Hugh Latimer on Justification by Faith Alone

Quacunque serif tasunl, ad nostram doctrinam scripta sunt.—Rom. xv. 4. All things that be written, they be written to be our doctrine.

O how happy are we, that it hath pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe that his Son should sweat blood for the redeeming of our sins! And, again, how unhappy are we, if we will not take it thankfully, that were redeemed so painfully! Alas, what hard hearts have we! Our Saviour Christ never sinned, and yet sweat he blood for our sins. We will not once water our eyes with a few tears. What an horrible thing is sin; that no other thing would remedy and pay the ransom for it, but only the blood of our Saviour Christ! There was nothing to pacify the Father's wrath against man, but such an agony as he suffered. All the passion of all the martyrs that ever were, all the sacrifices of patriarchs that ever were, all the good works that ever were done, were not able to remedy our sin, to make satisfaction for our sins, nor anything besides, but this extreme passion and blood-shedding of our most merciful Saviour Christ.

But to draw toward an end. What became of this threefold prayer ? At the length, it pleased God to hear his Son's prayer; and send him an angel to corroborate, to strengthen, to comfort him. Christ needed no angel's help, if he had listed to ease himself with his deity. He was the Son of God: what then? Forsomuch as he was man, he received comfort at the angel's hand; as it accords to our infirmity. His obedience, his continuance, and suffering, so pleased the Father of heaven, that for his Son's sake, be he never so great a sinner, leaving his sin, and repenting for the same, he will owe him such favour as though he had never committed any sin. The Father of heaven will not suffer him to be tempted with this great horror of death and hell to the uttermost, and above that he is able to bear. Look for it, my friends, by him and through him, we shall be able to overcome it. Let us do as our Saviour Christ did, and we shall have help from above, we shall have angels' help: if we trust in him, heaven and earth shall give up, rather than we shall lack help. He saith he is Adjutor in necessitatibus, " an helper in time of need."

When the angel had comforted him, and when this horror of death was gone, he was so strong, that he offered himself to Judas; and said, " I am he." To make an end: I pray you take pains : it is a day of penance, as we use to say, give me leave to make you weary this day. The Jews had him to Caiaphas and Annas, and there they whipped him, and beat him : they set a crown of sharp thorns upon his head, and nailed him to a tree: yet all this was not so bitter, as this horror of death, and this agony that he suffered in the garden, in such a degree as is due to all the sins of the world, and not to one man's sins. Well; this passion is our remedy ; it is the satisfaction for our sins.

[From: SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE KING EDWARD THE SIXTH: The Seventh Sermon of M. Latimer preached before King Edward, April nineteenth, 1549.]

The Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

The Collect.

O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen.