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This sermon is taken from Volume 32 of SWRB's 34 volume set entitled, Puritan (Westminster, Covenanter) Fast Sermons (1640-1653).
Trevor-Roper in The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, Chapter 6, "The Fast Sermons of the Long Parliament," gives us some useful context to this sermon preached by Thomas Watson (emphases added),
But in the afternoon a different, discordant voice was heard. Thomas Watson, pastor of St. Stephens, Walbrook, was a "Presbyterian" who had been proposed by the "Presbyterian" London merchant John Rolle. But the revolution which had occurred since he had been nominated, and which had probably excluded his sponsor from the House, did not deter him. To a congregation of furious or frightened men, hurrying or hurried blindly forward, he preached one of the boldest sermons that was ever uttered to the Long Parliament. It was a sermon against hypocrisy, and the preacher sketched, in apposite detail, the character of the hypocrite. The hypocrite, he said, is "zealous in lesser things and remiss in greater . . . zealous against a ceremony, a relic or painted glass . . . but in the meantime lives in known sin, lying, defaming, extortion, etc." He is zealous against popery, but makes no conscience of sacrilege, starving out the ministry, "robbing God of his tithes." Then he drew nearer and struck deeper. The hypocrite, he declared, "makes religion a mask to cover his sin." So "Jezebel, that she may colour over her murder, proclaims a fast." Already the congregation of parliamentary saints must have begun to tremble for what would come next. And well they might, for it came hot and strong, even personal. "Many," said the preacher (and there could be no doubt of whom he was thinking), "make religion a cloak for their ambition. Come see my zeal, saith Jehu, for the Lord. No Jehu, thy zeal was for the kingdom. Jehu made religion hold the stirrup till he got into the saddle and possessed the Crown. This is a most exasperating sin."
Predictably, the Rump did not thank Watson, or invite him to print his sermon. Even the Levellers, who would soon echo his sentiments about Cromwell's "hypocrisy," rejected such an ally. "This Presbyterian proud flesh," they said, "must down with monarchy, one being equal in tyranny with the other." But Watson ignored the implied veto. He published his sermon himself. He had no difficulty in finding a printer. The sermon came out under the same imprimatur as the Serious and Faithful Representation, the protest of the London clergy against the trial of the king and against the charge that they, by their opposition, had ever intended the destruction of the monarchy (Watson's sermon was published as God's Anatomy upon Man's Heart).
Concerning the complete 34 volume set of Puritan Fast Sermons (1640-1653), republished by SWRB, Dr. Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson write, "This is a collection of sermons preached to England's Parliament during the glory days of the Puritan preaching on days of public humiliation... These sermons richly combine prayer and thanksgiving on England's behalf. They encourage and admonish Parliament to govern in the fear of God. The volumes include sermons of preachers who were frequently invited to Parliament, including William Ames, Samuel Bolton, William Bridge, Thomas Brooks, Anthony Burgess, Jeremiah Burroughs, Joseph Caryl, Thomas Goodwin, William Greenhill, Christopher Love, Thomas Manton, Stephen Marshall, Philip Nye, John Owen, Obadiah Sedgwick, and Ralph Venning (and many others - RB)" (from pages 632-633 of the important and useful book by Beeke and Pederson on Puritanism and Puritan books, entitled, Meet the Puritans: With a Guide To Modern Reprints).
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