Sacheverell's audience included thirty clergymen and a large number of Jacobites and Nonjurors. Prior to the sermon, prayers and hymns were delivered. A witness saw Sacheverell, sitting with the clergy, working himself up into an angry mood, describing "the fiery red that overspread his face...and the goggling wildness of his eyes...he came into the pulpit like a Sybil to the mouth of her cave". The title of his sermon, "The Perils of False Brethren, in Church, and State", derived from 2 Corinthians 11:26.