deathbed, Thornton observes that her mother:

was an example and pattern of piety, faith and patience in her greatest torment, still with godly instructions, gentle rebukes for sin, a continual praying of psalms suitable for her condition, speaking to God in his own phrase and word, saying that we could not speak to him from ourselves in such acceptable a manner as by that which was dictated by his own most Holy Spirit.^[3]

This is part of an 8-page recollection of her mother’s death that extends to almost 1,000-words and is, as Sharon Howard observes, one of the longest single entries in Book Rem.^[4]

In Book 1, Thornton’s account of this episode is much expanded (to almost 16 pages and 6,000-words). Nevertheless, the passage above is repeated, almost verbatim:

And notwithstanding all her torments, still she put forth herself … in good instructions, severe reproofs for all sins in general, with a continual praying to God and praising him in psalms suitable for her condition, speaking to God in his own phrase and word, saying that we could not speak to him from ourselves in such an acceptable a manner as by that which was dictated by his own most Holy Spirit.^[5]

Among the additional material, however, Thornton tells us that her mother ‘frequently repeated the 71st Psalm, which she said was penned for old age’. While Alice Wandesford was not unique in this perception of Psalm 71, the provision of a specific reference is relatively unusual within Thornton’s Books.^[6]

Although her expression is infused with biblical citations and allusions, there are only a few occasions where Thornton provides an intext reference. Far more common is the type of practice illustrated in the paragraph prior to the reference to Psalm 71.

As part of our work on our third research question ('How does Thornton’s engagement with contemporary legal, medical, political, and religious discourses enhance understanding of early modern women in Britain and Ireland?'), I have been identifying biblical references. In the process, it became clear that Thornton was familiar with several different biblical translations, including the Bishop’s Bible (BB), the Geneva Bible (GB) and the King James Bible (KJV). And, although the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) was officially banned by the Parliamentarians, as a devout adherent to Church of England devotional practice, Thornton’s writing frequently alludes to the 1662 edition of the BCP, published after the restoration of Charles II.

It was also evident that Thornton’s references ranged from word-for-word quotation to general allusion, so our Digital Scholarly Edition (DSE) distinguishes these as five different types (using the @type attribute): direct, paraphrase, partial, phrase, allusion.

While we had hoped to link to open-source data to provide the specific quotations in one of our ‘Information’ drawers, it was not possible during the funded period. The pop-up references provide information about specific sources where relevant: that is to say, if there is one, definitive source for a citation, the reference begins with ‘BB’, ‘GB’, ‘KJV’ or ‘BCP’; if there is no prefatory abbreviation, the material can be found in more than one of these sources.

In the space of the 96 words in the opening paragraph cited above, Thornton draws on a range of materials that nicely illustrate the way in which our TEI XML has been used.

The first two types are visually represented by a combination of a grey black underline and a cross icon, with quotation marks to distinguish direct quotation:

• Direct: BCP Psalm 42: 6: ‘Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul: and why art thou so disquieted within me?’
• Paraphrase: GB Psalm 25:5: Leade me foorth in thy trueth, and teache me: for thou art the God of my salvation: in thee doe I trust all the day.

The other three types are visually represented by a cross icon only. Phrases can be found across the four Books via our Text search function; those items identified as partial or allusion are the least certain attributions.

• Phrase: Matthew 16:18: ‘And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’.
• Partial: BCP Psalm 42:15: ‘O put thy trust in God: for I will yet thank him, which is the help of my countenance, and my God’.
• Allusion: KJV Psalm 43:5: ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God’.

Such work not only helps to make Thornton’s use of scripture visible but offers the opportunity to undertake quantitative analysis of the frequency with which she refers to particular translations and/or specific biblical books or verses. Just looking at the excel spreadsheet Sharon Howard has created from our encoding, it is immediately apparent that - like her mother - the Psalms are a significant source of inspiration for Thornton. For those interested in this kind of analysis, the TEI XML encoding can be downloaded via links in the detailed descriptions of Thornton’s four Books.