ABSTRACT
The Low Churchman Gilbert Burnet was depicted preaching to a heretic congregation. Like his compatriots, the French pamphleteer Eustache Le Noble accused the English churchmen of justifying the unjust war which William and his allies were leading against Louis XIV. In France, seventeenth-century sermons have been studied mainly by historians of religion and only rarely by specialists of political history or war studies. In England, there has been a growing interest in seventeenth-century sermons over the last few years. The comparison between French and English war sermons may shed new light on the case, especially because historians have based their studies mostly on English primary sources. The Nine Years War, however, could not simply be justified by William's legitimacy. The analogy between the king's war and the concept of just war would have had a different meaning in England. Low Churchmen therefore reversed the analogy. French clergymen also appealed to divine right theory.
