1577 JOHN CALDWELL Radical Puritan Sermon on Scripture, the Reformation, & Repentance

Very rare volume with no copies traced on the market or anytime in the last twenty years or so at auction. 

John Caldwell was one of the earliest puritan ministers. He, along with William Leigh, were regularly invited to preach for the Earle of Darbie, a known friend of the Reformation and of the emerging puritan movement. The present sermon, preached in the Earle's chapel, is blisteringly hot against Romanism, against alliances between the government and religion, and to those of faith. He exhorts them to not squander the blood and labor of the Reformation and the Holy Scriptures which have been gifted to them by their sacrifice. See excerpts below. An important and beautifully preserved item.

Caldwell, John. A Sermon Preached before the Right Honourable Earle of Darbie, and Divers Other Assembled in His Honors Chapell at Newparke in Lankashire. 1577. Imprinted at London by Thomas East; the xiii day of March, 1577. 

Housed in a very sleek nineteenth century straight grain morocco binding with marbled endpapers, gilt dentils, and a boldly tooled emblem central to the board. A lovely example. Text itself in very attractive black letter and lightly foxed. Crisp and clean. 

Thomas East was an important sixteenth century publisher of the finest quality. His works regularly sell for $25,000 and more at auction and he was the first publisher to translate and issue the works of John Calvin into the English language and market. 

Excerpts:

Speaking of England before the Reformation: "When we were ignorant of God's word and heard nothing but the sound of a tinkling cymbal, did we not think superstition to be religion, deceivers true teachers, vanity to be verity, the Gospel to be heresy, to gad about on pilgrimage from this saint to that to be God's service, men's traditions the commandments of God, Antichrist Christ's vicar, the man of Rome who is a creature overwhelmed with all wickedness and the beast that did rise out of the bottomless pit, a most holy father?" He then goes on to extol the worth and value and glory of Holy Scripture. 

Commenting on the shame of the current state of post-reformation England in their devotion to Christ and holiness: "An apprentice in seven years will learn his occupation. The little children that go to school go forward in learning. Alas! eWhave gone to school not seven years, but eighteen years; we have had many notable schoolmasters and teachers, and yet for all this we be little amended, but like very blockheads we tarry still in our old lessons, and will not take forth into good manners and new conditions. Yea, we are more slow to hear God's word, and to frame our lives thereafter, than we were when it was first preached, and we rather go backward than forward there is no vice and wickedness, but it is daily committed amongst us. Marriage love decayeth, and whoredom's love increaseth."