Sermons

‘When I should have preached under the Crosse’, declared the London lecturer Henry Smith from the outdoor pulpit at St Paul’s in 1587 or 1588, ‘I mused what text to take in hand to please all, & to keep myself out of danger’. Smith chose Ecclesiastes 11.9, ‘Rejoice O young man in thy youth … But remember for all these things thou must come to Judgement’, an apt enough text for a rowdy urban congregation. ¹ In choosing and declaring his text, however, Smith took altogether the wrong tone. Within the year, John Aylmer, Bishop of London, hammer of Puritans and the overseer of the Paul’s Cross pulpit, had banned Smith from any pulpit, citing persistent rumors of his non-conformity and, more to the point, the fact that Smith was not licensed to preach, at least not in London.