History of Parliament Online SEARCH RESEARCH EXPLORE GALLERY SCHOOLS ABOUT Explore Religion PERIODS Medieval Tudors Stuarts Hanoverians Modern THEMES Politics Economy Religion Diplomacy & War Society Home Explore > Themes > Religion > Fast Sermons Religion Fast Sermons Further Reading The English Revolution: Fast Sermons to Parliament, ed. Robin Jeffs, 32 vols (1970-1) H. R. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Fast Sermons of the Long Parliament’ in Essays in British History presented to Sir Keith Feiling, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper (1965), 85–138 Achsah Guibbory, ‘Israel and English Protestant Nationalism: “fast sermons” during the English revolution’, in Early Modern Nationalism and Milton’s England, ed. D. Loewenstein and P. Stevens (Toronto, 2008) Fast sermons were preached to Parliament by prominent clergymen on pre-arranged occasions. They were introduced in the sixteenth century as occasional events coinciding with times of national celebration, such as the accession of a monarch, or crisis, such as the approach of the Spanish armada in 1588. However, they became more frequent from the 1620s. Additionally, between January 1642 and April 1649 an act of Parliament provided for regular sermons on the fourth Wednesday of every month. Sermons provided opportunities to promote unity, galvanise Members into action and steer them towards particular policies. Usually published by request and with official authority, they also reflected parliamentary priorities to a national audience. Fast days were fixed by the Lords and Commons in consultation. By the mid seventeenth century each House chose its own preachers and usually heard them separately, the Commons at St Margaret’s church, Westminster, and the Lords in the King Henry VII chapel in the Abbey itself. One minister would take the pulpit in the morning, a second in the afternoon. Services, at which MPs took the sacrament of Holy Communion, lasted several hours and also included lengthy prayer on topical themes. Parliamentary business was customarily suspended for the day. The public were admitted, except at times of particular political sensitivity, when fear of disorder provoked specific exclusion. Parallel days of ‘public humiliation’ or celebration were observed at different times throughout the country; by ordinance from Westminster, from 23 February 1642 parliamentary and non-parliamentary fasts coincided. The choice of ministers was an expression of the religious preferences and personal connections of Parliament’s most influential Members. Invitations to preach to the Commons were recorded in its Journal with the names of MPs who were to relay them; if the sermon was well-received, particular MPs would be deputed to convey thanks afterwards. These entries give some indication of patronage. The ‘great pains’ taken by Cornelius Burges and Stephen Marshall, who delivered the opening fast sermons to the Long Parliament on 17 December 1640, were to be acknowledged by Sir Arthur Ingram and Sir Gilbert Gerard. The latter was a particularly close associate of the ministers’ chief patron, Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, who at this date was a leading critic in the Lords of royal policy. Burges, the future prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, and Marshall were among a group of ministers of largely Presbyterian sympathies who preached often before Parliament in the early and mid 1640s. In 1644 several leading Scottish ministers gave sermons, their involvement underlining the importance at this date of the alliance between the government at Westminster and the Covenanting regime north of the border. Later, and particularly after Pride’s Purge, ministers of the Independent persuasion were more visible – men like Peter Sterry, William Dell and John Owen, eventually elected an MP. The persuasive and subversive potential of fast sermons was recognised from the first. They were temporarily suppressed by Elizabeth I, but the Stuarts found it impossible to resist pressure for what could be presented as a natural pious response to political developments. From the opening of the Long Parliament, which made consideration of the subject its first business, sermons became a controversial means of propaganda for the policy of those driving the action in the chambers. The verdict that Charles I’s archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, should be executed for treason was heralded in a sermon; the passing of the Self-Denying Ordinance, whereby most MPs renounced military office, was preceded by sermon to both Houses, extraordinarily out of the public gaze in Lincoln’s Inn chapel. After the regicide in January 1649 regular sermons were discontinued as too difficult to contain, but occasional fasts continued through the periods of the republic and the protectorates of Oliver Cromwell and Richard Cromwell. To the end, preachers like Owen attempted to rally MPs behind the cause of establishing a godly commonwealth through legislation on the church, the law and society. Throughout they returned repeatedly to Old Testament texts, depicting the English or the British as the people of God, their reforming leaders in the guise of prophets or of kings like Josiah, and their adversaries – Catholic or radical, royalist or lukewarm backsliders – as the enemies of Israel. ‘The Epistle Dedicatory’ by C. Burges and S. Marshall in The First Sermon preached to the Honourable House of Commons (1641): ... The God of Heaven steere all Your weighty consultations by his own Counsell, to his owne glory; cover You still under his own Wing, and make You the most accomplisht, best united, & most successefull & glorious house of Commons that ever sate in that High Court; but chiefly in the effectuall endeavouring of a further Sanction of, and stronger Guard about our true Palladium, the true Religion, already established among us ... Author: Vivienne Larminie Religion Religion and Politics, 1660-1690 The Interregnum of 1649-60 had seen the dismantling of the authority of the Church in England. The attempt to recreate it after the Restoration, and what was seen as the infiltration of Roman Catholics into the highest levels of government, were among the most divisive issues in English politics. read more Religion and Politics, 1690-1715 Religion was central to the political identities of politicians in the 1690s and early 1700s. In part this was because of the Church of England’s difficulties with the Revolution of 1688-9. Having developed firm views on the unlawfulness of resistance to kings, some of its clergy found it... read more The Elizabethan Settlement Elizabeth’s accession in 1558 was universally met with expectations of change in religion. Catholics dreaded the renewal of schism from Rome, while Protestants eagerly anticipated the continuation of reforms begun under Henry VIII and Edward VI. read more © Crown copyright and The History of Parliament Trust 1964-2020 Terms & Conditions Privacy & Cookies FAQs Abbreviations Contact Us