Hugh Latimer
James Joseph Ellis
Table of Contents
Preface
STOUT Hugh Latimer is the most attractive as well as the most conspicuous of the English Reformers. He was not comely in face, nor did he possess the learning of some of his colleagues; he very seldom indulged in profound doctrinal harangues as they did, but nevertheless he secured the affection of his hearers in a manner, and to an extent, which they did not. His transparency, honesty, blunt wit, courage, and sincerity were all qualities which men could appreciate in this workaday world, and they are also all of them such wealth as is current even nowadays. Men who did not care much about the opinions of the Fathers trembled under Latimer's terrible exposure of their especial sins and infirmities. Those who had no relish for doctrinal controversy were interested in his biographical anecdotes and pathetic narratives, and by them they learned the importance of the doctrines that he preached. His knotty nature invited confidence, and repaid it. He was such a man as men love to cling to in their moments of weakness or of suffering. One can read, even now, in the rugged lines of his face the hardy character of the man, and yet with a Samson's strength a nervous tenderness was blended. A man he was terrible in attack like one of the prophets of God, but withal gentle to the penitent, and a son of consolation to all who were in need of his sympathy. His words are still fragrant and forceful to-day, and it is not difficult to understand that as spoken by Latimer they must have been an irresistible force in the national life and reformation. His mission was largely to the unthankful, and it ended in martyrdom, but his life and death both give the same counsel to us to-day—"BE STRONG AND PLAY THE MAN!”
HARRINGAY PARK, LONDON, N.
Hugh Latimer
CHAPTER 1
SPRUNG FROM THE RANKS; OR, A SON OF THE SOIL
"He was an English yeoman good,
And born in Leicestershire.”
—SCOTT (altered).
“By yeomen's sons the faith of Christ is, and hath been maintained chiefly. Is this realm taught by rich men's sons? No, no."
LATIMER TO KING EDWARD VI
A.D. 1485-1524.
“THE INTERPRETER"— SICKLY, YET STRONG— HONORS— BEARING THE CROSS— A REFORMER WITHOUT MEANING IT— WHAT A BOOK DID— GIVEN UP TO PUERILITIES.
“My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of three or four pounds by year at the uttermost; and hereupon he tilled as much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty trine. He was able, and did bring the King a harness, with himself, and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the King's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness, when he went unto Blackheath Field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the King's Majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds or twenty nobles apiece; so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbors, and some alms he gave to the poor." This extract, which is taken from a sermon that was preached by Latimer before King Edward the Sixth in the year 1549, is the only information that we possess as to the early life of the great Reformer.
The family name, Latimer, has been supposed to signify "interpreter;" and if so, certainly it was fitly conferred upon the sturdy yeoman who more than anyone else embodied the spirit of the new faith. It has been thought that Latimer was descended from an opulent family who once ruled in Leicestershire; be that as it may, his work and worth are Latimer's true patent of nobility. He was born at Thurcastone, a tiny village of remote antiquity which nestles at the foot of the Charnwood Hills, a few miles from Leicester. The exact year of his birth is somewhat uncertain, but the best authorities assign 1491 or 1492 as the probable date.
Richard Crookback was then ruling in England, and the long struggle between the rival dynasties of York and Lancaster, which is known as the Wars of the Roses, was about to be terminated by the accession and marriage of the avaricious King Henry the Seventh. England settled down peacefully under the new rule, except when, in the year 1497, the Cornish rebels rose; only, however, to be defeated after a brief struggle. Far away from the stirring life of towns, the boy with his brothers and sisters grew up in Thurcastone. At least six daughters and probably several sons gladdened the farmer's home, but the youngest boy, Hugh, although sickly himself at the time of his birth, survived his brothers. At that time England was largely a nation of yeomen; the people were then thinly scattered over the land, and not, as now, chiefly collected in large towns. We can imagine the boy rambling over his father's fields and enjoying the charming scenes of the country. Education was then confined to the few, but it would appear that, with a keen insight into his son's great talents, the honest yeoman did his utmost to secure for young Hugh the best education which lay within reach. Old Foxe says of Latimer: "Even at the age of four, or thereabout, he had such a ready, prompt, and sharp wit, that his parents purposed to train him up in erudition and knowledge of good literature." And of his training in archery, which was then compulsory by law, Latimer himself tells us: "My poor father was as diligent to teach me to shoot as to learn me any other thing; and so I think other men did their children. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of arms as other nations do, but with strength of the body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger: for men shall never shoot well except they be brought up in it; it is a goodly art, a wholesome kind of exercise, and much commended in physic.”
During this quiet time of preparation for future service, while the sickly boy was growing into a sturdy man, America was discovered, and Europe, after centuries of torpor, awoke to a new sense of life and of responsibility. The revival of learning preceded and prepared for the Reformation which was to commence the period of commercial prosperity which has since followed, but as yet England was untouched by either movement.
One thing, however, was clear to the stout yeoman, and that was, that his boy Hugh would not be able to take his place in the homestead. The boy was not robust enough for a farmer, and his tastes were strongly for the acquisition of knowledge; and so, without realizing in the least degree what an important decision it was for the world, he was sent to Cambridge. Of his graduate life we have but little trace, but it was probably similar to that which is recorded of other Reformers.
So the days went by, and in February 1510 Hugh Latimer was elected to a fellowship in Clare Hall, of which college he had probably been a student. This honor relieved his father of all anxiety about Hugh's maintenance, for it involved an allowance which, at the present rate of money, amounted to nearly ₤60, per year. The villagers at Thurcastone had murmured at the folly of Hugh's father, who had not only dispensed with the services of his son upon the farm, but had further incurred the extravagant expenditure which his education had cost. Three years after this success, which must have gratified his father not a little, Latimer obtained his M.A. degree. In the year 1522 Hugh Latimer was further noticed by his University, for he was then licensed as one of twelve preachers who were permitted to officiate in any part of England without requiring to solicit Episcopal sanction. A further testimony to the high esteem in which he was held is to be seen in the fact that in the same year Hugh Latimer "for his gravity and years was preferred to keep the cross;" that is, he carried the silver cross of the University in the frequent processions a task which, says Strype, "was then reserved for such an one as in sanctimony of life excelled all other.”
With all his heart Latimer embraced the creed that he had been taught, and having now reached the age of forty years, it seemed to be probable that he would die as he had lived. But Erasmus had visited Cambridge, and the new learning, as it was called, was beginning to displace the follies of the Schoolmen. Men grew tired of discussing such follies as the inquiries upon which time and strength had been wasted, and they longed for the Gospel. "Erasmus, like Caiaphas, prophesied without knowing it," says D'Aubigne; and what was more, Erasmus put forth a good edition of the Greek New Testament without intending what it accomplished. From whatever motives he undertook this task, whether from dislike to the priests or from mere love of letters, after two years of careful study, Erasmus issued the first reliable version of the Greek Testament. This was in 1516, and the advent of the book was hailed by the learned generally with delight. Latimer's college, however, obtained an evil notoriety by prohibiting the pestilential book within its halls, but in spite of them the Greek New Testament was read, and with saving effect.
A student at Cambridge, Thomas Bilney by name, had been long seeking for peace and comfort in the vain puerilities of Popery—of course without finding any solid comfort or satisfaction, until one day Bilney heard of this new book which Erasmus put forth.
“At the first reading," says Bilney, "as I well remember, I chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul: ' It is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be embraced, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am the chief and principal.' This one sentence, through God's instruction and inward working, which I did not then perceive, did so exhilarate my heart, being before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and almost in despair, that immediately I felt a marvelous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leaped for joy. Jesus saves; yes, Jesus Christ saves! I see it all. My vigils, my fasts, my pilgrimages, my purchase of masses and indulgences were destroying instead of saving me. All these efforts were, as St. Augustine says, a hasty running out of the right way.'”
In the nature of things it was quite impossible for Bilney to keep this new experience of his a secret. His very countenance betrayed the profound joy which he felt, and he was compelled to speak of it to his friends. But cautiously and by stealth at first, yet still with no small success, so that he became the center of a little knot of disciples, who, like him, learned to love the Scriptures. Among these there was one George Stafford by name, who, when he lectured upon Divinity at Cambridge, ventured upon the daring innovation, as it was considered at the time, of expounding the Holy Scriptures themselves, instead of reading from the so-called Fathers. The change shocked Latimer, who was "the most obstinate Papist in England” at that time, and he was so vehement in his opposition that he publicly opposed the new teachers, and warned the students as to the peril of the new discoveries. He was naturally lively and of a playful disposition, and it is related that one day he was dining with some of his fellow-collegians, when one of the guests exclaimed, "Nil melius quam lœtari et facere bene!"—"There is nothing better than to be merry and to do well!" "A vengeance on that bend!" replied a monk. "I wish it were beyond the sea; it mars all the rest." This exclamation extremely surprised Latimer at the time. "I understand it now," he exclaimed afterward; "that will be a heavy bene to these monks when they have to render God an account of their lives. I remember," he adds, "how scrupulous I was in my time of blindness and ignorance; when I should say mass, I have put water into the wine twice or thrice for fear of failing; insomuch when I have been at my memento, I have had a grudge in my conscience that I had not put in water enough." He also relates the following incident of this period, which is worth transcribing: "I was once called," he says, " to one of my kinsfolk (it was at that time when I had taken degree in Cambridge, and was made Master of Arts); I was called, I say, to one of my kinsfolk which was very sick, and died immediately after my coming. Now there was an old cousin of mine, which after the man was dead gave me a wax candle in my hand, and commanded me to make certain crosses over him, that was dead; for she thought the devil should run away by-and-by. Now I took the candle, but I could not cross him as she would have me to do; for I had never seen it afore. Now she perceiving that I could not, with a great anger took the candle out of my hand saying, It is pity that thy father spendeth so much money upon thee.' And so she took the candle and crossed and blessed him so that he was sure enough.”
“In him, as in many others," says D'Aubigne," attachment to puerile ordinances occupied in his heart the place of faith in the great truths.”
Yet, superstitious as he was, and hating the Bible with all the intensity of a strong nature, Latimer was now slowly preparing for the great change which was not only to open all the windows of his soul to God, but which in doing so was to make him one of the most memorable figures in English history.
Chapter 2
LEARNING WHILE TEACHING; OR, SEEING HIMSELF IN ANOTHER'S FACE
"To thee it was given
Many to save with thyself,
And at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.”
—MATTHEW ARNOLD.
“The way a man talks about his soul is more than what he says very often. It's like feelin' the pulse, and tells more than lookin' into his face." —DANIEL QUORM
“I find in the daily practice and experience of my soul that the knowledge of God and Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and the truth of the Scripture, and the life to come, is more to me than the most curious speculations." —BAXTER
A.D. 1524-1526.
TRAINED IN EGYPT THAT HE MIGHT DELIVER ISRAEL— MEN FULFILLING GOD'S DESIGN WHILE PLEASING THEMSELVES WON— STRANGELY LISTENING— WITH THE LEFT EAR PREACHING BY KINDNESS SMELLING THE WORD OF GOD— PROTECTED BY AN ENEMY.
THUS was Latimer diligently trained in the old learning in order that he might become a more zealous champion of the truth. The gracious Providence which now destined the promulgation of the doctrines of the Gospel was meanwhile preparing for Latimer a place for service. Wolsey, who now ruled both England and its King, was a patron of learning, and was also shrewd enough to perceive the urgent necessity that there was for a Reformation. From motives of worldly prudence, he aimed at the correction of abuses when he should have attained the Popedom, which was the daring goal of his proud ambition. Charles the Fifth promised his assistance, but, with his usual faithlessness, he contrived to secure the ruin of the man whom he professed to serve. Had the two men but pursued their common aims together, the Reformation, humanly speaking, would have been greatly delayed, if not rendered impossible, at least as a spiritual movement.
The same watchful Providence which led Charles the Fifth to quarrel with the one statesman who had hopes and aims similar to his own induced Wolsey to shelter the Bible-readers who were becoming numerous in Cambridge. The great Cardinal stopped the Bishops and Parliament in their persecuting career, and during the interval of quiet which was thus secured Latimer was converted. This momentous and unexpected change fell out thus. Upon the occasion of his taking his degree of Bachelor of Divinity at Michaelmas 1524, Latimer delivered a violent oration against Philip Melancthon. This discourse greatly delighted the Catholic party, who looked upon the preacher as a champion who would eventually destroy the new heresy.
“But," says the old chronicler, "such was the goodness and merciful purpose of God, that when Latimer thought by that his oration to have utterly defaced the professors of the Gospel and true Church of Christ, he was himself, by a member of the same, prettily, yet godly, caught in the blessed net of God's Word. For Master Thomas Bilney, seeing Master Latimer to have a zeal in his ways, although without knowledge, was stricken with a brotherly pity, and bethought by what means he might best win this his zealous yet ignorant brother to the true knowledge of Christ.”
Says Latimer of this Bilney: "Pretending as though he would be taught by me, he sought ways and means to teach me. He came to me in my study, and desired me for God's sake to hear his confession. I did so, and to say the truth, by his confession I learned more than before in many years. So from that time forward I began to smell the Word of God, and forsook the School Doctors and such fooleries.”
Bilney related with touching simplicity and pathos the anguish which he had himself endured for so long, and how at last he had found peace through the blood of Christ. Latimer was deeply touched, and he wept freely as he heard his own experience partially portrayed. Like Bilney, he had long sought for rest, but had not found what he craved for, and convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit, he shed bitter tears. "Brother," said Bilney, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." Latimer took comfort from his friend's words, and he immediately avowed his changed opinions. He waited upon Stafford, and craved his pardon for the many insults which he had heaped upon the Bible-teacher; and he now associated especially with Bilney, in whose company he was daily. One favorite walk of the two friends was long nicknamed the Heretic's Hill, in memory of their friendship.
“After this his winning to Christ," says Foxe, "he was not satisfied with his own conversion only; but, like a true disciple of the blessed Samaritan, pitied the misery of others, and therefore he became both a public preacher, and also a private instructor to the rest of his brethren within the University by the space of two years, spending his time partly in the Latin tongue amongst the learned, and partly amongst the simple people in his natural and vulgar language.”
Bilney's reputation as a preacher was now very high in Cambridge, and although, to use his own expression, "many listened with the left ear, having like Malchus the right ear cut off" (that is, hearing maliciously), most hung upon his words with delight. Latimer at last had begun to exhibit the powers which were afterward to be of such conspicuous service to the Reformation. "He was one of the first," says Strype, "who in the days of King Henry the Eighth set himself to preach the Gospel in the truth and simplicity of it." Nor were they content with preaching alone, for, as in subsequent Reformations, works of practical philanthropy attested the purity of their faith. The Bible-readers visited the jails and preached to the prisoners, and some of the captives were converted. They also visited the lepers and nursed the poor sufferers from that dreadful disease. This continued for nearly a year, and although their enemies complained bitterly of the new faith, the Cardinal's authority prevented any persecution of the truth. As yet neither Bilney, Latimer, nor Stafford had renounced all the errors of Popery; nor were they at all desirous of separating themselves from the Church of Rome. But they read their Bibles, and, to quote Latimer's phrase, "having began to smell the Word of God," their surrendering of the follies of Popery was only a question of time.
But now another step was to be made in advance, and once more Wolsey was to serve the purpose of God while seeking alone to accomplish his own selfish ends. The Cardinal had erected a magnificent college in Oxford, which he was desirous of supplying with eminent scholars. The institution, he hoped, would perpetuate his own name. Accordingly the Cardinal's agents visited Cambridge, and succeeded in inducing a band of scholars to accompany them to Oxford. Among them there were several of the most eminent of Bilney's disciples, and they disseminated their opinions in Oxford with unwearying assiduity. Thus, in Oxford the Word of God was preached with such success, that when an inquiry was held, three years afterward, into the matter, it was found that the University was largely infected with the new opinions. "Would God my Lord's Grace the Cardinal had never been motioned to call Clarke or any other Cambridge man into his most towardly college," lamented Dr. Loudon, one of the heads of houses. "We were clear without blot or suspicion until they came, and some of them long time hath had a shrewd name." An adage long lingered in Cambridge which commemorates these happy times thus:—
"When Master Stafford read,
And Master Latimer preached,
Then was Cambridge blessed.”
Among Latimer's hearers there was a youth of sixteen years of age. Thomas Becon— for that was his name— afterward became chaplain to Cranmer, the Reformer. "If I possess the knowledge of God," he said, "I owe it (under God) to Latimer." Referring to Latimer and his sermons at this period, Becon says: "Oh! how vehement was he in rebuking all sins, idolatry, false and idle swearing, covetousness! How was he wont to rebuke the beneficed men for neglecting and not teaching their flock, and for being absent from their cures! How free was his speech against buying and selling of benefices, against promoting unlearned, ignorant men to livings; against Popish pardons, and reposing our hope in our own works or other men's merits! None except the stiff-necked and uncircumcised ever went away from his preaching without being affected with high detestation against sin, and moved to all godliness and virtue.”
As with every other useful enterprise, this effort met with bitter opposition and dislike: "Swarms of friars and doctors flocked against Master Latimer on every side. Openly in their unsavory sermons, they resisted his godly purpose.”
At length West, Bishop of Ely, resolved to interfere with Latimer, and "without any intelligence to be given to Latimer, he came secretly and suddenly from Ely and entered into the University church, Latimer being then well entered into his sermon." The preacher was, however, not to be so caught; he calmly paused until the gorgeous retinue were seated, and then he remarked, "A new auditory, and one of such honorable rank, requireth a new theme." He, therefore, with an eye to West and the ecclesiastical dignitaries who accompanied him, began a discourse upon the words of St. Paul, "But Christ being come a High Priest of things to come" (Heb. 9:11). After an exposition of the context in which these words stand, Latimer began to speak of our Lord "as the true and perfect pattern unto all other bishops." Latimer did not spare his caustic wit, and the auditory must have writhed under the faithful words of the preacher. West, however, was both a politician and a courtier, and he thanked the preacher for his excellent sermon with assumed politeness. He professed himself to be delighted with Latimer's exposition of the pastoral office. "Indeed," he said, "if you will do one thing at my request, I will kneel down and kiss your feet for the good admonition that I have received of your sermon.”
“What is your Lordship's pleasure that I should do for you?" quoth Mr. Latimer.
“Marry, that you will preach me in this place one sermon against Martin Luther and his doctrine.”
Latimer quite understood the prelate's meaning, and he replied calmly, "My Lord, I am not acquainted with the doctrine of Luther, nor are we permitted here to read his works. Sure I am that I have preached before you this day no man's doctrine, but only the doctrine of God out of the Scriptures. If Luther do none otherwise than I have done, there need eth no confutation of his doctrine!”
“Well, well, Master Latimer," exclaimed the prelate, forgetting his assumed courtesy in his annoyance at being outwitted, "I perceive that you smell somewhat of the pan. One day or other you will repent of that merchandise.”
The Bishop railed publicly against Latimer, and forbade him to preach anywhere within his diocese.
The imprudence, also, of one of the Reformers contributed not a little to aid the designs of this enemy Robert Barnes, who was also a native of Norwich was at that period at the head of the Augustinian Convent at Cambridge. Impulsive and unstable, Barnes was much attached to Latimer, and without having previously looked all round the question, he determined to strike a blow on behalf of his friend. Barnes accordingly declaimed from the pulpit against the pride and luxury of the bishops, whom he declared to be followers of Judas. Especially did he comment upon the magnificence of Cardinal Wolsey, who, whatever other faults he may have had, had not previously been a persecutor. This unwise attack provoked Wolsey, and the preacher was at once arrested. A diligent search was at the same time made for the many heretical books which were now known to be in the University. The Reformers, however, had been warned of the intended visit in time, and they had removed the obnoxious volumes. "God be praised the books were not to be found.”
Barnes himself was induced to recant, and was publicly exhibited bearing a fagot upon his shoulder. Thus it was evident that not by means of wrath and anger was the Gospel to win its way, but by methods which were far more in accordance with its spirit. Barnes had not only disgraced himself by his imprudence and weakness, but he had involved his friends in his own ruin. Latimer was therefore exposed to the bitter hostility of West, who seized the opportunity of accusing him to the Cardinal. That dignitary sent for him.
“Latimer was called before Wolsey into his inner chamber by the sound of a little bell, which the Cardinal used to ring when any person should come or approach unto him," says an eye-witness.
“When Mr. Latimer was before him, he well advised him, and said, ‘Is your name Latimer?’
“Yea, forsooth! ' quoth Latimer.
“You seem,' quoth the Cardinal, that you are of good years, and no babe, but one that should wisely and soberly use yourself in all your doings. And yet it is reported to me of you that you are much infected with this new fantastical doctrine of Luther and such-like heretics, and that you do very much harm among the youth and other light-heads with your doctrine.'
“Said Mr. Latimer again: Your Grace is misinformed, for I ought to have some more knowledge than to be so simply reported of, by reason that I have studied in my time both the ancient doctors of the Church and the School doctors.'
Upon which the Cardinal bade two of his chaplains 'examine Latimer as to proficiency in the theological learning of the time. Latimer proved himself more deeply read than his examiners, and the Cardinal observed—
“What mean ye to bring such a man before me into accusation? I had thought that he had been some light-headed fellow, that never studied such kinds of doctrine as the School doctors' are. I pray thee, Latimer, tell me the cause why the Bishop of Ely and others do dislike thy preachings; tell me the truth, and I will bear with thee upon amendment.'”
Thus adjured, Latimer recounted the incident concerning the sermon which has already been referred to in this chapter. At the Cardinal's request he repeated as much of his sermon as he could remember. Says the narrator: "The Cardinal, nothing at all disliking the doctrine of the Word of God that Latimer had preached, said unto him, Did you not preach any other doctrine than you have rehearsed?'
“No, surely,' said Latimer.
“And examining thoroughly with the doctors what else could be objected against him, the Cardinal said unto Mr. Latimer, ' If the Bishop of Ely cannot abide such doctrine as you have here repeated, you shall have my license, and shall preach it unto his beard, let him say what he will.'”
The next day Latimer read aloud the Cardinal's license from his pulpit, and thus, without knowing exactly what he was doing, Wolsey once more assisted the Reformation. He meant it not, but a higher Will than his own controlled his life, and the proud Cardinal was compelled to help on the progress of the doctrine that he hated. In nothing, indeed, is the amazing success of the Gospel so apparent as in the manner in which adverse wills and events are compelled to serve its interests. Not only is the Church a salamander that lives in spite of the flame into which the hands of its enemies have hurled it, but it thrives even on account of the element which it seems must destroy it. And the same thing is also true of individual lives.
Chapter 3
A COMPANION OF WISE MEN; OR, TAKING SIDES.
"Life, I repeat, is energy of love,
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife and tribulation, and ordained,
If so approved and sanctified; to pass
Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy."
—WORDSWORTH.
“What would become of mankind if the arena where must be fought out the great battle of right against wrong should be deserted by the champions of the good cause with—disguise it as we may the selfish motive of rendering easier to their souls the struggle which all earnest men must wage to the end against their own infirmities?" —LIFE OF SIR WM. NAPIER.
LEAVING PRICKS AND STINGS IN THE HEART "SERMONS ON THE CARD" —A FOX IN A MONK'S DRESS— THE QUESTION OF THE DIVINE— BEFORE THE KING REMONSTRATING WITH A CRUEL TYRANT— RETIRING INTO OBSCURITY.
UNDER the protection of Wolsey, Latimer could preach in perfect safety, and he used to the utmost the liberty which was thus unexpectedly granted to him. Latimer was pre-eminently the popular preacher of the English Reformation, and as such he did more than any of his colleagues to make it a movement of the nation. "He spake nothing," says Thomas Brecon, "but it left, as it were, certain pricks and stings in the hearts of his hearers which moved them to consent to his doctrine." "I have an ear for other preachers," Sir John Cheke said, "but I have a heart for Latimer." For three years Latimer was permitted to preach without molestation, and with gracious results to the nation.
“It is enough for me," he said, when speaking of his own faith, "that Christ's sheep hear no man's voice but Christ's; and, for my part, I have a heart that is ready to hearken to any voice of Christ that you can bring me.”
On the 19th of December 1529 Latimer preached in St. Edward's Church his two famous sermons which are entitled "Sermons on the Card." These are almost too well known to require any lengthy extracts, but perhaps a few words may be devoted to them: —
"Whereas you are wont to celebrate Christmas in playing at cards, I intend, by God's grace, to deal unto you Christ's cards, wherein you shall perceive Christ's rule. The game that we will play at shall be called the triumph, which if it be well played at, he that dealeth shall win; the players shall likewise win; and the standers and lookers upon shall do the same; insomuch that there is no man that is willing to play at this triumph with these cards but they shall be all winners, and no losers.
“Let therefore every Christian man and woman play at these cards, that they may have and obtain the triumph: you must mark also that the triumph must apply to fetch home unto him all the other cards, whatsoever suit they be of. Now then, take ye this first card, which must appear and be showed unto you as followeth: you have heard what was spoken to men of the old law, Thou shalt not kill; whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment: but I say unto you' of the new law, saith Christ, that whosoever is angry with his neighbor shall be in danger of judgment; and whosoever shall say unto his neighbor, "Raca," that is to say, brainless,' or any other like word of rebuking, shall be in danger of council; and whosoever shall say unto his neighbor, "Fool," shall be in danger of hellfire.' This card was made and spoken by Christ, as appeareth in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew.
“Now, it must be noted, that whosoever shall play with this card must first, before they play with it, know the strength and virtue of the same: wherefore you must well note and mark terms, how they be spoken, and to what purpose. Let us therefore read it once or twice, that we may be the better acquainted with it.
“Now behold and see, this card is divided into four parts: the first part is one of the commandments that was given unto Moses in the old law, before the coming of Christ; which commandment we of the new law be bound to observe and keep, and it is one of our commandments. The other three parts spoken by Christ be nothing else but expositions unto the first part of this commandment: for in every effect all these four parts be but one commandment, that is to say, Thou shalt not kill.' Yet, nevertheless, the last three parts do show unto thee how many ways thou mayest kill thy neighbor contrary to this commandment: yet, for all Christ's exposition in the three last parts of this card, the terms be not open enough to thee that dost read and hear them spoken. No doubt the Jews understood Christ well enough, when He spake to them these three last sentences; for He spake unto them in their own natural terms and tongue. Wherefore, seeing that these terms were natural terms of the Jews, it shall be necessary to expound them, and compare them unto some like terms of our natural speech, that we in like manner may understand Christ as well as the Jews did. We will begin first with the first part of this card, and then after, with the other three parts. You must therefore understand that the Jews and the Pharisees of the old law, to whom this first part, this commandment, Thou shalt not kill,' was spoken, thought it sufficient and enough for their discharge, not to kill with any manner of material weapon, as sword, dagger, or with any such weapon; and they thought it no great fault whatsoever they said or did by their neighbors, so that they did not harm or meddle with their corporal bodies: which was a false opinion in them, as prove well the three last other sentences following the first part of this card.
“Now, as touching the three other sentences, you must note and take heed what difference is between these three manner of offenses: to be angry with your neighbor; to call your neighbor ' brainless,' or any such word of disdain; or to call your neighbor fool.' Whether these three manner of offenses be of themselves more grievous one than the other, it is to be opened unto you. Truly, as they be of themselves divers offenses, so they kill diversely, one more than the other; as you shall perceive by the first of these three, and so forth. A man which conceiveth against his neighbor or brother ire or wrath in his mind, by some manner of occasion given unto him, although he be angry in his mind against his said neighbor, he will peradventure express his ire by no manner of sign, either in word or deed: yet nevertheless he offendeth against God, and breaketh this commandment in killing his own soul; and is therefore in danger of judgment.'
“Now, to the second part of these three: That man that is moved with ire against his neighbor, and in his ire calleth his neighbor ' brainless,' or some other like word of displeasure; as a man might say in a fury, I shall handle thee well enough; ' which words and countenances do more represent and declare ire to be in this man than in him that was but angry, and spake no manner of word nor showed any countenance to declare his ire. Wherefore as he that so declareth his ire either by word or countenance offendeth more against God, so he both killeth his own soul, and doth that in him is to kill his neighbor's soul in moving him unto ire, wherein he is faulty himself; and so this man is in danger of council.'
“Now to the third offense, and last of these three: That man that calleth his neighbor `fool' doth more declare his angry mind toward him than he that called his neighbor but brainless,' or any such words moving ire: for to call a man fool,' that word representeth more envy in a man than brainless' doth. Wherefore he doth most offend, because he doth most earnestly with such words express his ire, and so he is in danger of hell-fire.'
“Wherefore you may understand now, these three parts of this card be three offenses, and that one is more grievous to God than the other, and that one killeth more the soul of man than the other....
“The great occasion of the loss of Rhodes is by reason that Christian men do so daily kill their own nation, that the very true number of Christianity is decayed; which murder and killing one of another is increased specially two ways, to the utter undoing of Christendom; that is to say, by example and silence. By example, as thus: when the father, the mother, the lord, the lady, the master, the dame, be themselves overcome with these Turks, they be continual swearers, disposers to malice, never in patience, and so forth in all other vices: think you not, when the father, the mother, the master, the dame, be disposed unto vice or impatience, but that their children and servants shall incline and be disposed to the same? No doubt, as the child shall take disposition natural of the father and mother, so shall the servants apply unto the vices of their masters and dames: if the heads be false in their faculties and crafts, it is no marvel if the children, servants, and apprentices do joy therein. This is a great and shameful manner of killing Christian men, that the fathers, the mothers, the masters, and the dames shall not alone kill themselves, but all theirs, and all that belongeth unto them: and so this way is a great number of Christian lineage murdered and spoiled.
“The second manner of killing is silence. By silence also is a great number of Christian men slain; which is on this fashion: although that the father and mother, master and dame, of themselves be well disposed to live according to the law of God, yet they may kill their children and servants in suffering them to do evil before their own faces, and do not use due correction according unto their offenses. The master seeth his servant or apprentice take more of his neighbor than the King's laws, or the order of his faculty, doth admit him; or that he suffereth him to take more of his neighbor than he himself would be content to pay, if he were in like condition: thus doing, I say, such men kill willingly their children and servants, and shall go to hell for so doing; but also their fathers and mothers, masters and dames, shall bear them company for so suffering them.
“Wherefore I exhort all true Christian men and women to give good example unto your children and servants, and suffer not them by silence to offend. Every man must be in his own house, according to St. Augustine's mind, a bishop, not alone giving good ensample, but teaching according to it, rebuking and punishing vice; not suffering your children and servants to forget the laws of God. You ought to see them have their belief, to know the commandments of God, to keep their holy-days, not to lose their time in idleness: if they do so, you shall all suffer pain for it, if God be true of His saying, as there is no doubt thereof. And so you may perceive that there be many a one that breaketh this card, Thou shalt not kill,' and playeth therewith oftentime at the blind trump, whereby they be no winners, but great losers.”
One is somewhat amazed at the terrible excitement which these sermons caused at the time of their delivery. So effective was the attack, that the Papists felt that they must not permit it to pass unchallenged, and accordingly one of their ablest champions, Buckenham, Prior of the Dominican Friars, undertook to refute the troublesome publication. Buckenham attempted an imitation of Latimer, which proved to be a failure. He promised to teach his hearers how to cast quatre and sin que; the quatre being the four doctors or fathers, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, and Gregory, and the cinque five passages from the Scriptures. The main offense of Latimer had been his assumption that the Scripture might be read and understood by the people, and this Buckenham attempted to disprove. His method of argument was most unfortunate, and Latimer easily turned his own guns against him. "Where Scripture saith, No man that layeth his hand to the plow and looketh back is meet for the kingdom of God; ' will not the plowman when he readeth these words be apt forthwith to cease from his plow, and then where will be the sowing and the harvest? Likewise, also, whereas the baker readeth, 'A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,' will he not forthwith be too sparing in the use of leaven, to the great injury of our health? And so also when the simple man reads the words, `If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee,' immediately he will pluck out his eyes, and the whole realm will be full of blind men, to the great decay of the nation and the manifest loss of the King's grace. And thus, by the reading of Holy Scriptures will the whole kingdom come in confusion; so, when Master Latimer deals out his cards, we cast our cinque, quatre upon them, and lo! we have won the game!”
Latimer without any difficulty retorted upon the prior, and with deserved severity. He replied to the effect that both the baker and the plowman might be safely trusted to perform their daily tasks in spite of occasional figurative expressions. "Every speech hath its metaphors, so common and vulgar to all men," he continued, "that the very painters do paint them on walls and in houses. As, for example,' and as he spoke he looked steadily at Buckenham," when they paint a fox preaching out of a friar's cowl, none is so mad as to take this to be a fox that preacheth, but know well enough the meaning of the matter, which is to point out unto us what hypocrisy, craft, and dissimulation lie hid many times in these friars' cowls, willing us thereby to beware of them.”
A similar defeat awaited Latimer's other assailants, and thus, snarled at by those who would have wounded him, if they had dared to do so, the sturdy preacher held on his course. At length the strife was further complicated by the question of the King's divorce, upon which the Reformers and the Papists took different views. The character of King Henry the Eighth, it must be confessed, is very far from perfect, but after making all allowances for the times in which he lived and the souring influence of disappointment, it was not so bad as some have depicted. That he was ever a subject of experimental or vital religion cannot be supposed, but the praise of delivering his people from a tyrannical foreign supremacy must be conceded to him. Nor is it too much to assert that, in common with the bulk of his subjects, Henry really believed that his marriage with Catharine was illegal (so indeed it was), and hence he sought relief from the then supreme ecclesiastical power. Had not Catharine been a near relative of Charles the Fifth, the Pope would have at once acceded to the King's request, but the Pontiff, embarrassed by the fear of offending either party, pleased neither, and lost his hold upon England.
The whole incident is a wonderful example of the Divine Wisdom, which overrules the mean purposes and sins of men in order by them to promote righteousness and peace.
By Cranmer's advice, the question, which had been long played with by the Papal Consistory, was referred to the University, and the fact that Latimer and other Reformers were with the King secured for them that monarch's protection and help. Naturally enough, Henry desired to make the personal acquaintance of so stout a defender of his cause as Latimer, and therefore it fell out that, upon the 13th of March 1530, Latimer preached before the Court, which was then at Windsor. The King was delighted with the sermon, but also still more with the preacher, and he rewarded Latimer with a gift which amounted to above ₤75 in the present value of money. The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, who was present at the sermon, speaks of the King thus: "By-and-by he greatly praised Mr. Latimer's sermon;" and Latimer himself informs us that "His Majesty after the sermon was done did most familiarly talk with me in a gallery.”
Latimer had need of a powerful protector, for now Wolsey was tottering to his downfall. The people had for a long time groaned under his exactions, and Henry could not but be aware of his Minister's unpopularity. But it was the Cardinal's double dealing in the matter of the divorce that sealed his doom. Perhaps confident because he knew that he was a favorite with the King, but more probably relying upon God for protection, Latimer said in the course of one of his University sermons, "Ye think my license decayeth with my Lord Cardinal's temporal fall; but I take it nothing so. For he being, I trust, reconciled to God, from his pomp and vanities, I now set more by his license than ever I did before when he was in his most felicity.”
The downfall of the great Cardinal was followed by a Royal proclamation that forbade the reading of the Bible in English, and Latimer's name was affixed to the decree, probably without his consent having been previously asked. This was in May 1530, and upon the first day of the following December, Latimer wrote to the King pleading for the free circulation of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. "It is an address of almost unexampled grandeur," says Froude of this epistle; and Demaus remarks: "No nobler letter exists in the whole wide compass of English literature.... The letter, indeed, is almost equally honorable to Henry and to Latimer; for if we admire the preacher who so faithfully discharged his duty, and so honestly spoke the truth, we cannot refuse to admire the sovereign also who, with all his imperious will, was yet courteous and magnanimous enough to listen to such admonitions as are too seldom whispered in Courts." The letter undoubtedly deserves this high praise, but our limits forbid the transcription of more than the two concluding paragraphs:—
“Take heed," says Latimer, "whose counsels your Grace doth take in this matter, that you may do that which God commandeth, and not that which seemeth good in your own sight without the Word of God: that your Grace may be found acceptable in His sight, and one of the members of His Church, and according to the office that He hath called your Grace unto, you may be found a faithful minister of His gifts, and not a Defender of His Faith: for He will not have it defended by man or man's power, but by His Word only, by the which He hath evermore defended it, and that by away far above man's power or reason, as all the stories of the Bible make mention.
“Wherefore, gracious King, remember yourself; have pity upon your soul, and think that the day is even at hand when you shall give account of your office and of the blood which hath been shed with your sword. In the which day that your Grace may stand steadfastly and not be ashamed, but be clear and ready in your reckoning, and to have, as they say, your quietus est sealed with the blood of our Savior Christ, which only serveth at that day, is my daily prayer to Him that suffered death for our sins, which also prayeth to His Father for grace for us continually, to whom be all honor and praise forever! Amen. The Spirit of God preserve your Grace!”
Although the prayer of the letter was not immediately answered, and the time was not yet come for the free circulation of the Word of God in the tongue of the people, the noble plea was not lost. Henry himself was so far from being offended by Latimer's plain and faithful dealing, that he shortly afterward made him one of his chaplains.
Perhaps a little disappointed by the result of the letter, which must have cost him much prayer and anxious thought, Latimer resolved to quit the Court. He was weakly in health, moreover, and his tastes were not for the pursuits of courtiers, and therefore, while place and wealth were within his grasp, Latimer retired to the quiet country Rectory of West King-ton. It was on the 14th of January 1531 that he was instituted, and there for four years Latimer was to be further prepared for the greater work which lay beyond him in the then unknown future. Thus, step by step, he was led and trained for the important service which he was afterward to crown and complete with his blood, for the liberties and religion of England.
Chapter 4
PRUDENCE THAT WAS FOOLISH; OR, PLAYING THE TRAITOR TO TRUTH
"Although they were not understood,
Yet from their spirit and their blood
Did flow a fair and fertile flood
Of thoughts and deeds both great and good.”
—THOMAS JORDAN
“Henceforth I will speak to you of Christ only, I will write to you of Christ; by my words and by my letters will I imprint Christ upon your minds, doing this one thing especially, and for the sake of that doctrine refraining from propounding to you any other."
—HERBERT DE LOSINGA (A.D. 1119).
“I am quite sure that I would never gratuitously court odium or controversy, but I must beware also of too much dreading it." Dr. ARNOLD.
A.D. 1531-1535.
WEAK BUT WORKING BOLD— WORDS— ST. PAUL DOING PENANCE AT ST. PAUL'S CROSS HEARING A PEN WALKING— HUMILIATING DENIAL— THE DANCING MONK WHO DANCED TO HIS DEATH.
LATIMER found that in retiring to West Kington he had assumed quite sufficient responsibility to occupy his time and thoughts. He tells us that " he often wondered, when so much was to be done in a small cure,' how men could go quietly to bed who had great cures and many, and yet peradventure were in none of them at all.'”
The village or hamlet of West Kington is situated about fourteen miles from Bristol, and upon the borders of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. It is a kind of out-of-the-world place still, and, of course, in Latimer's time it was more so. The Bishop of the diocese at that time was the Italian Cardinal Campeggio, who, of course, was non-resident. With his vicar-general, Richard Hiley by name, Latimer was destined afterward to come into conflict. In the little village some memorials of the great Reformer still exist. The pulpit in which he preached is jealously preserved, and a stained-glass window has been erected in the tiny church to his memory. "In the walk at the Parsonage-house is a little scrubbed hollow oak, called Latimer's oak, where he used to sit.”
In the West of England there had always been an undercurrent of so-called heresy which strangely coexisted together with very much superstition. The famous Roman causeway called the Foss Way ran near the Rectory, and thence through Gloucester and Warwick it led past Thurcastone, the home of Latimer's childhood, on to Lincoln. And it has also been pointed put by Demaus, (who is the great authority for all the facts connected with Latimer's life,) that at the time of the Reformer's incumbency the lord of the manor at West Kington was the Marquis of Dorset, who was also lord of Thurcastone. Out of the world, but still linked to it by these ties, Latimer was deeply moved by the superstition which he saw around him. "I dwell within half a mile of the Foss Way," he writes, "and you would wonder to see how they come by flocks out of the West Country to many images, but chiefly to the blood of Hales. And they believe verily that it is the very blood that was in Christ's body, shed upon Mount Calvary for our salvation, and that the sight of it with their bodily eye doth put them out of doubt that they be in clean life and in a state of salvation, without spot of sin, which doth Bolden them to many things. You would wonder if you should commune with them, both coming and going, what faiths they have; for, as for forgiving their enemies and reconciling their Christian brethren, they cannot away withal, for the sight of that blood doth requite them for the time.”
The Reformer was troubled "with headache, pleurisy, colic, and stone," and far from strong, but he could not resist the appeal to his sympathy, which he felt the ignorance of the people to be. He preached not only in his own cure, but also wherever he could obtain a hearing, and his itinerancy extended as far even as to Kent. Not, however, without bitter opposition on the part of his neighbors, one of whom ventured unadvisedly to write to him about what he styled Latimer's "un-Christian sermons or mad satires." A prompt reply from Latimer compelled this antagonist to retire from the field somewhat less confidently than he had entered the lists. About midsummer of 1531 the preacher was in greater danger, for while on a visit to London, Latimer was persuaded to preach in St. Mary Abchurch. Latimer did so somewhat reluctantly, for he well knew the hatred that Stokesley, the Bishop of London, felt towards him and all others who held the Reformed faith. Indeed, he more than half suspected that the invitation to preach was a trap which had been laid for him "to the intent that Stokesley, or some other pertaining to him, should have been there to take him in his sermon." Having accepted the invitation, with all its peril, Latimer was not the man to shrink from the risks that he ran. "If my Lord of London would have listened to St. Paul declaring his own opinion of his own words," said Latimer, "then he should have escaped and his accusers should have been rebuked." With biting irony the preacher continued: "But if the Bishop had given sentence according to the representation of the accusers, then good St. Paul must have borne a fagot at his back, even as St. Paul's Cross, my Lord of London, Bishop of the same, sitting under the Cross. Oh! it had been a goodly sight to have seen St. Paul thus!”
The sermon was all the more stinging because the Bishop, together with More, the new Chancellor, had just brought Bilney to the stake. After having thrice denied the faith, Bilney had at last summoned up sufficient courage to witness for Christ, and on the 19th of August 1531 he had been burned to death at Norwich. Other victims had been offered up by the Bishop and Thomas More, of whom it has been said that he was "the ideal of the Catholicism of this period. He had, like the Roman system, two poles worldliness and asceticism; which, although contrary, often meet together. In fact, asceticism makes a sacrifice of self only to preserve it; just as a traveler attacked by robbers will readily give up a portion of his treasures to save the rest. This was the case with More;" and in that spirit he was a persecutor. Happily for Latimer, the King refused to listen to the accusations of either More or of the Bishop, and the Reformer returned to his village cure unharmed. The sleepless malice of the Bishop followed Latimer even into the retirement of West Kington, and sought to destroy him there. Richard Hiley, the Vicar-General of the diocese, was employed as a tool in order to entrap Latimer to his death. To Richard Hiley, Stokesley wrote requiring him to send Latimer to London in order to be tried before the Bishop. Latimer's patron, Sir Edward Baynton, who was also a personal friend of the King, accompanied the Rector to the Vice-Chancellor. Latimer refused to go to London, and Hiley professed himself to be satisfied with the explanations of his doctrine that he gave. Latimer, however, too well knew the implacable nature of his enemy to consider the danger as past, and on the January of the following year he was not surprised when he was summoned to London in order to answer for his heresy before Stokesley. On the 29th of January 1532 he appeared before the Bishop, and was examined in order that he might be entrapped into some admission that might be used against him. As yet Latimer had not abandoned any of the Roman dogmas; he had, indeed, merely exposed the vices and corruptions of the system, as many others had done before him. His relentless enemies trusted, however, by some means or other to entangle him in his talk, and thus to secure his condemnation. He himself tells us of this period: "Once I was in examination before five or six Bishops where I had much turmoil. Every week twice I came for examination, and many snares and traps were laid to get something. At the last I was brought forth to be examined into a chamber hanged with arras, where I was before wont to be examined. But now at this time the chamber was somewhat altered, for whereas before there was wont ever to be a fire in the chimney, now the fire was taken away, and an arras-hanging hanged over the chimney, and the table stood near the chimney's end, so that I stood between the table and the chimney's end. There was among those Bishops that examined me one with whom I had been very familiar, and took him for my great friend, an aged man, and he sat next the table end. Then among all other questions he put forth one, a very subtle and crafty one, and such one, indeed, as I could not think so great danger in. And when I should make answer, ' I pray you, Master Latimer,' said he, speak out; I am very thick of hearing, and here be many that sit far off.' I marveled at this that I was bidden speak out, and began to misdeem, and gave an ear to the chimney, and there I heard a pen walking in the chimney, behind the cloth. They had appointed one there to write all my answers, for they made sure work that I should not start from them. The question was this: Master Latimer, do you not think on your conscience that you have been suspected of heresy? ' A subtle question— a very subtle question. There was no holding of peace would serve. To hold my peace had been to grant myself faulty. To answer was every way full of danger. But God, which always hath given me answer, helped me, or else I should never have escaped it, and delivered me from their hands.”
It was indeed a dangerous position in which Latimer was thus placed, for Henry prided himself that in defying the Pope he still remained orthodox, and in spite of his liking for Latimer, the King would have handed him over at once to his enemies; nor is it known how it was that Latimer escaped. A still greater danger awaited him, for on the 11th of March 1532 Latimer was summoned before Convocation, and required to sign certain articles which were then submitted to him. Three times he refused compliance with this demand, and was thereupon excommunicated and sent to prison. After ten days' confinement he was once more brought to the bar, and then he weakly consented to sign two out of the fourteen articles which had been before presented to him. In these he assented "that Lent and other fasts should be observed," and that "the crucifix and other images of saints should be kept in churches as memorials, and to the honor and worship of Jesus Christ and His saints." He was further compelled to apologize upon his bended knees, and to solicit Stokesley's pardon. And, to add still more to his humiliation, the following confession was handed to him. Latimer, broken-spirited by the confinement which he had undergone, read thus:—
My Lords, I do confess that I have misordered myself very far in that I have so presumptuously and boldly preached reproving certain things, by which the people that were infirm hath occasion of ill. Wherefore I ask forgiveness of my misbehavior: I will be glad to make amends; and I ha ye spoken indiscreetly in vehemence of speaking, and have erred in some things.”
This was not the lowest depth to which Latimer was to descend, for after a further three weeks' confinement he was again brought before the Convocation, and then he signed all the articles. In these he was made to profess his faith in purgatory, in masses for the living and the dead, in the invocation of saints, in pilgrimages, and even in the duty of submitting to the Pope; in fact, in all the essential points of Romanism. It was a humiliating failure upon the part of Latimer, and he evidently felt the ignominy, for he wrote to a friend attempting to explain away his subscription. He was immediately brought to the bar once more in order that he might be punished for this fresh offense, and then, with admirable sagacity, Latimer appealed to the King. Probably by the King's command he was once more brought before his judges, and on his knees he owned that "whereas he had aforetime confessed that he had heretofore erred, meaning that it was only error of discretion, he had since better seen his own acts, and searched them more deeply, and doth acknowledge that he hath not erred only in discretion, but also in doctrine, and that he was not called before the said lords but upon good and just grounds, and had been by them charitably and favorably treated. And whereas he hath aforetime misreported of the lords, he acknowledges that he hath done ill in it, and desires them humbly to forgive him. And whereas he is not of ability to make them recompense, he will pray for them." Upon this Latimer was released, but only upon the understanding that in event of his receding from his recantation he should be once more brought up for judgment.
A striking contrast to this shameful submission is to be seen in the conduct of Bainham, a martyr who gave his life for the truth. Prompted perhaps by shame, Latimer called upon this confessor, and after attempting in vain to induce Bainham to recant as he had done, Latimer exhorted him to die bravely. The martyr replied, "I likewise do exhort you to stand to the defense of the truth; for you that shall be left behind have need of comfort also, the world being as dangerous as it is." With these brave words ringing still in his ears, Latimer returned to his village cure; one day he was also to "behave himself stoutly in the cause of Christ," but not yet.
Two events which occurred shortly after this denying of Christ conduced much to the spread of the new opinions in England.
On the 25th of January 1533 Henry was privately married to Anne Boleyn, and on the 30th of March 1533 Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Encouraged perhaps by these favorable symptoms that the Papacy had lost its hold upon England, Latimer once more began to preach, and this time with greater boldness and clearness than ever.
In March 1533 he was in Bristol, and preached two sermons that threw the city into an uproar. The Papal party succeeded in silencing Latimer, and then they put forward some of their own creatures, whose office it was to revile both himself and his doctrines. One of their chief advocates met with his end thus, and the paragraph will illustrate the character of the opponents whom Latimer now encountered. Dr. Hubberdin— for such was his name— saw some villagers dancing, summoned them to the church, and preached to them upon dancing. "In this curious discourse he first cited some texts of Scripture, and then some sayings of the fathers; representing them as all joining in one tune, as he phrased it, in behalf of the sacrament of the altar against Frith, Luther, Latimer, and others. Not content with this absurd allegory, Hubberdin represented them as all dancing together to the same effect, and he then suited the action to the word by jumping about in the pulpit; exclaiming, Now dance Peter and Paul; now dance Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, &c. While proceeding in this strain and stamping and jumping about, the pulpit gave way, and came down with a crash among the congregation. In his fall Hubberdin broke one of his legs, from the effects of which accident he shortly after died. The churchwardens, being cited to answer for the slightness of the pulpit, replied that it was made for preaching in, not for dancing.'”
The character of the attacks upon the Reformers may be inferred from this anecdote, and Latimer now silenced, appealed in vain for an opportunity of replying to the slanders which were freely circulated about him. Eventually Cranmer, who was now supreme in the Church, intervened, and a Commission was sent down to Bristol in order to examine as to the causes of the recent disturbance. The inquiry fully vindicated Latimer, and it also showed that in their malice against the Reformer his enemies had spoken treason against the King. This was sufficient to bring down upon them the Royal displeasure, and Latimer was again left in peace. But the arguments of his enemies in defense of the practices of Popery had contributed not a little to open Latimer's eyes, and he drew farther away from them and their errors. Thus, as in other instances, the Papacy unconsciously contributed to the spread of doctrines which were subservient to its tyranny and aims.
Chapter 5
OUT OF HIS PLACE; OR, NOT FITTING A MITRE
"A Father's tenderness, a Shepherd's care,
A Leader's courage, which the cross can bear;
A Ruler's awe, a Watchman's wakeful eye,
A Pilot's skill the helm in storm to ply.
A Fisher's patience, and a Laborer's toil,
A Guide's dexterity to disembroil,
An Intercessor's unction from above,
A Teacher's knowledge, and a Savior's love.
—BISHOP KEN.
“He that learneth of young men is like a man that eateth unripe grapes, but he that learneth of the ancients is like a man that eateth ripe grapes." —RABBI JOSE BAR JEHUDAH
A.D. 1535-1539.
IMPOSTURE— SHAM MIRACLES AND REAL PLOTS— MADE A BISHOP— REPROVING THE KING AGAIN— STRANGE SILENCE ABOUT THE QUEEN'S MURDER— SAVED FROM THE PAPACY BY A CARDINAL AND A POPE.
THE Papists, enraged at the turn that affairs had somewhat unexpectedly taken, resolved nevertheless to resolutely oppose the incoming tide of Protestantism, which they could clearly see would soon sweep into their foul caverns. Among other expedients, they resolved to employ an imposture which was ready at hand awaiting their development and application of what had been practiced without detection upon a smaller scale.
One Elizabeth Barton, a servant-maid of Aldington, in Kent, had all her life been subject to severe fits of epilepsy. During the agony of these spasms her tongue protruded from her mouth, her eyeballs seemed to be starting out of their sockets, and she uttered many disconnected and incoherent expressions. Richard Masters, the parish priest, gave out that during these fits the poor creature was in a state of Divine trance, and that then she received revelations from God. In a short time Elizabeth Barton was looked upon as one inspired, and her sayings speedily acquired peculiar authority as being supposed to emanate from God. A neighboring monk, one Edward Bockyng from Canterbury, assisted Masters, and the girl herself readily yielded to the deception. Barton then gave out that the Virgin Mary had appeared to her, and had promised to restore her to health on condition that she visited an image of the Virgin which was exposed in a chapel in Masters' parish. Upon the day appointed two thousand persons assembled to witness the anticipated miracle; the girl threw herself into strange postures, after which she pretended to be restored to health again.
The success of this sham miracle prepared the way for further and more ambitious designs, and Elizabeth Barton, now a nun, began to speak upon the affairs of the Kingdom. She produced a letter which she pretended, had been written from heaven by Mary Magdalene. The leaders of the Papists were especially careful to circulate an assertion of hers which was, that if the King persisted in seeking for a divorce he should not live a month longer. Time falsified this prediction, and then the prophetess declared that, like Saul, Henry was rejected from the Kingdom, although he was permitted to live for a time. From various indications it was evident that, under cover of these supposed revelations, a great conspiracy was brewing, and Cromwell interfered to bring the imposture to light. Cranmer and Latimer were associated with him in the inquiry, and the nun confessed the whole imposture. Even the Princess Mary and her mother, Catharine of Aragon, had been accomplices to some extent in the plot which had aimed at the dethroning of the King in favor of his daughter Mary.
Latimer, who was not at home in politics, now returned to his country parish. Once more he came to London, and this time at Cranmer's request that he might preach before the King at Windsor. The Dean of Windsor was very reluctant to obey the Royal mandate, but he had no choice but to yield. From February the 18th until the 1st of April, therefore, Latimer preached every Wednesday before the Court. These sermons have perished, but in all probability they contributed in their measure to hasten the abolition of all Papal authority within the kingdom.
In his new capacity as head of both Church and State, Henry limited the succession to the Crown to the posterity of Anne Boleyn, and merely as a safeguard against the many machinations which it was known were being put forth by the Papists, all good subjects were required to acknowledge this exclusion of Mary from the throne. The Princess Mary herself owed her life to Cranmer's intercession, for her father had resolved to permit her to 'be punished for her parricidal conduct.
More and Fisher refused to take these oaths, and although every possible device was employed by Cranmer to save them, they were executed. More, it must not be forgotten, was as much a persecutor as his fellow-criminal Fisher, and both met with the legal penalty which had been affixed to their political crime. From More's letters we get a glimpse of Latimer which, after making due allowance for the writer's animosity and unfairness, is interesting as showing Latimer's jovial and merry disposition: "I tarried in the old burned chamber that looketh into the garden (i.e., of Lambeth Palace), and would not go down because of the heat. In that time saw I Master Doctor Latimer come into the garden, and there walked he with divers others, doctors and chaplains of my lord of Canterbury (Cranmer). And very merry I saw him, for he laughed and took one or twain about the neck so handsomely that if they had been women I would have weened he had waxen wanton.”
The next information that we have of this wanton merry Rector is, that Cranmer not only licensed him to preach, but also entrusted him with the power of supervision over the preachers in the West of England, with the authority of revoking the license of any man who appeared to be unfit for the office. This was only preliminary to a yet further promotion, for in the critical state of political affairs it was almost a necessity that Latimer should be called to fill one of the bishoprics which had become vacant upon the renunciation of Papal authority. Latimer was too practical and energetic not to do his very best in whatever position he might be found, but he certainly was not eminent for administrative talents. He was a popular tribune, and served the Gospel best by an itinerant ministry. But Cromwell, who then ruled England, was urgent, and perhaps persuaded by Cranmer, who must have daily realized the perilous posture of affairs, Latimer accepted the bishopric of Worcester. Out of the diocese, as it was when he ruled it, the present government of Gloucester and Bristol has been taken; and as at that period Bristol was the second port in the kingdom, the position was as influential as it was exhaustive. The revenue of the Bishop, it is computed, amounted to about ₤ 15,000 per year, at the present value of money, and the Bishop, moreover, possessed many convenient houses in London and in various parts of the country. The new prelate was the first elected under the new ecclesiastical constitution, and probably in Winchester, on the 26th of September 1535, Latimer was consecrated. He carried his simple tastes with him to his new position.
“I am more inclined," he writes, "to feed many plainly and necessarily than a few deliciously and voluptuously. As for plate and hangings, they have not cost me twenty shillings. In plate my New Year's gifts doth my need with glass and byrral; and I delight more to feed hungry bellies than to clothe dead walls.”
It was the custom at that time for the Bishops to present New Year's gifts to the King, and these presents were generally sums of money. In subsequent years Latimer gave what would now be equivalent to ₤300, but Foxe, the martyrologist, relates the following anecdote of Latimer's first New Year's gift to Henry. The story is rejected by some it is true, but solely upon the insufficient ground that Foxe has not named his authorities.
“There was then," says Foxe, "and remained still, an ancient custom received from the old Romans that upon New Year's Day, being the first day of January, every Bishop with some handsome New Year's gift should gratify the King. And so they did. Some did gratify the King with gold, some with silver, some with a purse full of money, some one thing, some another. But Master Latimer, being Bishop of Worcester, then among the rest, presented a New Testament for his gift, with a napkin having this motto upon it, Fornicatores et Adulteres judicabit Dominus'—’. Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.'”
The incident is at least probable, and is in accordance with Latimer's outspoken fidelity. He certainly ventured to remonstrate with the King publicly upon the base uses to which the funds which had been obtained by the suppression of the smaller monasteries had been devoted. "The abbeys," he said, "were ordained for the comfort of the poor, and it is not decent that the King's horses should be kept in them, and the living of poor men be thereby minished and put away." To those who reproved him for censuring a King, Latimer boldly replied, "I spake my conscience as God's Word directed me." In another sermon which was preached at St. Paul's Cross, London, about March 1536, Latimer again spake his conscience thus: "Bishops, abbots, priors, parsons, canons, resident priests, and all are strong thieves; yea, dukes, lords, and all. The King made a marvelous good Act of Parliament that certain men should sow every one of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too little were it so much more to hang the thieves in England. Bishops, abbots, with such other, should not have so many servants nor so many dishes; but go to their first foundation to keep hospitality, to feed the needy people; not jolly fellows with golden chains and velvet gowns." In truth, the utterance of no mere time-server, but of a man who discerned the evil case of the most in those times of scramble.
The execution of Anne Boleyn filled the Papal party with delight. From "this domestic evil," as they called her, they said, had "descended all disorders," and they once more began to anticipate the return of their authority. Whatever may have been the exact degree of the Queen's guilt, it cannot be doubted that she was certainly put out of the way because of her husband's desire to marry Jane Seymour. Indiscreet she may have been, but in spite of all Mr. Froude's special pleading, the general conviction of Englishmen is that she was innocent. Nor can Cranmer be acquitted of guilty acquiescence in her murder. Anne Boleyn had favored the Reformers in a very marked manner, and for Latimer she had expressed her regard. It would have enhanced our esteem for Latimer, if he had made some attempt at least in order to save the poor victim of Henry's cruelty. Strangely enough, the Bishop of Worcester was silent upon this momentous question, and therefore he cannot be acquitted of offense in the matter. The death of Anne Boleyn was the triumph of the Papal party; if Latimer believed her guilty, why did he not disavow her? Or if she were innocent, why did he not say so? Probably the counsel of over-wise friends prevailed, and for fear of offending Henry, Latimer held his peace. If so, he with others had soon cause to regret the death of this unhappy Queen, for now the Reformed were once more persecuted. But for one or two so-called accidents the Papal dominion might have been restored in England, but again the hopes of the Romanists were blighted by their own advocates. Cardinal Pole's violent book, which had been written years before, came to England just in time to prevent the reconciliation. It spoke of Henry as "the vilest of plunderers, and a thief and a robber;" and it urged the people to rebel against a tyrant who was far more vile than King Saul, who was rejected by God from the Kingdom. The arrival of the book saved the nation from the peril, and not only the King, but the bulk of his subjects felt that the breach could not be healed. Henry persecuted the Reformed in order to prove his orthodoxy, but he never from this moment entertained a serious thought of yielding to the Papacy, which had authorized such an attack upon him. With varying success the new opinions were spread through England until in Elizabeth's reign the Reformation was completed.
History is indeed only "Providence made visible," and hence it may be accounted as one of the most powerful of the evidences of revealed religion.
Chapter 6
THE ENGLISH DEMOSTHENES; OR, THE TRIBUNE OF THE REFORMATION.
"Eyes rekindling and prayers
Follow your steps as ye go;
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On to the bound of the waste,
On to the city of God!”
—MATTHEW ARNOLD.
“A thousand hearts kindled by thee with consecrated fire.
Ten flaming spiritual hecatombs offered on the mount of God: Verily, O man, with truth for thy theme, eloquence shall throne thee with archangels.”
—TUPPER.
TEACHING CONVOCATION; MORE PLAIN SPEAKING— BELIEVING BY MEASURE, OR A KING WHO RULED CONSCIENCES— THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE THAT INTENDED MURDER—PREACHING AGAINST THE REBELS—TYNDALE'S PRAYER ANSWERED ROBIN HOOD, OR A BISHOP DEATH OF THE QUEEN AND BIRTH OF THE PRINCE— HENRY'S MARRIAGE SCHEMES.
ON the 9th of June 1536 the Convocation met for the first time since the overthrow of Papal authority. The opening sermon was preached by Latimer, than whom no man could have been better fitted for the task. It was indeed remarkable that, whereas only four years before he had stood at the bar of Convocation to plead for his life as a suspected heretic, and now, as Bishop of Worcester, he was selected to teach the men who had sat as his judges.
With his usual practical wisdom, Latimer selected the parable of the unjust steward for comment, and he spoke thus:—
“Who is a true and faithful steward? He is one that coineth no new money, but taketh it ready coined of the good man of the house, and neither changeth it nor clippeth it, but spendeth even the selfsame that he had of his Lord, and spendeth it as his Lord's commandment is.... Tell me now, as your conscience leadeth you, were there not some that, despising the money of the Lord, either coined new themselves, or else uttered abroad newly coined by others? Sometime either adulterating the Word of God, or else mingling it? Sometime in the stead of God's Word blowing out the dreams of men?... The end of your convocation shall show what ye have done; the fruit that shall come of your consultation shall show what generation ye be of. For what have ye done hitherto, I pray you, these seven years and more? What have ye brought forth? What one thing that the people of England have been the better of a hair; or you yourselves either more accepted before God, or better discharged toward the people committed unto your care?... Now, I pray you, in God's name, what did you so, great fathers, so many, so long season, so oft assembled together?"... After alluding to their murder of Tracy, he refers to their attempt to destroy himself thus: "This other (Latimer), which truly never hurt any of you, ye would have raked in the coals, because he would not subscribe to certain articles that took away the supremacy of the King. Take away these two noble acts, and there is nothing else that ye went about that I know, saving that now I remember that somewhat ye attempted against Erasmus, albeit as yet nothing is come to light. Ye have oft sat in consultation, but what have ye done? Ye have had many things in deliberation, but what one is put forth whereby Christ is more glorified or else Christ's people made more holy? I appeal to your own conscience." After specifying various flagrant abuses that required correction, Latimer exhorted his hearers to employ themselves upon a diligent search for abuses which might be remedied, and he concluded with these solemn words of warning: "Be not deceived; God will come. God will come; He will not tarry long away.... Therefore, my brethren, leave the love of your profit; study for the glory and profit of Christ; seek in your consultations such things as pertain to Christ, and bring forth as the last somewhat that may please Christ. Feed ye tenderly with all diligence the flock of Christ. Preach truly the Word of God. Love the light, walk in the light, and so be ye the children of light while ye are in this world, that ye may shine in the world to come bright as the sun.”
The sermon was speedily translated from Latin into English, and transmitted through the length and breadth of the land. But it was soon evident that, while Convocation was in earnest and united in its desire to correct abuses, it was hopelessly divided as to what constituted abuses. The one party, led by Stokesley, demanded that the preaching of the Reformers should be stopped, while others desired, on the contrary, liberty of conscience and the free circulation of the Word of God. The King himself intervened and drew up ten articles which he decided were to limit the belief of his subjects. Neither more nor less was to be believed and taught than Henry laid down, but it was found to be not so easy to limit and regulate these matters as it is to decide upon measures of weight and length. The authoritative standard for faith and practice is given in the Word of God, and to that alone men will bow. Baptismal regeneration, penance and confession to a priest, transubstantiation, the worship of images and the praying to saints as mediators; the ceremonies, such as giving ashes on Ash Wednesday, of creeping to the cross on Good Friday, and similar Papist follies, and above all things the profitable figment of Purgatory, Henry decided were to be retained and believed in. These articles were too Roman to please the Reformers, and not sufficiently Roman to please the adherents of the old creed. Yet Cranmer and Latimer subscribed them, although the latter made some attempts to convince the King of the absurdity of the doctrine of Purgatory. It would have been wiser for the Reformers not to have accepted the articles at all, for it was soon evident that the Romanists would not be satisfied with less than supremacy. The priests excited the people to a rebellion, and on the 2nd of October the insurrection began at Louth. This was allayed without bloodshed; but in Yorkshire a rising which was called the Pilgrimage of Grace proved to be far more formidable. York, Hull, and Doncaster were seized in turn by the rebels, many of whom were men of good social position. Near forty thousand in number, the rebels now marched, under the leadership of Robert Aske, to London. Before them, as the sign of their crusade, a banner was carried, emblazoned with the crucifix, the chalice, and the five wounds of our Lord.
The House of Tudor seemed destined to follow the dynasties that had one after another been expelled by their sturdy subjects, when God interposed in the interests of the Gospel. A sudden flood delayed the march of the army, and gradually the rebel forces melted away, and before the January of 1537 the danger was gone. Not, however, wholly, for murmurs against the King and the Reformers were heard from time to time; in fact, the whole nation was long convulsed with terrible excitement. Latimer was too useful to be left in his diocese; he was summoned at once to London, and on the 5th of November 1536 he preached at St. Paul's Cross against the northern rebels. Nor can we wonder at his complying with the Royal mandate when we 'consider that the triumph of the Pilgrimage of Grace would have involved the restoration of Papal supremacy and such scenes as were witnessed at Smithfield when Mary came to the crown. All who desired to read their Bibles in peace, and who had no desire to see the wealth of the kingdom squandered by foreign ecclesiastics, longed for the suppression of the rebellion, and, like good men, did their part to put it down. After that the crusade had been suppressed Latimer was employed to converse with the leaders, who were in the Tower awaiting their execution.
In the same year there was published the book entitled "The Institution of a Christian Man." "In point of language the Institution' is beyond all question the most beautiful composition that had yet appeared in English prose," says Froude, and it certainly marked a considerable religious advance. It rendered lawful the teaching of the commandments in English, for doing which, only a few years before, seven men had been burned at the stake.
In the same August of 1537 Henry actually licensed the translation of the Scriptures which is generally known as the "Bishop's Bible." Thus Tyndale's prayer had at last been answered, and God had opened the King of England's eyes!
It must have been with a light heart that Latimer went upon visitation in the September of 1537, for although his diocese was in a lamentable condition, at last the Word of God was set free. His diocese is probably a fair specimen of what might have been seen in many other parts of England, but it is lamentable to behold the practical heathenism that Latimer speaks of: "Clergy without Bibles not even the New Testament in English; preaching set aside on any pretext or none; communicants unable to repeat the Lord's Prayer in the vulgar tongue; children untaught in the elements of the Christian faith; parish priests nonresident, or leading scandalous lives; squires and landlords persecuting the few clergy brave enough to do their duty, and only too ready to defame and defy their new Bishop; friars turned out of monasteries and transformed into sturdy beggars or lubberly loiterers,' or fomenters of rebellion and high treason! Here was work enough for strength and patience. Latimer's injunctions go to the root of all these evils. Feeling the great need of England to be the Word of God, his constant care was that this Word should be known, read, and preached throughout his diocese.”
In his sixth sermon before King Edward, Latimer thus speaks of this period: "I came once myself to a place riding on a journey homeward from London, and I sent word over night into the town that I would preach there in the morning, because it was holiday, and we thought it was a holiday's work. The church stood in my way, and I took my horse and my company, and went thither; I thought I should have found a great company in the church, and when I came there the church-door was fast locked. I tarried there half-an-hour and more; at last the key was found, and one of the parish comes to me and says, ' Sir, this is a busy day with us; we cannot hear you; it is Robin Hood's day. The parish are gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood: I pray you let them not! '”
On the 12th of October the King, before whom this incident was afterward related, was born, and his birth was hailed by the Reformers with great delight. Jane Seymour, his mother, died twelve days after the birth of her son, and Latimer was summoned to London in order to preach at her funeral. This he did on the 13th of November, at which time he was in such feeble health that he wrote to Cromwell thus: "I am in a faint weariness over all my body, but chiefly in the small of my back. But I have a good nurse, good Mistress Statham, which, seeing what case I was in, hath fetched me home to her own house, and doth pymper me with all diligence: for I fear a consumption.”
This good woman lived in Milk Street; and in the days of Bloody Mary she had to suffer for her kindness to Latimer and other Reformers. Latimer recovered, thanks to the "pympering" of Mistress Statham, and returned to his western home. With him he took Barnes, one of the Reformers for whom Latimer had conceived an especial regard. And so in the quiet, diligent duties of daily life, of which no record is kept, but which, after all, make up the most as well as the really useful portion of life, he spent the remainder of the year. The Reformation was slowly advancing step by step; it seemed as if it could not be stayed. Henry the Eighth, under the guiding will of Cromwell, was beginning to see that his wisest policy was to place himself at the head of United Protestantism; and without knowing how fast he was moving, he was deserting his old beliefs and practices. Cromwell's keen eye had detected the true policy for England, but unfortunately his design miscarried. Henry was now looking around for his fourth wife, and Cromwell suggested a German Princess. This would at once give Henry the weight in the councils of Germany that he required, and would also be a mutual benefit to the Reformed in both countries. Unfortunately (to anticipate), after acceding to this policy, and marrying a German Princess, Henry was disgusted with his new wife, and lie took steps to discard her. With culpable and inexplicable facility Cranmer lent himself to Henry's will, and pronounced the marriage invalid. This divorce ultimately involved the downfall of Cromwell and the triumph of the Roman party.
It was providential that before this reaction came some of the wicked and foolish practices of the priests had been publicly exposed. The Royal Commission reported that in Reading the remains of an angel with one wing were preserved, while at Bury St. Edmunds the toe-nails of one saint and the coals that had been used in order to roast another, with some old boots and similar rubbish, were preserved for the worship of the deluded people.
At Bexley, in Kent, there was a famous crucifix that sometimes frowned, bent its head, and moved its body, to the terror of the worshippers who came from far and near to worship the image: —
"He was made to juggle,
His eyes would goggle,
He would bend his eyes and frown.
With his head he would nod,
Like a proper young God,
His jaws would go up and down.”
The mechanism by which this jugglery was effected was discovered, and the image was exhibited publicly, first at Maidstone, and then at St. Paul's Cross, London. At the latter ceremony Latimer "in the western part of St. Paul's carried a small image in his hand, which he threw out of the church, though the inhabitants of the country whence it came constantly affirmed that eight oxen would be unable to remove it from its place.”
Such frauds were too gross to be defended, and their exposure prepared the way for the spread of the truth.
Chapter 7
FALSE FRIENDS, WHO HELPED, HOWEVER, WHEN THEY INTENDED TO HINDER
“Of every malice that gives God offense
The aim is injury;
But as deceit is man's peculiar stain,
God hates it most.”
—DANTE
“All our aches and pains is nothing but growin' pains, if we use 'em right. These pains of yours, friend, they're on'y growin' pains, the wings pushing up a bit, lengthening and strengthening, till some day they'll be full-grown, and then you'll clap the glad wings and tower away." MISTER HORN AND HIS FRIENDS.
A BIBLE IN EVERY CHURCH—GARDINER'S RETURN—LAMBERT'S MARTYRDOM—RESIGNATION OF BISHOPRIC—THE KINDNESS OF SOME FRIENDS—ANNE ASKEW.
NOT only was the imposture of the Rood of Bexley exposed, but also that of the famous "Sibyl," a very sacred image of the Virgin Mary, which was exhibited in Worcester Cathedral and these with their "old sister of Walsingham, their young sister of Ipswich, with their other sisters of Doncaster and Penrise, and the great Welsh idol ‘Dderfel Gadern,' and others beside," met with similar ignominious treatment; and above all, the " great abomination of the blood of Hales, which had been for so long an object of worship to so many deluded country-folk, was "bolted and sifted" by the Bishop himself, and proved to be "a few drops of yellowish gum-like birdlime," probably "melted honey, colored with saffron." Such an exposure of deception and of ignorant blind idolatry there had never before been made in England, and much of this discovery was due to the zeal and activity of the Bishop of Worcester. Not that he confined himself to merely exposing abuses, for Latimer was far too earnest and practical a man to commit such folly. His chief business was to preach, and this he did whenever opportunity served.
A tradition is still extant in the neighborhood of the Episcopal Palace at Hartlebury, which records his custom of preaching near a ford by the riverside, where many used to come and go, crossing the river, and the spot is still pointed out to the curious inquirer where, in "an hermitage in a rock by the Severn, able to lodge five hundred men," Latimer was accustomed to gather his friends to listen to his expositions of the Word of God.
Latimer's earnest desire to do the very utmost that lay in his power for the spread of the Gospel induced him to obtain the services of a suffragan Bishop. A friend of Cranmer's, who had already proved himself to be a stout adherent of the Reformation, was accordingly selected for the office. Latimer urgently required assistance, for he was now troubled very much with sleeplessness, which in his feeble state of health must have weakened him greatly. One probable cause of his anxiety was perhaps the intrigues of the friars, who, although their designs had come to naught in the Pilgrimage of Grace, were still secretly sowing sedition by means of the confessional. One of the chief offenders was John Forest, a friar, who had taken the oath of allegiance to King Henry; "but," said he, "it was only my outward man that gave assent; my inward man never consented thereto." Such a man could not be called a martyr, he was a rebel, who for political reasons had assumed the guise of religion. As a civil offender he was tried, and under the good advice of Cranmer and Latimer, Forest seemed to be penitent. But his brother friars, probably from motives of self-interest, induced him to change his mind, and the King abandoned him to the law. At his execution Latimer preached, an office which one would have preferred that he had not assumed.
In the September of the year 1538 an injunction required that a copy of the Bible should be placed in every parish church, and Latimer must have hailed this triumph, for such it really was, with great delight.
But the progress of the Reformation was now to suffer a severe check, for a man was at hand who, able, unscrupulous, and subtle, was to give it a severe defeat. This was Gardiner, who was afterward the chief persecutor in Mary's reign. Cromwell was his personal enemy, and now a struggle commenced between the two in which the deepest interests of the nation were involved. The triumph of Cromwell meant the gradual spread of the Reformation in England; if Gardiner should win the prize for which he was playing, persecution would follow. A preliminary success of Gardiner was the trial and execution of Lambert, who had been one of Bilney's most promising disciples. Lambert, after hearing a sermon upon transubstantiation, courteously and gently spoke to the preacher about his error. The preacher declined an argument, and requested Lambert to state his opinions in writing. Too eager to reflect upon the risk that he ran in so doing, Lambert complied with this request. This paper was laid before Cranmer, who proceeded to summon Lambert before him. Lambert appealed to the King. This pleased Henry's vanity, and upon a set day the King presided over a great assembly. After a preliminary oration by the Bishop of Chichester, Henry rose from his seat, and leaning upon a cushion of silver tissue, turned towards the prisoner with a frowning brow and said, "He! good fellow, what is thy name?”
The humble follower of Christ, bending his knee said, "My name is John Nicholson, although by many I be called Lambert.”
“What!" exclaimed the king, "have you two names? Then I would not trust you although you were my brother.”
Lambert replied, "O most noble Prince, your Bishops forced me of necessity to change my name.”
“Why standest thou still?" demanded the King; "answer concerning the sacrament of the altar; dost thou say that it is the body of Christ, or wilt thou deny it?”
As the King said these words he lifted his cap in token of reverence to what the Lollards called the Papists' breaden God!
Lambert replied, "I answer with St. Augustine, that it is the body of Christ, after a certain manner.”
The King then said, "Answer me neither out of St. Augustine nor by the authority of any other; but tell me plainly whether thou sayest it is the body of Christ or no.”
Lambert answered, "Then I do deny it to be the body of Christ.”
The King added, "Mark well, for thou shalt be condemned by Christ's own words, ' This is My body.”
So the day wore on. The King, being tired of this pretended disputation, said to Lambert, "What sayest thou now, after all this pains taken with thee, and all the reasons and instructions of these learned men? Art thou not yet satisfied? Wilt thou live or die? what sayest thou? Thou hast yet free choice.”
Lambert answered, "I yield and submit myself wholly unto the will of your Majesty.”
Then said the King, "Commit thyself into the hands of God, and not into mine.”
Lambert replied, "I commend my soul into the hands of God, but my body I wholly yield and submit unto your clemency.”
Then said the stern monarch, "If you do commit yourself unto my judgment, you must die, for I will not be a patron unto heretics." And, turning to Lord Cromwell, he said, "Cromwell, read the sentence against him.”
Cromwell, thus called upon, was forced to comply.
Four days after this sham trial Lambert was burned to death at Smithfield. His last words were, "None but Christ; none but Christ!”
The martyrdom of Lambert was not only a committal of King Henry to the policy of persecuting the Reformed, but it was also (and herein appeared the subtlety of Gardiner) a compelling of Cromwell and Latimer and Cranmer to punish those who agreed with their teaching. Henry was not slow to indulge in that which pleased his vanity, and he followed up the death of Lambert by issuing a series of injunctions which were decidedly Roman.
Moreover, Gardiner and the priests were encouraged to resort to violent methods of silencing their opponents, since, as in Lambert's case, they proved, too strong for argument. One Robert Packington, a wealthy London merchant, and a member of Parliament for the City, fell a victim to their vengeance. In his place in Parliament, Packington ventured to make some observations which gave umbrage to the clergy, and the Dean of St. Paul's hired an Italian who shot Packington as he was crossing Cheapside.
With their usual ill fortune the Papists once more opposed that which would have secured the complete triumph of their designs. The King meditated a marriage with a French Princess, and such an alliance might have drawn him back into the Papal fold; but the Pope himself and Cardinal Pole rendered this return impossible. They resolutely opposed the marriage, preferring the present gratification of thwarting Henry to a future and larger triumph by means of him.
The Pope committed the more serious blunder of sending the Cardinal to the Emperor, in order to stimulate that restless tyrant to attempt the conquest of England. The days when the Popes could give away crowns and continents as if they were merely private trinkets had happily gone by, and Henry with his people were driven in sheer self-defense into antagonism to the Pope. The King, however, became more decided in his legislation against the Reformers, especially selecting the married clergy as the objects of his vengeance. In all probability the bulk of the nation thought and felt as Henry did, for the new faith had not yet conquered England. Accordingly, upon the 28th of June 1539 an Act was passed by Parliament which was popularly called the "Bloody Statute," or "The Whip with Six Cords." The latter name alludes to the six articles which were set forth for belief; they were—
1. That in the sacrament of the altar, after the consecration by the priest, there remains no substance of bread and wine, but that it becomes the substance of Christ, God and man, the natural body and blood of our Savior, as born of the Virgin Mary.
2. That communion in both kinds is not necessary, but that in the flesh, under the form of bread, is the very blood, and under the form of wine, with the blood, is the flesh.
3. That priests may not marry.
4. That vows of chastity or widowhood ought to be observed.
5. That it is right and necessary that private masses be continued.
6. That auricular, or private, confession should be retained.
The joy of the Papists at the passing of this Act was extreme, and a nobleman of their party wrote thus to one of his friends:—
“And also there is news here. I assure you, never Prince showed himself so wise a man, so well learned, and so catholic as the King hath done in this Parliament. With my pen I cannot express his marvelous goodness, which is come to such effect, that we shall have an Act of Parliament so spiritual, that I think none shall dare to say that in the blessed sacrament of the altar doth remain either bread or wine, after the consecration; nor that a priest may have a wife; nor that it is necessary to receive our Maker in both kinds; nor that private masses should not be said as they have been; nor that it is not necessary to have auricular confession. Finally, all in England have cause to thank God, and most heartily to rejoice at the King's most godly proceedings.”
The Protestants were proportionately discouraged by this untoward legislation, and Latimer resigned his see. Foxe says that "at the time Latimer put off his rochet in his chamber among his friends, he gave a skip on the floor for joy, feeling his shoulder so light, and being discharged, as he said, of such a heavy burden. Howbeit, neither was he so lightened but that troubles and labors followed him.”
The King was intensely displeased at Latimer's resignation, and although such a step was not a violation of any statute, Latimer was kept in custody in the palace of the Bishop of Chichester. Misfortunes still worse followed for the Reformers, for now Henry, after marrying Anne of Cleves, speedily rid himself of her, and his disgust with his wife led to Cromwell's downfall. On the 28th of July 1539 the great Minister perished at the block. After Cromwell's downfall the persecution against the Reformed became more severe, and yet when the King married Catherine Howard it became still worse. But the evil life of the Queen saved the Reformers, and after that she had deservedly gone to the block the Protestants had rest for a brief time. The King's marriage with the gentle and pious Catherine Parr was also a respite for those, who because they were not able to accept the opinions of the King as Divine truth, were exposed to fire and fagot. Of Latimer's life during this long dark time but little record has been preserved to us. In the spring of 1540 the Bishop of Chichester, who had charge of him, was sent to the Tower, and it would appear that Latimer was then permitted to retire into the country. We lose all sight of him for some years, and can only suppose that he was visiting among his friends and acquiring during his season of rest the views of Divine truth which were afterward to form the subject of his preaching during the reign of King Edward the Sixth. On the 13th of May 1546 he was brought before the Council at Greenwich, and Gardiner, his bitter enemy, "declared plainly how much I had loved, favored, and done for his person, and that he had no cause to be offended with me, though I was not content with his doctrine." Latimer was far too keen to be imposed upon by such statements, and he resolutely refused to incriminate himself as they endeavored to induce him to do. "He hath since answered," said his judges, "but in such sort as we be, for the purpose, as wise almost as we were before." Such an unreasonable person, who resolutely refused to assist his enemies to burn him, was of course a great grief to Gardiner and his allies, and failing to slay him, they sent their beloved friend to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner until the death of the King.
Here he had for a fellow-prisoner the heroic Anne Askew, who, after that she had been almost killed by the fiendish cruelty of Gardiner and Wriothesley, desired only that she might be permitted to speak to Latimer. But even this small comfort was denied to her, and deprived of all human sympathy, this delicate and refined lady was put to death. At the stake she refused to accept a pardon which was offered to her on condition that she should recant. In the spirit of the old martyrs she bravely refused to deny her Lord, and answered, "I come not hither to deny my Lord and Master." The fagots were lighted, and "thus," as Foxe says, "the good Anne Askew, with these blessed martyrs, having passed through so many torments, having now ended the long course of her agonies, being compassed with flames of fire, as a blessed sacrifice to God, slept in Jesus, leaving a singular instance of Christian constancy for all men to follow.”
Her death encouraged Gardiner to proceed against Queen Catherine Parr, who was known to favor the Reformers. Henry was even induced to sanction her arrest, but meanwhile the poor woman had made her peace with the tyrant. When, accordingly, upon the morrow Gardiner and his colleague come to arrest the Queen, they were saluted as "beasts, fools, and knaves," and Henry once more changed sides.
The cruel and vile Duke of Northumberland was ordered to the block; and had the King's life been spared for a time, he might perhaps have been more lenient in future to the Reformed. But his time had come, and on the 27th of January 1547 King Henry went to his account. In spite of Froude's attempt to defend his character, the almost unanimous verdict of the English people must be allowed to stand, and Henry the Eighth be pilloried as he deserves. That he served the purpose of God in delivering England was no merit upon his part; yet the sublime wisdom of God is seen in the manner in which even the vices of the tyrant were compelled to accomplish the designs of Divine Wisdom. Mr. Froude might perhaps have admired Henry the less had he been, like Latimer, a prisoner whose life hung precariously upon the tyrant's nod, or one of the many victims who were relentlessly butchered because they believed more or less than the King did!
Chapter 8
STOUT HUGH LATIMER; OR, IN THE BRIEF SUNSHINE
" 'Twas not thus in ages gone!
These isles in error's night lay dim:
God's jewels they in silence shone
Most beautiful, yet not for Him!
True Christian sympathy was ne'er designed
To be shut up within a narrow bound,
But sweeps abroad, and in its search to find
Objects of mercy goes the wide world round.”
—UPHAM.
“Lie not! but let thy heart be true to God,
Thy mouth to it, thy actions unto both.”
—GEORGE HERBERT.
ACCESSION OF KING EDWARD— LATIMER REFUSES OFFICE— BREAKING THE PEWS HOMILIES OR HOMELIES— THE PLOUGH SERMON— DEATH OF EDWARD.
ON the 31st of January 1547 King Henry's only son Edward was proclaimed King. He was but ten years of age at his accession, and during his minority the affairs of the kingdom were entrusted to a Council, from which Gardiner had been expressly excluded by the King. He was "a willful man, not meet to be about his son," Henry had said, and he might have said far more about Gardiner's vileness. The Council was mixed as to its religious views, but the Reformers were well represented upon it. The King's uncle was selected by them as Lord Protector of the realm, and Wriothesley, whose bands had been deeply imbued with the blood of the martyrs, was deprived of the authority which he had abused.
This was understood by the Romanists to be a defeat, and they were still further enraged when Ridley preached before the Court on the 23rd of February, and denounced the worship of images as idolatry and the use of holy water as superstitious. The King's sympathies were known to be with Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and men naturally expected legislation that would favor the views that these three divines had taught. Of Edward himself, the verdict of history has confirmed the good opinions of his admirers; his reign, it is true, had many serious abuses, but they were the faults of his counselors, and cannot be attributed to the young King. The gentle, learned youth won all hearts, and had he lived to fulfill the promise of his boyhood, Edward the Sixth would have been one of the most charming characters in our annals.
“Brought up with noble counselors," says Latimer, "and excellent and well-learned schoolmasters, was there ever King so noble, so godly? I will tell you this, and I speak it even as I think, His Majesty hath more godly wit and understanding, more learning and knowledge, at his age, than twenty of his progenitors that I could name had at any time of their life.”
The accession of King Edward of course released Latimer from his confinement, but he was still unemployed. The House of Commons entreated him to resume his office as Bishop, but he preferred to continue a quondam, as he styled himself. "I thank God that I came by my quondamship by honest means," he said. The fact probably was, that the details of business and the many trivial cares that pertain to office were little to Latimer's taste. He had discovered that he was chiefly a preacher, and, like a wise and practical man as he was, he preferred to continue in the form of service which he could render best. His sermon before Convocation, from which an extract has already been given, had spread the fame of his eloquence over the land, and now that he could speak without endangering his life, Latimer became the foremost preacher in England. The Roman historian, whose dislike for Latimer is as bitter as it is unreasonable, says: "The character of the man, the boldness of his invectives, his quaint but animated eloquence, were observed to make a deep impression on the minds of his hearers." He resided in London under Cranmer's roof, and day after day the old man might have been seen with his staff firmly grasped in one hand, his Bible at his leathern girdle, and "his spectacles hanging by a string at his breast,” on his way to preach in one of the City churches or before the King and Court. As he passed along the streets the very boys cheered him as he went, while the citizens struggled for a touch of his gown, and as he approached his pulpit they greeted him with some hearty word of encouragement "to say on." Whenever he preached before the King, as he did from time to time, it was found necessary to set up a pulpit in the Royal gardens in order to provide sufficient space for the vast multitude that thronged to hear him; and on one occasion, when he preached at St. Margaret's, Wesminster, the crowd was so great that the pews in the church were broken in pieces.
“The practical abuses of the Roman faith," says Demaus, "the lying miracles, the debasing superstitions of that Church, the perversion of justice, the disregard of the legal rights of the poor, the corruption of morals, the tyranny of the nobles, the honesty of the traders, the insolent pride and luxury of the dignitaries of the Church,— such were the chief subjects which Latimer handled in his discourses, with that plain, picturesque, shrewd humor and honesty which carried his words home to the hearts of his hearers. Such a man was a power in the State as well as a pillar of the Church. The poor looked up to him, as the Israelites did to their prophets, as a protector raised up by Divine Providence to shield their weakness from the rapacity and tyranny of the rich and noble."'
“I am no sooner in the garden," says Latimer himself, "and have read awhile, but by-and-by cometh there someone or other knocking at the gate. Anon cometh my man and saith, ' Sir, there is one at the gate that would speak with you.' When I come there, then is it someone or other that desireth me that I will speak that his matter might be heard.”
Meanwhile the Reformation was slowly progressing, and as a first measure it was resolved to put forth a book of homilies. Of these discourses, which were ridiculed as homilies by many of the priests who disliked them, Latimer said: "Though the priest read them never so well, yet if the parish like them not, there is such talking and babbling in the church that nothing can be heard; and if the parish be good and the priest naught, he will so hack it and chop it, that it were as good for them to be without it, for any word that shall be understood." This led to the setting apart of Latimer, Knox, and other celebrated preachers as preachers at large, a method which was calculated to do more for the spread of the Reformation than all the decrees of Parliament and Convocation combined together. A general visitation of the clergy was also ordered, and in every church it was decreed that a chapter of the New Testament should be read every Sunday morning, and one from the Old Testament in the afternoon all good and useful legislation, but such legislation as required a hearty co-operation on the part of the parish ministers which it was not likely to receive. A far more effective agency were Latimer's sermons: says Stow, "On the 1st of January (1548) Dr. Latimer preached at St. Paul's Cross;" on the 8th , 15th , and 29th of January he again preached, but only the last of the discourses has been preserved. This is the famous "Sermon of the Plow," and as it is the best specimen of Latimer's pulpit style, we shall now submit portions of it to our readers: —" For preaching of the Gospel is one of God's plow-works, and the preacher is one of God's plowmen. Ye may not be offended with my similitude, in that I compare preaching to the labor and work of plowing, and the preacher to a plowman: ye may not be offended with this my similitude; for I have been slandered of some persons for such things. It hath been said of me, ' Oh, Latimer! nay, as for him, I will never believe him while I live, nor never trust him; for he likened our blessed lady to a saffron-bag: ' where indeed I never used that similitude. But it was, as I have said unto you before now, according to that which Peter saw before in the spirit of prophecy, and said, that there should come after men per quos via veritatis maledictis afficeratur; there should come fellows by whom the way of truth should be evil spoken of, and slandered.' But in case I had used this similitude, it had not been to be reproved, but might have been without reproach. For I might have said thus: as the saffron-bag that hath been full of saffron, or hath had saffron in it, doth ever after savor and smell of the sweet saffron that it contained; so our blessed lady, which conceived and bare Christ in her womb, did ever after resemble the manners and virtues of that precious babe that she bare. And what had our blessed lady been the worse for this? or what dishonor was this to our blessed lady? But as preachers must be wary and circumspect, that they give not any just occasion to be slandered and ill spoken of by the hearers, so must not the auditors be offended without cause. For heaven is in the Gospel likened to a mustard-seed: it is compared also to a piece of leaven; and as Christ saith, that at the last day He will come like a thief: and what dishonor is this to God? or what derogation is this to heaven? Ye may not then, I say, be offended with my similitude, for because I liken preaching to a plowman's labor, and a prelate to a plowman. But now you will ask me, whom I call a prelate? A prelate is that man, whatsoever he be, that hath a flock to be taught of him; whosoever hath any spiritual charge in the faithful congregation, and whosoever he be that hath cure of souls. And well may the preacher and the plowman be likened together: first, for their labor of all seasons of the year; for there is no time of the year in which the plowman hath not some special work to do: as in my country in Leicestershire, the plowman hath a time to set forth, and to assay his plow, and other times for other necessary works to be done. And then they also may be likened together for the diversity of works and variety of offices that they have to do. For as the plowman first setteth forth his plow, and then tilleth his land, and breaketh it in furrows, and sometimes ridgeth it up again; and at another time harroweth it and clotteth it, and sometimes dungeth it and hedgeth it, diggeth it and weedeth it, purgeth and maketh it clean: so the prelate, the preacher, hath many diverse offices to do. He hath first a busy work to bring his parishioners to a right faith, as Paul calleth it, and not a swerving faith; but to a faith that embraceth Christ, and trusteth to His merits; a lively faith, a justifying faith; a faith that maketh a man righteous, without respect of works: as ye have it very well declared and set forth in the Homily. He hath then a busy work, I say, to bring his flock to a right faith, and then to confirm them in the same faith: now casting them down with the law, and with threatenings of God for sin; now ridging them up again with the Gospel, and with the promises of God's favor: now weeding them, by telling them their faults, and making them forsake sin; now clotting them, by breaking their stony hearts, and by making them supple-hearted, and making them to have hearts of flesh; that is, soft hearts, and apt for doctrine to enter in: now teaching to know God rightly, and to know their duty to God and their neighbors: now exhorting them, when they know their duty, that they do it, and be diligent in it; so that they have a continual work to do. Great is their business, and therefore great should be their hire. They have great labors, and therefore they ought to have good livings, that they may commodiously feed their flock; for the preaching of the Word of God unto the people is called meat: Scripture calleth it meat; not strawberries, that come but once a year, and tarry not long, but are soon gone: but it is meat, it is no dainties. The people must have meat that must be familiar and continual, and daily given unto them to feed upon. Many make a strawberry of it, ministering it but once a year; but such do not the office of good prelates. For Christ saith, Quis putas est servos prudens et fidelis? Qui dat eibuin in tempore'— ‘Who think you is a wise and a faithful servant? He that giveth meat in due time.' So that he must at all times convenient preach diligently: therefore saith He, 'who trow ye is a faithful servant? ‘He speaketh it as though it were a rare thing to find such a one, and as though He should say, there be but a few of them to find in the world. And how few of them there be throughout this realm that give meat to their flock as they should do, the Visitors can best tell. Too few, too few; the more is the pity, and never so few as now....
“Now what shall we say of these rich citizens of London? What shall I say of them? Shall I call them proud men of London, malicious men of London, merciless men of London? No, no, I may not say so; they will be offended with me then. Yet must I speak. For is there not reigning in London as much pride, as much covetousness, as much cruelty, as much oppression, and as much superstition, as was in Nebo? Yes, I think, and much more too. Therefore I say, Repent, O London; repent, repent. Thou hearest thy faults told thee; amend them, amend them. I think, if Nebo had had the preaching that thou hast, they would have been converted....
“But London was never so ill as it is now. In times past men were full of pity and compassion, but now there is no pity; for in London their brother shall die in the streets for cold, he shall lie sick at the door between stock and stock, I cannot tell what to call it, and perish there for hunger: was there ever more unmercifulness in Nebo? I think not. In times past, when any rich man died in London, they were wont to help the poor scholars of the Universities with exhibition. When any man died, they would bequeath great sums of money toward the relief of the poor. When I was a scholar in Cambridge myself, I heard very good report of London, and knew many that had relief of the rich men of London: but now I can hear no such good report, and yet I inquire of it, and hearken for it; but now charity is waxen cold, none helpeth the scholar, nor yet the poor. And in those days, what did they when they helped the scholars? Marry, they maintained and gave them livings that were very papists, and professed the Pope's doctrine: and now that the knowledge of God's Word is brought to light, and many earnestly study and labor to set it forth, now almost no man helpeth to maintain them.
“O London, London I repent, repent; for I think God is more displeased with London than ever He was with the city of Nebo. Repent therefore, repent, London, and remember that the same God liveth now that punished Nebo, even the same God, and none other; and He will punish sin as well now as He did then: and He will punish the iniquity of London, as well as He did them of Nebo. Amend therefore. And ye that be prelates, look well to your office; for right prelating is busy laboring, and not lording. Therefore preach and teach, and let your plow be doing. Ye lords, I say, that live like loiterers, look well to your office; the plow is your office and charge. If you live idle and loiter, you do not your duty, you follow not your vocation: let your plow therefore be going, and not cease, that the ground may bring forth fruit....
“Forever since the prelates were made lords and nobles, the plow standeth; there is no work done, the people starve. They hawk, they hunt, they card, they dice; they pastime in their prelacies with gallant gentlemen, with their dancing minions, and with their fresh companions, so that plowing is set aside: and by their lording and loitering, preaching and plowing is clean gone. And thus if the plowmen of the country were as negligent in their office as prelates be, we should not long live, for lack of sustenance. And as it is necessary for to have this plowing for the sustentation of the body, so must we have also the other for the satisfaction of the soul, or else we cannot live long ghostly. For as the body wasteth and consumeth away for lack of bodily meat, so doth the soul pine away for default of ghostly meat. But there be two kinds of inclosing, to let or hinder both these kinds of plowing; the one is an inclosing to let or hinder the bodily plowing, and the other to let or hinder the holiday-plowing, the church-plowing....
“And now I would ask a strange question: Who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England:, And will ye know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will, he is ever at home; the most diligent preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plow: no lording nor loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plow; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devil is resident, and hath his plow going, there away with books and up with candles; away with Bibles and up with beads; away with the light of the gospel and up with the light of candles, yea, at noondays.
Where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, up with all superstition and idolatry; tensing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new service of men's inventing; as though man could invent a better way to honor God with than God Himself bath appointed. Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pickpocket, up with him, the popish purgatory, I mean. Away with clothing the naked, the poor and impotent; up with decking of images, and gay garnishing of stocks and stones: up with man's traditions and his laws, down with God's traditions and His most Holy Word. Down with the old honor due to God, and up with the new god's honor. Let all things be done in Latin: there must be nothing but Latin, not so much as `Memento, home, quod cinis es, et in cinerem reverteris'—‘Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and into ashes thou shalt return: ' which be the words that the minister speaketh unto the ignorant people, when he giveth them ashes upon Ash-Wednesday; but it must be spoken in Latin: God's Word may in no wise be translated into English " Oh that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel ! And this is the devilish ploughing, the which worketh to have things in Latin, and letteth the fruitful edification. But here some man will say to me, ' What, sir, are ye so privy of the devil's counsel, that ye know all this to be true?' Truly I know him too well, and have obeyed him a little too much in condescending to some follies; and I know him as other men do, yea, that he is ever occupied, and ever busy in following his plough. I know by St. Peter, which saith of him, Sicut leo rugiens circuit quœrens quern, devoret'—` He goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.' I would like this text well viewed and examined, every word of it: ' Circuit,' he goeth about in every corner of his diocess ; he goeth on visitation daily, he leaveth no place of his cure unvisited : he walketh round about from place to place, and ceaseth not. Sicut leo,' as a lion, that is, strongly, boldly, and proudly; stately and fiercely with haughty looks, with his proud countenances, with his stately braggings. ‘Rugiens; roaring; for he letteth not slip any occasion to speak or to roar out when he seeth his time. Quœrens,' he goeth about seeking, and not sleeping, as our bishops do; but he seeketh diligently, he searcheth diligently all corners, where as he may have his prey. He roveth abroad in every place of his diocese; he standeth not still, he is never at rest, but ever in hand with his plow, that it may go forward. But there was never such a preacher in England as he is. Who is able to tell his diligent preaching, which every day, and every hour, laboreth to sow cockle and darnel, that he may bring out of form, and out of estimation and room, the institution of the Lord's Supper and Christ's cross? For there he lost his right; for Christ said, ‘Nunc judicium, est mundi, princeps seculi hujus ejicietur foras. Et sicut exaltavit Moses serpent em in deserto ita exaltari oportet Filizem hominis. Et cum exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad meipsum,'—‘ Now is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world shall be cast out. And as Moses did lift up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lift up. And when I shall be lift up from the earth, I will draw all things unto Myself.' For the devil was disappointed of his purpose: for he thought all to be his own; and when he had once brought Christ to the cross, he thought all cocksure. But there lost he all reigning: for Christ said, Omnia traham ad meipsum,'—`I will draw all things to Myself.' He meaneth, drawing of man's soul to salvation. And that He said He would do per semetipsum, by His own self; not by any other body's sacrifice. He meant by His own sacrifice on the cross, where He offered Himself for the redemption of mankind; and room, the institution of the Lord's Supper and Christ's cross? For there he lost his right; for Christ said, Nunc judicium, est mundi, princeps seculi hujus ejicietur foras. Et sicut exaltavit Moses serpent em in deserto ita exaltari oportet Filizem hominis. Et cum exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad meipsum,'—‘Now is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world shall be cast out. And as Moses did lift up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lift up. And when I shall be lift up from the earth, I will draw all things unto Myself.' For the devil was disappointed of his purpose: for he thought all to be his own; and when he had once brought Christ to the cross, he thought all cocksure. But there lost he all reigning: for Christ said, Omnia traham ad meipsum’—’ I will draw all things to Myself.' He meaneth, drawing of man's soul to salvation. And that He said He would do per semetipsum, by His own self; not by any other body's sacrifice. He meant by His own sacrifice on the cross, where He offered Himself for the redemption of mankind; and not the sacrifice of the mass to be offered by another. For who can offer Him but Himself? He was both the offerer and the offering. And this is the prick, this is the mark at the which the devil shooteth, to evacuate the cross of Christ, and to mingle the institution of the Lord's Supper; the which although he cannot bring to pass, yet he goeth about by his sleights and subtle means to frustrate the same; and these fifteen hundred years he hath been a doer, only purposing to evacuate Christ's death, and to make it of small efficacy and virtue.”
“If England ever had a prophet, Latimer was one," was a common saying among the people, to which it was added by others, that" Moses, Jeremiah, and Elias did never declare the true message of God to their rulers and people with a more sincere spirit, faithful mind, and godly zeal than godly Latimer.”
During the last two years of King Edward's life Latimer was practically silent, his preaching was far too plain to suit the tastes of the greedy horde of nobles who approved of the Reformation in order that they might enrich themselves with the lands and goods of the clergy. It is a shameful story of greed and ungodliness; indeed all spiritual religion would have died out among us if the rule of these men had been prolonged. Had the young King been able to make his will felt in the councils of the nation it would have been well, but a regency under such men as ruled latterly in his name, must have produced a revolution within a very short space of time. Yet, with human short-sightedness, the Reformers dreaded Edward's death. They well understood that if Mary came to the Crown the fires of persecution would be relighted for them. Preaching in London in 1549, Latimer said: "Oh, what a plague were it, if a strange king of a strange land should reign over us! Where now we be governed in the true religion, he would extirp and pluck it away altogether, and then plant again all abomination and Popery. God keep such a king from us!... To avoid this plague let us amend our lives, and put away pride, covetousness, lechery, and other excessive vices, provoking God's wrath to take from us our natural king and liege lord yea, and to plague us with a stranger king for our unrepentant heart! If then, as ye say, ye love your King, amend, and then ye shall be a mean, that God will lend him to us, long to reign over us.... Make haste, make haste, and let us learn to convert, to repent. If not, I fear lest, for our sins and unthankfulness, a hypocrite shall reign over us, which shall bring in again all Papistry, hypocrisy, and idolatry.”
On the 6th of July 1553 King Edward died, and after a vain attempt on the part of her relatives to secure the throne for Lady Jane Gray, Mary succeeded to the crown. The Reformers relied upon her promises of toleration, and therefore they loyally recognized her title, with what consequences to themselves is well known.
Chapter 9
PLAYING THE MAN; OR, STANDING AT BAY
“Nor yet,
(Grave this within thy heart!) if spiritual things
Be lost through apathy, or scorn, or fear,
Shalt thou thy humbler franchise's support,
However dearly won or justly dear.
What came from heaven to heaven by nature clings,
And if dissevered thence its course is short.”
“The effect of earnest spiritual effort in the heavenly pilgrimage is, that the soul grows strong and elastic, by journeying upwards. The fatigue of one day fits it the better for the labors of the next." —CHEEVER
SENT FOR TO ANSWER FOR HIS PREACHING—BEHAVING HIMSELF STOUTLY—REASONS MERRY BUT SAVOURY —A KERCHIEF AND THREE CAPS ON HIS HEAD — I WILL STAND, WITH GOD'S HELP, TO THE FIRE.
LATIMER was in Warwickshire when the news of King Edward's death reached him, and he well knew that his own hours were numbered. The blind hatred of the Papal party would not allow them to take the prudent course which might have undone all the legislation of previous years. The rapacity of the nobles who had acceded to the Reformation for purposes of their own, the dissensions of the Reformers, and the gambling craving for change that at times makes a nation willing to surrender almost everything in hope of improvement, were all with Mary, and had she acted cautiously the nation might have settled down to the Papal rule, as it did after the Wycliffean revival. Mary and her advisers, fortunately for England, lit the fires of Smithfield, and the three hundred who, during three years, were burnt for their faith in Christ preached the Gospel most effectually to the nation. On the 4th of September 1553 the Council dispatched a pursuivant with a warrant to apprehend Latimer. It is thought that they hoped thereby to frighten Latimer, but they mistook stout Hugh Latimer if they supposed that he intended to fly. "My friend," he said to the messenger, "you be a welcome messenger to me. And be it known unto you, and to all the world, that I go as willingly to London at this present, being called by my Prince to render a reckoning of my doctrine, as ever I was at any place in the world. I doubt not but that God, as He hath made me worthy to preach His Word before two excellent Princes, so will He able me to witness the same unto the third, either to her comfort or discomfort eternally." The pursuivant started for London, leaving Latimer to follow at his leisure, a somewhat unusual method of proceeding, which it has been thought was intended to invite Latimer's escape. If so, Latimer took no advantage of the liberty which was thus given to him; on the 13th of September he appeared before the Privy Council, and was at once committed to the Tower. "He did behave himself stoutly in Christ's cause before the Council, and was content to bear most patiently all the mocks and taunts given him by the scornful and pestilent Papists," reports his servant. Foxe informs us that while Latimer was in the Tower "the lieutenant's man upon a time came to him, and Latimer, the aged father being kept without fire in the frosty winter, and well-nigh starved with cold, merrily bade the man tell his master that if he did not look the better to him, perchance he would deceive him. The lieutenant hearing this, bethought himself of these words, and fearing that indeed he thought to make some escape, beginneth to charge him with his words, reciting the same unto him which his man had told him before. ' Yea, Master Lieutenant, so I said,' quoth Latimer, ' for you look, I think, that I should burn, but except you let me have some fire, I am like to deceive your expectation, for I am like here to starve with cold.'
“Many such-like answers and reasons merry but savory, coming not from a vain mind, but from a constant and quiet reason, proceeded from that man, declaring a firm and stable heart little caring for all this great blustering of their terrible threats, but rather deriding the same. "It is a pity that the chronicler has not preserved a few more of these" merry but savory answers” for us.
Cranmer and Ridley were with Latimer in prison, and the three friends spent the winter together in mutual conference and study of the Bible. "We did together read over the New Testament," says Latimer, "with great deliberation and painful study." For two months this was permitted, and then they were put on their trial.
This was at Oxford on the 14th of April 1554, when the following questions were propounded to the three friends:—
1st. Whether the natural body of Christ was really in the Sacrament?
2nd. Whether any other substance did remain after the words of consecration than the body of Christ?
3rd. Whether in the mass there was a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of quick and dead“
Cranmer and Ridley answered first, and of course rejected these articles. “Last of all came in Master Latimer, with a kerchief and two or three caps on his head, his spectacles hanging by a string at his breast, and a staff in his hand, and was set in a chair, for so he was suffered by the Prolocutor. And after his denial of the articles, when he had Wednesday appointed for disputation, he alleged age, sickness, disuse, and lack of books, saying that he was almost as meet to dispute as to be captain of Calais. But he would, he said, declare his mind either by writing or word, and would stand to all they could lay upon his back. He complained, moreover, that he was permitted to have neither pen nor ink, nor yet any book but only the New Testament there in his hand, which he said he had read over seven times deliberately, and yet could not find the mass in it, neither the marrow-bones nor sinews of the same. At which words the Commissioners were not a little offended ; and Dr. Weston said ' that he would make him grant that it had both marrow-bones and sinews in the New Testament.' To whom Master Latimer said again, ' That you will never do, Master Doctor.' So forthwith they put him to silence ; so that, whereas he was desirous to tell what he meant by these terms, he could not be suffered. There was a very great press and throng of people, and one of the beadles swooned by reason thereof, and was carried into the vestry." Three days afterwards Latimer once more appeared in order to reply to these articles, and after a spirited refutation of them, he concluded his defense thus :—“Thus have I answered your conclusions as I will stand unto, with God's help, to the fire. And after this I am able to declare to the Majesty of God by His invaluable Word that I die for the truth. For I assure you if I could grant to the Queen's proceedings, and endure by the Word of God, I would rather live than die; but seeing they be directly against God's Word, I will obey God more than man, AND SO EMBRACE THE STAKE.”
It is painful to learn that during the utterance of these brave words Latimer was rudely interrupted and reviled. "Divers had snatches at him, and gave him bitter taunts, and he did not escape hissings and scornful laughing. He was very faint, and desired that he might not long tarry. He durst not drink for fear of vomiting.”
“The Queen's grace is merciful," said the Prolocutor at last, "if ye will turn.”
Latimer answered, "You shall have no hope in me to turn. I pray for the Queen daily, even from the bottom of my heart, that she may turn from this your religion.”
Chapter 10
LIGHTING A CANDLE THAT IS BURNING STILL
"Early set forth on thine eternal race;
The ascent is steep and craggy; thou must climb.
God at all times has promised sinners GRACE,
If they repent; but He ne'er promised TIME.
Cheat not thyself as most, who then prepare
For death, when life is almost turned to fume:
One thief was saved, that no man need despair,
And but one thief that no one might presume”.
“A STANDARD-BEARER—BIDDING FAREWELL—BEFORE THE BISHOPS—LATIMER'S APPEAL—BE OF GOOD HEART,BROTHER —PLAYING THE MAN—IS POPERY ALIVE OR DEAD?”
AFTER this resolute defense the three confessors were removed to prison, and there they lay for eighteen months awaiting their death. Of Latimer's behavior during that interval, his servant has preserved for us the following account: —
“In prayer he was fervently occupied, and I did note that he most of all did rejoice that God had given him grace to apply his office of preaching, and assisted him without fear or flattery to tell unto the wicked their faults. The other thing I did notice was his earnestness and diligence in prayer, wherein so long he continued kneeling that he was not able to rise without help, and amongst other things he prayed for three principal matters. The first that God would help him to stand to his doctrine until his death. The other thing was, that God would restore the Gospel of Christ unto this realm once again. And these words, ' once again, once again,' he did so inculcate and beat into the ears of the Lord God, as though he had seen God before him, and spake unto Him face to face. The third thing was, that God would make the Princess Elizabeth, whom he was wont to mention by name, and even with tears, a comfort to the comfortless realm of England. These were the matters he prayed for so earnestly; but were these things desired in vain? Did God despise the prayers of this His fervent soldier? No, assuredly; for the Lord did most graciously grant all these requests.”
The malice of their enemies separated the three friends, but their servants continued to take messages from one to the other. Their long detention in prison fixed the eyes of all England upon them, and Latimer's brave bearing contributed not a little to the firm faith of others. "I do think that the Lord hath placed old Father Latimer to be His standard-bearer," said Ridley, "in our age and country against his mortal foe Antichrist.”
In the month of May 1553 Latimer wrote a farewell address "to all unfeigned lovers of God's truth.”
“Set before you," said he, "that though the weather be stormy and foul, yet you go not alone.; many of your brethren and sisters pass by the same path, as St. Peter telleth us; that company might cause you to be the more courageous and cheerful. But if you had no company at all to go presently with you, stick not to go still forward. I pray you tell me if from the beginning any, yea, the best of God's friends have found any fairer way or weather to the place whither we are going (I mean to heaven) than we now find and are like to find? Wherefore, my dear beloved, be not so dainty to look to have at the Lord's hands, your dear Father, that which the patriarchs, prophets, and evangelists, martyrs and saints, yea, and His own Son, Jesus Christ, did not find.”
On the 28th of September three Bishops were sent down to Oxford in order to examine the three confessors. Foxe relates that when Latimer came before these judges "he held his hat in his hand, he had a kerchief on his head, and upon it a nightcap or two, and a great cap such as townsmen use, with two broad flaps to button under the chin; he wore an old threadbare frieze gown, girded to his body with a penny leather girdle, at the which hanged by a long string of leather his Testament; and his spectacles, without case, depended about his neck upon his breast.”
Stout Hugh Latimer refused utterly to recant, and therefore the three Bishops, on the 1st of October, proceeded to read their sentence to him. This ran as follows: —
"Forasmuch as the said Hugh Latimer did affirm, maintain, and stubbornly defend certain opinions, assertions, and heresies contrary to the Word of God and the received faith of the Church, as in denying the true and natural body of Christ, and His natural blood to be in the sacrament of the altar; and, secondly, in affirming the substance of bread and wine to remain after the words of consecration; thirdly, in denying the mass to be a lively sacrifice of the Church for the quick and the dead; therefore the judges did condemn him as a heretic, adjudged him presently to be degraded from all ecclesiastical orders, declared him to be no member of the Church, excommunicated him with the greater excommunication, and committed him to the secular powers to receive due punishment.”
Latimer asked if he might not appeal from the sentence which had just been read over to him.
“To whom would you appeal?”
“To the next General Council which shall be truly called in God's name.
"I have no objection to such an assembly," said the Bishop of Lincoln, who presided, “but it will be a long time before the Council is convoked." On the 16th of October 1555 Ridley and Latimer were led together to execution. Foxe, who doubtless wrote his account from the narrative of an eye-witness, describes the scene thus. His vivid words bring the martyrdom plainly before us: —
"On the north side of Oxford, in the ditch over against Baliol College, the place of execution was fixed; and for fear of any tumult, the lord Williams and the households of the city sufficiently appointed were commanded by the Queen's letters to be their assistant; when everything was ready, the prisoners were brought forth by the mayor and bailiffs.
“Dr. Ridley had on a black gown furred, such as he used to wear when a bishop; a tippet of velvet furred, a velvet nightcap, with a corner cap, and slippers on his feet. He walked to the stake between the mayor and an alderman, &c.
“After him came Mr. Latimer, in a poor Bristol frieze frock much worn, with his buttoned cap and kerchief on his head, all ready to the fire, a new long shroud hanging down to the feet: which sight excited sorrow in the spectators, beholding on the one side the honor they sometime had, and on the other the calamity into which they had fallen.
“Dr. Ridley, as he passed toward the prison called Bocardo, looked up where Dr. Cranmer lay, hoping to have seen him at the glass window and spoken to him. But Dr. Cranmer was then engaged in dispute with Friar Soto and his fellows, so that he could not see him. Dr. Ridley then looking back, saw Mr. Latimer coming after. Unto whom he said, Oh, are you there? " Yea,' said Mr. Latimer, have after, as fast as I can.' So, he following, at length they came to the stake. Dr. Ridley first entered the place, earnestly held up both his hands towards heaven; then seeing Mr. Latimer, with a cheerful look he ran to him and embraced him, saying, Be of good heart, brother, for God will assuage the fury of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide it.'
“He then went to the stake, and, kneeling down, prayed with great fervor; while Mr. Latimer, following, kneeled also, and prayed as earnestly as he.”
After they arose the one talked with the other a little while, till they which were appointed to see the execution removed themselves out of the sun. What they said to each other I can learn of no man.
“A sermon was then preached by Dr. Smith, lasting about a quarter of an hour, from St. Paul's words, Though I give my body to be burnt, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.'
“At its conclusion Dr. Ridley said to Mr. Latimer, Will you begin to answer the sermon, or shall I?’ Mr. Latimer said, ' Begin you first, I pray you.'
‘I will,' said Dr. Ridley.
“He then, with Mr. Latimer, kneeled to my lord Williams, the vice-chancellor of Oxford, and the other commissioners, who sat upon a form, and said, ' I beseech you, my lord, even for Christ's sake, that I may speak but two or three words:' and whilst my lord bent his head to the mayor and vice-chancellor to know whether he might have leave to speak, the bailiffs, and Dr. Marshal, the vice-chancellor, ran hastily unto him, and with their hands stopping his mouth, said, Mr. Ridley, if you will revoke your erroneous opinions, you shall not only have liberty so to do, but also your life.'
Not otherwise?' said Dr. Ridley. No,' answered Dr. Marshal: therefore if you will not do so, there is no remedy: you must suffer for your deserts.' Well,' said the martyr, so long as the breath is in my body I WILL NEVER DENY MY LORD CHRIST AND HIS KNOWN TRUTH: God's will be done in me: With that he rose and said with a loud voice, I commit our cause to Almighty God, who will judge all, without respect of persons.' To which Mr. Latimer added his old saying, Well, there is nothing hid, but it shall be opened.' They were then commanded to prepare, immediately, for the stake.
“With all meekness they obeyed. Dr. Ridley gave his gown and tippet to his brother-in-law, Mr. Shipside, who all the time of his imprisonment, although he was not suffered to come to him, was there at his own charge to provide him necessaries, which, from time to time, he sent him by the sergeant. Some other of his apparel he also gave away; the other the bailiffs took.
“He likewise made presents of other small things to gentlemen standing by, divers of them pitifully weeping; to Sir Henry Lea he gave a new great; to my lord Williams' gentleman some handkerchiefs, &c., and happy was he who could get the least trifle for a remembrance of this good man.
“Mr. Latimer quietly suffered his keeper to pull off his hose and his other apparel, which was very simple; and being stripped to his shroud, he seemed as comely a person as one could well see.
“Then Dr. Ridley, standing as yet in his drawers, said to his brother, It were best for me to go in my drawers still.' ‘No,' said Mr. Latimer, it will put you to more pain; and it will do a poor man good.' Whereunto Dr. Ridley said, Be it in the name of God,' and so unlaced himself. Then being in his shirt, he held up his hands and said, O heavenly Father, I give unto Thee most hearty thanks, that Thou hast called me to be a professor of Thee, even unto death; I beseech Thee, Lord God, have mercy on this realm of England, and deliver it from all her enemies.'
“The smith then took a chain of iron, and brought it about both their middles; and as he was knocking in the staple, Dr. Ridley took the chain in his hand, and looking aside to the smith, said, Good fellow, knock it in hard, for the flesh will have its course.' Then his brother brought him a bag of gunpowder, and tied it about his neck. Dr. Ridley asked him what it was; he answered, Gunpowder.'
Then,' said he, I take it to be sent of God; therefore I will receive it. And have you any,' said he, for my brother?' (meaning Mr. Latimer). Yea, sir, that I have,' said he. ‘Then give it unto him,' said he, in time, lest you come too late.' So his brother carried it to Mr. Latimer, "They then brought a lighted fagot, and laid it at Dr. Ridley's feet; upon which Mr. Latimer said, BE OF GOOD COMFORT, MR. RIDLEY, AND PLAY THE MAN; WE SHALL THIS DAY LIGHT SUCH A CANDLE BY GOD'S GRACE IN ENGLAND, AS I TRUST SHALL NEVER BE PUT OUT.'
“When Dr. Ridley saw the fire flaming up towards him, he cried with an amazing loud voice, Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit; Lord, receive my spirit; ' and continued often to repeat, Lord, Lord, receive my spirit.' Mr. Latimer cried as vehemently, O Father of heaven, receive my soul.' After which he soon died, seemingly with little pain.”
“And thus," says Thomas Fuller, quaintly," though he came after Ridley to the stake, he got before him to heaven. His body made tinder by age, was no sooner touched by the fire, but instantly this old Simeon had his Nunc Dimittis,' and brought the news to heaven that his brother was following after.
“And thus much concerning Master Hugh Latimer, that old and blessed servant of God, for whose labors, travails, fruitful life, and constant death, this whole realm hath cause to give great thanks to Almighty God.”
“But Dr. Ridley, from the ill-making of the fire, the fagots being green, and piled too high, so that the flames, which burned fiercely beneath, could not well get to him, was put to such exquisite pain that he desired them, for God's sake, to let the fire come unto him. His brother-in-law hearing him, but not very well understanding, to rid him of his pain, and not well knowing what he did, heaped fagots upon him, so that he quite covered him. This made the fire burn so vehement beneath, that it burned all his nether parts before it touched the upper, and made him struggle under the fagots, and often desire them to let the fire come under him, saying, I cannot burn.' Yet in all his torments he forgot not to call upon God. In such pains he labored till one of the standers-by, with his bill, pulled the fagots from above, and where Dr. Ridley saw the fire flame up, he wrested himself to that side. At last the fire touched the gunpowder, and he was' seen to stir no more, but burned on the other side, falling down to Mr. Latimer's feet; his body being divided.
“The dreadful sight filled almost every eye with tears. Some took it grievously to see their deaths whose lives they had held so dear. Some pitied their persons, who thought their souls had no need thereof. But the sorrow of his brother, whose anxiety led him to attempt to put a speedy end to his sufferings, but who, from error and confusion, so unhappily prolonged them, surpassed that of all. So violent was his grief, that the spectators pitied him almost as much as they did the martyr.”
"How fast the Marian death-list is unroll'd !
See Latimer and Ridley, in the might
Of Faith, stand coupled for a common fight !
One, like those prophets whom God sent of old,
Transfigured, from this kindling hath foretold
A torch of inextinguishable light ;
The other gains a confidence as bold ;
And thus they foil their enemy's despite.
The penal instruments, the shows of crime,
Are glorified while this once-mitred pair
Of saintly friends, the murtherous chain partake,
Corded, and burning at the social stake !
Earth never witnessed object more sublime
In constancy, in fellowship more fair."
Thus Wordsworth sings, and the consent of the generations since their martyrdom is in accord with this testimony.
The number of the English martyrs is indeed very small when compared with the list of sufferers in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. But it was a sufficient number to burn deeply into the English nation a horror of Popery which at times assumes a form ludicrous and absurd.
“To us the gigantic Papal system of the sixteenth century," says a recent writer, "that wonderful imperium, in imperio, with its proud claims, its tens of thousands of satellites, its endless abuses, is in general a little more than an extinct geological system, which we study with the mild excitement of antiquarian curiosity." Such indeed is the too common spirit of many amongst us, and it is for this reason that Rome is able to make such gigantic advances as it has done of recent years. The system, alas! is still a living force, and if its methods are somewhat more guarded and subtle than they were of old, it still constitutes a menace to the civil and religious liberties of the nation.
The sentence which was read over to Latimer shows the great issue upon which he died. And the controversy between Protestants and Romanists is still not upon secondary questions, but upon the question as to the sufficiency of the sacrifice which our Lord offered upon the Cross. Between the two theologies a great gulf is fixed, and no union is possible without the surrender of the one or of the other view. If Christ died once for all, then there is no need for the mass or for a priesthood, and upon the ground of faith in Christ alone the guilty may find, peace with God.
Latimer's mission was to declare the sufficiency of Christ's atonement, and to show its practical bearing upon the hearts and lives of men. In this he still occupies a position which is peculiarly his own, and in the discharge of this duty his best qualities are to be seen. Utility was the essential in Latimer's ministry, and in this practical earnest devotion to the interests of others lay his wonderful power over his own age and ours. To each of us is given some similar office. We live only that we may, find out what is true in order that by it we may both help ourselves and others; that is, by the Gospel to live such a life as shall become a fragrant force in the regeneration of the world.
THE END