This was one of the strangest conversions in history.
Later, in one of his sermons, Latimer said,
“I learnt more by this confession than by much reading and in many years before..I now tasted the word of God, and forsook the doctors of the school and all their fooleries.”
Both of these young men were destined ultimately to die at the stake for their faith. Latimer was to become one of the greatest preachers in England, and was to sit among the mighty in ecclesiastical circles of his country. By some he is called “the second John Knox.”
Hugh Latimer was born about 1485 at Thurcaston in Leicestershire. He was sent to the country schools and then to Cambridge, where he became a fellow at Clare Hall and attained the master of arts degree. Following the completion of his classical studies he completed the bachelor of divinity degree, but because he failed to pay his fees, the degree was never conferred.
Of himself at this period he later said,
“I was as obstinate a papist as any was in England, insomuch that when I should be made bachelor of divinity, my whole oration went against Philipp Melanchthon and against his opinions.” — Hugh Latimer, Works, vol. 1, p. 334.
He attacked the Bible readers among both professors and students. He railed against Dr. George Stafford, an illustrious teacher who explained the Greek New Testament to his classes. Latimer asked the students to remain away from Stafford’s lectures.
All this was changed after “little Bilney” visited him. He became Bilney’s disciple, and daily they were seen together, conversing and taking long walks. Practical in their Christianity, they visited the lazar house, the insane asylum, the jail, the poorer students in their narrow rooms, and the underprivileged working classes. They preached the gospel among these unfortunate people, and made many converts.
Latimer’s character underwent a marvelous transformation. One of the first things he did was to apologize to Dr. Stafford. Meekly and humbly
he spent much time in solitude studying the Bible, often arising at two o’clock in the morning for this purpose. He was energetic, humorous, plain of speech, and at times ironical, but honest, devoted, and courageous, frequently disregarding consequences as he spoke what he deemed to be right.
In 1522 he was one of the twelve licensed by the university to preach in all parts of England. After his conversion in 1524 the people regarded his preaching as something new and different. He preached boldly that Jesus Christ provided salvation for sinners, and that human traditions were unreliable guides. Large crowds gathered as he told them that the word of God was to be obeyed by prince and peasant alike. Even those who came to scoff and criticize went away saying that they had never heard any man speak as he did.
“Thus Latimer joined his contemporaries in championing the movement for a rebirth of feeling and in crying to the world the promise of justification by faith.” — C.M. Gray, Hugh Latimer and the Sixteenth Century, page 20.
Priests became alarmed as they saw their parishioners begin to study the Bible, and university professors threatened to withhold advancement from students who turned evangelical. Nonetheless, the Reformers kept on; to Stafford’s teaching, Latimer’s preaching, and Bilney’s praying were added Robert Barnes’s scholarly exhortations and John Frith’s stirring discourses on Jesus’ saving love.
As the priests and professors at Cambridge saw Latimer’s increasing popularity, they said that he must be stopped. For this purpose they appealed to Dr. West, bishop of Ely. After listening to one of Latimer’s sermons on the evil ways of the clergy, West asked him to preach a sermon against Martin Luther, as an effective means of checking heresy.
He could hardly have been pleased with Latimer’s reply, “If Luther preaches the word of God, I cannot oppose him. But if he teaches the contrary, I am ready to attack him.”
Since he had been forbidden to preach in either the university or the diocese, Latimer now went from house to house. Unhappy without a pulpit, he welcomed the invitation to preach in a monastery chapel.
Barnes was another convert of “little Bilney” and was the newly appointed prior of St. Augustine’s Monastery, which was outside the church control.
Called before Cardinal Wolsey, Latimer told what he had been preaching, but disavowed having Lutheran tendencies. Since Wolsey was no friend of West because of a private feud between them, and since he saw in Latimer the learning he so greatly admired, he granted the Reformer a special license to preach, much to the chagrin of Latimer’s papist enemies.
When he was called to be the chaplain of Henry VIII, it can be said to Latimer’s credit that he did not mute his message to tickle the ear of either king or prelate. At one time he stated,
“Do you know who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all England?..It is the devil..Ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you.
Where the devil is resident — there away with books and up with candles; away with Bibles and up with heads; away with the light of the gospel and up with the light of candles; yea at noondays;
down with Christ’s cross, up with purgatory pickpurse; away with clothing the naked, the poor, and impotent, up with decking of images and gay garnishing of stocks and stones; down with God’s traditions and His most holy word..Oh! that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel!”
Latimer also deplored the evils which accompanied the Reformation. As he deplored the low state to which the clergy had fallen because of a lack of funds to give them a decent living, he wanted to introduce a method whereby the ablest and most consecrated men would find election to the pulpit.
Latimer’s way was beset by pitfalls into which at times he stumbled.
Cited for heresy in 1532, he made what was considered a complete submission; but, later, when he stated that he had merely confessed errors in discretion and not in doctrine, he was again cited, and this time he recanted fully.
With Cranmer’s ascension to the archbishopric of Canterbury, Latimer’s way became easier. When Henry formally repudiated the authority of the
pope in 1534, Latimer became a principal consultant with Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell as they advised the king concerning governmental and ecclesiastical procedures arising out of the abrogation.
At first favorable to Protestant views, the king subscribed to the Ten Articles, which the Protestants considered a long step forward. The opposition of the Catholic party led, however, in 1539, to the adoption of the Six Articles, which established transubstantiation, excluded
Communion in both kinds, forbade marriage of priests, made obligatory vows of celibacy, upheld private mass for souls in purgatory, and necessitated auricular confession.
Feeling that his conscience would not allow him to uphold these rules, Latimer resigned his bishopric, and it may be that Cromwell saved him from the stake. It is said that Cromwell told the king, “Consider what a singular man he is, and cast not that away in one hour which nature and art hath been so many years in breeding and perfecting.”
For a while he lived as a private citizen with Cranmer, and for a time he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Upon his liberation in 1540 he was charged to leave London and desist from all preaching and from visiting the universities or his old diocese.
Six years later he was heard from again, this time also in the Tower because of his association with another Reformer, Edward Crome. When Edward VI came to the throne, Latimer was released, and immediately he began to preach again with even more vigor and power than before,
although he refused to return to the bishopric of Worcester. Larger crowds gathered at Paul’s Cross and other places to listen to him, and he made many converts.
When Mary Tudor followed the boy Edward to the throne in 1553, all this was over. A reactionary movement set in, and the restoration of the
Catholic regime began.
Sent once more to the Tower, which was at this time overcrowded with many opponents of Catholicism, Latimer was confined in the same room with his friends Ridley and Cranmer, and with another man. Here they comforted each other by reading and discussing the New Testament.
Latimer, old and sick, found prison life extremely difficult.
After six months, on March 8, 1554, Latimer was removed to Bocardo Prison at Oxford. With Ridley and Cranmer, he was examined at St.
Mary’s Church, April 14, on the charge that he had denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. Eighteen months later, on October 16, 1555, Latimer and Ridley were led to the stake. Cranmer’s fate was postponed five months.
After both had been tied to the same stake in a ditch near Baliol College and a fagot lighted under Ridley, Latimer spoke the words which have since strengthened the faith of countless Christians the world over: “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”