This online essay is significantly abridged from a larger essay on this subject published in The Hanover Review: The Journal of The London Lyceum 2.1 (March 2024). Purchase a print version here or digital here.¹This online essay is significantly abridged from a larger essay on this subject published in The Hanover Review: The Journal of The London Lyceum 2.1 (March 2024).

Garrett M. Walden

At the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, thirteen men gathered in the Wallis home in Kettering, Northamptonshire. They committed themselves to support the cause of Christ abroad, but few had cash on hand. Instead, as F. D. Walker described the scene:

No money was taken at the memorable meeting just described, but the men wrote their promises on slips of paper, and these were collected in Andrew Fuller’s tobacco box — a large round box of horn. Curiously enough, that box has on the lid, in low relief, a picture of the conversion of St. Paul, the missionary to the Gentiles.²F. Deaville Walker, William Carey: Missionary Pioneer and Statesman (Edinburgh: Turnbull and Spears, 1926), 99.

William Carey’s (1761–1834) great-grandson, S. P. Carey, noted that the box was likely empty for that occasion because Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) had shared its original contents with his fellow ministers all day.³S. Pearce Carey, William Carey D.D., Fellow of Linnean Society, 4th ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924), 92. Somehow, later, that tobacco-box landed in the hands of some “Rev. Joseph Green, of Old Buckenham, Norfolk,” who gave it to the Mission House Museum.⁴The Missionary Herald of the Baptist Missionary Society, January 1885 (London: Alexander & Shepheard, 1885), 33. One historian noted that tobacco-boxes were a status symbol and an identity marker in early modern Britain and North America, especially among the “middling sorts.”⁵Angela McShane, “Tobacco-Taking and Identity-Making in Early Modern Britain and North America,” The Historical Journal 65, no. 1 (2022): 108–29. What might the image on Fuller’s tobacco-box say about him?

Another historian of tobacco wrote that “tobacco with all its accouterments achieved prominence in life and literature of the eighteenth century,” and this is reflected among the earliest evangelicals.⁶J.T. McCullen Jr., “Tobacco: A Recurrent Theme in Eighteenth-Century Literature,” The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 22, no. 2 (June 1968), 30. In this essay, I examine some early evangelical attitudes toward tobacco use. Was smoking tobacco, such as in a pipe or cigar, considered taboo among thoughtful Christians? Was a beloved pastor like Andrew Fuller doing something “edgy” by using tobacco? Did it matter what form the consumption took: smoking, chewing, snuffing? It is universally acknowledged that there can be negative health effects from some forms of prolonged tobacco use, but was there any positive assessment of tobacco use by thoughtful Christians at the epicenter of the evangelical movement? I seek to answer these questions by providing brief sketches of the perspectives of thirteen notable evangelicals who commented on the issue. I conclude, perhaps to exonerate Fuller, that there is no single view that prevailed in the eighteenth-century evangelical worldview, but that, much like today, Christian opinions were mixed and much was (and should be) left to individual consciences in ways sensitive to their various contexts.

Evangelical appraisals of tobacco use

As in the twenty-first century, so in the eighteenth century, Christian appraisals of the morality of using tobacco were mixed—from dedicated pamphlets expressing vehement opposition to odes to the leaf’s spiritual benefits to Christians. Some used the plant as a facilitator in their spiritual duties, while others saw the use of tobacco as positively sinful in itself.

Thomas Brown (1663–1704)

While not an “evangelical,” the English wit and satirist Thomas Brown, gave insight into the prevalence of ministerial consumption and a positive perspective on tobacco’s spiritual usefulness. He remarked that “Tobacco, though it be an Heathenish Weed, is a great help to Christian Meditations; which is the Reason I suppose that Recommends it to your Parsons; the Generality of whom can no more write a Sermon without a Pipe in their Mouths, than a Concordance in their Hands.”⁷Thomas Brown, “An Exhortatory Letter, to an Old Lady that smoak’d Tobacco” in The Compleat Works of Thomas Brown, in Prose and Verse; Serious, Moral, Comical, and Satyrical, 3rd ed. (London: S. Briscoe, 1710), 263. Brown’s notice that ministers often used tobacco led one historian to state that “they [clergymen] were so enamoured of the practice that the longest pipes of the period came to be known as churchwarden or alderman pipes.”⁸Samuel Diener, “Eighteenth-Century Pipes and the Erasure of the Disposable Object,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 31, no. 2 (Winter 2018–19), 390. Brown’s sentiment is shared by the notable smoking apologist C.S. Lewis, who said, “I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”⁹C.S. Lewis, “On the Reading of Old Books” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 205, emphasis added. Such a view was (and continues to be) the experience of many evangelicals.

Furthermore, Brown called smoking tobacco a fashionable and “innocent Diversion,” and noted that the fragility of a clay pipe reminds the smoker of the fragility of his own life. Likewise, the movement of the smoke instructs him “that Riches, Beauty, and all the Glories of this World vanish like a Vapour.”¹⁰Brown, “An Exhortatory Letter,” 263. As evidenced below, he was not the only one to make such spiritual associations.

Cotton Mather (1663–1728)

Perhaps no one was more eloquently opposed to tobacco use than the Congregationalist Puritan Cotton Mather. His book, The Christian Philosopher, notes the origin of tobacco use in Europe in 1585 (presumably either by the hand of Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Francis Drake), and he writes:

The Persuasion which Mankind has imbib’d of Tobacco being good for us, has in a surprizing manner prevail’d! What incredible Millions have suck’d in an Opinion, that it is an useful as well as a pleasant thing, for them to spend much of their Time in drawing thro a Pipe the Smoke of that lighted Weed!… It is doubtless a Plant of many Virtues. The Ointment made of it is one of the best in the Dispensatory. The Practice of smoking it, tho a great part of them that use it might very truly say, they find neither Good nor Hurt by it; yet it may be fear’d it rather does more Hurt than Good…. May God preserve me from the indecent, ignoble, criminal Slavery, to the mean Delight of smoking a Weed, which I see so many carried away with. And if ever I should smoke it, let me be so wise as to do it, not only with Moderation, but also with such Employments of my Mind, as I may make that Action afford me a Leisure for!¹¹Cotton Mather, The Christian Philosopher: A Collection of the Best Discoveries in Nature, with Religious Improvements (London: Eman. Matthews, 1720), 135–36.

Mather was not content to leave tobacco use in the category of adiaphora but believed it “does more Hurt than Good.” Of this, he had in mind not its health effects but its addictive power when he refers to it as a form of slavery. However, judging by the last sentence quoted, he held open the possibility that he might partake in times of leisure and within strict bounds of moderation.

However, in his famous Manuductio ad Ministeriam (1726), Mather commented on tobacco use as a vicious habit. He poses the question to aspiring ministers: “Shall I smoke tobacco?” and his answer included:

Be sure Not, if I can help it… If once you get into the way of Smoaking [sic], there will be extreme hazard, of your becoming a Slave to the Pipe; and ever Insatiably craving for it. People may think what they will; But such a Slavery, is much below the Dignity of a Rational Creature; and much more of a Gracious Christian… There can be no Apology for your taking up the slovenly Practice, and the Pains that must be taken to conquer the Poison, if you are not well advised and assured, That your Health requires it…

However, as strident in opposing tobacco use as he was, Mather transitioned to a softer key:

And yet, after all, I am not so Inflexibly sett, and utterly to deny you the Use of Tobacco, if you are sure of any benefit from it. Only I insist upon it, That you be, (If I may use a Phrase, that if it may seem to trespass upon Good Sense, that it shall have as much as the Thing I write against) Excessively Moderate in it.

He concluded on a proverbial note: “Yea, My Son, If Smokers entice thee, consent thou not. It is good Advice; and if you take it, you will one Day Thank him that gave it.” Mather’s complicated perspective is perhaps a microcosm of the views held by Christians throughout the century.

Elijah Craig (1738–1808)

On the other hand, tobacco was such a commonplace in the American colonies that ministers were often paid (and sometimes fined) in units of tobacco. Furthermore, some of the Regular Baptists in Virginia, in the heat of persecution, met in the tobacco-house (a storage/curing barn) of the minister, Elijah Craig, who may have also invented bourbon whiskey.¹²David Benedict, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America, and Other Parts of the World, vol. 2 (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1813), 8–79, 291.

Jonathan Edwards (1703–58)

Jonathan Edwards was known to have used tobacco in moderation. The clinical psychologist Allen Hedberg notes that Edwards smoked “only privately in the home while sitting in his high-back chair.” He comments that, for Edwards and many others in the era, “smoking was associated with relaxation, family time, and personal reflection.”¹³Allan G. Hedberg, Jonathan Edwards: A Life Well Lived (Bloomintgon, IN: WestBow Press, 2016), 157. Edward’s pipe-smoking ritual is also mentioned by Elizabeth Dodds:

Sarah [Edwards’s wife] could also count on one hour a day when Edwards gave the family complete attention. He made sure to save an hour at the close of each day to spend with the children…. This was his hour to unbend completely. He enjoyed a long pipe, and twice within one three months’ period, ordered a dozen of them. (This is a lapse in the usual Edwards rectitude, for the General Court had ordered that no one should smoke tobacco even in his own house “with a relative or friend.”) The children knew they could save their questions and have their father’s full attention at that precious hour when, without his wig and smoking his pipe, he was a different man from the one the parish usually saw.¹⁴Elizabeth Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards (reissued Audubon Press, 2004), 40–41.

Another source, commenting on the generous hospitality of the Edwards home, identified Edwards as “a heavy smoker himself,” and that he “kept pipes ready for his guests who smoked.”¹⁵Barbara B. Oberg and Harry S. Stout eds., Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Representation of American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 120.

John Gill (1697–1771)

Another moderate tobacco user, at least for a time, was the eminent British Baptist minister, John Gill. In the memoir written by his pastoral successor, John Rippon (1751–1736) wrote that Gill frequently visited his mother in his hometown of Kettering, Northamptonshire. However, “the moment he received the news of her death, he laid down his pipe, and, from that time, never smoked again. Though, previous to this, he never disgraced himself as a great smoker.”¹⁶John Rippon, A Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late Rev. John Gill, D.D. (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2006), 118. Rippon gives no further comment, but perhaps Gill’s mother disapproved of his pipe smoking as a younger man, and to honor her after her death, he desisted from the practice. The date of his mother’s death is unknown, but Rippon’s point is to show that moderation always ruled Gill’s spirit, and that an immoderate use of the pipe was a disgrace to a minister.

John Wesley (1703–91)

By contrast to these allowances of moderation, John Wesley, wrote his “Rules for the Band Societies,” which included: “To use no needless Self-indulgence; such as taking Snuff, or Tobacco, unless prescribed by a Physician.”¹⁷John Wesley and Charles Wesley, The Nature, Design, and General Rules, of the United Societies in London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle upon Tyne. To which are Subjoin’d, the Rules of the Band Societies, 4th ed. (London: William Strahan, 1744), 12. And among the “qualifications requisite to be a preacher in Mr. Wesley’s connection” and “questions to be asked one to be admitted an helper” we find “Do you take snuff? tobacco? drams? Do you constantly attend church and sacrament? Will you preach every morning and evening, not lolling upon your elbows? Will you recommend fasting both by precept and example?”¹⁸John Macgowan, The Foundry Budget Opened; or, the Arcanum of Wesleyanism Disclosed (Manchester: M. Wardle, 1780), 20. It is remarkable that alongside the positive expectations of church attendance, preaching, and fasting are these explicit prohibitions: no tobacco or alcohol use. As expected, Wesley’s prohibition had far-reaching influence as the Methodist movement went global.

Adam Clarke (1762–1832)

Reinforcing the perspective of his mentor John Wesley, another influential Methodist preacher, Adam Clarke, wrote a scathing condemnation of tobacco use in 1797, entitled A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco. He laments that “this habit, strange to tell, notwithstanding its shocking indelicacy and nastiness, continues to enslave, in the most disgraceful manner, the higher, lower, and middle ranks of life.”¹⁹Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 7. Clarke cites the medical doctor Edward Strother’s (d. 1737) remark that smoking had become “an universal practice; and is used more as an amusement, or an assistant for guzzling [alcohol], than for any good expected from it.”²⁰Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 11. Clarke was not sympathetic to the subjective perceptions of tobacco users, such as by some said it helped them in their devotion to the Lord:

“But it has done me good.” Perhaps it has; so has an Emetic; but will you infer thence, that the constant use of it is necessary? If you do, be consistent with yourself, and at the very next time you need an Emetic, be sure to repeat it every hour as long as you live.²¹Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 21, 26.

As strongly put as that is, was tobacco itself the target of Clarke’s critique? It seems not. Rather, the immoderate use of the leaf received his condemnation — “What evil may not be expected from it when used constantly, immoderately, and without any corrective?”²²Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 16. So much was he concerned about addiction, its financial costs, and its physiological effects, that he forbade almost any use of tobacco. He associated the immoderate use of the herb with violating the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not murder,” — self-murder — which led to his conclusion: “That it is sinful to use it as most do, I have no doubt; if destroying the constitution, and vilely squandering away the Time and Money which God has given for other purposes, may be termed sinful.”²³Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 19. He even commended the bull from Pope Urban VIII (1568–1644) that excommunicated any who used tobacco in a church building (apparently snuff-taking had become a distraction during Clarke’s church services).²⁴Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 25.

William Jay (1769–1853)

The Independent minister, William Jay, shared the opinion of Wesley and Clarke, referring to smoking as a “sottish and offensive habit.”²⁵William Jay, The Works of the Rev. William Jay, of Argyle Chapel, Bath, vol. 3 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1852), 67 He mentioned that he had been “not slightly censured by some of his brethren” for his views of tobacco use, but he remained undeterred in lamenting that “no physical or civil consideration, and no motive, derived from usefulness or decorum, can induce many preachers to avoid or break off this exceptionable habit.”²⁶“Opinions on Smoking Tobacco” in The Congregational Magazine, new series, vol. 7 (London: Jackson and Walford, 1843), 265. One of Jay’s biographers (his son) noted that “Mr. Jay’s horror of smoking was so great that he never would endure it in any company” except a few close friends.²⁷Cyrus Jay, Recollections of William Jay, of Bath: with Occasional Glances at Some of His Contemporaries and Friends (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1859), 59. In particular, Jay held smoking ministers in derision:

We say nothing of the silliness of the practice, especially in “a bishop,” who “should be grave;” but to see a man of education, and filling an office which would dignify an angel, passing so much of his time with a tube in his mouth, and emitting therefrom the smoke of a burning herb, as if his head was on fire, must, were it not for its commonness, always excite an inquiry or a laugh.²⁸“Opinions on Smoking Tobacco,” 266.

To Jay, smoking was vulgar, expensive, a waste of time, and disqualifying of students at the university and of minister in ecclesiastical offices.²⁹“Opinions on Smoking Tobacco,” 266–67.

Robert Hall Jr. (1764–1831)

Robert Hall Jr. was known to have been “an inveterate smoker” of tobacco, especially in his later years.³⁰Jay, Recollections of William Jay, 59. This practice emerged on a research trip to Cambridge in 1799, in the company of the influential schoolmaster Samuel Parr (1747–1825) and other students. Hall’s biographer, Olinthus Gregory, noted that Hall had “censured the practice in the strongest terms” up until that point.³¹Olinthus Gregory, A Memoir of Robert Hall, A.M. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850), 72 It seems that peer-pressure and a relish for conversation with Parr, who “was always enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke, from sun-rise until midnight,” changed Hall’s mind. Hall claimed he had to learn to smoke “in self-defence.” Once when confronted by Gregory about this new habit, Hall replied, “O Sir… I am only qualifying myself for the society of a Doctor of Divinity; and this, holding up the pipe, is my test of admission.”³²Gregory, A Memoir of Robert Hall, A.M., 72. Gregory’s concern motivated him to give to Hall the pamphlet by Adam Clarke, mentioned earlier. After reading it, Hall returned it to Gregory saying, “I can’t refute his arguments, and I can’t give up smoking.”³³Gregory, A Memoir of Robert Hall, A.M., 73.

In addition to being the test of admission to a new social circle in Cambridge, Gregory recounted that Hall suffered from kidney stones, and smoking was one of the few sources of relief. One historian of tobacco added that Hall “found in a pipe a remedy for the melancholy, approaching to positive insanity, with which he was afflicted in his younger years.”³⁴Joseph Fume [William Chatto], A Paper: — of Tobacco; Treating of the Rise, Progress, Pleasures, and Advantages of Smoking (London: Chapman and Hall, 1839), 74. This quotation is picked up by F. W. Fairholt, Tobacco: Its History and Associations (London: Chatto and Windus, 1876), 146. Another commenter in 1843 remarked, “That truly great man would not have indulged in opium, tobacco, or any other narcotic, had not violent pain compelled him,” and concluded that if Hall could foresee the social destruction tobacco caused, he would have put his tobacco away and taken opium instead.³⁵“The Extreme Case of the Late Robert Hall No Justification of Smoking in Health” in Anti-Smoker Selections. Second Series. Religion and Common Sense Versus Tobacco, Thomas Cook ed. (London: Elliot Stock, 1874), 6–7 From what is known of Hall, this commenter’s speculation seems to reach too far.

It was mentioned above that William Jay would not tolerate smoking, except by a few close friends. Robert Hall and John Newton (1725–1807) were two in particular who were permitted to smoke in Jay’s company.³⁶Jay, Recollections of William Jay, 59. For Newton’s use of the tobacco pipe, see his letters 39, 48 56, 73, 107 and 124 in Thomas Palmer Bull, ed., One Hundred and Twenty Nine Letters from the Rev. John Newton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1847). In Letter 48, Newton mentions how he hopes to share “A Theosophic pipe with brother B., / Beneath the shadow of his favourite tree, And then how happy I! how cheerful he!” It should be noted that “Brother B.” is William Bull, described below. Jay “relaxed the rule, well knowing that in Hall’s case the habit relieved the pain, and animated his conversation…. Whilst smoking, he [Hall] kept on apologizing to Mr. Jay for the annoyance to which he was sure he was subjecting him.”³⁷Jay, Recollections of William Jay, 59. Hall’s physical ailment, and the relief afforded by the tobacco pipe, was recognized by even his most tobacco-opposed friends.

William Cowper (1731–1800) and William Bull (1738–1814)

There’s a humorous relationship between the great poet William Cowper (1731–1800) and the Independent minister at Newport Pagnell, William Bull (1738–1814), which hinged on Cowper’s dislike for tobacco smoke and Bull’s commitment to his smoking ritual. In a letter from 1782, Cowper extols Bull’s character and capacity — “a man of letters and of genius; a master of a fine imagination”—but he concluded, “But he smokes tobacco! Nothing is perfect.”³⁸Josiah Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, of Newport Pagnel, 2nd ed. (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1865), 100. Bull’s biographer (his grandson) commented: “Yes, Mr. Bull smoked tobacco! Three pipes a day….” He surmised that Bull smoked due to a proclivity to ill health, but “Perchance it might be supposed to give a gentle stimulus of thought.”³⁹Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 101. However, such reasoning did not impress Cowper, who applied his poetic genius to mocking the smoking practice:

The pipe, with solemn interposing puff,

Makes half a sentence at a time enough;

The doxing sages drop the drowsy strain,

Then pause and puff, and speak, and pause again.

Such often, like the tube they so admire,

Important triflers! have more smoke than fire.

Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,

Unfriendly to society’s chief joys,

Thy worst effect is banishing for hours

The sex whose presence civilizes ours.⁴⁰“Pernicious Weed!” in Joseph Knight, ed., Pipe and Pouch: The Smoker’s Own Book of Poetry (Boston: Joseph Knight Co., 1895), 73.

Another poet recognized the awkward interposition of tobacco in the Cowper-Bull friendship and wrote:

And Cowper mild — no smoker he,

Bard of the sofa and Bohea —

Complained his “dear friend Bull” not free

From lowering Stygian smoke.⁴¹“A Brief Puff of Smoke” in Joseph Knight, ed., Pipe and Pouch: The Smoker’s Own Book of Poetry (Boston: Joseph Knight Co., 1895), 20.

Somewhere along the way, Cowper changed his perspective, as the following story demonstrates. It is said that Bull “always smoked a particular kind of tobacco [Orinoco], and so was accustomed to take his box with him.”⁴²Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 101. But one day he left his tobacco box at Cowper’s home, who later returned it with a poem attached, addressing “the symbol of thy power, the pipe,” which included the lines:

So may thy votaries increase,

And fumigation never cease.

May Newton with renew’d delights

Perform thine odoriferous rites,

While clouds of incense half divine

Involve thy disappearing shrine,

And so may smoke-inhaling Bull

Be always filling, never full.⁴³Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 102.

Cowper refers to his most-beloved friend John Newton, mentioned earlier, who frequently enjoyed a pipe with Bull (see footnote 52). Somehow, perhaps attesting to the strength and endurance of their friendship, Cowper tolerated, and later celebrated, Bull’s pipe-smoking lifestyle. Bull wrote to Newton in 1784 and remarked, “I have not been at Olney this summer, but I will smoke one pipe this afternoon with Mr. Cowper, if I can, though I am exceedingly hurried.”⁴⁴Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 102. Bull’s freedom to smoke in Cowper’s presence suggests a change of perspective on Cowper’s part. In June 1783, Bull received a letter from Cowper which began:

My dear friend, My greenhouse, fronted with myrtles, and where I hear nothing but the pattering of a fine shower, and the sound of distant thunder, wants only the fumes of your pipe to make it perfectly delightful. Tobacco was not known in the golden age. So much the worse for the golden age. This age of iron, or lead, would be insupportable without it; and therefore we may reasonably suppose that the happiness of those better days would have been much improved by the use of it.⁴⁵William Cowper, The Works of William Cowper, Robert Southey, ed. vol. 3 (London: H.G. Bohn, 1854), 24.

In the case of Cowper and Bull, strong affinity and revulsion toward the pipe was outmatched by the strong bonds of friendship and memory.

Ralph Erskine (1685–1752)

The Scottish minister Ralph Erskine, was so fond of tobacco that he wrote a poem entitled, “Smoking Spiritualized,” as “a proper Subject of Meditation to Smokers of Tobacco.” It first appeared in 1739 but was reprinted in his widely acclaimed collection of Gospel Sonnets (1755).⁴⁶Ralph Erskine, “Smoaking Spiritualized” in Gospel-Sonnets; or, Spiritual Songs (Edinburgh: William Gray, 1755), 22–24. The poem is reproduced below:

Part 1.

This Indian weed now wither’d quite,

Though green at noon, cut down at night,

Shows thy decay;

All flesh is hay.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

 

The pipe so lily-like and weak,

Does thus thy mortal state bespeak.

Thou art ev’n such,

Gone with a touch.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the smoak ascends on high,

Then thou behold’st the vanity

Of worldly stuff,

Gone with a puff.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

 

And when the pipe grows foul within,

Think on thy soul defil’d with sin;

For then the fire

It does require.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And seest the ashes cast away;

Then to thyself thou mayest say,

That to the dust

Return thou must.

Thus think, and smoke Tobacco.

 

Part 2.

Was this small plant for thee cut down?
So was the Plant of great renown;

Which mercy sends

For nobler ends.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

 

Doth juice medicinal proceed

From such a naughty foreign weed?

Then what’s the pow’r

Of Jesse’s flow’r?

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

 

The promise, like the pipe, inlays,

And by the mouth of faith conveys

What virtue flows

From Sharon’s rose.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

 

In vain th’ unlighted pipe you blow,

Your pains in outward means are so,

Till heav’nly fire

The heart inspire.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

 

The smoak, like burning incense, tow’rs;

So should a praying heart of yours

With ardent cries

Surmount the skies.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

From this poem, Erskine saw opportunities for meaningful gospel insights through contemplative mode encouraged by the tobacco pipe.

Isaac Watts

Among Christian writers in the eighteenth century, Isaac Watts’s perspective is perhaps the most balanced. He places tobacco in the category of adiaphora, writing, “Life and Time are more precious than to have a large Share of them laid out in scrupulous Enquiries, whether smoaking Tobacco, or wearing a Periwig be lawful or no.”⁴⁷Isaac Watts, Logick: or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, with w Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error, in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as well as in the Sciences (London: John Clark, Richard Hett, Emanuel Matthews, and Richard Ford, 1722), 405. For him, moderate use of tobacco was not a moral question that merited much thought. The old dictum states, “abusus non tollit usum,” abuse does not take away use, and this mentality seemed to prevail among many thoughtful Christians of the era.

Conclusion

What are contemporary Christians to make of this data from the long eighteenth century? At the very least, we can observe that social attitudes toward tobacco use have been varied since its introduction to the anglophone world in the late sixteenth century. Among men esteemed for their biblical knowledge, wisdom, and devotion to the Lord, perspectives ranged from the virulently opposed to the habitual user. Thus, as twenty-first-century Christians might be inclined to partake of tobacco in its diverse forms, an honest consideration of our own social contexts should be a factor. It is possible that a permissible act could be deemed scandalous, and it is right for Christians to have a care for how technically-permissible acts are perceived in their immediate communities (Romans 14:13–23). Furthermore, there seems to have been a general agreement that tobacco consumption that leads to addiction, idleness, and/or financial mismanagement are clearly sinful for the Christian.

Finally, to return to Fuller’s tobacco box: Was an evangelical Particular Baptist minister in the late-eighteenth century toeing the line of propriety by using tobacco? I believe not. One of the many chroniclers of the history of the Baptist Missionary Society recounted Old John Ryland’s rebuke to the young William Carey who had asked about the obligation of the church to preach the gospel among all nations — “Young man, sit down; when God is pleased to convert the heathen world, he will do it without your help or mine.” Walker notes, “Very possibly Mr. Ryland said so in a playful way, for the purpose of bantering some of the ministers composing a free and easy circle of tobacco-smokers.”⁴⁸G. Winfred Hervey, The Story of Baptist Missions in Foreign Lands, from the Time of Carey to the Present Date (St. Louis: Chancy R. Barns, 1884), 45. It may well have been that tobacco use was agreed upon as an innocent social habit among these ministers. It certainly would not have been seen as such in some other circles at the time. If tobacco use was looked upon as morally suspect in 1792, Fuller was in good company among men who were well known for their eminent piety and godly conversation. Perhaps they would have smiled and agreed with C.H. Spurgeon’s famous remark from 1874, that he would “smoke a good cigar to the glory of God.”⁴⁹Christian World, September 25, 1874.

[1] This online essay is significantly abridged from a larger essay on this subject published in The Hanover Review: The Journal of The London Lyceum 2.1 (March 2024).

[2] F. Deaville Walker, William Carey: Missionary Pioneer and Statesman (Edinburgh: Turnbull and Spears, 1926), 99.

[3] S. Pearce Carey, William Carey D.D., Fellow of Linnean Society, 4th ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924), 92.

[4] The Missionary Herald of the Baptist Missionary Society, January 1885 (London: Alexander & Shepheard, 1885), 33.

[5] Angela McShane, “Tobacco-Taking and Identity-Making in Early Modern Britain and North America,” The Historical Journal 65, no. 1 (2022): 108–29.

[6] J.T. McCullen Jr., “Tobacco: A Recurrent Theme in Eighteenth-Century Literature,” The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 22, no. 2 (June 1968), 30.

[7] Thomas Brown, “An Exhortatory Letter, to an Old Lady that smoak’d Tobacco” in The Compleat Works of Thomas Brown, in Prose and Verse; Serious, Moral, Comical, and Satyrical, 3rd ed. (London: S. Briscoe, 1710), 263.

[8] Samuel Diener, “Eighteenth-Century Pipes and the Erasure of the Disposable Object,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 31, no. 2 (Winter 2018–19), 390.

[9] C.S. Lewis, “On the Reading of Old Books” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 205, emphasis added.

[10] Brown, “An Exhortatory Letter,” 263.

[11] Cotton Mather, The Christian Philosopher: A Collection of the Best Discoveries in Nature, with Religious Improvements (London: Eman. Matthews, 1720), 135–36.

[12] David Benedict, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America, and Other Parts of the World, vol. 2 (Boston: Manning & Loring, 1813), 8–79, 291.

[13] Allan G. Hedberg, Jonathan Edwards: A Life Well Lived (Bloomintgon, IN: WestBow Press, 2016), 157.

[14] Elizabeth Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards (reissued Audubon Press, 2004), 40–41.

[15] Barbara B. Oberg and Harry S. Stout eds., Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Representation of American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 120.

[16] John Rippon, A Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late Rev. John Gill, D.D. (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2006), 118.

[17] John Wesley and Charles Wesley, The Nature, Design, and General Rules, of the United Societies in London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle upon Tyne. To which are Subjoin’d, the Rules of the Band Societies, 4th ed. (London: William Strahan, 1744), 12.

[18] John Macgowan, The Foundry Budget Opened; or, the Arcanum of Wesleyanism Disclosed (Manchester: M. Wardle, 1780), 20.

[19] Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 7.

[20] Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 11.

[21] Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 21, 26.

[22] Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 16.

[23] Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 19.

[24] Clarke, A Dissertation on the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, 25.

[25] William Jay, The Works of the Rev. William Jay, of Argyle Chapel, Bath, vol. 3 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1852), 67

[26] “Opinions on Smoking Tobacco” in The Congregational Magazine, new series, vol. 7 (London: Jackson and Walford, 1843), 265.

[27] Cyrus Jay, Recollections of William Jay, of Bath: with Occasional Glances at Some of His Contemporaries and Friends (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1859), 59.

[28] “Opinions on Smoking Tobacco,” 266.

[29] “Opinions on Smoking Tobacco,” 266–67.

[30] Jay, Recollections of William Jay, 59.

[31] Olinthus Gregory, A Memoir of Robert Hall, A.M. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850), 72

[32] Gregory, A Memoir of Robert Hall, A.M., 72.

[33] Gregory, A Memoir of Robert Hall, A.M., 73.

[34] Joseph Fume [William Chatto], A Paper: — of Tobacco; Treating of the Rise, Progress, Pleasures, and Advantages of Smoking (London: Chapman and Hall, 1839), 74. This quotation is picked up by F. W. Fairholt, Tobacco: Its History and Associations (London: Chatto and Windus, 1876), 146.

[35] “The Extreme Case of the Late Robert Hall No Justification of Smoking in Health” in Anti-Smoker Selections. Second Series. Religion and Common Sense Versus Tobacco, Thomas Cook ed. (London: Elliot Stock, 1874), 6–7

[36] Jay, Recollections of William Jay, 59. For Newton’s use of the tobacco pipe, see his letters 39, 48 56, 73, 107 and 124 in Thomas Palmer Bull, ed., One Hundred and Twenty Nine Letters from the Rev. John Newton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1847). In Letter 48, Newton mentions how he hopes to share “A Theosophic pipe with brother B., / Beneath the shadow of his favourite tree, And then how happy I! how cheerful he!” It should be noted that “Brother B.” is William Bull, described below.

[37] Jay, Recollections of William Jay, 59.

[38] Josiah Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, of Newport Pagnel, 2nd ed. (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1865), 100.

[39] Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 101.

[40] “Pernicious Weed!” in Joseph Knight, ed., Pipe and Pouch: The Smoker’s Own Book of Poetry (Boston: Joseph Knight Co., 1895), 73.

[41] “A Brief Puff of Smoke” in Joseph Knight, ed., Pipe and Pouch: The Smoker’s Own Book of Poetry (Boston: Joseph Knight Co., 1895), 20.

[42] Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 101.

[43] Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 102.

[44] Bull, Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, 102.

[45] William Cowper, The Works of William Cowper, Robert Southey, ed. vol. 3 (London: H.G. Bohn, 1854), 24.

[46] Ralph Erskine, “Smoaking Spiritualized” in Gospel-Sonnets; or, Spiritual Songs (Edinburgh: William Gray, 1755), 22–24.

[47] Isaac Watts, Logick: or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, with w Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error, in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as well as in the Sciences (London: John Clark, Richard Hett, Emanuel Matthews, and Richard Ford, 1722), 405.

[48] G. Winfred Hervey, The Story of Baptist Missions in Foreign Lands, from the Time of Carey to the Present Date (St. Louis: Chancy R. Barns, 1884), 45.

[49] Christian World, September 25, 1874.