CHAPTER SEVEN

The Sermon and Political Education

The sermon was the genre to which people of all ages and classes were most often exposed, and indeed were compelled by law to attend. Sermons were discussed by friends and families. Many listeners took shorthand notes. Although sermons differed somewhat according to occasion, venue and the predilection of individuals, sermons, like many genres, tended to follow a recognizable format. Sermons began with a text from the Old or New Testament that was explained at greater or lesser length. The implications for religious doctrine, for religious duties and application of doctrine and duties followed. The body of the sermon appealed to the reason but typically concluded with an exhortation that appealed to the affections. The rhetorical format was provided in a series of treatises on preaching.¹ Published sermons sold well and reached a larger portion of the population than most publications. A commentator noted, “I know very well that every Booksellers Stall groans under the burthen of Sermons, . . . [as] commonly cried about the Streets as Ballads; Sermons before the King, before the Judges, before the Right Honorable, Right Worshipful . . . etc.”² It has been estimated that if only one sermon were given per parish per year for the years 1600–1640, some 360,000 sermons would have been delivered.³

Governments were well aware of the political potential of the pulpit. From 1547 onward, parishioners heard the Homily on Obedience, designed to instill belief in a divinely imposed natural and social hierarchy. “Take away kings, princes, rulers, magistrates, judges, and such states of God’s order, no man shall ride or go by the highway unrobbed, no man shall sleep in his own house or bed unkilled.” “We may not resist, nor in any wise hurt, an anointed king which is God’s lieutenant, vicegerent.” God forbade “insurrection, sedition or tumults, either by force of arms or otherwise, against the anointed of the Lord or any of his appointed officers.”⁴

It was reported that when Elizabeth, no great fan of preaching, “had any business to bring about amongst the people, she used to tune the Pulpits, . . . that is to say, to have some Preachers . . . ready at command to cry up her design.”⁵ In 1558 Cecil ordered that preachers at St. Paul’s Cross be monitored to avoid disputes “touching the governance of the realm.”⁶ In 1559 Lent sermons encouraged passage of the bill for supremacy. The same year clerics were ordered to preach obedience and loyalty to the Queen above “all other powers and potentates on earth,”⁷ and the homily “Exortacion to Obedience” be repeated four times a year in most churches. From 1570 onward “An Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion” was added. Official prayers for the Queen were added to the list. Notable victories of Elizabeth’s reign were marked by A Psalm and Collect of Thanksgiving . . . to be said or sung in Churches. Sermons in London and elsewhere discussed the implications of a possible marriage of Elizabeth to the Duke of Anjou.⁸

There was increasing political discussion in the pulpits during the reign of James. In 1610 it was reported that “sermons every day . . . rail upon the fundamental laws of England.” The Bishop of Chichester’s sermon preaching that the king could tax without Parliament’s consent was criticized in Parliament.⁹ In 1622 a Crown directive forbade preachers to discuss “the power, prerogative, jurisdiction, authority, or duty of sovereign princes or otherwise meddle with affairs of state.”¹⁰ Despite the prohibition, the divine right of kings and the necessity of obedience were preached. Sermons also attacked the king’s Spanish policy and the Spanish match. A bill in the House of Commons proposed that clerics preaching against the subject’s liberty should be hanged. In 1627 sermons encouraged payment of the forced loan, and the king ordered bishops to see that the clergy preached in its favor. In 1628 a member of the House of Commons complained of those preaching “that the King hath an unlimited power” and that “subjects have no property in their goods.”¹¹ Just prior to the meeting of the Long Parliament, the Bishop of London issued articles inquiring whether lecturers and parish clergymen were preaching “the doctrine of obedience.”¹² At an early meeting of the Long Parliament, John Pym denounced the “preaching for absolute monarchy that the King may doe what he list.”¹³ The government clearly wished to prevent sermons critical of government policy but just as clearly did not wish to prevent preachers from preaching obedience, the divine right of kings and an expansive view of royal authority. In 1642 the House of Commons took measures against a sermon preached in Canterbury Cathedral in which the preacher had declared that “the people were departed from the King. That they must come as Benhadad’s servants did with halters about their necks.”¹⁴

The political impact of preaching was widely recognized. Thomas Fuller indicated that “those who hold the helm of the pulpit” possessed the capacity to “steer the people’s Hearts as they please,”¹⁵ and Charles I thought, “People are governed by the pulpit, more than the sword in time of peace.”¹⁶ The pulpit, which reached an extraordinarily large audience, was such an important channel for the distribution of news that Clarendon believed “that the first publishing of extraordinary news was from the pulpit; and by the preacher’s texts, and his manner of discourse upon it, the auditors might judge, and commonly foresaw, what was like to be next done in the Parliament or Council of State.”¹⁷ Gilbert Burnet, who characterized the pulpit of the revolutionary decades as “scene[s] of news and passion,” must have agreed with Clarendon’s assessment, because he reported that “all that passed in the state” with respect to the Scots “was canvassed” in sermons and prayer.¹⁸ The newsbook Mercurius Impartialis also coupled the pulpit and press, suggesting that they had been the ruin of both king and people.¹⁹ The following year James Howell linked the pulpit and the press when he characterized them as “the most advantageous instruments” of parliamentary rebellion.²⁰ According to John Nalson the pulpit was one of Parliament’s “principal Engines of Battery.”²¹ Thomas Hobbes pointed to the preachers “in most of the market towns of England” as underminers of the nation.²²

The Crown attempted to control the pulpits but was not always able to do so. It repeatedly issued orders to prevent certain kinds of preaching. However, many pulpits were not easy to control. The laity controlled the right to appoint to a considerable number of parish livings, and those of Puritan leanings were able to maintain some Puritan preachers. Parliamentary leaders were often patrons of parish clergy and thus were able to exert some influence on preachers and their sermons. Lecturers, who provided many additional sermons, were also selected by laymen. By 1629 some 72 percent of Londoners could hear lecturers preach on Sunday afternoons.²³

Royal and episcopal efforts to control sermon content continued as the civil war began. Efforts were made to exclude those of undesirable views from the pulpit, and many clerics were ejected from their livings and thus from opportunities to preach. James I’s regulations concerning preaching were reissued in 1642, and the directive, which referred to Parliament’s “lately usurped power,” required that copies be read to grand juries in open court.²⁴ The Long Parliament too attempted to control the pulpit, relying on ministers to read its declarations in their churches so as “to possess the people with the truth and justice of Parliament’s cause in taking up defensive arms.”²⁵ Clerics were ordered to tender oaths such as the Covenant. Sermons given before Parliament were printed, often at parliamentary request. Preachers were not reluctant to comment on political affairs. One declared 1641 a mirabilus annus, having seen the execution of Strafford, Laud in the Tower, Star Chamber and High Commission vanished and the Triennial Act passed.²⁶ Another spoke of legal reform and reform of the professions along with the plea for reform of the church.²⁷ A newsbook in 1645 reported that there was now a close relationship between the government-supported newsbook, Britanicus, and the pulpit.²⁸

Although few sermons given in the provinces were likely to be printed, it is clear that provincial preaching was important in transmitting political debates just prior to the outbreak of fighting. Sermons dealt with topics such as the lawfulness of taking up arms and for justifying war against prelates and papists. They were preached before county committees and during recruiter elections. Parliamentary purges of the ministry resulted in the ejection of “scandalous ministers,” some of whom were accused of speaking out against Parliament. In Royalist controlled areas Royalist preachers preached that rebellion and resistance to the king were rebellion against God, frequently employing references to the revolts of Absalom against King David or Corah’s against Aaron and David. In areas controlled by Parliament, a rival preaching campaign justified armed rebellion. Army chaplains delivered sermons favoring the king’s execution. Both the Crown and Parliament, before and after the Purge, recognized the power of the pulpit and attempted to channel its messages to favor themselves.²⁹ Differences that emerged between Presbyterian and Independent, with their implications for changing relationships between church and state, could be followed in parliamentary sermons.

Restoration governments continued to “tune” the pulpits to instill reverence for rulers and the necessity of obedience. A preamble to the first act of Charles II’s reign attributed a good part of the “late Troubles and Disorders” to “seditious Sermons.”³⁰ In 1662 the government issued a Directive Concerning Preachers which indicated that “unquiet and factious spirits” were seasoning sermons with “unsound and dangerous principles, as may lead them into disobedience, schism and rebellion.”³¹ Like earlier governments, those of the Restoration recognized the political potency of what issued from the pulpit. Individual clerics may not have been politically powerful, but collectively they controlled one of the most important media for dissemination of political values. It was thus not surprising that in 1662 government propagandist Roger L’Estrange was worried about the “near Thirty Thousand Copies of Farewell Sermons” of dissenting ministers who were being removed from their pulpits.³² In 1678 a public fast day for delivery from the Popish Plotters required sermons to be read in the nation’s churches. The government also recognized that the pulpit could be used effectively to reach the public on issues that did not directly relate to religion. After the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament in 1681, all churches and chapels were ordered to read the royal declaration explaining the dissolution. The declaration also attempted to associate the Crown with Protestantism, the constitution and the liberties of the subject,³³ values that might be embraced by all. Although most printed sermons of the Restoration era that were political in character supported obedience and loyalty to the Crown, many in government circles thought that sermons given in conventicles were preaching disobedience and resistance.³⁴

The reign of James II proved difficult for Anglican clerics who were dismayed at the new Crown policies. Churchmen now lost livings for preaching against popery. The king created the Commission for Ecclesiastical Causes to regulate and punish preachers who preached too violently against Roman Catholicism and suspended the anti-Catholic Bishop of London. Seven impeccably Anglican bishops were charged with seditious libel for refusing to read the Declaration of Indulgence in their churches, while William Penn, the Quaker leader who helped draft the Declaration of Indulgence, preached to large crowds on behalf of the king’s policy of liberty of conscience. English governments consistently attempted to ensure that the pulpits provided political messages and instructions that supported their visions of church and state, but in this instance the king managed to alienate large portions of the clergy and laity.

SERMON GENRES AND SERMON AUDIENCES

All sermons were not alike. Sermons were shaped by the doctrinal predilections of the preacher as well as by venue and occasion. Sermons preached before the court, before Parliament and at Paul’s Cross in London were often openly designed to influence political opinion, as were November 5 sermons commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, and those of January 30 in remembrance of the death of Charles I. The much less studied assize sermon was used to instill political ideology on occasions when communities gathered to consider and implement the law.

SERMONS AT COURT

Although most sermons delivered at court did not deal directly with political topics, court sermons sometimes touched on sensitive political topics.³⁵ The Spanish ambassador reported that the sermons preached before Queen Anne “speak very violently” against a possible French marriage alliance, one preacher proclaiming that “marriage with foreigners would only result in ruin to the country.”³⁶ In 1627, at the time of the unpopular forced loan, Roger Mainwaring’s inflammatory sermon alleged that parliamentary approval was not needed for taxation. Sermons preaching the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the sinfulness of rebellion were part of the preaching repertoire.

Far less is known about Restoration-era sermons preached before the king.³⁷ Although sermons advocating high church views and nonresistance theories were fairly common, latitudinarians with a more comprehensive vision of the church also preached before the king when latitudinarian views were being voiced in court circles.³⁸ Restoration sermons, like those of the pre–civil war era, occasionally touched on political topics. A sermon preached before Charles II depicted the restored king as a Christ-like figure and suggested that monarchy was the “best and onely Form of Government for all nations.” Such a sermon might be expected to have been positively received, but was, in fact, criticized because the preacher had “medled with matter of state.”³⁹ Those preached before the king on November 5 or January 30 predictably discussed the failure of the Gunpowder Plot and execution of Charles I.

Few sermons preached before James II were printed. The coronation sermon preached before the king and queen in Westminster Abbey emphasized divine right, hereditary monarchy and the doctrine of passive obedience.⁴⁰ Given the large number of sermons delivered before the court, however, we should not think of this venue as being a primary channel for the enunciation of political messaging.

PAUL’S CROSS SERMONS

Paul’s Cross was sometimes used as a venue to communicate political ideology and to comment on political affairs. From the middle of the fourteenth century there was at Paul’s Cross in London an enormous outdoor pulpit adjacent to a tall wooden cross. Paul’s Cross was the largest preaching site in England. It attracted crowds of hundreds and perhaps thousands during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, with London crowds augmented by visitors during term times and when Parliament met. Its specialties were the providential care of England, dire warnings about England’s sins, calls for England’s repentance and inveighings against Roman Catholic idolatry. A considerable number of the weekly Sunday sermons were published, some of which in a form that deviated from the original, which typically was delivered with the assistance of notes.⁴¹ Members of the audience often took notes, later discussing the content of the sermons with family and friends.

Paul’s Cross preachers were selected and controlled by several groups, the Privy Council, the lord mayor and alderman of the City of London and the Bishop of London. The Bishop of London in times of crisis made his selection of ministers after advice and direction from the Privy Council, and these were expected to express views congenial to the government and the established church. In 1558 at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, it was ordered that Paul’s Cross sermons were to be monitored to prevent “any dispute touching the governance of the realm.”⁴² The pulpit was harnessed first to show the superiority of Protestantism and then to defend the new church establishment. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I sermons were given by well-respected preachers and bishops. Bishops such as John Jewel used Paul’s Cross to campaign against Roman Catholicism. Antipapal and anti-Puritan themes were common. Paul’s Cross audiences heard that princes were ordained by God and subject to no one under God. John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, preached, “Where there is no government, there is no order: where many govern, there is sedition: and where no order is, a gap is opened to all desolation.” The desired submissiveness was menaced by papists, Anabaptists and “our wayward and conceited persons.”⁴³

The preachers of Paul’s Cross were “surgeons of souls” who were to lance the “festered sores” of the body politic and administer the “medicines” that would return it to health. Prophetic sermons drew parallels between Old Testament Israel and contemporary England, treating them as “exact contemporaries, close cousins, even identical twins.”⁴⁴ Parallels between biblical figures and contemporary rulers were a commonplace. Elizabeth was King David, the Queen of Sheba, or Deborah in God’s service. James I was greater than Saul and Solomon. The rebellion of Absalom was a parallel to the Babington Plot. Providential themes were prominent. Elizabeth’s accession was a “Providential moment” which brought the blessings of Protestantism and peace.⁴⁵

The perilous situation of French Huguenots and later Bohemian Protestants was sometimes a topic. In 1561 the Bishop of London informed William Cecil that he intended to preach about the political condition of the Huguenots. In 1564 a sermon gave thanks for peace with France. In 1577 the French ambassador complained to the queen that a Paul’s Cross sermon had declared that the French Protestants “had great cause to take arms against their king.” The preacher, who was required to explain himself, would not be the only one to find himself in difficulties. A sermon on the subject of succession, a topic anathema to Elizabeth, also led to such a summons.⁴⁶

Anti-Spanish themes appeared more frequently over time. The venue was used to justify the war against Spain and give thanks for victory over the Armada. The latter was the single occasion on which Elizabeth appeared at Paul’s Cross. Anti-Spanish themes continued in the 1590s with the English, like the Israelites, called upon to defend their country and its religion.⁴⁷ A sermon praised Essex’s Cadiz victory in 1596, but in 1601, on instructions from Bancroft and Cecil, several sermons attacked Essex, now a traitor rather than a hero. A Star Chamber resolution required that Paul’s Cross and other London churches portray Essex as a hypocrite, a papist and a confederate of the pope and the King of Spain.⁴⁸

Anti-Catholic sermons were frequent. John Jewel’s “Challenge” sermon, preached twice at the Paul’s Cross and once again at court, featured the same arguments as his 1562 publication, Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, a central document in the anti–Roman Catholic polemic. Jewel’s sermon resulted in an exchange with Catholic polemicist Thomas Harding. Their exchange suggests how sermons, tracts and treatises might interact with one another. The Jesuit mission to England resulted in additional anti-Catholic sermons during the 1580s. One sermon exhorted the English to “cut off the trytrous heads of Priests and Jesuits.”⁴⁹

Anti-Puritan sermons were also preached, often by bishops such as Rich Cox and John Jewel. Although Puritans sometimes preached at the Cross, there were increasing efforts to defend the established church. The Admonition to Parliament (1572) and the effort in the House of Commons to establish a Presbyterian church polity were rejected by bishops Jewel and Whitgift from the Paul’s Cross pulpit. A 1588 sermon by Richard Bancroft provided a harsh condemnation of Puritan divisiveness. Anti-Puritan and anti–Roman Catholic sermons exhibit the interaction between sermons delivered from the pulpit and the lively pamphlet discussion on these topics.

During James I’s reign the Paul’s Cross pulpit continued to attract large crowds, though fewer bishops now preached there. Sermons given on the king’s accession day offered occasions for expressions of divine right monarchy. “Not onely the King himselfe is of God, but all the eminency and distinction of authority that is under him . . . are all of god . . . and it is but a savage and popular humour to backbite or despite him this eminency in whomsoever.” The audience also heard that “the practice of Libelling against Magistrates and great persons” could not be justified.⁵⁰ Another audience heard that “A King though he be free from co-action to keep the law, yet must he voluntarily submit his will to the direction of the Law.⁵¹ Puritan Robert Harris provided a thoroughly conventional “exhortation to good order.” “Happy that State,” he preached, “wherein the Cobler meddles with his Last, the Tradesman with his shop, . . . the Prince with the Scepter.” “When that body that will be all head, members misplaced are neither for use nor ease.”⁵²

Some sermons directly addressed government policy. When a sermon of 1617 complained of impositions, its author was called in for questioning, suggesting that the authorities were unable to exercise all the control they wished. Bishop Montagu delivered a sermon favoring an unpopular benevolence seen by many as an unparliamentary form of taxation. Robert Sibthorpe, famous as a spokesmen for the divine right of kings, also preached at the Cross. In 1621 there were sermons hostile to Spanish activities in the West Indies and the Spanish match. When John Everard preached against the Spanish match and the “craft and crueltie” of Spain, he was committed to the Gatehouse.⁵³ There were sermons advocating aid for Protestants in France and Bohemia whose pitiful condition was contrasted to that of “Happy Britaines” who “sit under our owne vines, and our own Fig-trees.”⁵⁴ In 1626 a sermon again compared the English, who lived in peace, with Germany and Holland, currently “overwhelmed with the Deluge and inundation of Warre.”⁵⁵

Paul’s Cross sermons continued to attack Roman Catholicism, not surprising given the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance and the hysteria elicited by the Gunpowder Plot, and frequently noted the role of God’s providence in saving England from disaster. During this period, however, we begin to hear more criticism of Puritans who refused to conform to the establishment. If the emphasis on God’s providential care of England envisioned a unified nation under the eye of Providence, anti-Puritan and anti-Catholic themes depicted a divided and threatened polity. One could hear the decline of a Protestant consensus in the Cross sermons of the Jacobean era.

Considerable change occurred at Paul’s Cross during the reign of Charles I. Preachers were more tightly controlled and were required to submit copies of their sermons prior to delivery. Less prestigious clerics preached and anti-Puritan themes increased. William Laud preached, “Kings were ordained of God for the good of the people,” and people should not sin by murmuring against the king. He warned that “the King’s judgment which God has given him may pull out the stings of these waspish persons that can employ their tongues in nothing but to wound him and his government.”⁵⁶ A substantial reduction in the size of the audience took place in 1634 when the cross was removed and the weekly sermons were moved indoors to the Cathedral choir. ⁵⁷ Although sermons ceased to be given in the churchyard, jeremiads continued to demand national repentance. Early in 1640 an accession day sermon at Paul’s Cross reminded listeners that princes received their scepters from God, not from either pope or people. Monarchy was “the Archetype, the first and best patterne of all others” and was diminished by both popery and presbytery. Without kings, another declared, England would be all “hudled up in an unjust parity, and the Land over-runne with inflexible generations.” Nevertheless “the king should not extend his prerogative immoderately nor be exempt from the rule of law.”⁵⁸ Soon, however, London would be in the hands of Parliament, and clerical pronouncements from the most public of pulpits would no longer be controlled by the Crown or the bishops. It was now the London political elite that was active in supporting and controlling the Paul’s Cross sermons. The sermons continued during the 1640s and 1650s. Stephen Marshall, Richard Baxter and Edmund Calamy were conservative Presbyterians favored by the largely Presbyterian City fathers. Audiences, seated indoors, were now relatively small. When old St. Paul’s burned down, sermons were transferred from the cathedral to other City venues.⁵⁹

Paul’s Cross sermons were politically influential despite the fact that most did not deal with explicitly political topics. They were instrumental early in Elizabeth’s reign in instilling Protestant beliefs. Later in her reign and throughout the Jacobean era they trumpeted the anti-Catholicism that had become central to English political ideology. England’s vision of itself as a nation guided by providence was equally important. The frequent comparisons of England and Israel meant that it was a nation, a people, that experienced both God’s punishments as well as His mercies and care. It was the nation as a whole that was directed to repent in the Paul’s Cross jeremiads. England’s status as a providential Protestant nation did much to extend the notion of nationhood beyond identification with its rulers. This concept of nationhood was reinforced by many of the sermons preached before Parliament.

SERMONS BEFORE PARLIAMENT

Although there had been an attempt to introduce sermons before Parliament during Elizabeth’s reign, the queen rejected the plan. The first sermon before Parliament took place during the last Parliament of James I. Most between 1625 and 1629 were delivered by well-known Puritan ministers, the best known being John Preston, a client of the Duke of Buckingham, though Archbishop Laud preached there on several occasions.⁶⁰ Sermons emphasized the coming wrath of God if England did not undertake immediate reformation, and frequently referred to the conditions of Protestants in Bohemia, the Palatinate and Denmark. Fast day sermons were designed to energize Parliament’s commitment to reform. A 1628 example addressed the House of Commons as “You . . . the great Senate of the land, upon whom our eyes and hopes next under God and the King are.”⁶¹

There were, of course, no sermons between 1629 and 1640 when Parliament did not meet. But Alexandra Walsham’s study of providential themes in the English sermon literature has shown that the jeremiads emanating from Paul’s Cross, delivered in close proximity to Parliament, frequently voiced the themes of the need for national repentance that would later be heard in the fast sermons given before Parliament between 1642 and 1649.⁶²

Sermons delivered before Parliament during the civil war years have long been recognized as having considerable political impact.⁶³ Those delivered before the House of Commons were preached at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, adjacent to Parliament, while those given before the House of Lords were typically given in Westminster Abbey. Most, though not all, preachers selected by Parliament were Puritans. Cornelius Burgess and Stephen Marshall preached more frequently than others. Clarendon suggested that Marshall and Burgess had a greater influence on the Parliament than Archbishop Laud had at court. Clarendon, who characterized the parliamentary preachers as “trumpets of war and incendiaries toward rebellion,” thought Marshall’s Meroz Cursed sermon to have been the most seditious of the entire rebellion.⁶⁴ Parliamentary sermons of the 1640s, which were usually open to the public, featured themes of national repentance, the victory of parliamentary armies, reconciliation with the king and the resolution of religious differences. England, like Israel, was frequently treated as a chosen nation under God. The pulpit prepared for the deaths of Strafford and Laud and the opening of the civil war, celebrated victories and announced the execution of the king. To ensure wider circulation, the Parliament ordered many sermons printed.

Most sermons were fast sermons or sermons of Thanksgiving that expressed a sense of urgency that would energize parliamentary or national action. Sermons urged Parliament to purify the church and “seek out those who had made England a Babylon.” “Never did England see a Parliament more fitted for the service and work of God, then this now is.”⁶⁵ Thomas Goodwin in 1642 urged the House of Commons “to do the great work of the Lord,” warning that if they failed to do it, “God will do it without you.”⁶⁶ Some expressed hostility to Arminian theology and bishops; others called for the punishment and death of Strafford and Laud. Samuel Fairclough, who cast Strafford as an Achitophel, conspiring treasonously against King David, preached that “All Achitophels . . . in England must be killed.” Edmund Calamy, speaking about Laud, reminded the House of Commons of “the guilty blood that God requires you in justice to shed.”⁶⁷ Millenarian themes were frequently heard, pushing for further reformation.

Preachers who spoke on the deliverances that England had received from God included “our 88 and our Gunpowder deliverances,” and “the mercies of these last two years” which “do farre exceed all the mercies that ever this nation did receive since the first Reformation.” Such mercies included the “Happy Pacification between England and Scotland,” the “Protestation against all Popery and Popish Innovations,” hope of reformation of church and state and the removal of the “grevious yoakes” of Star Chamber, High Commission and the ex officio and other oaths.⁶⁸ Edmund Calamy called on Parliament as the “representative body of the nation” to reform the sins of the kingdom.⁶⁹ Providential themes were common, as was comment on the changes it had brought to governments. Providential changes could serve as a “weapon of the Saint’s warfare.”⁷⁰

The year 1642 brought national days of fasting and humiliation marked by sermons before both houses. Preachers suggested that if the nation would fast and repent, the parliamentary armies would be victorious, the king would be reconciled, religious differences resolved and a lasting reformation of the church achieved. Edward Reynolds emphasized God’s anger at the sins of England and pressured Parliament to play a healing role in the divisions between king and country. John Gauden spoke of the disaffection that was “flaming to open contention and hostility,” as well as his hope for unity and the councils of peace.⁷¹

Sermon themes were modified when Charles raised his standard at Nottingham. When the influence of the Scots increased, Calamy preached that the new peace between England and Scotland would mean that England would be free from popery.⁷² A Scots preacher attempted to pressure Parliament to put a Scottish-style Presbyterian model church in place.⁷³ When the Assembly of Divines convened in 1643 and Puritan clergymen flocked to London, religious differences emerged that soon heightened political differences among the legislators. Independent ministers such as John Owen were now asked to preach, as were the more radical Peter Sterry, Thomas Goodwin, William Dell and Hugh Peter. Thomas Coleman, who in 1645 indicated that a “Praying Army” was necessary to “subdue Nations” and “loosen the loins of kings,” reminded Parliament of the notorious Cabinet Opened that revealed the king’s dissimulations, violations of the Petition of Right and High Commission’s high-handedness. He castigated the Scots as well as both the Presbyterians and Independents for attempting to establish a new jure divino religious establishment. He attacked the Royalists who were currently negotiating with Denmark and Holland and pointed to plots “to awe this great assembly,” as well as the designs against the City and the army.⁷⁴ Cornelius Burges in 1645 emphasized that Parliament, as the “representative of the Nation,” must assume responsibility for England’s sins, first by reforming itself, and by purging the sins of others.⁷⁵

Some sermons warned of coming social and political changes. Francis Cheynell’s sermon before the House of Lords defended social division, noting, “Private men must know their place and keep their bounds.”⁷⁶ William Strong, also preaching to the peers, took note of the current and possible future upheavals. The times were “full of turnings and changes.” He warned that that which is highest would become lowest. God changed “times and seasons.” He “removeth kings and setteth up kings.” He may “exalt him that is low and abase him that is high.”⁷⁷ Francis Woodcock warned that Parliament would dishonor God if they became so enamored of peace and “our forms of Quiet.” They were failing to pursue “the execution of justice upon the capital Delinquents of the kingdom,” and must honor God “by their swords.”⁷⁸ William Marshall expressed his faith in Parliament, noting “what strong Castles have been demolished by preaching . . . how many kindoms have been subdued by preaching.”⁷⁹

As political and religious divisions increased and Pride’s Purge eliminated the more moderate members of Parliament, moderate Puritan preachers became rarer and there was greater reluctance to print sermons. Several sermons opposed proposals for peace with the king. There were sermons favoring and condemning proposals for religious toleration, as well as those justifying Prides Purge.⁸⁰ The death of the king in 1649 altered matters again. Although many clergymen were repelled by the execution, several parliamentary sermons congratulated the Rump for its act of justice. John Owen called the Rump “God’s Instrument of Justice.”⁸¹ The Engagement produced many sermons, some favoring, some disapproving acceptance of the new government. The last fast sermon preached before the Restoration was given in 1653. Little is known of the sermons of the Restoration era. There were, however, fast sermons given before Parliament at the time of the Popish Plot that featured predictable anti-Catholic themes. John Tillotson’s 1678 sermon, delivered to the House of Commons, for example, linked the Popish Plot with the earlier Gunpowder Plot. ⁸²

GUNPOWDER DAY SERMONS

In 1606 an annual special day of Prayer and Thanksgiving was instituted to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. The day, which predictably heightened public antipapist fervor, included bell ringing, bonfires and sermons. Sermons delivered on November 5, which typically expressed hostility to Roman Catholicism and to the papacy, served to associate Protestantism with nationalism and Roman Catholicism with subversion. Celebrations of Gunpowder Day and the sermons that accompanied them performed a unifying function against a common enemy for over two decades. That unifying feature, however, diminished during the 1630s with the growing suspicions of papists at court. Nevertheless, Puritans such as John Goodwin continued to see November 5 as “the anniversary remembrance of that great battle fought between Hell and Heaven . . . wherein Hell was overthrown.”⁸³

The meeting of the Long Parliament revitalized November 5 sermons and provided a platform to excoriate papists. The traditional bell ringing could be heard in most London parishes. Shortly after receiving news of the Irish rebellion, Cornelius Burgess preached reminding his audience that Roman Catholics had always treasonously conspired against government and that “their very Religion” led to their treasonous practices. He attacked the papists and particularly Jesuits, as “Instruments of Assassination and Treason” but supported the view that the people could deprive kings of their sovereignty.⁸⁴ Several November 5 sermons were preached before the Long Parliament.

Numerous sermons commemorating the failure of the plot were printed between 1660 and 1688. Although all focused on the reprehensible doctrines and actions of Roman Catholics, some also condemned Presbyterians and sectaries. Robert South used the occasion to praise the benefits of the divine institution of monarchy.⁸⁵ When the Popish Plot and its aftermath gave rise to new fears of popish efforts to destroy the English monarchy, Gunpowder Day sermons again allowed Protestants of all persuasions to inveigh against popish machinations. Whigs organized pope burning processions to heighten anti-Catholic sentiment, but Tory preachers often accused Protestant dissenters as well as papists of treasonous views. Although some Restoration-era Gunpowder Day sermons were divisive rather than unifying, all underlined the belief that England’s nationhood was tied to Protestantism.

JANUARY 30 SERMONS

Sermons preached on the anniversary of the “Execrable Murder” of Charles I provided another channel for the dissemination of political ideas. It has been estimated that three thousand sermons on the subject were given during the reign of Charles II alone. A sermon on Charles the Martyr was added to the Book of Common Prayer, remaining there until 1859. January 30 sermons were given in a wide range of venues, before the king, before Parliament and in parish churches across the land. The sermons were polarizing, and dissenters complained that they often were inappropriately blamed for the death of the king.⁸⁶ Although most were unpublished, a sufficient number of the often black-bordered sermons were printed to provide a sense of their purpose and character. Their tone varied from lamentation at the country’s loss to anger at those deemed responsible for it. The phrase “the best of kings” was often voiced as was the martyred Charles’s desire for peace. Under Charles, England had experienced “a prosperous and long Peace,” good laws and “as much of Liberty as was consistent with Obedience.” The king had been unfairly accused of endangering liberty and resorting to arbitrary power.⁸⁷ The abolition of illegal taxes, Star Chamber and High Commission and the establishment of triennial parliaments had been accomplished, and that there would have been even more beneficial legislation if the king’s life had been spared.⁸⁸

Sermons uniformly praised the king’s character and the beneficence of his rule and condemned the behavior of his enemies, especially those responsible for his trial and execution. Parallels were frequently drawn between the martyrdom of Charles I and that of Christ.⁸⁹ Many characterized the trial as a travesty of justice and his judges as murderers. One associated the High Court of Justice with the army commanders, the House of Commons and the dregs of the City of London.⁹⁰ Another referred to “our Republican assassins” and the “Hellish Court of Mock Justice.”⁹¹ According to still another, the king’s death had been devised and hatched “by a Sectarian Anabaptistical fanatic party.”⁹² Another preacher blamed Puritans for having pressured Parliament into the trial.⁹³ Occasionally Milton, John Goodwin and others who had defended the trial were denounced.⁹⁴ The royal chaplain, Thomas Sprat, warned Parliament that “the same Schismatical Designs, and Antimonarchical Principles, which then Inspir’d so many ill Men . . . and cost our Good King so Dear, may not once more revive, and Insinuate themselves again, under the same, or Newer, and Craftier Disguises.”⁹⁵

Reference to kings, both past and present, as the “lord’s anointed” was a commonplace. Monarchy was the best of form of government, having been ordained by God and confirmed by the experience of all ages.⁹⁶ Kings were the best protectors of the people’s rights and liberties.⁹⁷ The blessings of a “Regular, well model’d Monarchy” were treated as obvious.⁹⁸ Some preachers expressed the more contentious view that kings possessed the powers of sovereignty.⁹⁹ One expressed the view that every prince “ought to be sacred, supream and consequently inviolable.”¹⁰⁰ A sermon given before the judges in Westminster Abbey stressed that, while princes might set limits for themselves, the practice was “Impolitick and Unsafe.”¹⁰¹ Another preacher insisted that the divine right of kings was consistently maintained by the Church of England, the homilies, the Book of Common Prayer and a host of reformation luminaries including Cranmer, Ridley and Jewel.¹⁰² Regal government, another insisted, was based on inheritance and not a contract such as was suggested by Hobbes.¹⁰³

Old Testament parallels were a staple of the genre. England was Israel or sometimes Judea. The most frequent parallel drawn was between English monarchical strife and that of Saul and David. David, though treated badly by Saul, the “lord’s anointed” king, is consistently lauded for his reluctance to kill Saul, in contrast to the eagerness of Charles’s enemies to kill him.¹⁰⁴ Charles I was not only a “second David” but also the “British Josiah,” “our Josiah” or “a true Josiah.”¹⁰⁵ Absalom and Achitophel made frequent appearances as sinful architects of rebellion against David.¹⁰⁶ Cain’s murder of Abel was also an analogue to the murder of Charles.¹⁰⁷ Corah, whom God punished for his sins against Moses and Aaron, was easily adapted for adverse comment on the civil war and on Restoration dissenters, those “pretended Sons of Corah in our Age.”¹⁰⁸ Corah had gained the people’s affection by playing on “unreasonable fears,” inventing “lyes against the Government” and using pretences to justify “asserting the Rights and Liberties of the People” in opposition to the government of Moses. The evil Corah asserted that power was inherent in the people and could not be taken from them.¹⁰⁹ Political lessons drawn from the New Testament were fewer, although texts from Romans were employed to insist that obedience to established authority was required or that the principles of Christianity forbade rebellion. Parallels were drawn between the trials of Jesus and Charles I.

January 30 sermons frequently featured views later to be found in Filmer’s Patriarcha. One claimed that the supremacy and honor due to parents, and particularly fathers, were transferred by “free and voluntary Act of the People” when families united to form kingdoms. The preacher insisted that the authority of kings who ruled despotically was derived from God, not the people, and that rulers were accountable only to God. Contract theories derived from a state of nature are universally rejected.¹¹⁰

Many January 30 preachers used the occasion to condemn rebellion and reiterate the theme that resistance to the power of princes was resistance to the ordinance of God. The scriptural prohibitions extended to wicked as well as good rulers. Joseph Glanvill, for example, argued that, if subjects could resist, “no Government in the World can stand longer, then till the next opportunity to overthrow it. . . . And thus is a Kingdom laid open to inevitable devastation and ruine.” “By a dear experience we have learnt, that ’tis better to endure any inconveniences in a settled Government, than to endeavour violent alterations.”¹¹¹

Sermons offered explanations for the recent civil wars. Some blamed the pulpit for having inflamed the nation into rebellion.¹¹² According to Samuel Crossman, the “late Troubles and Disorders, did in great measure proceed from a multitude of Seditions, Sermons, Pamphlets and Speeches” that “daily defamed the person and government of the King.”¹¹³ George Hickes blamed the war on “projectors in Religion” arguing that innovation in sacred things commonly presaged trouble in civil matters.¹¹⁴ Faction leaders had “new modeled” religion and made “a meer Machiavellian Politick engine to prop and boulster up . . . usurped power.”¹¹⁵ Thomas Wilson blamed the “grandees” who, while claiming to be defenders of “Law, Liberties and Property,” had been responsible for “grievous taxes, impure oaths and Covenants,” had usurped command of the militia and then had executed the king by “arbitrary” power.¹¹⁶ A sermon of 1662 proclaimed that the “principal engine” had been the “illegal League and Covenant” that erroneously claimed that Parliament rightly could take up arms against the sovereign.¹¹⁷ Still another claimed that the rebels had been under the “visors of gifted brethren and Independent souldiers.”¹¹⁸

Many pointed to similarities between the “old incendiaries” who had kindled “the Coals of Sedition and Rebellion” and recent dissent.¹¹⁹ In 1681 when tempers ran high, one preacher warned against “new rebellions Daily upon the very Old Principles.”¹²⁰ Thomas Sprat cautioned that “the same Schismatical Designs, and Antimonarchical Principles” might again revive.¹²¹ Dissenters had unsound views of magistracy; their ministers were “firebrands of Sedition.”¹²² And their “fanatick Schools” and “Country Academies” were becoming a source of new rebels.¹²³ Another suggested that those currently pressing for religious change should head for New England.¹²⁴ January 30 audiences did not hear pleas for charity and unity.

Democratic theories, contract theories and justifications for rebellion were seen as Roman Catholic in origin. Their doctrine was characterized as holding that the king’s power is derived from the people, that kings might therefore be called to account, and that if a ruler became a tyrant he might be killed and whatever form of government pleased the people instituted. Many thought Roman Catholic and particularly Jesuit doctrine had “infected” the English rebels with these ideas. Jesuits were ultimately responsible for democratic theory and for doctrines of disobedience and resistance, and their pernicious doctrines had been adopted by Presbyterians who then used them to justify rebellion. One sermon coupled the Jesuits with the Independent cleric John Goodwin, labeling both as “Arch-Rebels” and defenders of regicide.¹²⁵ Such principles, so the sermons taught, led to England’s civil wars and would do so again, if given “a fair opportunity.”¹²⁶

Many January 30 sermons suggested that Protestant zealots as well as Roman Catholics wished to destroy monarchy. A sermon of 1685 printed at the king’s command not only saw Calvin’s views as leading “directly to the Trial of a King by his Subjects” but also characterized John Knox, George Buchanan and John Milton as patrons of the “good Old Cause” who encouraged others to shed blood prodigally.¹²⁷ Another thundered against the king-killing doctrines of Cartwright, Milton and others.¹²⁸ Several attributed these views to Buchanan, Hotman or the author of the Vindiciae contra tyrannos, or compared the Covenant to the Holy League in France.¹²⁹ English regicides had adopted the doctrine of “the Original Powers of the People” and believed that if power were abused it could be resumed by the people.¹³⁰ A sermon of 1682 condemned the view that kings were elective and should be treated as trustees of the people, or as one of the three estates.¹³¹ Democracy was “a Solecisme in Polity,” an anarchy and a “frenzy,” in which all became tyrants.¹³²

Several sermons addressed the supposed distinction between the power and the person of kings.¹³³ A sermon of 1684 rejected the distinction between the natural and political capacities of the king, a view it attributed to the civil war era Parliament. Proponents wrongfully suggested that regal authority was “Virtually in the People” and that the king had been a “traytor against the King.”¹³⁴ Another warned against the idea that Parliament without the king might have the supreme power.¹³⁵

Some sermons responded directly to views found in the pamphlet literature and themselves came to function as pamphlets. In 1682 Edward Pelling attacked the History of the Succession and the Raree Show, the broadside that led to the trial and execution of Stephen Colledge.¹³⁶ Another countered the views expressed in An Appeal from the City to the Country, A Protestant History of the Succession and Plato Redivus.

January 30 sermons thus were used to honor the martyred king, to support doctrines of obedience and passive resistance and to condemn those who had supported the civil war and the execution of Charles I. They provided consistent support for a divinely sanctioned monarchy that under no conditions might be disobeyed or rebelled against. Doctrines of active resistance, authored first by Roman Catholics and then taken up by rebellious Protestants, that erroneously viewed the people as the source of revocable political authority, were consistently condemned. Although often voiced in other venues and on other occasions, these messages were reiterated everywhere in England every January 30. These sermons were always polarizing. Even latitudinarians such as Edward Stillingfleet and Joseph Glanvill, who on other occasions preached a doctrine of religious unity among Protestants, on January 30 contributed to the polarizing mood. January 30 sermons distinguished sharply between those who were responsible for the civil war and Charles’s trial and advocated resistance theories, and loyalists who supported the king and asserted the doctrine of only passive resistance. Collectively these sermons were a powerful force in inculcating political doctrine, perpetuating England’s political divisions and highlighting the historical significance of the civil war and the execution of the king.

THE ASSIZE SERMON

The assizes were the occasions on which royal judges went out on circuit to hold civil and criminal trials in the countryside. They provided a concrete, readily observable fact of royal authority. They were channels through which messages supporting a political culture of royal authority could be transmitted to the countryside. The judges’ arrival was on the whole welcomed by the locals, who sought the dispute resolution services of the common law. Delivered at the opening of each assize, the assize sermon was a vehicle by which political meanings could be assigned to the spectacle about to unfold.

Assizes were also occasions when government views were disseminated. Before leaving London, judges were charged by the king, or more often by the lord chancellor or lord keeper, to deal with matters of pressing government concern. During the 1630s, when Parliament was in abeyance, such charges were an important means of communicating government concerns to the people. Judges were expected to report local grumblings and complaints on returning to Westminster. The assizes were occasions when the country heard from the Crown and the Crown from the country.

We know relatively little about the origin of assize sermons that accompanied the twice-yearly arrival of the king’s judges, not even when the practice began nor when they became a regular part of the assizes. The first printed example is from 1571; the second not until the reign of James. By 1610 they had become quite common.¹³⁷ The sermons were given in parish churches by local clergymen or occasionally in cathedrals. Most preachers were appointed by the sheriff. Publication typically was requested by assize judges, the preacher’s patron or the local sheriff. Only Richard Baxter sought publication himself, publishing for the “Vulgar” in the hope that his assize sermon would be one of those “Bookes that are carried up and downe the Country from door to doore in Peddlers Packs” rather than sold at booksellers’ stalls or for the libraries of learned divines.¹³⁸ Sermons were directed at those who would shortly participate in the legal proceedings, though city dignitaries, gentleman of the county and occasionally “the people” are also mentioned. The assizes offered the gentry and other local figures an opportunity to meet for conversation, conviviality and political discussion. One sermon characterized the assize proceedings as a “general assembly of the Country,” another as “a little Parliament: a Representative of the whole County.”¹³⁹

Assize sermons show little change over time. Often repeated themes were the divine origin of government and its corollary, denial of the human origin of government. Another was the divine authority and obligations of those who exercised governmental offices—judges and magistrates as well as kings. Disobedience and rebellion constituted disobedience and rebellion against God. Another recurring theme was the need for religious unity and the dangers of Roman Catholic recusants and Protestant dissenters. Several of these themes, as we have seen, are also characteristic of sermons given on January 30. Unique to assize sermons, however, was advice to and criticism of judges, lawyers, jurors, grand jurors and witnesses.

THE DIVINE ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY OF KINGS AND GOVERNMENTS

Some sermons spoke of the divine origin and authority of kings, others of judges and still others of magistrates, but a great many referred to all these offices interchangeably, sometimes in the same sentence.¹⁴⁰ Magistrates had their authority from God and were called Gods; magistrates and judges were God’s deputies to minister justice.¹⁴¹ Sermons referred to both kings and magistrates as God’s vicegerents.¹⁴² Robert Bolton’s sermon declared government to be “a goodly thing” of “Gods owne institution.”¹⁴³ A similar view could be found in Sir Edward Coke’s charge to a Norfolk grand jury, which insisted that kings, rulers, judges and magistrates are “Gods on earth.” Coke’s charge, however, also underlines the role of the judge. The king at his coronation swears “to do Justice unto all his Subjects, which in his owne Person it is impossible to performe.” It was the judges who carried out the monarch’s oath by trying causes by Writ of nisi prius, trying prisoners for offenses against the king and judging according to settled law. Judges as well as king were “Gods on earth.”¹⁴⁴ The same biblical passages used by assize preachers to enhance the authority of kings were utilized by the legal profession to exalt the status of the judiciary. John Selden thus argued that “the Eternal and Sacred Scriptures themselves do more than once call Judges by that most holy name Elohim, that is, Gods.”¹⁴⁵

Assize sermons of the Interregnum era were surprisingly similar, though mention of kings was omitted. In 1655, for example, we hear that magistrates ruled by divine right, and that God made them his representatives to keep his courts.¹⁴⁶ In 1657 a sermon declared that magistrates were “Jus Divinum,” “vicars of God” and “They are gods.” “Every Magistrate, though in never so low a place beares the image of God.”¹⁴⁷ Just prior to the Restoration, Presbyterian Thomas Hall, who characterized magistrates as Gods and God’s deputies, indicated that kings had been established by God’s permission but not by his approbation.¹⁴⁸ Early in the Restoration magistrates, governors and judges were again characterized as “Ministers of God,” “said to be ordain’d of God” and answerable and accountable to Him.¹⁴⁹ Occasionally magistrates are presented as Janus-faced, looking toward God as God’s deputies, and also below to the people “whose trustees and Representatives you are to distribute justice.”¹⁵⁰

Divine right kingship was emphasized except during the Interregnum. In one of the few known sermons of the Elizabethan era (1597), we learn that God instituted only monarchical forms of government.¹⁵¹ James’s elevated view of kingship was frequently heard. Kings were often characterized as Gods, bearing the image of that majesty and power which is in heaven.¹⁵² Occasionally audiences heard that “The hearing of Causes is proper to the king, and whom he shall depute.” To judge “in its highest significants, imports to Rule, to exercise the supreme power. . . . and give Laws.”¹⁵³ Rulers must judge right and keep the Law.¹⁵⁴ The revised canons issued by Convocation in 1640 further increased public exposure to the theory of the divine right of kings, since every parish minister was required to “audibly read” a statement of its principles. Statements on the divine origin and authority of kings were common after the Restoration and most strident during the period when Whigs attempted to exclude the Duke of York from the succession. Kings were God’s representatives on Earth, “Sacred Persons,” “The Lord’s Anointed.”¹⁵⁵

Although government was of divine origin, several sermons suggested that the form or “mould” of government might vary or be left to human choice.¹⁵⁶ Monarchy, however, was the best, being “most perfect, most absolute and most excellent.”¹⁵⁷ The preacher nevertheless characterized Charles II’s government as a “Monarchy limited by Law.”¹⁵⁸ Another who insisted that sovereign power could rest in a king, senate or majority of people, also thought monarchy was the preferred form.¹⁵⁹ Monarchical government not only carried “a more evident stamp of Divine Institution than any other” but was also “most likely to avoid or put an end to all Divisions. . . . For where there are many Governours there must needs be Differences, . . . where there is but one, there cannot.” Nevertheless, the preacher continued, the monarch should take the advice and assistance of Parliament, because it was the best judge of public necessity.¹⁶⁰

HUMAN AND PATRIARCHAL ORIGINS OF GOVERNMENT

Doctrines of divine origin of government and the divine right of kings were important in English arguments against Roman Catholicism, given that prominent Catholic theorists took the position that government was a human institution, that kings derived their authority from the people and that a contract between people and secular rulers in some instances justified rebellion. Popes might intervene in secular government and depose heretical rulers. English churchmen traced to these teachings the various papal moves and assassination attempts against Elizabeth and the Gunpowder Plot.¹⁶¹ These doctrines were often refuted in assize sermons. In a 1614 sermon that referred to papal interference and assassination attempts, the preacher explained that while papists did not completely reject the civil magistrates’ authority, they did abridge secular authority.¹⁶² Robert Bolton offered a refutation of Bellarmine, Suarez and other Catholic theorists who had justified rebellion and regicide as well as the equivocations and mental reservations that deluded some English magistrates. Roman Catholics, he insisted, were opposed to all imperial, royal and princely power. ¹⁶³ Another assize preacher insisted that “there is no probability” of being “a true Papist and a true subject.”¹⁶⁴

Similar views were expressed during the Interregnum. “It is a strange riddle,” said one preacher, “how the Pope should be Jure Divino, and the Emperor who made him so should be but Jure Humano.”¹⁶⁵ Government was “not the product of Experience, and an after-invention of mans Wit, upon a Pact and Covenant,” but “the express and primary Institution of God.”¹⁶⁶ During the Restoration assertions of the human origin of government and ideas of contract were attributed to those responsible for the civil war. ¹⁶⁷ The most extensive refutation of these doctrines was preached during the Exclusion controversy, when ideas of human origin and a political contract were again being aired in pamphlets. Preachers insisted that the origin of civil government was not to be found in chance, ambition or usurpation, “nor Pacts and Covenants, nor any happy Occurrence, nor the longest sword.” Though “some flatter the people saying the first ownership is theirs, and where they are pleased to lodge it,” there was never a state of natural freedom nor “an age when people made a deed of gift of their natural freedom.”¹⁶⁸

Assize sermons defended the patriarchal origin and authority of government, some sermons referring to these as the product of divine command, others as natural developments and some as both. Sermons in 1653 and 1657 taught that the first form of government had been patriarchal and had arisen from the need for self-preservation, self-defense and an impartial judge, later leading to delegation to a king or magistrate.¹⁶⁹ Restoration sermons were more strident. A sermon of 1682 fulminated against those who maintained that there was no such thing as paternal or patriarchal monarchy and denounced those who favored a commonwealth or magnified “the power of the People.”¹⁷⁰

Nathaniel Alsop provided an extended treatment of Filmerian patriarchalism from the pulpit shortly after the publication of Filmer’s Patriarcha. Civil government, which went back to the beginning of mankind, was founded, “as the most judicious do affirm,” on the natural right of paternal authority. The first kingdom grew from a single family, Adam’s, and sacred Scripture showed that Adam possessed the universal monarchy “by the Patriarchal line unto the first Plantation of the World after the Flood.” Alsop cites Filmer for the proposition that paternal and regal power are the same. Nature and Scripture proved that the natural and divine right of monarchy was superior to all other forms or models.¹⁷¹ John Locke, whose refutation of this argument would form the basis of his First Treatise on Government, recognized that the “pulpit of late years, publically owned his [Filmer’s] doctrines and made it the current divinity of the times.”¹⁷² Many assize pulpits echoed the preacher who offered scriptural proof that kings were natural fathers, the “Soul of the Commonwealth” without whom the polity would be a “breathless Carcass.”¹⁷³ A society without government was described in Augustinian or Hobbesian language. Without sovereign authority men would “become cut-throats and Cannibals”¹⁷⁴ or “beasts for prey, slaughter-houses of blood.”¹⁷⁵ “Were we in the Leviathan state of nature . . . every man’s hand would be against every Man.”¹⁷⁶

DISOBEDIENCE AND REBELLION

Assize preachers insisted that disastrous consequences followed from disobedience and rebellion. Romans 13/1, “Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Power; for the Powers that be, are ordained of God,” provided ample scriptural authority. To slight the authority of magistrates was disobedience to God. The worst rulers as well as the best were “The Lord’s Anointed,” and subjects owed obedience to princes as bad as Tiberius and Nero.¹⁷⁷ Better the severest prince “where every suspicion is made a Crime and every Crime capital, than to have none at all but a lawless Anarchy.”¹⁷⁸ For one preacher “the Doctrine of Subjection” was “as demonstrable as any Theorem in Euclid’s Geometry.”¹⁷⁹ For another there were “No just grounds for any Man’s Rebellion against his lawful King.” Resistance to princes was responsible for “greater Mischief to the World than all the Cruelties and oppressions of the most barbarous Tyrants.”¹⁸⁰ Echoes of the Homily on Obedience were to be found everywhere. The pretense of religion ought not to be used “to make the people disaffected to their Governours and government.”¹⁸¹ “Liberty of speech is the female of Sedition” and “in time the Grandmother of treason.”¹⁸² Open contempt of authority might “awaken the Vengeance of Heaven.”¹⁸³

Restoration assize sermons, like those preached on January 30, had much to say about the late civil war and its causes. Many preached that religion had been a tool for making people disaffected with government and governors. “Preciseness”—that is, Puritanism—had “been made a Cloak” for rebellion.¹⁸⁴ Religion had been a cover “for the blackest crimes,” and the murder of the king had been defended as a “pious Act.”¹⁸⁵ During the civil wars “spoilers” had branded the established religion as superstitious and profane.¹⁸⁶ The English service had been maligned, and the godly party inherited the “fattest portions of the land.”¹⁸⁷ It was a time of “lust for war, famine, decay of trade, the gentry wasted, nobility degraded, universities ruined, clergy vilified and silenced,” “our Laws, and Law-givers and Parliaments trampled on,” and God suffered “our best of Princes to be taken from us for our sinnes.”¹⁸⁸ Listeners were to recall the barbarous, cruel days when England had been deprived of its king and had experienced slaughter, plundering, sequestration, banishments and enslavement of the common people, who had been forced to take unlawful oaths and covenants.¹⁸⁹ Audiences should remember how they had “suffered . . . in their Honours or Estates.”¹⁹⁰ The country had experienced a “Protectionship, the most absolute of any,” “until God poured us out of the Melting Pot, to see if we were purified,” and restored us to our old religion and church discipline and “above all, our good King.”¹⁹¹

Some explained “the great revolutions” as a result of Providence. Despite oppressions, disease and injustice, there should be no murmuring against the “strange and various dispensations of God.”¹⁹² God, not the people, had restored government in 1660.¹⁹³ In 1685 an assize preacher characterized England as having rolled through every form of government and experienced endless calamities, “till at last, God took pity on us, and resettled us on our ancient foundation.”¹⁹⁴

THREATS TO RELIGIOUS UNITY

Another common theme was the threats posed by Roman Catholic and Protestant dissenters. From the time of the first printed assize sermon in 1571, listeners heard of “seditious and wicked papists,” popish priests and papal bulls that stirred up subjects to rebel against their lawful magistrates.¹⁹⁵ Such views were expressed at the assize sermons for decades. There was a continuing effort to convince and, if necessary, force Puritans and then Dissenters not to destroy the unity of the church by their stubborn refusal to conform.

Attacks on Protestant dissenters became harsher after 1660. Edward Boteler referred to the “doting Dogmatists of late, pretending to a Gravity some Centuries higher than the Age they live in,” and admonished dissenting clergymen not to engage in “that dismal wild-fire thrown abroad from the Pulpit which probably kindled, but certainly increased our late flames.”¹⁹⁶ Many printed assize sermons lashed out at dissenting conventiclers. In 1672 conventicles were said to have “overflown beyond all bounds of Sober Moderation and Just Liberty.”¹⁹⁷ The “transports and heats” and “reproachful Expressions” of “popular auditories” prevented overcoming “our unhappy Differences.”¹⁹⁸ During the 1670s and 1680s the vehement attacks increased. “Disorderly Conventiclers . . . gild over” their actions “with the specious name of Religion, and call the Good Old Cause of Rebelling the Cause of God.”¹⁹⁹ Dissenters used “Clamorous Pamphlets” to gain toleration and “steal away the hearts of the People from their Sovereign.”²⁰⁰ Anabaptists and others had “withdrawn their neckes from the Yoke of civill government.”²⁰¹ They were “bad friends to a state” and intended to “ruine Laws, and to destroy a nation.”²⁰² “We have seen of late years . . . how many Rebels” the liberty of conscience “armed and how many drums it beat up for Reformation” until “cursed Regicides pull’d down God’s Deputy.” The laws must be of “Unyielding and Inflexible Temper,” curbing the decisions of individuals to do what is right according to their own ideas.”²⁰³ Magistrates must prevent schisms, separations and the “many headed Monster.”²⁰⁴

The word “Whig” was rarely mentioned, but the target was clear. Dissenters were associated with Whigs, and they in turn were associated with rebellion. One preacher characterized government critics “as the great Brayers up of Arbitrary Government” who “Cajole the Multitude.”²⁰⁵ In 1682 a sermon condemned the Whig Association and praised the Tory “Abhorrers.”²⁰⁶ Another attacked occasional conformists, nonconformists and the jurors who failed to convict them. Admonitions to “govern according to law” and ensure “that our wholesome Laws be vigorously and impartially executed” typically were accompanied by statements on the need to prosecute dissenters.²⁰⁷

Reading the printed assize sermons can only lead to the conclusion that their authors were, in effect, agents of the established church and government who preached punishment for those who rejected them. The assize pulpit from Elizabeth to the Revolution of 1688 provided vigorous support for obedience to a divinely ordained authority and the established church. During the years of Whig and Tory conflict the printed assize sermon provided uniform support for the Tory cause.

JUDGES, LAWYERS, JURORS AND WITNESSES

Assize sermons also featured advice, and often hectoring advice, to judges, lawyers, jurors and grand jurors, witnesses and occasionally litigants. They characterized judges and magistrates as “shields of the earth” or “shields of God” and sometimes God’s vicegerents, with obligations to both God and man to ensure peace and dispense justice.²⁰⁸ Judges were the “eyes of the state” who were to search deeply into matters with deliberation and without passion.²⁰⁹ They required eyes like eagles to search out transgressions and get to the bottom of the matters at hand, in addition to knowing the laws exactly.²¹⁰ They must “sift out truth” with “acute and searching reasonings”²¹¹ and cast out frivolous, malicious and vexatious actions.²¹²

Justice and mercy were major themes. One sermon referred to mercy as “a foolish pity,” emphasizing the need for judicial severity and “a little blood seasonably shed.”²¹³ Another, however, thought it necessary to punish malefactors but not to “plague them beyond measure.” If “the Stocks or the Whip will do the deed,” there was no need of the gallows.²¹⁴ The law was abused by “a too severe execution of it,” and judges ought to consider the intent as well as the letter of the law. If the severity of laws was not mitigated at times by the rules of equity, the law could become a “snare . . . to oppress” the innocent.²¹⁵ A sermon of 1680 insisted on mixing justice with mercy, not according to the “literal strictness and severity of Laws,” because “Natural frailty, the imperfections of men” and “circumstances” should be taken into account.²¹⁶ Judges could mete out impartial justice to incorrigible offenders while providing “Gentleness and Mercy to those . . . capable of it.”²¹⁷

Judges were so frequently reminded of their oaths and lectured on the necessity of impartiality and the need to avoid bribery, covetousness and corruption that it suggests that these faults were considered common.²¹⁸ Comments of this kind are known to have angered the judges in 1630 and 1632.²¹⁹ A Protectorate era sermon, for example, characterized bad judges as “ravening and rapacious” wolves and suggested that judicial corruption had been “one of the greatest causes of our late miseries.”²²⁰ Some assize preachers directed the justices of the peace to take their duties more seriously, particularly in cases involving blasphemy, drunkenness and vagabondage.²²¹ Occasionally there were suggestions that they engage in arbitration so that “slight offense[s]” would not end in lawsuits.²²²

Far more attention was given to lawyers who, more often than not, were depicted as greedy and lacking concern for their clients’ interests. There were “cozening Lawyer[s]” whose “sugared words” gave “golden hopes” to clients.²²³ They made “a bad Cause seem good, and a good Cause seem bad.”²²⁴ One sermon noted “how few of them . . . truly plead the causes of their clients without fraud or falsehood.”²²⁵ They were “Caterpillars, Flyes and Gnats” whose legal complexities “put out the eye of Justice.”²²⁶ They were responsible for unnecessary delays. “Man may sooner travel about the whole globe of the earth, then passe through an English Court.”²²⁷ Lawyers were blamed for taking cases from court to court, for overly long proceedings, new motions, writs of error and generally creating and fomenting lawsuits. One of the most common complaints was the lawyer’s abuse of rhetoric. Advocates “have taught their tongues to call evil good and falsehood truth” and could by their “smooth speeches steal away and lead captive the hearts of the simple.”²²⁸ Their “nimbleness of wit and volubility of tongue” deceived, and they dressed up bad causes “in the imbroydery of Rhetoric,” allowing their words to pass for truth.²²⁹ Many sins that “cry for Vengeance” were not heard or were “gilded over with colours of deceit.”²³⁰

Jurors were warned that none must “betray causes and corrupt his brethren, being swayed more by acquaintance, alliance or bribe than by the arguing of the counsel, the decision of the judge or the evidence of those that are sworn.” Only those with “free Hearts, as well as Free-Holds,” should be selected as jurors.²³¹ Jurors must give verdicts according to the evidence and especially to have “sufficient, clear evidence for” sentences “touching human life.”²³² There was concern that jurors might be bullied or confused by lawyers.

Assize sermons also denounced plaintiffs who made false and unjust accusations.²³³ They were “not to go to law for every Trifle, but be willing to withdraw their Actions upon reasonable offers, and hearken to fair and moderate terms of Accommodation.”²³⁴ False testimony by witnesses was a frequent topic. The practice led to “injustice of the Cause, to the injustice of the Evidence, to the injustice of the verdict.”²³⁵

OATHS

The oaths taken by jurors, witnesses, grand jurors and judges were often the subject of assize preachers. The necessity of oaths was often noted, but there was also recognition that oath-taking did not necessarily produce impartial or uncorrupted judges and jurors.²³⁶ Lying witnesses and less than impartial jurors were perennial topics. Already in 1599 we hear “how unreverently many take their oaths, how slightingly they regard them: for the most part it is made but a matter of forme and custome.”²³⁷ Oaths given carelessly, another said, have “grown into a meer formality,” and, if given perfunctorily, “they will grow into absolute contempt.”²³⁸ It was even suggested that oaths were being sold.²³⁹ Jurors were admonished to honor their oaths and not “assume a liberty to admit or reject what they please of the Evidence; to believe what ever is deposed . . . [or] to interpret the Lawes in favour of offenders.”²⁴⁰ One preacher accused jurors of rescuing “the most dangerous Criminals from fair and legal trials; or acquitting the guilty in spite of the Evidence” in violation of their oaths.²⁴¹ John Allen’s sermon on perjury complained that, contrary to their oaths, grand juries were not finding bills, despite “fair, full and legal evidence.”²⁴²

At the same time that the sermon literature pointed to the “growing evil and mischief of breaking Oaths,”²⁴³ it also claimed that oaths given in courts of law ensured “a sure testimony in Matter of Fact.”²⁴⁴ John Tillotson insisted that the oath was the “surest ground of Judicial proceedings, and the most firm and sacred bond that can be laid upon all that are concerned in the administration of publick Justice; upon Judge, and Jury and Witnesses.”²⁴⁵ Oath-taking, it was agreed, was necessary to achieve justice, but failure to take oaths seriously was eroding that justice. In some venues and in some contexts England was proclaimed to have the best legal system in the world. In others, such as the assize sermon, its operation was seen as seriously flawed.

Also of interest are the topics absent from the assize sermons. Given the fact that jurors were to reach a “satisfied conscience” after hearing the evidence in criminal causes, there is surprisingly little in the assize literature devoted to how a “conscience” might be satisfied, a theme one might expect the clergy to discuss on these occasions. Contract theory is there, but only to be condemned. There are no references to the ancient constitution, the common law or Parliament, or even the jurisdictional disputes between common law and other courts.

Assize sermons are formulaic. However, their formulaic character is precisely what is important about them, because sermons provide a window into what some early modern audiences heard on a regular basis. From Elizabeth’s reign to the eve of the Revolution of 1688, assize sermon audiences heard obedience, obedience and more obedience to the divinely ordained authority of rulers, magistrates and judges. The venue, of course, had much to do with the message. One would hardly expect to hear comments in favor of disobedience or disrespect for rulers and judges at the outset of proceedings designed to enforce the nation’s civil and criminal law. Venue and occasion lent themselves to particular themes, in this instance the divine origin of government and the divine right and responsibility of kings, magistrates and judges. Yet that setting also naturally generated expressions of uneasiness about the administration of justice.

What conclusions can be drawn from this survey of nearly two hundred assize sermons? First, the assize sermon was an important channel for communicating political ideas. Reiteration makes for tedious listening and reading, but it is this very repetition that made the assize sermon part of the ideological life of the times. These sermons also suggest that the doctrines of the divine origin of government and the divine right of rulers, kings, judges and magistrates and their obligation to the deity rather than to the people or Parliament appears to have been more widely disseminated than we might have thought. James I and a few favored clerics were certainly not alone in voicing the divine authority of kings or their responsibility to God alone. The assize pulpit, before, during and after the civil war era spread such ideas throughout the country.

The setting, the ceremonial nature of the occasion, the biblical texts that served the genre and the privileged moral position of the speaker were simultaneously an exercise of government power and a ritual of affirmation of that power. This combination generated a particular momentum for the assize sermon as an instrument of political education. Moreover this political education is directed at a critical political audience, a set of upper and middling persons of affairs consisting of the litigators, the witnesses, the jurors, the grand jurors, the sheriff, the local magistrates and a miscellany of county gentry and townsmen gathered for sociability, business and political discussion.

Most openly and obviously, the repeated, almost ritualistic message of the sermons appears to be celebration of the monarch and monarchy. Just below and sometimes well above the surface of this message, however, is a more nuanced one. First of all, the trope is quite often the king and his magistrates or the judges and the magistrates rather than the king alone. Just as declarations that the king-in-Parliament is sovereign announces that the king is constrained by parliamentary processes, the assize sermons announce that the king, not alone but in his courts, with his judges and magistrates and through judicial processes, is the voice of the law, and that the law rather than mere royal fiat governs. This implication of the rule of law is paralleled by a second message of restraint on royal sovereignty. Sermons draw on the sanctity and authority of biblical texts and enhance the role of the sermon-giver as a religious mentor and censor of public life. Those participating in the king’s assizes are not merely instruments of the king’s power but moral actors under religious obligations to do the right thing.

The message is also about the duties of judges, lawyers, jurors and witnesses. If there is sometimes more critical bite to this message than the bench and bar might prefer, nevertheless it is a message of moral autonomy, that all the participants ought to be faithful servants of the law and legal processes, responsible to God, not merely the instruments of personal, local or central political power or special interest.

Given their almost ritual repetitiousness, their lack of original political or legal theory and their rather standardized form and style, assize sermons may not garner high literary marks. They are, however, a channel through which a politically active segment of the population received repeated reinforcement of a rather complex political story—one of the legitimacy of central political power and legal authority projected into the countryside, divine in origin, but exercised under moral and religious obligations to truth and impartiality and exercised not by the king alone but by the king and his magistrates acting through established, and religiously sanctioned, legal practices.

CONCLUSION

Indeed sermons of all kinds, given on a variety of occasions and in a range of venues, must be incorporated into our understanding of political culture. They contained the political doctrines most frequently voiced emphasizing the divine status of monarchy, the dangers of disobedience and rebellion and the errors of Roman Catholic and dissenting doctrines. With assistance from Scripture, the clergy, with the only partial exception of the revolutionary era, were stalwart defenders of the established government and vigilant in opposing any threats to it.