1562 Elizabethan Exhortations

Printed: London

Small Folio

The Books of Homilies (1547, 1562, and 1571) are two books together containing thirty-three sermons developing the authorized reformed doctrines of the Church of England in depth and detail, as appointed for use in the 35th Article of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. The longer title of the collection is Certain Sermons or Homilies Appointed to Be Read in Churches. They belong to the basic formularies of the Church of England.

Following the secession of the Church of England from the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome in 1530, and the designation of the monarch, Henry VIII of England, as the chief power in both the civil and ecclesiastical estates of the realm, it was needed for the establishment of the English Reformation that the reformed Christian doctrines, theology, piety, and practice should be explained and taught as widely as possible among all congregations throughout the realm.