Sermons on the Card, and Other DiscoursesLatimer, Hugh
Religion
Sermons on the Card, and Other Discourses
Latimer, Hugh
Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 16th century
nobles, the plough standeth; there is no work done, the people starve.
They hawk, they hunt, they card, they dice; they pastime in their
prelacies with gallant gentlemen, with their dancing minions, and with
their fresh companions, so that ploughing is set aside: and by their
lording and loitering, preaching and ploughing is clean gone. And thus
if the ploughmen of the country were as negligent in their office as
prelates be, we should not long live, for lack of sustenance. And as it
is necessary for to have this ploughing for the sustentation of the body,
so must we have also the other for the satisfaction of the soul, or else
we cannot live long ghostly. For as the body wasteth and consumeth away
for lack of bodily meat, so doth the soul pine away for default of
ghostly meat. But there be two kinds of inclosing, to let or hinder both
these kinds of ploughing: the one is an inclosing to let or hinder the
bodily ploughing, and the other to let or hinder the holiday-ploughing,
the church-ploughing.
The bodily ploughing is taken in and inclosed through singular commodity.
For what man will let go, or diminish his private commodity for a
commonwealth? And who will sustain any damage for the respect of a
public commodity? The other plough also no man is diligent to set
forward, nor no man will hearken to it. But to hinder and let it all
men's ears are open; yea, and a great many of this kind of ploughmen,
which are very busy, and would seem to be very good workmen. I fear me
some be rather mock-gospellers, than faithful ploughmen. I know many
myself that profess the gospel, and live nothing thereafter. I know
them, and have been conversant with some of them. I know them, and (I
speak it with a heavy heart) there is as little charity and good living
in them as in any other; according to that which Christ said in the
gospel to the great number of people that followed him, as though they
had had any earnest zeal to his doctrine, whereas indeed they had it not;
_Non quia vidistis signa, sed quia comedistis de panibus_. "Ye follow
me," saith he, "not because ye have seen the signs and miracles that I
have done; but because ye have eaten the bread, and refreshed your
bodies, therefore you follow me." So that I think many one now-a-days
professeth the gospel for the living's sake, not for the love they bear
to God's word. But they that will be true ploughmen must work faithfully
for God's sake, for the edifying of their brethren. And as diligently as
the husbandman plougheth for the sustentation of the body, so diligently
must the prelates and ministers labour for the feeding of the soul: both
the ploughs must still be going, as most necessary for man. And
wherefore are magistrates ordained, but that the tranquillity of the
commonweal may be confirmed, limiting both ploughs?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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