Laudator Temporis Acti

Hugh Latimer (1487-1555), "Last Sermon Preached Before Edward the Sixth," Sermons (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1906), pp. 206-244 (at 213):

Speak against covetousness, and cry out upon it. Stand not ticking and toying at the branches nor at the boughs, for then there will new boughs and branches spring again of them; but strike at the root, and fear not these giants of England, these great men and men of power, these men that are oppressors of the poor; fear them not, but strike at the root of all evil, which is mischievous covetousness.

Id. (at 215):

The poorest ploughman is in Christ equal with the greatest prince that is. Let them, therefore, have sufficient to maintain them, and to find them their necessaries. A plough-land must have sheep; yea, they must have sheep to dung their ground for bearing of corn; for if they have no sheep to help to fat the ground, they shall have but bare corn and thin. They must have swine for their food, to make their veneries or bacon of: their bacon is their venison, for they shall now have hangum tuum, if they get any other venison; so that bacon is their necessary meat to feed on, which they may not lack. They must have other cattle as horses to draw their plough, and for carriage of things to the markets; and kine for their milk and cheese, which they must live upon and pay their rents. These cattle must have pasture, which pasture if they lack, the rest must needs fail them: and pasture they cannot have, if the land be taken in, and inclosed from them.

Id. (at 239-240):

And he said unto all the audience, Videte et cavete ab avaritia; "See and beware of covetousness." Why so? Quia non in abundantia cujusquam vita ejus est ex his quae possidet; "For no man's life standeth in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." We may have things necessary, and we may have abundance of things; but the abundance doth not make us blessed. It is no good argument, Quo plus quisque habet, tanto beatius vivit; "The more riches that a man hath, the more happily and the more blissfully he liveth." For a certain great man, that had purchased much lands, a thousand marks by year, or I wot not what; a great portion he had: and so on the way, as he was in his journey towards London, or from London, he fell sick by the way; a disease took him, that he was constrained to lie upon it. And so being in his bed, the disease grew more and more upon him, that he was, by his friends that were about him, godly advised to look to himself, and to make him ready to God; for there was none other likelihood but that he must die without remedy. He cried out, "What, shall I die?" quoth he. "Wounds! sides! heart! Shall I die, and thus go from my goods? Go, fetch me some physician that may save my life. Wounds and sides! Shall I thus die?" There lay he still in his bed like a block, with nothing but, "Wounds and sides, shall I die?" Within a very little while he died indeed; and then lay he like a block indeed. There was black gowns, torches, tapers, and ringing of bells; but what is become of him, God knoweth, and not I.

But hereby this ye may perceive, that it is not the abundance of riches that maketh a man to live quietly and blissfully. But the quiet life is in a mediocrity. Mediocres optime vivunt: "They that are in a mean do live best." And there is a proverb which I read many years ago, Dimidium plus toto; "The half sometimes more than the whole." The mean life is the best life and the most quiet life of all. If a man should fill himself up to the throat, he should not find ease in it, but displeasure; and with the one half he might satisfy his greedy appetite. So this great riches never maketh a man's life quiet, but rather troublous.