The Sermon of the Plough, preached on January 18, 1548, by the Rt. Rev. HUGH Latimer , Bachelor of Divinity, sometime Bishop of Worcester.
THE series of Bible Readings came to an end last Sunday, and today a new series begins. It is called ' English Eloquence,' and as great eloquence is inspired in great men by great subjects, this series should not follow ignobly its predecessor. Its aim is to represent each week one of the finest sermons or speeches delivered in English by churchmen and statesmen ranging from Hugh Latimer to President Wilson.
As a great cause, the Reformation in England inspired many champions, and of these Hugh Latimer was the most eloquent. ' Did there ever any man flourish, I say not in England, but in any nation in the world after the Apostles, who preached the gospel more sincerely, purely and honestly than Hugh Latimer ? '
Bom in Leicestershire—' my father was a yeoman and had no lands of his own'—he lived and preached reformation during three reigns. But the Reformation was a social as well as a religious movement. And though Latimer had preached on matters of dogma under Cardinal Wolsey and had resigned his See for refitsing to subscribe to the Six Articles of Henry VIII , his greatest sermons were those preached against the crying social evils of the age.
For eight years he had been persecuted, imprisoned and silent; but with the accession of Edward VI he was granted a. licence to preach and devoted himself to the redress of the injured and oppressed. ' In which his painful travails he continued all King Edward's time ; preaching for the most part two sermons every Sunday; and besides this, every morning ordinarily, winter and summer, about two of the clock in the morning, he was at his book diligently.' The Sermon of the Plough was one of the fruits of this time, which passed all too soon. Persecution revived under Mary and at the last, ' When Master Latimer stood at the stake, and the tormentors were about to set the fire upon him and that most reverend father Doctor Ridley, he lifted up his eyes towards heaven with a most amiable and comfortable countenance, saying these words : " God is faithful, which does not suffer us to bo tempted above our strength." '
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