going to law, and pleading their causes before heathen judges: "Is there," saith he, "among you no wise man, to be an arbitrator in matters of judgment? What, not one of all that can judge between brother and brother; but one brother goeth to law with another, and that before heathen judges? Appoint those for judges that are most abject and vile in the congregation." Which he speaks to rebuke them; "For," saith he, "I speak it to your shame." So, England, I speak it to thy shame; is there never a nobleman to be a lord president, but it must be a prelate? Is there never a wise man in the realm to be a comptroller of the mint? I speak it to your shame. I speak it to your shame. If there be never a wise man, make a waterbearer, a tinker, a cobbler, a slave, a page, comptroller of the mint: make a mean gentleman, a groom, a yeoman, or a poor beggar, lord president.

Thus I speak, not that I would have it so; but to your shame, if there is never a gentleman meet or able to be lord president. For why are not the noblemen and young gentlemen of England so brought up in knowledge of God, and in learning, that they may be able to execute offices in the commonweal? The king has a great many wards, and I trow there is a court of wards; why is there not a school for the wards, as well as there is a court for their lands? Why are they not set in schools where they may learn? Or why are they not sent to the universities, that they may be able to serve the king when they come to age? If the wards and young gentlemen were well brought up in learning, and in the knowledge of God, they would not when they come to age so much give themselves to other vanities. And if the nobility be well trained in godly learning, the people would follow the same train. For truly, such as the noblemen are, such will the people be. And now, the only cause why noblemen are not made lord presidents, is because they have not been brought up in learning.*

Therefore for the love of God appoint teachers and schoolmasters, you that have charge of youth; and give the teachers stipends worthy their pains, that they may bring them up in grammar, in logic, in rhetoric, in philosophy, in the civil law, and in that which I cannot leave

* The nation was then emerging from popery, or Latimer would not have been allowed to make such remarks; the state of things to which he refers existed in the days of Romanism.

unspoken of, the word of God. Thanks be unto God, the nobility otherwise is very well brought up in learning and godliness, to the great joy and comfort of England; so that there is now good hope in the youth, that we shall another day have a flourishing commonweal, considering their godly education. Yea, and there are already noblemen enough, though not so many as I would wish, able to be lord presidents, and wise men enough for the mint. And as unmeet a thing it is for bishops to be lord presidents, or priests to be minters, as it was for the Corinthians to plead matters of variance before heathen judges. It is also a slander to the noblemen, as though they lacked wisdom and learning to be able for such offices, or else were no men of conscience, or else were not meet to be trusted, and able for such offices. And a prelate has a charge and cure otherwise; and therefore he cannot discharge his duty and be a lord president too. For a presidentship requireth a whole man; and a bishop cannot be two men. A bishop has his office, a flock to teach, to look unto; and therefore he cannot meddle with another office, which alone requires a whole man; he should therefore give it over to whom it is meet, and labour in his own business; as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "Let every man do his own business, and follow his calling." Let the priest preach, and the nobleman handle the temporal matters. Moses was a marvellous man, a good man: Moses was a wonderful man, and did his duty, being a married man: we lack such as Moses was. Well, I would all men would look to their duty, as God hath called them, and then we should have a flourishing Christian commonweal.

And now I would ask a strange question; who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, that passes all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know 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 passes 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 others; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure: you shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keeps residence at all times; you shall never find him out of the way; call for him when you will he is ever at home. He

is the most diligent preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plough; no lording nor loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, you 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 kinds of popery. He is ready as can be wished for to set forth his plough; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devil is resident, and has his plough 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 noon-day. Where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, up with all superstition and idolatry; censing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new service of men's inventing; as though man could invent a better way to honour God with, than God himself hath appointed. Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pickpurse,t 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 honour due to God, and up with the new god's honour. Let all things be done in Latin: there must be nothing but Latin, not so much as "Remember man that thou art ashes, and into ashes shalt thou return:" which are the words that the minister speaketh unto the ignorant people, when he gives 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, which worketh to have things in Latin, and hinders the fruitful edification. But here some man will say to me, What, sir, are you so privy to the devil's counsel that you 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 * The lighted tapers used in the popish services:

† Alluding to the vast sums extorted under pretence of praying for the souls in purgatory.

St. Peter, who saith of him," He goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." I would have this text well viewed and examined, every word of it: "He goeth about" in every corner of his diocese; he goeth on visitation daily, he leaves no place of his cure unvisited: he walks round about from place to place, and ceases not. "As a lion," that is, strongly, boldly, and proudly; stately and fiercely, with haughty looks, with his proud countenances, with his stately braggings. "Roaring;" for he lets not any occasion slip, to speak or to roar out when he seeth his time. "He goeth about seeking," and not sleeping, as our bishops do; but he seeketh diligently, he searcheth diligently all corners, where 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 plough, 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, labours to sow cockle and darnel, that he may bring out of form, and out of estimation and renown, the institution of the Lord's supper and Christ's cross? For there he lost his right; for Christ said, "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. (John iii.) 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 was sure.

But there lost he all reigning: for Christ said, “I will draw all things to myself." He means, drawing of man's soul to salvation. And that he said he would do by his own self; not by any other 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 mark at which the devil shooteth, to evacuate the cross of Christ, and to mingle the institution of the Lord's supper; which although he cannot bring to pass, yet he goes about by his sleights and subtle means to frustrate the same; and these fifteen hundred years he has been a doer, only purposing to make Christ's death of small efficacy and virtue. *To empty, or make of none effect.

For whereas Christ, "according as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness," so would he himself be exalted; that thereby as many as trusted in him should have salvation; but the devil would none of that. They would have us saved by a daily oblation propitiatory; by a sacrifice expiatory, or remissory.*

Now if I should preach in the country, among the unlearned, I would tell what propitiatory, expiatory, and remissory mean; but here is a learned auditory: yet for them that are unlearned I will expound it. Propitiatory, expiatory, remissory, or satisfactory, for they signify all one thing in effect, and it is nothing else but whereby to obtain remission of sins, and to have salvation. And this way the devil used to evacuate the death of Christ, that we might have affiance in other things, as in the daily sacrifice of the priest; whereas Christ would have us to trust in his sacrifice alone. So he was "the lamb that hath been slain from the beginning of the world;" and therefore he is called " a continual sacrifice;" and not for the continuance of the mass, as the blanchers have blanched it, and wrested it; and as I myself did once mistake it. But Paul saith, “By himself, and by none other, Christ made purgation and satisfaction for the whole world."

Would that this word, by himself, had been better weighed and looked upon, and to make them holy; for Christ is a continual sacrifice, in effect, fruit, and operation; that like as they, who seeing the serpent hang up in the desert, were put in remembrance of Christ's death, in whom as many as believed were saved; so all men that trusted in the death of Christ shall be saved, as well they that were before, as they that came after. For he was a continual sacrifice, as I said, in effect, fruit, operation, and virtue. As though he had from the beginning of the world, and continually should to the world's end, hang still on the cross; and he is as fresh hanging on the cross now, to them that believe and trust in him, as he was fifteen hundred years ago, when he was crucified.

Then let us trust upon his death alone, and look for no other sacrifice propitiatory, than the same bloody sacrifice, the lively sacrifice; and not the dry sacrifice,† but a

* In the Romish church the mass is offered daily, as a sacrifice for the remission of sins.

+ The papists distinguish the sacrifice of the mass from the actual death of Christ upon the cross by calling it "an unbloody sacrifice."