There was a minister of the Word in London who exasperated the friends of Rome more than all the rest; this man was Latimer. The court of Henry VIII., which was worldly, magnificent, fond of pleasures, intrigue, the elegances of dress, furniture, banquets, and refinement of language and manners, was not a favorable field for the Gospel. ‘It is very difficult,’ said a reformer, ‘that costly trappings, solemn banquets, the excesses of pride, a flood of pleasure and debauchery should not bring many evils in their train.’ Thus the priests and courtiers could not endure Latimer’s sermons. If Lambert was for freedom of inquiry, the king’s chaplain was for freedom of preaching: his zeal sometimes touched upon imprudence, and his biting wit, his extreme frankness, did not spare his superiors. One day, some honest merchants, who hungered and thirsted for the Word of God, begged him to come and preach in one of the city churches. Thrice he refused, but yielded to their prayers at last. The death of Bilney and of the other martyrs had wounded him deeply. He knew that wild beasts, when they have once tasted blood, thirst for more, and feared that these murders, these butcheries, would only make his adversaries fiercer. He determined to lash the persecuting prelates with his sarcasms. Having entered the pulpit, he preached from these words in the epistle of the day: _Ye are not under the law, but under grace_.[185] ‘What!’ he exclaimed, ‘St. Paul teaches Christians that they are not under the law.... What does he mean?... No more law! St. Paul invites Christians to break the law. Quick! inform against St. Paul, seize him and take him before my Lord Bishop of London!... The good apostle must be condemned to bear a fagot at St. Paul’s Cross. What a goodly sight to see St. Paul with a fagot on his back, before my lord in person seated on his episcopal throne!... But no! I am mistaken, his lordship would not be satisfied with so little ... he would sooner burn him.’[186]