The dedicatory epistle, addressed to Vaughan, is at ff. 2r-3v. On f. 2r, the following is written: ‘To the Right Honourable and truly Noble Richard Lord Vaughan Earl of Carbery Lord President of Wales and one of his Maiestys most Honourable Priuy Counsell.’ As the epistle makes clear, Vaughan was, like Charles II, present when the original sermon was delivered.
The full title of this presentation manuscript reads as follows: ‘A Sermon Preacht Before his Maiesty By Tho: Cartwright D. D. one of his Maiesties Chaplains in Ordinary’ (f. 1r). The sermon begins as follows: ‘Soe transcendently good is the god whom wee serve, that he hath made it a very considerable part of our duty to bee happy: And to lett vs know that wee could not please him with any thing lesse than that by which wee might bee infinitely pleasd ourselues, there is not any one precept, soe often, soe earnestly, & soe seuerely prest, as that which is the most transporting and durable’ (see f. 4r-4v).
Lambeth Palace Library online catalogue; Hannah Yip.
Written in a very neat hand. There is some use of Latin and Greek. There are some marginal annotations, e.g. biblical citations on f. 12v. Although it is a presentation volume, there are some minor insertions and deletions (e.g. f. 8v; f. 15v; f. 25r). Cartwright himself has numbered the pages of the sermon proper; however, the present cataloguer has followed the pencilled-in foliation. It is conjectured that this sermon was composed in 1672, as Cartwright was not a royal chaplain until 1672. See Lambeth Palace Library online catalogue. This sermon is cited in Matthew Jenkinson, Culture and Politics at the Court of Charles II, 1660-1685 (Woodbridge, 2010).