Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T07:56:31.850Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sermons Before Parliament (1640–1649) As A Public Puritan Diary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James C. Spalding
James C. Spalding
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, School of Religion, University of Iowa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The publication thirty years ago by M. M. Knappen of the diaries of Richard Rogers and Samuel Ward called attention to the puritan diary as a means of understanding puritan character. These were two examples of rather frequently kept journals in which pious diarists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century made a careful account of both their moral successes and failures together with those events in their lives which were signs of God's judgment or favor. Such records provided for the authors a basis upon which meaningful decision could be made as they looked after the affairs of their mortal lives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 24 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Knappen, M. M., Two Elizabethan Puritan Diaries. Chicago: American Society of Church History, 1933.Google Scholar

2. “I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and sunny land.” It is no accident that this poem of William Blake is in tribute to Milton, John. The Poems of William Blake. Edited by Yeats, W. B.. London, 1893, p. 207.Google Scholar

3. Sedgewick, William, Zion's Deliverance and her Friends Duty… In a sermon preached before … the House of Commons (06 29, 1642). London, 1642.Google Scholar

4. Newcomen, Matthew, Jerusalem's Watchmen, the Lord's Remembrancers: A Sermon Preached at the Abbie at Westminster … 07 7, 1643. London, 1643.Google Scholar

5. Haller, William, Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation. London, Jonathan Cape, 1963Google Scholar is an excellent treatment of both the book and its influence in determining English mentality. This promotion of a saga of England as an elect nation under God was not peculiarly protestant. Reginald Cardinal Pole developed such a saga with a Roman Catholic slant in his greeting to Queen Mary and Philip of Spain upon their marriage. See Elder, John, The Copie of a letter sent into Scotland of the arivall and language, and moste noble marriage of the most Illustre Philip, Prynce of Spaine, to the most excellente Princes Marye Quene of Englalnd… London, 1555 (1556).Google Scholar

6. Milton, John, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England… in The Works of John Milton. New York, Columbia University, 1931, vol. III, part I, pp. 6ff.Google Scholar

7. Burges, Cornelius, The First Sermon Preached to the Honourable House of Commons now assembled in Parliament at their Publique Fast, November 17, 1640. London, 1641Google Scholar. Marshall, Stephen, The Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons November 17, 1640. London, 1641.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., A3, verso. (Each of the two sermons has the same dedicatory epistle).

9. Marshall, Stephen, A Peace Offering to God. A sermon … Sept. 7, 1641. London, 1641.Google Scholar

10. Burroughs, Jeremiah, Sions Joy. A Sermon … Sept. 7. 1641… London, 1641.Google Scholar

11. Burges, Cornelius, Another Sermon Preached to the Honourable House of Commons … Nov. the fifth, 1641. London, 1641Google Scholar. This sermon is also of interest for having in it a recommendation to parliament that it call to its assistance “a free Synode of Grave Ministers of this Nation.” The suggestion came to have some official reality when it was incorporated into the famous Grand Remonstrance later that same month.

12. Marshall, Stephen, Reformation and Desolation. A Sermon … Dec. 22, 1641. London, 1642.Google Scholar

13. Calamy, Edmund, Englands Looking Glass presented in a sermon preached … Dec. 22,1641, London, 1641 (1642).Google Scholar

14. Marshall, Stephen, Meroz Cursed or a Sermon preached … Feb. 33, 1641 (1642). London 1641 (1642).Google Scholar

15. Calamy, Edmund, God's Free Mercy to England. Preached as a Piteous and Powerful motive to Humiliation: In a Sermon … Preached … Feb. 3, 1641 (1642). London, 1642.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., pp. 4f.

17. Arrowsmith, John, The Covenant-avenging Sword Brandished in a sermon … Jan. 25. (1643). London, 1643. p 10Google Scholar

18. Baylie, Robert, SATAN the Leader-in-chief to all who resist the Reparation of Sion. As it was cleared in a Sermon … Feb. 28, 1643. (1644). London, 1643 (1644). A3 recto.Google Scholar

19. Peters, Hugh, God's Doings and Man's Duty, opened in a sermon … April 2. (1646). London, 1646.Google Scholar

20. Brooks, Thomas, God's Delight in the Progress of the Upright. Presented in a sermon Dec. 26, 1648. London, 1649Google Scholar. Owen, John. A sermon preached to the Honourable House of Commons Jan. 31 (1649). London, 1649.Google Scholar

21. Gouge, William, God's Three Arrows: Plague, Famine, Sword, In three Treatises I. A. Plaister for the Plague II. Dearth's Death III. The Churches Conquest over the Sword. London, 1631. pp. 303, 306, 307.Google Scholar

22. Case, Thomas, God's Rising His Enemies Scattering: delivered in a sermon … Oct. 26, 1642. But through many occasions and hinderances not printed till this 25 of May 1644. London, 1644, p. 47Google Scholar. Some of these sermons seem to have been printed just a few days after they were preached. Case seems to have been the archetype of the procrastinating scholar whose work is never quite ready to go to press.