In February 1588, the City's Recorder was ordered by the Aldermen to write to "Master Doctor Bisse, Master Doctor Powell, and Master Andrewes of Cambridge" to "intreate them from this Cyttye to take paynes to preach at St Marye Spyttle on the Mundaye Tewesday and Wednesdaye in the Easter week"(Corporation of London Record Office, Rep. 21 p. 527).
This sermon is written in a fair secretary hand, with italic script used for most patristic and biblical quotations. There are no marginal annotations. The scribal corrections are incidental copying errors as opposed to substantive emendations to the text.
Peter McCullough, ed., Lancelot Andrewes: Selected Sermons and Lectures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 304-305 and pp. 462-464; Hannah Yip
Preacher uncertain. Although the preacher is referred to only as "Mr Doctor Powell" in the MS, it is conjectured by Peter McCullough that the preacher of this sermon is either Dr. William Powell, formerly rector of All Hallows Bread Street, and then archdeacon of Bath; or Dr. David Powell, canon of St Asaph. McCullough also suggests that the texts derive from transcripts of sermons. See McCullough, 2005, pp. 304, 462, 464.
For further information on the ways in which Lancelot Andrewes engaged directly with Powell's sermon, preached the day before his own, see McCullough, 2005, pp. 305-306.