Sermons on the Card | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1883 Cassell & Co. edition edition.

SERMONS ON THE CARD AND OTHER DISCOURSES
by Hugh Latimer

INTRODUCTION.

Hugh Latimer, a farmer's son, was born about the year 1491, at
Thurcaston, in Leicestershire. He was an only son, with six sisters, who
were all well cared for at home. He was a boy of fourteen when sent to
Clare College, Cambridge. When about twenty- four years old, he had
obtained a college fellowship, had taken the degree of Master of Arts,
and was ordained Priest of the Roman Church at Lincoln. In 1524, at
the age of about thirty, he proceeded to the degree of B.D., and on the
occasion of his doing so he argued publicly for the Pope's authority
against opinions of Melancthon. Thomas Bilney went afterwards to
Latimer's rooms, gave him his own reasons for goodwill to the teaching
of Melancthon, and explained to him his faith as a Reformer in a way
that secured Latimer's attention. Latimer's free, vigorous mind,
admitted the new reasonings, and in his after-life he looked always
upon "little Bilney" as the man who had first opened his eyes.
With homely earnestness Latimer began soon to express his new
convictions. His zeal and purity of life had caused him to be trusted by
the University as a maintainer of old ways; he had been appointed
cross-bearer to the University, and elected one of the twelve preachers
annually appointed in obedience to a bull of Pope Alexander VI. Now
Latimer walked and worked with Bilney, visiting the sick and the

prisoners, and reasoning together of the needs of Christendom. The
Bishop of the diocese presently forbade Latimer's preaching in any of
the pulpits of the University. Robert Barnes, prior of the Augustinian
Friars at Cambridge, a man stirred to the depths by the new movement
of thought, then invited Latimer to preach in the church of the
Augustinians. Latimer was next summoned before Wolsey, whom he
satisfied so well that Wolsey overruled the Bishop's inhibition, and
Latimer again became a free preacher in Cambridge.
The influence of Latimer's preaching became every year greater; and in
December, 1529, he gave occasion to new controversy in the
University by his two Sermons on the Card, delivered in St. Edward's
Church, on the Sunday before Christmas, 1529. Card-playing was in
those days an amusement especially favoured at Christmas time.
Latimer does not express disapproval, though the Reformers generally
were opposed to it. The early statutes of St. John's College, Cambridge,
forbade playing with dice or cards by members of the college at any
time except Christmas, but excluded undergraduates even from the
Christmas privilege. In these sermons Latimer used the card-playing of
the season for illustrations of spiritual truth drawn from the trump card
in triumph, and the rules of