The second [seventh] sermon of Master Hugh Latimer which he preached before the Kings…The seconde [seventh] sermon of Maister Hughe Latimer which he preached before the Kynges…

and what is this regeneration?¹ It is not to be Christened in water (as these fire brands expound it) and nothing else. Howe is it to be expounded then? Saint. Peter showeth. That one place of Scripture declareth another. It is the circumstance,² and collation of places that ⟨image 160⟩make scripture plain. Regeve•• mur autem (sayeth Sayncte Peter) and we be borne agayne. Howe? Non ex semine mortali, sed immortali. Not by a mortal seed, but by an immortal. What is this immortal seade? persermonē dei viventis. By the word of the living God,³ by the word of God preached and opened. Thus cometh in our new birth. Here you may see how necessary this office is to our salvation. This is the thing that the devil wrestleth most against. It hath been all his study to decay this office.⁴ He worketh against it as much as he can he hath prevailed to much, to much in it. He hath set up a state of unpreaching prelacy in this Realm this .vii.c. year, A state of unpreaching prelacy ⟨image 160⟩He hath made unpreaching prelates, He hath stirred up by heaps to persecute this office in the title of heresy. He hath stirred up the Magistrates to persecute it in the title of sedition. And he hath stirred up the people to persecute it with exprobacions & slanderous words, as by the name of new learning strange preaching:⁵ and with impropriations he hath turned preaching in to private Masses. If a priest should have left Mass undone On a sunday within these ten years, all England should have wondered at it, but they might have left of the sermon .xx. sundays and never have been blamed.⁶ And thus by these impropriations private Masses were ⟨image 161⟩