Of all the names connected with the Reformation in
England there are few, if any, more highly or more deservedly honoured
than that of Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester. It is not our intention to
draw a sketch of the good bishop's life; but, as the title of this article
indicates, we wish to give our readers some notion of Latimer as a
preacher. That Latimer was the son of a Leicestershire yeoman; that he
graduated at Cambridge; that, until his thirtieth year, he was a most
zealous and bigoted Papist; that the devout and enlightened Bilney led him
to forsake the errors of his way; that he became as uncompromising in his
hostility to Romanism as he had been in its favour and defence; that,
through the influence of Thomas Cromwell, he was appointed chaplain to
Anne Boleyn, and raised to the episcopal bench; that, under the law of the
Six Articles, he was confined for six years in the Tower; that, though
liberated on the accession of Edward VI., he declined, on account of his
advanced age, to resume the responsibilities of his see; that he then
spent his time in faithfully preaching the word, often publicly addressing
the king and court; that the privy-council, under Mary, sent him again to
the Tower, and thence to Oxford, there to defend his opinions; that he
heroically refused to recant; that, at the age of eighty-three, he was
committed to the flames, cheering his fellow-sufferer with these memorable
words, "Be of good comfort, Master 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:"—that these are the leading incidents of Latimer's life
is probably well known to all our readers. We would fain linger a little
while, meditating on the consistent life and noble death of the venerable
Reformer, whose character and conduct contrast favourably with some of his
associates. Unlike Cranmer, for example, Latimer cannot be attacked by
enemies, and therefore needs not to be defended by his friends. No worldly
ambition filled his heart; no worldly policy influenced his course of
action; no vacillation in his last days clouded the glory of his
testimony. He "fought the good fight," and fought it well; he "finished
his course," and finished it without a. fall, without a stumble; he "kept
the faith," and kept it fast; and in all the "great cloud of witnesses,"
there are few whose history more forcibly teaches us to "run with patience
the race that is set before us." But the limits within which this article
must be contained warn us against saying more of Latimer the man and
Latimer the martyr; so now to our text, Latimer the preacher, Latimer in
the pulpit.
Were any man to stand up and preach, in these days,
after the manner of Latimer, we think that he would scarcely be tolerated
by those classes who listened with such admiring attention to the sermons
of the old Reformer. The Christian minister, following apostolic example,
may speak of practical Christianity as a race, or a wrestle, or a battle;
and he may go into the scientific or the commercial world for his
illustrations; but the whole religious public would put its hands to its
ears, and cry, "Shame, shame!" were any clergyman, of any denomination, to
represent the duties and results of personal religion under the figure of
a game at cards. We do not attempt to justify, much less to recommend to
any preacher of the present day. such a metaphor; but we find it in one of
Latimer's discourses:—"I intend to deal unto you Christ's cards, wherein
you shall perceive Christ's rule. The game that we will play at shall be
the triumph, (or trump,) which, if it be well played, 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." We must confess that Latimer makes use of many expressions
calculated rather to shock the modern sermon-hearer's sense of propriety.
Those who now listen to the dignitaries of the English Church would be
rather astonished to hear Moses pronounced "a glorious fellow;" Isaiah, "a
good, plain fellow;" John the Baptist, "that hardy knight;" and the devil,
"that strong fellow." Although the ladies have borne, with admirable
patience and dignity, the foolish and ill-natured remarks that have been
made with reference to their crinolines, we fear that even their all but
angelic meekness would give place to anger were the present Bishop of
Oxford or London to comment in this style upon the poverty of the Virgin
Mary's wardrobe:—''I think, indeed, that Mary had never a vardingal, for
she used no such superfluities as our fine damsels do now-a-days; for, in
the old time, women were content with honest single garments; now they
have found out these roundabouts; they were not invented then; the devil
was not so cunning to make such gear ; he found it out afterward." Those
gentlemen, however, who hope to alter what they deem so monstrous a
fashion by abusing it, will do well to listen to Latimer's experience :—"I
have been desired to exhort some, and, with some, I could do little in
that matter." The ladies will, we fear, be still further offended with our
preacher when they are informed that he considered some of them rather
tyrannical towards their "Adams." "They lay out their hair in tussocks and
tufts .... because they will be quarter-masters with their husbands.
Quarter-masters? Nay, half-masters; yea, some of them will be whole
masters, and rule the roast as they list themselves." Poor Latimer ! we
are almost afraid to confess some of his sins against refinement; but,
patience, worthy reader. Consider the age in which the honest Reformer
lived, and do not blame him too severely for saying that when Joseph's
brethren had sold him, and sprinkled his coat with blood, "they thought
all was cock-sure;" do not be too hard upon him for exclaiming,
" Oh, there is a writer that hath a jolly text here;" do not be
shocked when he tells you that the antediluvians, "like dodipoles,"
laughed Noah to scorn. There is another offence which we most reluctantly
bring ourselves to mention; it is this, that Latimer, in his energetic
mode of speaking, was in the constant habit of using a word which is in
reality an oath,—the word "Marry," which means "by St Mary." However, he
apologises for this:—"I myself have had sometimes in use to say, in my
earnest matters, 'yea, by St Mary,' and such like things, which, indeed,
is naught, (evil,) for we are commanded not to swear at all." If,
according to the law as laid down by Lord Chesterfield, the practice of
quoting common proverbs is ungentlemanly, then we fear that Latimer must
be pronounced unfit for the polite circles of the present age, for of this
practice he is guilty; but when our readers see to what excellent purpose
he turns some of the people's old saws, we hope that even the most
fastidious amongst them will be reconciled to the preacher, and allow him
to utter his proverbial philosophy from the pulpit. Speaking of the
hereditary transmission of moral qualities, Latimer explains the subject
to the humblest capacity by quoting the proverb, "An evil crow, an evil
egg." Referring to the mortality of the young, he mentions the certainly
not elegant saying, "There come as many skins of calves to the market as
there do of kine." The value of early piety, and the probability of its
not proving a failure in after years, he illustrates thus,—"The earthen
pot will long savour of that liquor that is first put into it." The
indolence, carelessness, and dishonesty of servants frequently called
forth from Latimer most energetic reproofs, in connexion with which he
tells the employers of servants that they must look well to their affairs,
for "the master's eye makes the horse fat." The worthy bishop had a very
low opinion of the commercial morality of his own times:—"The merchant
commonly, in every city, doth teach his 'prentice to sell false wares."
"There never was such falsehood among Christian men as there is now." "No
man setteth anything by his promise; yea, and writings will not serve with
some, they be so shameless that they deny their own handwriting." What
marvel, then, that he should quote the proverb,— "When a man will be rich,
he must set his soul behind the door," and admit that there is a worldly
sort of truth in the old saying, "Happy is the child whose father goes to
the devil?" He found that men did not like to be told of their faults, and
complained that his preaching was too pointed and personal, whereupon he
remarks—"There is a common saying, that 'when a horse is rubbed on the
gall he will kick;' 'when a man casteth stones among dogs, he that is hit
will cry;' so it is with such fellows too; belike they be guilty, because
they cannot suffer to be again said." Preaching before the king, he took
occasion to advert to the conduct of the magistrates, which was anything
but upright in Latimer's estimation. "It is a dangerous thing to be in
office;" "He that meddleth with pitch is like to be spotted with it;"
"Beware of pitch, ye judges of the world; bribes will make you pervert
justice." Perhaps the most curious instance of Latimer's use of proverbs
is that in which he gives us the whole history of the famous saying, "Tenterden
steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands." The story is well known. Latimer
gives it bodily in one of his sermons preached before Edward VI.,
introducing it in this quaint manner, "And here, by the way, I will tell
you a merry toy." The use which Latimer makes of the proverb is this :—
"Here was preaching against covetousness all the last year in Lent, and
the next summer followed rebellion; ergo, preaching against
covetousness was the cause of rebellion—a goodly argument." Then follows
the story, which concludes thus:—"And even so, to my purpose, is preaching
of God's word the cause of rebellion, as Tenterden steeple is the cause
Sandwich haven is decayed." Such was Latimer's mode of adapting common
proverbs to pulpit use ; and we hope that our readers, instead of
condemning the practice as "out of order," will reflect whether it might
not be resorted to with good practical results by the preachers of our own
time.
Of course Latimer came down heavily, almost savagely,
upon the Romish Church; and, after exposing and denouncing its errors in
such strong but not unjust terms, it is no wonder that, as he passed
through Smithfield on his way to the Tower, he exclaimed, "This place hath
long groaned for me."
Towards the pope he is so disrespectful as to call him
"that Italian bishop yonder, the devil's chaplain." Christ chose to preach
from Peter's boat;— "Now come the Papists, and they will make a mystery of
it; they will pick out the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome in Peter's
boat.....Well, he comes to Simon's boat; and why rather to Simon's boat
than another? I will answer as I find in experience myself. I came hither
to-day from Lambeth in a wherry; and when I came to take boat, the
watermen came about me, as the manner is, and he would have me, and
he would have me; I took one of them. Now, ye will ask me why I
came in that boat rather than in another? Because I would go into that
that I see stand next me; it stood more commodiously for me. And so did
Christ by Simon's boat; it stood nearer for Him, he saw a better seat in
it. A good natural reason." Sitting in Simon's boat Christ taught. "If I
were a Papist," observes Latimer, with keen and contemptuous irony, "I
would tell what he said, .... and Pope Nicholas and Bishop Lanfranc shall
come and expound this place, and say that our Saviour Christ said—'Peter,
I do mean this by sitting in thy boat, that thou shalt go to Rome and be
bishop there five-and-twenty years after mine ascension; and all thy
successors shall be rulers of the universal Church after thee." The pope
found no favour in Latimer's eyes; it fared no better with the cardinals.
Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, "was made a cardinal at Calais, and
thither the Bishop of Rome sent him a cardinal's hat. He should have had a
Tyburn tippet, a halfpenny halter, and all such proud prelates. These
Romish hats never brought good into England." On Christ's saying to Judas,
"What thou doest, do quickly," Latimer observes: "He spake in the singular
number to him; ergo, he gave him some pre-eminence. Belike he made
him a cardinal; and it might full well be, for they have followed Judas
ever since." Purgatory is "that fiery furnace that hath burned away so
many of our pence." On the worship of saints we read: "If thou wilt needs
worship them, will you hear how you shall worship them? Live godly and
uprightly after their example, follow their charitable life and steadfast
faith; then you worship them as they ought to be worshipped."
The persons who came in for Latimer's severest censures
were "unpreaching prelates;" in fact, although a bishop himself, he
perpetually spoke of bishops in most disrespectful, and, we fear,
uncharitable terms. The staunchest Presbyterian, the most thoroughgoing
Congregationalist, would neither dare nor desire to apply to any member of
the right reverend body such language as Latimer was in the habit of
using. Speaking of some prelates who had given their sovereign improper
advice, he exclaims, "Woe worth such counsellors! Bishops! Nay, rather
Buzzards." He really goes out of his way, and sets historical fact at
defiance, in order to have a fling at his mitred brethren; for whenever he
speaks of the scribes, Pharisees, and priests who opposed Christ and put
him to death, he takes a delight in calling them all bishops. "The Jewish
people consented to His death by the persuasion of the bishops." "Now,
what doth Herod? Forthwith he calleth all the bishops and learned men, and
inquireth of them the time at the which Christ should be born." He even
has the audacity to ridicule the ancient mode of giving the episcopal
blessing. "What is blessing? Not wagging of the fingers, as our bishops
"were wont." He gives King Edward this advice, in a sermon preached before
his Majesty: "I will be a suitor to your grace, that ye will give to your
bishops charge .... to look better to their flock, .... and send your
visitors in their tails. And if they be found negligent or faulty in their
duties, out with them; I require it in God's behalf; make them quondams,
all the pack of them." The advice becomes more strange and startling as we
hear a bishop go on to say—"If your Majesty's chaplains and my Lord
Protector's be not able to furnish their places," (the places of the
quondams,) "there is in this realm, thanks be to God, a great sight of
laymen well learned in the Scriptures, and of virtuous and godly
conversations, better learned than a great Eight of us of the clergy." But
he is more severe than this. "If one were admitted to view hell thus, and
behold it throughly, the devil would cry, 'On yonder side are punished
unpreaching prelates.' I think a man might see as far as a kenning, and
see nothing but unpreaching prelates. He might look as far as Calais, I
warrant you." On clergymen who absented themselves from their parishes,
Latimer lays the lash unmercifully. In connexion with this subject he
tells a story, in one of the sermons preached before King Edward. A
bishop, going on his visitation, arrived at a town, and entered it without
the customary welcome from the church steeple. On making inquiry he found
that "the great bell's clapper was fallen down, the bell was broken, so
that the bishop could not be rung into the town." His lordship was
'"somewhat quick with the chief of the parish." "They made their answers,
and excuse themselves as well as they could. . . . Among the others, there
was one wiser than the rest, and he comes me to the bishop—'Why, my lord,'
saith he, 'doth your lordship make so great a matter of the bell that hath
lost his clapper! Here is a bell,' saith he, and pointed to the
pulpit, 'that hath lost his clapper these twenty years. We have a parson
that fetcheth out of this benefice fifty pounds every year, but we never
see him.'" Again, referring to the fee-farming of benefices, he says,
"When any man hereafter shall have a benefice, he may go where he will,
for any house he shall have to dwell upon, or any glebe to keep
hospitality withal; but he must take up a chamber in an ale-house, and
there sit to play at the tables all the day. A goodly curate !" There were
in Latimer's days, as there are in our own, preachers whose discourses
were the reverse of awakening. But this Latimer will not hear of as an
excuse for not attending public worship; "I had rather ye should come, as
the tale is, by the gentlewoman of London. One of her neighbours met her
in the street, and said, ' Mistress, whither go ye?' 'Marry,' said she, 'I
am going to St Thomas of Acre's to the sermon; I could not sleep all this
last night, and I am going thither now; I never failed of a good nap
there.'" But, if the preacher be an inefficient man, what is to be done by
the unfortunate parishioners? Are they to dismiss him, or to starve him
out? No; let us hear Latimer's advice. "But some will say, 'Our
curate is naught, an ass-head, a dodipole, a lack-latin, and can do
nothing. Shall I pay him my tithes that doth us no good, nor never will
do?' 'Yea,' I say, 'thou must pay him his due, and if he be such a one,
complain to the bishop,' ' We have complained to the ordinary; but he is
as negligent as he.' 'Complain to the council.' 'Sir, so we have done, but
no remedy can be had.' ' Well, I can tell thee where to complain—complain
to God; He will surely hear thee, and remedy it. . . . Therefore pray unto
God, and He will either turn his heart and make him better; or remove him
from thee, and send a better in his place; or else take him away
altogether!'"
With one passage more, illustrative of the plainness
and simplicity of Latimer's style, we bring these observations to a close,
hoping soon to resume the subject, and to present our readers with some
illustrations of Latimer's mode of expounding Scripture, and some
specimens of his best and brightest sayings. The simplicity of Latimer's
style may be seen in all his discourses. We have taken this passage almost
at random. "What is Jesus? Jesus is a Hebrew word, and signifieth, in our
English tongue, a Saviour and Redeemer of all mankind born into this
world. This title and name, to save, per-taineth properly and principally
unto Him; for He saveth us, else we had been lost for ever.
Notwithstanding, the name of saviour is used in common speech: as the king
is called a saviour, for he saveth his subjects from all danger and harm
that may ensue of the enemies. Likewise the physician is accounted a
saviour, for he saveth the sick man from the danger of his disease with
good and wholesome medicines. So fathers and mothers are saviours, for
they save their children from bodily harm that may happen unto them. So
bridges leading over the waters are saviours, for they save us from the
waters. Likewise ships and boats are saviours, great and small vessels
upon the seas are saviours, for they save us from the fury, rage, and
tempest of the sea. So judges are saviours, for they save, or at least
should save, the people from wrong and oppression. But all this is not a
perfect saving; for what availeth it to be saved from sickness,
calamities, and oppression when we shall be condemned after our death,
both body and soul, for ever to remain with the devil and his angels? We
must therefore come to Jesus, who is the right and true Saviour, ' and He
it is that hath saved us from sin.' Whom hath He saved? His people. Who
are His people ? All that believe in Him, and put their whole trust in
Him, and those that seek help and salvation at His hands; all such are His
people. How saved He them? First, by magistrates He saved them from
oppression and wrong; the children He saved, through the tuition of the
parents, from danger and peril; by physicians He saveth from sickness and
diseases; but from sin He saveth only through His passion and
blood-shedding. Therefore He may be called and is the very right Saviour;
for it is He that saveth from all infelicity all His faithful people." The
reader, accustomed to what he calls, erroneously perhaps, more
intellectual preaching, may smile at such a simple method of discourse;
but this was the sort of speaking that made Latimer the most useful
preacher of his day; and the age we live in, with all its boasted
progress, would perhaps be none the worse if its religious instructors
condescended, in this respect, to imitate his example.