[2] Skarga is remembered by Poles as a vigorous early advocate of reforms to the Polish–Lithuanian polity, and as a critic of the Commonwealth's governing classes, as well as of its religious tolerance policies.

His other important work was the Sejm Sermons (Kazania Sejmowe, 1597), a political treatise, which became popular in the second half of the 19th century, when he was seen as the "patriotic seer" who predicted the partitions of Poland.

[13] In 1571 he returned to Poland,[14] and preached successively at Pułtusk, Lwów, Jarosław, Warsaw (where he delivered a sermon before the Sejm) and Płock, where he visited the court of Queen Anna Jagiellon, who would become one of his patrons.

[15] A leading proponent of Counter-Reformation, Skarga commonly preached against non-Catholic denominations and helped secure funds and privileges for the Society of Jesus.

[20] In 1576 he published Pro Sacratissima Eucharistia contra haeresim Zwinglianam, ad Andream Volanum (For the Most Sacred Eucharist, against the Zwinglian Heresy, to Andrzej Wolan).

[21] In 1582 he published Artes duodecim Sacramentariorum, sive Zwinglio-calvinistarum (The Seven Pillars on Which Stands Catholic Doctrine on the Most Sacred Sacrament of the Altar).

[24] In 1588 the newly elected King Sigismund III Vasa established the new post of court preacher, and Skarga became the first priest to hold it.

[28] His influence on King Sigismund, whom he supported (or encouraged) in opposing religious tolerance and seeking to strengthen royal power, was a factor that has been cited as a cause of the civil war—the (ultimately unsuccessful) Zebrzydowski Rebellion of 1606—in which the royal faction confronted a popular movement among the nobility, led by the Zebrzydowski family, who sought to depose Sigismund.

[31] In addition to being a popular and well-known preacher, Skarga was the author of numerous theological texts and polemics, and it is as a writer that his fame has endured.

[33] Tazbir describes the Lives as Skarga's chief work and as a major attack on the religious tolerance promoted by the Warsaw Confederation.

[37] In the Sermons, Skarga discusses what he sees as the problems of the ailing Commonwealth: lack of patriotism, internal quarrels, tolerance of heretics, the king's relative powerlessness, perverse laws (a critique of the nobility's Golden Freedoms[nb 2]), and immorality.

[41][42] His popularity as the "patriotic seer" who predicted the Partitions reached a zenith in the second half of the 19th century, when some historians, such as Ignacy Chrzanowski, went so far as to speak of "the cult of Skarga.

[49] The decision caused considerable controversy: a Calvinist polemicist Kazimierz Bem called it in the newspaper Rzeczpospolita "an example of deep disdain Poland holds for any of its minorities."