Renewed Persecution in England.

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sorrow to the name of Sir Thomas More, a man of acute and ready intellect, of profound learning, and of spotless integrity; a man who, misled by what he regarded as religious duty, descended to the most unworthy artifices of controversy, and persecuted to the death the witnesses for the truth; a man who died like a hero in support of a falling delusion. His monument is in Chelsea Old Church, but his epitaph is also in the page of Froude, who says "he was born to show what the Roman Catholic Religion would make of an honest man who sincerely believed it."

During the year 1531 an attempt had been made to induce Tyndale to return to England. The agent was Vaughan, a political adherent of Cromwell, who was high in the royal favour, and who must have acted in concurrence with the King. Probably the reason for this attempt was the desire to secure the assistance of his powerful advocacy in the controversies which followed the downfall of Wolsey, and which ultimately resulted in the emancipation of the country from the Papal power. The policy which had been avowed by Tyndale, in the Obedience of a Christian Man, was in a great measure the policy of Cromwell; and it might have been equally serviceable to the government and pleasant to Tyndale, if his long exile had been ended by his safe and honourable return. But the negotiations were broken, probably by the displeasure of the monarch at some of Tyndale's writings, the Practice of Prelates in particular, which had only just reached him, and they were never resumed. The persecution of the Reformers burst forth again with renewed violence; sentence was pronounced against William Tracy, guilty of promulgating heretical opinions in his will, that his body should be exhumed and cast out of consecrated ground; it was at this time also that Bilney, previously alluded to, was apprehended and burnt at Norwich; and Bayfield, found in possession of a whole cargo of Lutheran books, and known as a relapsed heretic, was also burnt. These were not times for Tyndale to return to England without some evident call of duty, and he remained upon the Continent and went on with his work, publishing in the course of the year his translation of the Book of Jonah, with a characteristic Prologue.

This was the last considerable portion of Scripture which was published by Tyndale himself, although during the brief remainder of his life he was constantly engaged upon it, and doubtless much of his work was incorporated in later editions. He brought out in rapid succession Expositions of the three Epistles of St. John and of the Sermon on the Mount. The

tone of the whole was controversial rather than exegetical; and whatever may have been the immediate impression produced, they have added nothing to Tyndale's permanent fame. There is much, however, to be said in apology for the Reformer, if he sometimes himself forgot the precept which he quoted to check the extravagance of an associate, "The servant of the Lord must not strive;" the pen was his only weapon against an antagonist who employed all the terrors of the civil power against his friends and him. While Tyndale was writing at Antwerp, the persecution was raging in England; even the hardy Cranmer had been compelled to recant; Bainham was burned in Smithfield; Tyndale's own dearest friend and fellow-labourer, John Fryth, having ventured across the Channel, was apprehended and imprisoned, and, after witnessing a good confession, died the same glorious death. To him Tyndale wrote the following letter, beautiful in its manly and Christian sympathy, and invested with peculiar interest by the fact the writer himself was so soon to pass through the same conflict in which he endeavoured to encourage his friend.

"The grace and peace of God our Father, and of Jesus Christ our Lord, be with you. Amen. Dearly beloved brother John, I have heard say that the hypocrites, now they have overcome that great business which letted them [i.e. the royal divorce], or that now they have at the least way brought it at a stay, they return to their old nature again. The will of God be fulfilled, and that [what] He hath ordained to be ere the world was made, that come, and His glory reign over all.

"Dearly beloved, howsoever the matter be, commit yourself wholly and only unto your most loving Father and most kind Lord, and fear not men that threat, nor trust men that speak fair: but trust Him that is true of promise, and able to make His word good. Your cause is Christ's Gospel, a light that must be fed with the blood of faith. The lamp must be dressed and snuffed daily, and that oil poured in every evening and morning, that the light go not out. Though we be sinners, yet is the cause right. If when we be buffeted for well-doing, we suffer patiently and endure, that is thankful with God; for to that end we are called. For Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps, who did no sin. Hereby have we perceived love, that He laid down His life for us: therefore we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body. According to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Him.

"Dearly beloved, be of good courage, and comfort your soul with the

hope of this high reward, and bear the Image of Christ in your mortal body, that it may at His coming be made like to His, immortal: and follow the example of all your other dear brethren, which chose to suffer in hope of a better resurrection. Keep your conscience pure and undefiled, and say against that nothing. Stick at [i.e. resolutely maintain] necessary things, and remember the blasphemies of the enemies of Christ, they find none but that will abjure rather than suffer the extremity.' Moreover, the death of them that come again [i.e. repent] after they have once denied, though it be accepted with God and all that believe, yet is it not glorious; for the hypocrites say, 'He must needs die, denying helpeth not: but might it have holpen, they would have denied five hundred times: but seeing it would not help them, therefore of pure pride, and mere malice together, they speak with their mouths that [i.e. what] their conscience knoweth false.' If you give yourself, cast yourself, yield yourself, commit yourself wholly and only to your loving Father; then shall His power be in you and make you strong, and that so strong, that you shall feel no pain, and [in?] that shall be to another present death and His Spirit shall speak in you, and teach you what to answer, according to His promise. He shall set out His truth by you wonderfully, and work for you above all that your heart can imagine. Yea, and you are not yet dead; though the hypocrites all, with all they can make, have sworn your death. Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem. To look for no man's help bringeth the help of God to them that seem to be overcome in the eyes of the hypocrites: yea, it shall make God to carry you through thick and thin for His truth's sake, in spite of all the enemies of His truth. There falleth not a hair till His hour be come: and when His hour is come, necessity carrieth us hence, though we be not willing. But if we be willing, then have we a reward and thanks.

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"Fear not threatening, therefore, neither be overcome of sweet words; with which twain the hypocrites shall assail you. Neither let the persuasions of worldly wisdom bear rule in your heart; no, though they be your friends that counsel. Let Bilney be a warning to you. Let not their vizor beguile your eyes. Let not your body faint. He that endureth to the end shall be saved. If the pain be above your strength, remember, Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, I will give it to you.' And pray to your Father in that name, and He will cease your pain, or shorten it. The Lord of peace, of hope, and of faith, be with you. Amen. WILLIAM TYNDALE.

"Two have suffered in Antwerp, in die Sanctæ Crucis [September 14], unto the great glory of the Gospel: four at Riselles, in Flanders: and at Luke hath there one at the least suffered all that same day. At Roan [i.e. Rouen] in France they persecute; and at Paris are five Doctors taken for the Gospel. See, you are not alone. Be cheerful: and remember that among the hard-hearted in England, there is a number reserved by grace: for whose sakes, if need be, you must be ready to suffer. Sir, if you may write, how short [soever] it be, for

get it not; that we may know how it goeth with you, for our hearts' ease. The Lord be yet again with you, with all His plenteousness, and fill you that you flow over. Amen.

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'If, when you have read this, you may send it to Adrian [or John Byrte], do, I pray you, that he may know how that our heart is with

you.

"George Joy, at Candlemas, being at Barrow, printed two leaves of Genesis in a great form, and sent one copy to the King, and another to the new Queen [Anne Boleyn], with a letter to N., for to deliver them; and to purchase licence, that he might so go through all the Bible. Out of that is sprung the noise of the New Bible [report that there was to be a new translation]; and out of that is the great seeking for English books at all printers and bookbinders in Antwerp, and for an English priest that should print [i.e. that intended to print]. "This chanced the 9th day of May.

"Sir, your wife is well content with the will of God, and would not, for her sake, have the glory of God hindered.

WILLIAM TYNDALE."

Tyndale himself, escaping various attempts made to seize him, and to bring him over to England to answer for his heresy, continued his residence at Antwerp. By the kindness of Thomas Poyntz, an English merchant settled there, he was furnished with a lodging in the English House-a large mansion which had been granted as a home to the English traders where he was at least in comparative safety. Foxe has given a beautiful description of his Antwerp life, recording his two days of "pastime" in every week, which were spent, as already narrated, in active and self-denying charity, his four days of earnest literary" travail," and his Sabbath spent in reading and expounding Scripture in the merchant's chambers, the fittest Sabbath employment for one who regarded the mass as an idolatry. There he re-issued the Pentateuch, and in the year 1534 he brought out a carefully revised edition of the New Testament. The latter work had been long promised, and too long delayed; the great demand for Tyndale's Testament in England had led to its being reprinted several times by persons on the Continent entirely unconnected with him; and Dutch printers, without an English eye to correct the press, had made such a strange travesty of Tyndale's beautiful diction, that the simple reader "might ofttimes be tarried and stick;" and at last an Englishman, a former associate of Tyndale's, had given his services to an Antwerp printer, and had brought out an

Foxe, Vol. V. pp. 15, &c.

edition with certain alterations, favouring views of his own at variance with those of the original translator. At length Tyndale's revision appeared, and presented marked improvement upon his own great work; he had introduced many thousand corrections, bringing his version in every instance nearer to the original text, and in most cases to the present version also; in other places, by careful consideration of the force of words, he had increased the perspicuity, the energy, or even the melody of the language, and entering upon the task of revision in the same spirit as that in which he worked at first, he had preserved the unity of the whole. Prologues were furnished to all the books excepting the Acts and the Apocalypse, and marginal notes, now not fiercely controversial, but expository and profitable, accompanied the text. The entire version is Tyndale's noblest monument. There is a copy now in the British Museum, beautifully printed upon vellum, with illuminations, and on the richly gilt and tooled edges may still be read, "Anna Angliæ Regina." It is evidently a presentation copy, printed for Queen Anne Boleyn, and offered to her in acknowledgment of her avowed sympathy with the Reformers.

In fact, the tide was turning in England; the time had come when it was almost equally perilous to be known as a stubborn adherent of the Papacy or as an ardent Reformer. Sir Thomas More, Tyndale's ancient antagonist, and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the King as supreme head of the Church, were imprisoned in the Tower, whence they were only to come forth to die. Cranmer, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, was known to lean towards the Reformation, and was even meditating a version of the Scriptures, to be prepared by the authorities of the Church, and to be circulated throughout the country under the sanction of the King. The great conflict between truth and error had reached a point at which it was not difficult to anticipate the ultimate issue, and Tyndale may well have hoped that his own long exile might soon come to an end, and that he might be permitted to return to finish his glorious work, and to see the triumph of his principles in his native land.

But Providence had otherwise determined, and at the very time when Tyndale's troubles and dangers seemed light in comparison with those to which he had been exposed for many years, his career was brought to a sudden close. A plan for his destruction was formed in England; an agent was sent out to denounce him as a heretic before the authorities of