SERMON VIII LEGISLATIVE DUTIES.* I TIM. II. I, 2. "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." You have just heard, my brethren, that ancient bidding prayer, which reminds us that the Parliament of England has been, once more, summoned to meet for a special session. It reminds us also that, by a privilege 300 years old, this Church is known as the Church of the House of Commons. Here, in former days, the members A Sermon preached at St. Margaret's, Westminster, at the opening of Parliament, 1879. 2 In 1734 Parliament granted 3,500l. to the Church because it was "as it were a National Church for the use of the House of Commons." of the House met, year after year, on Ash Wednesday,' to hear the exhortations of the greatest divines of the English Church. This parish of St. Margaret's was then the parish of the rich; the church was the church of royalty,' and every Sunday the Members of Parliament worshipped here in hundreds. All these conditions are changed. Streets are now abandoned, which were then full of wealthy and noble residents, and the parish is almost exclusively a parish of the poor. But the church has its memories. We are met within the same walls which were thronged by the Commons of England during the stormiest epochs of their career.2 Pym, Volumes of these "Fast Day Sermons" are still extant, as Mr. Carlyle says, in rows of "dumpy quartos." Among those who thus preached before the House of Commons at St. Margaret's are Latimer, Usher, Tenison, Tillotson, Gauden, Sherlock, Stillingfleet, Porteus, Baxter, Spratt, Burnet, Atterbury, Horne, Dr. Young, &c. 2 The royal pews are seen in old pictures of the church. In St. Margaret's Church, on September 25th, 1642, both Houses of Parliament swore to the Solemn League and Covenant with the Assembly of Divines and the Scottish Commissioners. On May 31, 1642, the news of Waller's plot was and Hampden, and Vane, and Eliot, and Marvell, and Harrington have here knelt in prayer no less than Strafford, and Falkland, and Prince Rupert; and the altar and the font are associated with the memories alike of Milton, the secretary of Cromwell, and Clarendon, the historian of Charles, and Sir William Waller, the Parliamentary general. 2 But apart from all these constitutional associations, the mere fact that whispered to Pym as he was worshipping in this church on a fast day. I The following are one or two of the remarkable entries in the Churchwardens' Accounts of the 17th century : 1627. Paid for bread and wine, when the Rt. Hon. the Commons House of Parliament, being 468 persons, received the Communion in the Parish Church, 1626, 57. 7s. 1628. Paid to the ringers, when His Majesty granted the Petition of Right, 5s. 1648. Laid out in expenses, when we by order sent forth scouts to bring intelligence of the armies' approach toward the Citie, 12s. 6d. 1677. To the ringers, on the day when the Prince of Orange was contracted to the Lady Mary, 10s. 2 The following are a few out of many interesting entries in the Parish Register : 1627. Henry Hide, now Earle of Clarendon, son to Edward, Lord Chancellor and Earle of Clarendon, bapti ed. |