Abstract
This article examines a previously unnoticed link between the Puritan John Burgess and the Calvinist
conformist George Hakewill. In 1604 Burgess preached a court sermon so outspoken and critical of James
I’s religious policy that he was imprisoned. Nearly twenty years later, however, Hakewill chose to
incorporate extended passages from Burgess’s sermon into the series of sermons, King David’s vow
(1621), preached to Prince Charles’s household. This article considers why Burgess’s sermon became so
resonant for Hakewill in the early 1620s and also demonstrates how Hakewill deliberately sought to
moderate Burgess’s strident polemic. In so doing the article provides important new evidence for the
politically attuned sermon culture at Prince Charles’s court in the early 1620s and also suggests how, as
the parameters for clerical conformity shifted in the latter years of James’s reign, Calvinist conformists
found a new appeal in the works of moderate Puritans.
I
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 0-0 |
Number of pages | 1 |
Journal | Journal of Ecclesiastical History |
Volume | 60 (3) |
Publication status | Published - Jul 2009 |