it:-" March 31, 1797. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." Blessed be the Lord for his goodness to me, the chief of sinners! I was in very great darkness and distress of soul on this day; it is therefore to be remembered with gratitude to the dear Redeemer." their countrymen from the tyranny and oppression of Rome. It was their godlike employment, by giving the people scriptural and evangelical instruction, to work the mine, which, at length exploding, demolished the strong fortress of the papal supremacy in this kingdom, which had stood for centuries, defying every attack and seeming to say, "I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow."Rev. xviii. 7. Henry VIII. came to the throne in 1509, at the age of eighteen. "The reign of this king," saith Fox, But this world and its affairs were progressively losing their hold upon his heart, and, advanced as he was in the pilgrimage of life, he felt an intense desire for the high calling of the Christian ministry. In 1801 he began to speak in his great Master's name, and, at the" continued with great nobleness age of fifty-three, his delight in publishing the grace of the gospel was distinguished by an ardour that, perhaps, rarely glows in the bosom of the young. But we open here on a new era of his existence, the developement of which we shall leave to a future Number. (To be continued.) WORTHIES OF THE REFORMATION. and fame for the space of thirtyeight years. During whose time and reign was great alteration of things as to the civil state of the realm, and especially to the state ecclesiastical and matters to the church appertaining. For by him was exiled and abolished out of the realm the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome; idolatry and superstition somewhat repressed; images and pilgrimages defaced; abbeys and monasteries pulled down; sects of religion rooted out; scriptures reduced to the knowledge of the vulgar tongue; and the state of the church and religion redressed." William Tyndale. OUR pious and venerable Martyrologist has given Tyndale the noble designation of "THE APOSTLE OF ENGLAND IN THIS OUR LATTER AGE;" evidently considering him as the principal instrument em- It would be difficult to give a ployed by Divine Providence in correct picture of the degraded effecting the Reformation from Po-state, both as to intellect, learning, pery, nor was any man better and morals, to which popery had qualified to form a correct opinion. reduced the kingdom; and espeThe history of Tyndale fully ex- cially as to the religious knowledge emplifies the propriety of his being which existed among the nobles so considered: "Other men" cer- and the mass of the people. Of the tainly, as Wickliffe, Oldcastle, former it might truly be said, Thorpe, and many besides, "had" They have altogether broken the laboured," but it was reserved for yoke and burst the bands;" of the Tyndale and his band of associate latter, "They have altogether remartyrs so to "enter into their fused to receive correction; they labours," as not merely to lead the have made their faces harder than way to victory, but to complete the a rock; they have refused to regrand enterprize of emancipating turn." Speaking of the state of *Exodus, xiv. 14. the popish clergy in England at numerous; that they wore a peculiar habit; that they preached in many churches and other places against the faith of the Church; and refused to submit to the government of the Church." The description of Rienhar, a popish historian respecting them, is more full:-"The this period, Bishop Burnet says, "The bishops were grossly ignorant; they seldom resided in their dioceses, except it had been to riot it at high festivals; and all the effect their residence could have was to corrupt others by their ill example. They followed the courts of princes, and aspired to the great-disciples of Wickliff are men of a est offices; the abbots and monks serious modest deportment, avoidwere wholly given up to luxury and ing all ostentation of dress, mixing idleness; and the unmarried state, little with the busy world, and comboth of the seculars and regulars, plaining of the debauchery of mangave infinite scandal to the world. kind. They maintain themselves The inferior clergy were no better: wholly by their own labour, and all ranks of churchmen were uni- despise wealth, being fully content versally despised and hated; the with bare necessaries. They are worship of God was so defiled with chaste and temperate, are never gross superstition, that all men seen at taverns, or amused with the were convinced that the Church trifling gaieties of life, yet you find stood in great need of a reform- them always employed either in ation."* learning or teaching. They are concise and devout in their prayers, blaming an unanimated prolixity. They never swear, speak little, and in their public preaching lay the principal stress on charity." The reader will bear in mind, that of the bishops referred to by Dr. Burnet were Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury; Tonstal, Bishop of London; Longland, Bishop of Lincoln; Wolsey was Cardinal Legate and Lord Chancellor; and the King such a bigot to the popish religion, as to have entered the lists against Luther, and with such success as to obtain the title of "Defender of the Faith." The principles of Wickliffe had, during the whole of the fifteenth century, been propagated by his numerous disciples (commonly called Lollards), and had been received and professed by great numbers of our countrymen, so that he is justly designated "The morning star of the Reformation." Some idea may be formed of these dissenters from popery, though not formally separatists from the established church of England, from the preamble of a law made against them in the reign of Richard II. In this it is said, they were very * Abridged History of the Reformation, p. 29. 66 Richard Hunne, who was murdered in the Lollards' Tower in 1514, was one of these people. Fitz-James was then Bishop of London. The imprisonment of this pious citizen, and the circumstances which attended and followed his death, had a most powerful effect in exhibiting the bishops and priests in their true character: "outwardly appearing in sheep's clothing, inwardly they were ravening wolves." Amongst the pretended heresies of Hunne, publicly denounced after his death at "Paul's Cross," the twelfth and thirteenth are— "He damneth [condemneth] the University of Oxford, with all degrees and faculties in it, as Arts, Civil, Canon, and Divinity, saying, that they let [hinder] the true way to come to the knowledge of the laws of God and Holy Scriptures. He defendeth the translation of the Bible and Holy Scripture rious ; into the English tongue, which is Lollard minister," of this period: prohibited by the laws of our holy Thomas Man, who was burned Mother Church." These articles (1518) in Smithfield, Robert Cosin, prove that the heretics, at that early a martyr, and Henry Milder, burned period, held all the doctrines of the at Buckingham, were, it is said, Reformation: one of these is cu- "preachers" among them. In the He says, that poor men year 1515 a great number were proand idiots have the truth of the secuted for various heresies" for Holy Scriptures more than a thou-having certain English books, as sand prelates, and religious men, Wickliff's Wicket, the Gospels of and clerks of the school." Doubt- St.John,the Epistles of Paul,James, less this was the fact; for "the and Peter in English, an Expoknown men or just fast men" reve-sition of the Apocalypse, a book of renced the Scriptures, while the Our Ladie's Mattins in English, and priests despised them! A charge a book called The Prick of Conbrought against one Richard Butler, science." "All these were detected, in the Bishop of London's court, for that they being together at Bruwill throw great light upon the godly ges's house at Burford were reading practices of these pious people:-together in the book of the Expo"Also we object to you, that divers sition of the Apocalypse, and comtimes, and especially upon a certain muned concerning the matter of night, about the space of three years opening the book with seven clasps," last past, in Robert Durdant's house &c. They were also charged with of Yuer-court, near unto Staines, reading the Lord's prayer in Engyou erroneously and damnably lish.* read in a great book of heresy of the said Robert Durdant's, all that same night, certain chapters of the Evangelists in English, containing in them divers erroneous and damnable opinions and conclusions of heresy in the presence of the said annoying of their publications (atRobert Durdant, John Butler, Ro-tributed to William Thorpe, who, bert Carder, Jenkin Butler, William in 1407, it is supposed, died in King, and divers other persons sus-prison as a Wickliffite minister) is pected of heresy then being present, always found in the lists of proand hearing your said erroneous scribed beretical books, by the title lectures and opinions." Amongst of "The A, B, C, against the the charges exhibited on another Clergy." occasion, mention is made of "a * In Dr. M'Crie's Life of Knox, vol. i. certain little book of Scripture al- p. 240, notes, is said, in reference to the most worn for age, whose monastic library at Lochleven in the twelfth century, what will probably apply to all the [title] is not there expressed." libraries of the monasteries at that time :It is said, too, that these "known" They had the texts of the Gospels and the men" had "an exposition of the nesis, a collection of Lectures, and an intergospel in English:" congregapretation of Sayings. The catalogue of the tions" or "conventicles" of these Library at Stirling, in the sixteenth century, heretics are spoken of as existing contained a copy of the Gospels and Epistles at Newbury, Chesham, Amersham, in manuscript, most probably in Latin." Missenden, and other towns. Men-There can be no doubt such manuscripts were alsa in the libraries of the English tion is made of "Thomas Bale, a monasteries, and it is highly probable that * So the Lollards were reproach fully called. some learned Wickliffite translated them 66 name Dr. Colet, a famous evangelical preacher in St. Paul's church, and the founder of St. Paul's school for 153 boys, had translated the Lord's prayer, and this was much used by the Lollards. One of the most Acts of the Apostles, an exposition of Ge "A wake ye ghostly persons! awake, awake, It was thought necessary to give this brief sketch of the state of protestant feeling among our countrymen, to show that when William Tyndale was raised up as the reformer of the church of Christ in England, he found "a people prepared of the Lord" to appreciate his principles and to be improved by his labours. When Cardinal Wolsey founded Christchurch College at Oxford, he 66 picked" as many young men as he could find at both the Universities" of grave judgment and sharp wits" to be its first and principal students. Tyndale was one of these; but his reading the Scriptures to the Fellows of the College, and their conferring together upon the abuses of religion which had crept into the church being reported to the Cardinal, "they were accused of heresy, and cast into a prison, within a deep cave under the said college, where their salt-fish were kept; so that, through the filthy stench thereof, they were all infected, and certain of them taking their death in the same prison, shortly upon the same being taken out of the prison into their chambers, there deceased." One Mr. Clark, who died from this confinement, was thirty-four; it is probable that Tyndale was about thirty-three years of age; John Frith, another of This "Apostle of England" was them, was very young. Of those born in the principality of Wales, who survived this cruel treatment probably about the year 1490; it were Richard Taverner, John Frith, is said of him, that "from a youth and our Tyndale. The former was his mind was singularly addicted restored because he was a good to the Scriptures, wherein he ob- musician;" the next was proscribed tained a considerable degree of to a space ten miles round Oxford; knowledge." From a child he was and, most likely, Tyndale was exeducated, in the University of Ox-pelled. It is certain that he left ford, in grammar, logic, and philo- Oxford, and went to Cambridge. sophy, for the most part of his time in Mary's Hall. While at Oxford he became a truly pious man, and having embraced the sentiments of Wickliff, in opposition to the errors of the church of Rome, he used to meet certain students of St. Mary's and some Fellows of Magdalen's, to whom he, in private, " read some parcel of divinity instructing them in the truth of the Scriptures." into English; they were mostly written, and this circumstance, in connexion with the prelates burning them, accounts fully for none of them being preserved to our times. 66 It is not improbable that his reason for going to Cambridge was to confer with those pious and wellinstructed ministers, Bilney, Author, Latimer, Cranmer, and Coverdale, the first four of whom died in the flames. It is remarked by Fox, that, by Tyndale's going to Cambridge, he became ripened in the knowledge of God's word." Leaving Cambridge, he entered the family of Welch, a knight, who resided near Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire,* in the The house is still standing. capacity of a private tutor. This | Streets, St. Austin's-green, Bristol, being in the neighbourhood of and at other places about that city: Glastonbury, many of the monks and so moderate were his expect and friars of that monastery were ations, that he said "he should be in the habit of visiting the knight's content with ten pounds a year in hospitable mansion, Tyndale always any county in England, provided making one of the company. The he was not interrupted in teaching conversation sometimes turned on children and preaching the Gospel." learned men, such as Luther and Finding he could not escape the Erasmus, whom Tyndale always danger to which he had exposed vindicated from the aspersions of himself by offending the "spirituthe monks. They often had "con-ality of Glastonbury," he resolved troversies and questions upon the to go to London. He was urged Scriptures," and "when they did to this step from hearing of the vary," says Fox, "he would show commendations bestowed by Erasthem in the book and lay plainly mus upon Tonstal, the Bishop.* before them the open and manifest He thought, what a happy man he places of the Scriptures, to confute should be, could he get into the emtheir errors and confirm his say-ployment of the bishop for the purings." pose, as he intended, of translating These popish champions attempt- the Scriptures in his house. He ed to prejudice the worthy knight accordingly applied to the king's and his lady against their family comptroller, Sir Henry Guildford, tutor, and had nearly succeeded, presenting him with a Greek oration as they one day, after having dined of Isocrates, which he had transat the monastery, reproved his er-lated into English, and requested rors; but "Master Tyndale," says Sir Henry to speak to the bishop Fox, "answering by Scriptures, in his favour. Tonstal instantly maintained the truth and reproved refused, saying "his house was their [the monks'] false opinions." filled; that he had more than he The monks, finding they could not could find; and he would advise get him removed from the family, him to seek abroad in London, and Welch and his wife having where he would be sure to find embraced the protestant opinions, employment." Tyndale stayed in the "spirituality" soon withdrew themselves! London about a year, preaching at St. Dunstan's church and other places; but growing more and more disgusted with the pomp of the prelates, and finding there was no room either in the bishop's palace or at any other place in the kingdom, for him "to translate the New Testament;" spiritual" Testament;" a kind friend, too, at whose house he had found a lodging, Sir Humphrey Monmouth, an alderman of the city, having engaged to remit him ten pounds * Erasmus thus speaks of Tonstal :He ranks among the best learned of his age, of pregnant judgment and great suavity of manners, yet without impeachment to the graver habits which become his character Tyndale, however, found such opposition raised against him, that he left his situation and commenced a preacher of the Gospel. Some opinion may be formed, both of his sentiments and intrepidity, by the following reply to a "spiritual" doctor, who said, "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's." "I defy the Pope," said Tyndale, "and all his laws; and if God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do." We find him preaching in the public and station." |