9 - Preachers, Puritans and the Religion of Lawyers

Summary

‘The Clerical Establishment’ of the inns of court ranged from lowly chaplains who conducted daily services to well-paid pulpit orators appointed as ‘lecturers’ or preachers to deliver regular sermons in the Temple Church and chapels of Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn. The advent of the preacherships and the prominent presbyteriansamong those divineswho first held these positions has been regarded as signalling the strength of puritan zeal at the inns. But ‘The Elizabethan Experiment’ argues that both were actively encouraged by government as an anti-Catholic measure, rather than simply reflecting the benchers’ own religious preferences.

‘Moderates and Radicals’ shows that while most inns’ preachers from 1600 to 1640 were radical protestants, such zealots did not monopolise their pulpits. ‘The Puritan Lay Presence’considers in more detail the religious attitudes of the inns’ lawyer members. While Lincoln’s Inn was the godly brethren’s stronghold, all four houses served as recruiting grounds and points of contact for those committed to further reformation of church and commonwealth. But if a combination of ideological and material forces tended to attract common lawyers to the godly camp, there were always lawyers anxious to support the established church and to reject its more extreme puritan critics.