Blessed are the Poor in Spirit - Hugh Latimer Sermon (Matthew 5:1-3)

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit - Hugh Latimer Sermon

Hugh Latimer (c. 1487 – 16 October 1555) was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I he was burned at the stake, becoming one of the three Oxford Martyrs of Anglicanism.

The pulpit from which Latimer preached in St Edward's Church, Cambridge
Latimer joined a group of reformers including Bilney and Robert Barnes that met regularly at the White Horse Tavern. He began to preach publicly on the need for the translation of the Bible into English. This was a dangerous move as the first translation of the New Testament by William Tyndale had recently been banned. In early 1528, Latimer was called before Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and he was given an admonition and a warning. The following year, Wolsey fell from Henry VIII's favour when he failed to expedite the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In contrast, Latimer's reputation was in the ascendant as he took the lead among the reformers in Cambridge. During Advent in 1529, he preached his two "Sermons on the Card" at St Edward's Church.

In 1535, he was appointed Bishop of Worcester, in succession to an Italian absentee, and promoted reformed teachings and iconoclasm in his diocese. On 22 May 1538, at the insistence of Cromwell,[7] he preached the final sermon before Franciscan Friar John Forest was burnt at the stake, in a fire said to have been fueled partly by a Welsh image of Saint Derfel. In 1539, he opposed Henry VIII's Six Articles, with the result that he was forced to resign his bishopric and imprisoned in