A superb sermon preached in the heat of the English Civil War under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The Presbyterians and other Puritan Independents and Congregationalists were engaged in a heated philosophical debate regarding the right of more fundamentalist Presbyterians to utilize their new-found power to establish a Covenanted Kingdom based on establishment of something very like Scotland's Solemn League and Covenant. It would, by default, mean persecution of Anglicans, Baptists, and of course Catholics at the National level.
Some of the Presbyterians were so-inclined, which led to Rogers Williams labeling them as no better than the Priests & Popes with their persecuting and narrow spirit.
Edmund Calamy [1600-1666] was of the more moderate members of the Westminster Assembly of Divines on this subject. He saw the clamoring for political and military power as a sign of a deep flaw in the spiritual understanding of God's people. In the present work, he equates causing division as an act of idolatry, raising the unique expressions of a given community, i.e. Congregationalist vs. Presbyterian, etc. to the place of Christ, who alone is separates the left from the right.
Calamy had a deep jealousy for the unity of Christians. It is recorded in his biography that as public strife between followers of Christ swelled across the Kingdom, he was so grieved and disheartened that he suffered something akin to a nervous breakdown. He was opposed to the execution of King Charles, and opposed Cromwell's assumption of power in a private meeting with him.
The present sermon is also notable because of its polemic against the celebration of Christmas, having been preached on that day.
"I have known those that would be sure to receive the sacrament upon Christmas day, though they did not receive it all the year after. This and much more was the superstition of the day. And the prophaneness was as great. Old Father Latimer saith in one of his sermons, That the Devil had more service in the twelve Christmas holy days (as they were called) than God had all the year after. . . . There are some that though they did not play at cards all the year long, yet they must play at Christmas; thereby, it seems, to keep in memory the birth of Christ. This and much more hath been the profanation of this feast. And truly I think that the superstition and profanation of this day is so rooted into it, as that there is no way to reform it but by dealing with it as Hezekiah did with the brazen serpent. This year God by a Providence hath buried this feast in a fast, and I hope it will never rise again. You have set out (Right Honourable [House of Lords]) a strict order for the keeping of it, and you are here this day to observe your own order, and I hope you will do it strictly. The necessity of the times are great. Never more need of prayer and fasting. The Lord give us grace to be humbled in this day of humiliation for all our own, and England’s sins; and especially for the old superstition, and profanation of this feast: always remembering upon such days as these, Isa. 22:12-14."
Calamy, Edmund. An Indictment Against England because of Her Selfe-Murdering Divisions: Together with an Exhortation to an England Preserving Unity and Concord. Presented in a Sermon Preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords in the Abby Church at Westminster; at the Solemne Fast, December 25. 1644. London. Printed by I.[ohn] L.[udgate] for Christopher Meredith, at the sign of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard. 1645. 41pp.
Very nicely preserved complete English Civil War sermon from the Cromwellian era. Complete as issued, removed from a larger sammelband at some point with minor related flotsam to spine. The blank obverse of the imprimatur sheet has remains of a small label. Textually crisp and clean with trimming impinging slightly into headers as shown. Rare on the market.