Who is consistently about his business?

And now I would ask a strange question: who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England that passes all the rest in doing his office? I can tell for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passes all the others, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will you know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his [pastoral area of responsibility]; you shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keeps residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will he is ever at home; the [most] diligent preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plow; no lording nor loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle...And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plow; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory...O that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel [tares].

Hugh Latimer, sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr, 1555 (Cambridge University Press, 1844), pp. 70-1, burned as a heretic along with Nicholas Ridley during the reign of Mary (1553–1558), Oxford, on 16 October 1555.