All students of Elizabethan religion are indebted to Millar Maclure's Register of sermons preached at Paul's Cross.Footnote 1 This register lists the dates and basic contents of early modern sermons delivered at St Paul's Cross, ‘one of the most influential pulpits in England’.Footnote 2 Users of Maclure's work may wish to note that three further dated Elizabethan sermons may be added to the list. These sermons are recorded in a short notebook in the archives of the Exchequer, probably written by an employee of the court, which contains notes on at least five sermons heard at St Paul's Cross.Footnote 3 The notebook also contains notes from William Perkins's A treatise tending unto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of damnation or in the estate of grace (1590).Footnote 4 Two of the sermons mentioned in the notebook are undated: an anonymous sermon on Matthew xi.2 (fo. 1r) and a sermon by ‘Mr Mounds’ (fo. 1v), warning auditors not to repose trust in former enemies.Footnote 5 The other three are dated. Although this notebook is listed in the Gateway to Early Modern Manuscript Sermons (GEMMS) database, the three dated sermons are listed as ‘“At Paules […] 1597” [a sermon on Luke 2:14]; a sermon by “Mr Hayward” on “Sunday 17” [month illegible; no year specified]; a sermon by “Mr Clark” in May [exact date not specified]’.Footnote 6 This is unsatisfactory.
The handwriting is admittedly difficult but the sermon on Luke ii.14 is described as having been delivered on ‘xo Apr[il] 1597’; Hayward's sermon is dated ‘Sonday 17 Aprell’; and Clark's sermon is dated ‘pr[i]mo May’.Footnote 7 Since 17 April and 1 May 1597 both fell on Sundays, it is clear that all three sermons belong to the year 1597. Neither of the named preachers who gave sermons with recorded dates are well known to scholars. John Hayward, rector of St Mary Woolchurch, is also known to have delivered a government-sponsored sermon at Paul's Cross in 1601 to condemn the Essex rebellion.Footnote 8 ‘Mr Clark’ may refer to William Clark, preacher of St Dionis Backchurch, London, who died in 1617.Footnote 9 The notes on Clark's sermon are uniquely amusing in that he attacks the Elizabethan fashion of wearing ruffs, and describes swearing as ‘a stabbinge of god’. Since the dates of Paul's Cross sermons can be a useful aid to establishing chronology, it is worth recording the contents of these sermons as described in the notebook.
1. Sunday 10 April 1597: anonymous sermon on Luke ii.14
‘Luk 2 verse 14. Glory to god on highe &c. Three thinges proper to god: vengeance, Judgment & glory. In every good accion ij thinges do belong: the glory & the comodyte. Pease is counted a drousy vertue.’Footnote 10
2. Sunday 17 April 1597: sermon by ‘M[aste]r Hayward’ on Romans viii.30
‘Mr Hayward on Sonday 17 Aprell. Thos whom he hath predestinate.’Footnote 11
3. Sunday 1 May 1597: sermon by ‘M[aste]r Clark’ on Isaiah xxiv.16
‘Mr Clark primo May. The xxiiijth of Esay verse xvi [‘Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.’] Three partes. The complaint of the prophett. The sinnes of the people. The ponishment of God. All ought to complayne & be greved at sinne but the prophett or mynister chefly viz. Sinnes of the clergy & of the layetty. In the clergy Ignorance, Idlenes & Symoney. In the layety the particulers I fynd that Pride in aparell as Ringes in women, [illegible], coronettes &c. Or mens long lockes like Irishemen. Ruffes. David: lachire(? lechery?) was his halter & whiles Jesabell was decking up har self & painting her, in her window she was thrown out & devoured of dogges. Every othe is a stabbinge of god.’Footnote 12
