ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the sermons of Edwin Sandy's both in the light of the religious controversies of the Elizabethan period and shows that Sandys was very politically aware in the way that he framed his sermons. The way to salvation was at the heart of the concerns of the religious reformers of the sixteenth century, and through this the nature of sin also came under greater scrutiny. Reformers asserted that the medieval Catholic Church had fallen too far away from the true and primitive Church. To maintain order, Parliament was to provide good advice to the monarch, but religious order fell to the ministers of the Church. Sandys' frustration with the failure of many, particularly gentlemen, to see that godly religion was true religion was evident throughout his ecclesiastical career. The role of the magistrate in defending religion was a popular theme in early modern sermons advocated by other contemporary preachers.
