his manhood was sustained by food as ours. For St. Paul saith le was very man, and in form he was found as man. And so we must believe that he was very God and very man together, and that he ascended up very God and very man to heaven, and that he shall be there till he come to doom the world. And we may not see him bodily, being in this life, as it is written, Peter i., For he saith, Whom ye have not ye love, into whom ye now not seeing believe. And John saith in the first chapter of his Gospel, No man saw God; none but the only-begotten Son that is in the bosom of the Father, He hath told it out. And John saith in his first epistle, the third chapter, Every man that sinneth seeth not him, neither knoweth him. By what reason then say ye that are sinners that ye make God? truly this must needs be the worst sin, to say that ye make God, and it is the abomination of discomfort that is said in Daniel the prophet to be standing in the holy place; he that readeth let him understand.

Also Luke saith, chap. xxii., that Christ took the cup after that he had supped, and gave thanks and said, This cup is the new testament in my blood that shall be shed into the remission of sins for man. Now, what say ye; the cup which he said was the new testament in his blood, was it a material cup in which the wine was that he gave his disciples wine of, or was it his most blessed body in which the blessed blood was kept till it was shed out for the sins of them that should be made safe by his passion? Needs must we say that he spake of his holy body, as he did when he called his passion or suffering in body a cup, when he prayed to his father, before he went to his passion, Matt. xxvi., and said, If it be possible that this cup pass from me, but if thou wilt that I drink it, thy will be done? He spake not here of the material cup in which he had given his disciples drink; for it troubled not him, but he prayed for his great sufferance and bitter death, the which he suffered for our sins and not for his own. And if he spake of his holy body and passion when he said, This cup is the new testament in my blood, so he spake of his holy body, when he said, This is my body which shall be given for you, and not of the material bread which he had in his hand. Also in another place he calleth his passion a cup, Matt. xx., where the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him, and asked of him that her two sons, when he came to his kingdom, might sit one on his right side, and one at his left side. And he answered and said, Woman, thou wottest not what thou asketh; then he said to them, May ye drink of the cup that I shall drink? and they said, Yea, Lord. And he said, Ye shall drink of my cup, but to sit on

my right hand or left hand it is not mine to give, but to the Father it is proper. But in that he said, Ye shall drink of my cup, he promised them to suffer tribulation of this world as he did, by the which they should enter into life everlasting, and to be both on his right hand. And thus ye may see that Christ spake not of the material cup, neither of himself, nor of his apostles, neither of ma terial bread, neither of material wine. Therefore let every man wisely, with meek prayers, and great study, and also charity, read the words of God and holy Scriptures; but many of you are like the mother of Zebedee's sons to whom Christ said, Thou knowest not what thou askest. So, inany of you know not what ye ask, nor what you do; for if ye did, ye would not blaspheme God as ye do, to set an alien God instead of the living God. Also Christ saith, John xv., I am a very* vine; wherefore then worship ye not the vine for God, as ye do the bread? Wherein was Christ a very vine, or wherein was the bread Christ's body, in figurative speech, which is hidden to the understanding of sinners? Then if Christ became not a material or an earthly vine, neither did a material vine become the body of Christ. So neither the bread, material bread, was changed from its substance to the flesh and blood of Christ.

Have ye not read in John the second, when Christ came into the temple, they asked of him what token he would show, that they might believe him. And he answered them, Cast down this temple, and in three days I shall raise it again; which words were fulfilled in his rising again from death; but when he said, Undo this temple, in that that he said this, they were in error, for they understood it fleshly, and had supposed that he had spoken of the temple of Jerusalem, because he stood in it. And therefore they accused him at his passion full falsely. Matt. xxvi. For he spake of the temple of his blessed body, which rose again in the third day. And right so Christ spake of his holy body when he said, This is my body which shall be given for you, Luke xxii., which was given to death, and to rising again to bliss, for all that shall be saved by him. But like as they accused him falsely of the temple of Jerusalem, so now-a-days they accuse falsely against Christ, and say that Christ spake of the bread that he brake among his apostles; for in that Christ said this, they are deceived, take it fleshly, and turn it to the material bread, as the Jews did to the temple; and on this false understanding they make abomination of discomfort, as is said by Daniel the prophet, and in Matthew xxiv., to be standing in the holy place; he that readeth let him understand.

* True.

through Smithfield on his way, and said of that place, that it "had long groaned for him," expecting to die where so many had been burned in previous years. He was committed again to the Tower, and confined in a cell with three others, Cranmer, Ridley, and Bradford. In 1554 the three bishops were removed to Oxford, where they were tried, condemned, and imprisoned. They were finally brought before the commissioners appointed by the Pope, September 30, 1555; the aged Latimer girded as to his waist "with a penny leathern girdle, at which his New Testament hung by a string of leather, and his spectacles, without case, depending about his neck upon his breast." On the 16th of Oc tober, Latimer and Ridley were led forth to the place of execution, in front of Baliol College, on the north side of Oxford, where they were compelled to hear their doctrines and characters aspersed in a sermon by a renegade priest. They were then fastened to the stake by a chain around the middle of the body, a bag of gunpowder was tied to the neck of each, the faggots were fired, and the martyrs were consumed, calling upon the name of the Lord.

Latimer ranks high in the first quality of a preacher-that he preached Christ, and salvation without human merit. His sermons were not learned, and many of his anecdotes and illustrations would not suit the modern taste. But he always insisted on the cardinal doctrine, that justification is not by works, and that Christ, by the one only oblation of his body, sanctified forever those that believe. In courage, too, Latimer has never been excelled. To the king he said, "If your grace allow me for a preacher, I would desire your grace to give me leave to discharge my conscience." "Latimer, Latimer," he exclaimed, at the beginning of one of his sermons, "thou art going to speak before the high and mighty King Henry VIII., who is able, if he think fit, to take thy life away. Be careful what thou sayest. But Latimer, Latimer, remember also that thou art about to speak before the Kings of kings, and Lord of lords. Take heed that thou dost not displease him." His reverence for the Scripture was equal to his courage. "I would be ruled by God's book," said he; "and rather than depart one jot from it, I would be torn by wild horses." Of some who complained, he said, “I would rather follow Paul, though they had all the doctors on their side." In his daily life Latimer exemplified what he preached. He visited the narrow chambers of the students, and the dark rooms of the working. classes, and "watered with good deeds whatsoever he had before planted by godly words."

As a powerful preacher Latimer has been rarely equaled, and perhaps never excelled. His enemies, "though swelling, blown full, and puffed up, like sop's frog, with envy and malice against him," as Becon has it, returned from hearing him with the words of exaggeration, "Never spake like this man." His style is lively and cheerful, and though in his sermons we meet with many quaint, odd, and coarse things, yet wo

every where discover the traces of his homely wit, his racy manner, his keen observation, his manly freedom, his playful temper, and his simplicity and sincerity of heart. Says a well-known English divine, "If a combination of sound Gospel doctrine, plain Saxon language, boldness, liveliness, directness, and simplicity, can make a preacher, few, I suspect, have ever equaled old Latimer."

It was customary with the preachers of Latimer's day, oftentimes, to seize upon some singular topic to engage the attention of their hearers, which may account for the odd title of the sermon which follows. It was preached in 1548, when Latimer must have been nearly seventy years of age, and perhaps in no one of his discourses (of which the very rare extant editions contain forty-five) does the great martyr-preacher appear to better advantage.

whi

IV.,

SERMON OF THE PLOW.

"For whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning."-ROM. 4.

All things that are written in God's book, in the Bible book, in the book of the Holy Scripture, are written to be our doctrine. I told you in my first sermon,* honorable audience, that I proposed to declare unto you two things, the one, what seed should be sown in God's field, in God's plow-land; and the other, who should be the sowers.

That is to say, what doctrine is to be taught in Christ's Church and congregation, and what men should be the teachers and preachers of it. The first part I have told you in the three sermons past, in which I have assayed to set forth my plow, to prove what I could do. And now I shall tell you who are the plowers; for God's word is seed to be sown in God's field, that is, the faithful congregation, and the preacher is the sower. And it is said in the Gospel; "He that soweth, the husbandman, the plowman, went forth to sow his seed." So that a preacher is compared to a plowman, as it is in another place: "No man that putteth his hand to the plow, and looketh back, is apt for the kingdom of God," (Luke ix.) That is to say, let no preacher be negligent in doing his office. This is one of the places that has been racked,† as I told you of racking Scrip. tures, and I have been one of them myself that have racked it, I cry

*The sermon here mentioned has not been preserved.

Wrested or perverted.

God mercy for it; and have been one of them that have believed, and have expounded it against religious persons that would forsake their order which they had professed, and would go out of their cloister; whereas indeed it relates not to monkery, nor makes at all for any such matter; but it is directly spoken of diligent preaching of the word of God. For preaching of the Gospel is one of God's plow-works, and the preacher is one of God's plowmen.

Be not 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, though I have been unjustly slandered by some persons for such thing.

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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 the auditors must not be offended without cause. For heaven is in the Gospel likened unto a mustard seed: it is compared also to a piece of leaven; and 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? You should not then, I say, be offended with my similitude, 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 is, that has a flock to be taught by him; whosoever has any spiritual charge in the faithful congregation, and whosoever he is that has a cure of souls.

Well may the preacher and the plowman be likened together; first, for their labor at all seasons of the year; for there is no time of the year in which the plowman has not some special work to do; as in my country in Leicestershire, the plowman has a time to set forth, and to assay his plow, and other times for other necessary works to be done. And 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 sets forth his plow, and then tills the land, and breaks it in furrows, and sometimes ridges it up again; and at another time harrows it and clotteth it,* and sometimes dungs it and hedges it, digs it and weeds it, and makes it clean; so the prelate, the preacher, has many diverse offices to do. He has 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 embraces Christ, and trusts to his merits; a lively faith, a justifying faith; a faith that makes a man righteous, without respect of works; as you have it very well declared and set forth in the homily. He has then a busy work, I say, to bring his flock to a right faith, and then to confirm them in the Wandering, changing.

Breaks the clods.