The pastor who has published a book of devotionals emailed to Hillary Clinton during her election campaign unwittingly plagiarised text from another pastor's work, CNN has reported.

Bill Shillady published Strong For A Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, based on daily devotionals he sent her, with Clinton's encouragement.

However, though there are 11 pages of end-notes crediting various sources for the material, it has emerged that the email he sent after her defeat by Donald Trump borrowed from an uncredited blog post by Rev Matthew Deuel.

Deuel contacted CNN and drew its attention to the similarities.

In Deuel's blog, he wrote: 'For the disciples and Christ followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart. All was lost. The momentum and hope of a man, claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been executed.'

Shillady's published email to Clinton says: 'For the disciples and Christ's followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart. All was lost. The momentum and hope of a man claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been executed.'

Similarly, Deuel had written: 'Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. Redemption is coming. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.'

Shillady's email to Clinton says: "Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.'

Explaining he had collected writings from various sources on Good Friday thinking they might be useful if Clinton lost, he told CNN yesterday: 'I do not remember cutting and pasting from a particular column so much as bits and pieces from a variety of places on the Internet.'

He said in a later statement: 'In preparing the devotional on the morning of November 9, I was determined to provide comfort with the familiar adage that "It's Friday But Sunday is Coming." I searched for passages that offered perspective of this theme. I am now stunned to realize the similarity between Matt Deuel's blog sermon and my own. Clearly, portions of my devotional that day incorporate his exact words. I apologize to Matt for not giving him the credit he deserves.'

Deuel said the two had talked and that he was 'not interested in publicly pursuing anything'.

'The last thing the world needs right now is two pastors having a public dispute over a blog. The reality is, there's nothing new under the sun,' he said.

He said his column was inspired by a sermon by the Rev SM Lockridge from the 1950s.

'If my blog then, in turn, inspired Rev Shillady and it was used to encourage Hillary Clinton, then praise God for that! Could it have been done differently? Probably. But for me to fire back publicly would be inappropriate and out of line on my part.'