We have just read from the words of
the authorised version of the early 17th century
and we are often quite unconscious when we
hear the authorised version that we are by
and large hearing the words that William Tyndale
first wrote and had printed in the English
language.
It is said that 80 and perhaps even
90 percent of the authorised version was the
work of Tyndale and Tyndale wrote and completed
his work on the New Testament 80 years,
80 years before the authorised version.
William Tyndale died at the stake in the
year 1536.
The last commemoration of his death therefore was
in the year 1936 and I begin by
giving you a few brief words that were
written at that time.
The Times newspaper in October commemorating Tyndale's death
said that Tyndale the controversialist is a figure
of pathos whose acrimonious treaties are already forgotten.
But then it paid this tribute that Tyndale
the translator of the Bible lived and Bishop
Hensley Henson at the same time said that
Tyndale's books were little read and those books
which multitudes of readers once ran desperate risks
to obtain fail to stir the faintest flicker
of interest in our minds.
And one writer went even further than that
and said that William Tyndale died for a
doctrine which hardly anybody in England now holds.
Well I don't want to stay on those
words but it was quite clear that in
1936 when people wrote about Tyndale they always
said more or less the same thing.
They said that he did indeed do an
extraordinary work in the translation of the scripture
but that as a man as a Christian
as a reformer he is one whose memory
has now languished and no doubt will no
longer raise any interest.
Let me give you one more quotation from
the Times.
On his work as a translator the Times
said that to have endowed hundreds of millions
with such a book through centuries past and
centuries to come is a very wonderful achievement
and to William Tyndale more than to any
other man the chief glory of the achievement
belongs.
Well that was a high and just tribute
and yet it was inadequate because Tyndale's work
as a translator of the Bible was united
with his whole conviction of the work of
Christ in history in the revival of nations
in the reformation of churches and you simply
cannot make a division between Tyndale as a
translator and Tyndale as a reformer of the
church of Christ.
These two things are bound up together.
Now as we speak then of Tyndale I
shall first try to give you and this
will take no doubt much of our time
some account of his life.
The first definite date that we know about
Tyndale was that he entered Magdalen College in
Oxford in the year 1510.
Before he was at Magdalen College he was
at a school a kind of preparatory school
to the college.
We know that to have entered Magdalen in
1510 he must have been at least 12
years old and possibly 15 or 16 years
of age.
That puts his birth somewhere around the year
1495.
The place of his birth is in that
beautiful Vale of Berkeley at the edge of
the Cotswolds where the Cotswolds come west and
fall down into the valley of the Seven.
There is a hill spur called Stinchcombe Hill.
It's approximately perhaps halfway between Briscoe and Gloucester.
And beneath Stinchcombe Hill there are several scattered
villages.
And in one of these villages for certain
William Tyndale was born.
There is today a very old house just
beneath Stinchcombe Hill and it is very likely
indeed it is certain that that house belonged
to the Tyndale family.
But whether it was there that William was
born or in another home of the family
there is no certainty.
He went up then to Oxford when he
was still a child.
And John Fox the great Reformation historian who
wrote his Acts and Monuments of the Martyrs
it was printed in 1563.
He wrote in that great history that Tyndale
came from the borders of Wales and he
tells us that while he was still a
child in Oxford he read to others from
the scriptures.
He said he was singularly addicted to the
holy scriptures in so much that he being
in Morgan Hall that was the school for
parity to the college.
He read some parcel of divinity to his
fellow students instructing them in the knowledge and
truth of the scriptures.
And we have therefore the remarkable fact that
before the conversion of Martin Luther before the
great reformation had even begun on the continent
of Europe there was a child in the
university city of Oxford who was as Fox
says singularly addicted to the holy scriptures.
Now at one time it was thought that
Tyndale's conversion took place as a result of
the Greek New Testament of Erasmus.
Erasmus the continental Dutch scholar produced his Greek
New Testament in 1516 which was a very
vital date.
But the evidence that we now have shows
that William Tyndale was converted before that day
not by the Greek New Testament but by
the Latin Vulgate.
He did not of course have an English
Bible.
Since the year 1428 any circulation of the
English Bible had been forbidden and no one
could translate or handle the Bible in the
native tongue without Episcopal permission.
There were no English Bibles in Oxford but
Tyndale through the Latin Vulgate version of the
scripture was evidently early brought to a knowledge
of Jesus Christ.
He proceeded with his training in arts and
he graduated as a master of arts in
the year 1515.
Now at that point he should have proceeded
to become a bachelor of divinity but he
did not do so.
Instead he went to the University of Cambridge.
The reason why he did that is not
clear.
I think there are probably two reasons.
I think he was utterly wearied with the
dead scholasticism which surrounded him in Oxford.
In one of his books he says that
if all the theological writings that were in
existence in England were put into the largest
warehouse in London you probably wouldn't even get
them in.
But he said of all those books you
could not find one that was used in
the university which would show a man the
way of salvation.
I think he was wearied of all the
scholasticism, the dead treadmill he talks about of
scholasticism.
And secondly there was in Cambridge a revival
in the study of the Greek language and
Tyndale went to Cambridge from Oxford to study
Greek.
Erasmus himself had taught in Cambridge and Tyndale
stayed in Cambridge until the year 1521 by
which time he was certainly one of the
foremost Greek scholars then in this country.
And in 1521 or thereabouts he returned to
his native home in Gloucestershire.
Now I do not know how long or
he had been away or how many times
he had been home.
People did not travel so readily in those
days as they do now.
But it is quite clear that when he
went back to Gloucestershire in 1521 his impression
of his native county would have been very
different to what it was in the days
of his childhood because he now knew and
understood the word of God and he read
the situation in that light.
Now Gloucestershire was one of the most religious
counties in England.
Religious in the sense of being traditionally a
bastion of the Roman religion.
If Tyndale climbed, as I am sure he
often did, Stinchcombe Hill, he could have seen
in the surrounding countryside scores, perhaps a hundred
parish churches.
Fifteen miles to the north he would have
seen the great Cathedral of Gloucester.
And then from Stinchcombe Hill you could see
into seven counties of England.
And Tyndale knew as he surveyed that scene
that he was looking on a country where
there was scarcely a handful of those who
understood the way of salvation.
He tells us how he read the 28th
chapter of the book of Deuteronomy where God
said that in his judgment he would make
the heavens as brass and the earth under
them as iron.
And that's how Tyndale read his own situation.
He said a Christian man's heart might well
bleed for sorrow at the reading of it.
But the proverb was as sure as God's
in Gloucester.
But God was not in Gloucester.
Gloucestershire had six great abbeys with their abbots
including the Abbey of Hales where the Christ
was displayed in a bottle.
It was a centre of pilgrimages and relics
and so on.
And this was characteristic of the whole state
of the country.
John Hooper, the martyr who died in the
reign of Queen Mary, he wrote in the
year 1547, speaking of the time before Tyndale's
work, He that had sought in all the
churches in England before 16 years ago should
not have found one Bible but in every
church such abomination and idolatry as the like
was not seen since the time of Josiah.
Everywhere idols and all abomination.
You have no doubt read in books like
J.C. Ryle's Five English Reformers, the description
of the spiritual corruption.
How at Canterbury for example there was an
account kept of the money paid at the
various shrines to which people had made their
pilgrimages.
And at one shrine in the year the
annual amount of gifts at the shrine of
Jesus Christ amounted to three pounds two and
sixpence.
And how at the shrine of the Virgin
Mary there were gifts of sixty three pounds
five and sixpence.
And then at the great shrine of Sir
Thomas of Bedford there was an annual account
in the same year of eight hundred and
thirty two pounds and twelve shillings.
And these kind of little details give you
an impression of the complete inversion of all
truth.
These abbeys as the Abbey of Hales in
Gloucestershire they all had their relics.
Some had pieces of the cross.
One had part of the hand of St.
James.
The spear that pierced the side of Christ.
These and countless other things were supposedly to
be found all over England.
And what was the situation in Wales?
Well if anything it was worse.
Tyndale as he stood on Stinchcombe Hill he
looked across the waters of the river Severn.
The river into which the ashes of Whitcliffe
had been thrown into one of the upper
tributaries.
John Whitcliffe was martyred early in the 15th
century.
His ashes were thrown into the tributaries of
the Severn.
On the other side of the Severn Tyndale
could see the mountains of Wales.
And it was at that time a common
joke that the Welsh were wholly ignorant.
Sir Thomas Moore the scholar of the period
laughed at the ignorance of the Welsh.
And Tyndale replied at a later date he
says I wonder that Mr. Moore can laugh
at it.
But not rather weep for compassion to see
the souls for which Christ shed his blood
to perish.
Now Tyndale had been ordained some years earlier
we're not quite sure of the date.
Probably 1514.
But by the time he came back to
Gloucestershire he had determined that he could not
in conscience undertake the work of a parish
priest.
So he became a tutor in the home
of Sir John Walsh.
Sir John Walsh owned the manor house at
Little Sodbury.
Little Sodbury is about 15 miles south of
Stinchcombe.
And Sir John Walsh had a six-year
-old son and Tyndale came back from Cambridge
to tutor the six-year-old son.
And I hope that someday you can all
go and stand in the manor house at
Little Sodbury because it stands today very much
as it was in Tyndale's day.
There is the old great hall with its
long table where Sir John Walsh used to
entertain his guests.
There is a gargoyle up on the wall
which was really a spyhole.
There's a corridor behind and as you walk
down you could look through this gargoyle and
see everything that was going on.
And then at the end of that corridor
you may find the bedroom of William Tyndale.
The room where he began his work and
where he spent so much time in meditation
and prayer.
And when some of us visited that bedroom
a couple of years ago we were thrilled
to find something on the windowsill of Tyndale's
bedroom.
It was a copy of Daubini's Reformation in
England by Daubini.
And it seems to me an extraordinary thing
that here in the room where that Reformation
began in England there should be a copy
of this great book by Daubini.
Of course it got there because someone had
sent the owner, the present owner, a copy
of Daubini's book and he had placed it
in Tyndale's room.
Well Tyndale went to Little Sudbury Manor House.
Sir John Walsh was a very hospitable man
and it had been the practice for the
local clergy and the abbots and so on
to come in often for their dinner in
the evening at Little Sudbury Manor.
And when they did that they came into
encounter with William Tyndale.
You may have read the story of how
Tyndale quietly at first but then more decidedly,
John Fox says, he confronted these men with
open and manifest scripture.
By which of course he meant the Latin
Bible.
And after several of these experiences Fox says,
these great benefice doctors waxed weary and bear
a secret grudge in their hearts against Master
Tyndale.
There's the famous remark that Lady Walsh made
one morning.
She had been listening to the debate at
the dinner table the evening before and she
had come to the conclusion that this was
simply a question of one learned view against
another.
And as William Tyndale was much younger than
these other men it was far more likely
that the older men would be right.
And she said to Tyndale, she said, were
it reason that we should believe you before
them so great learned and beneficent men?
And we don't know what Tyndale replied but
we do know that he wrote this on
one occasion and I'm sure that it would
be in this way that he replied that
morning.
It would be to say that the gospel
in which he believed did not depend upon
mental abilities.
That it wasn't a case of one scholarship
against another.
This is what he wrote, well I know
that I never deserved it, it is the
knowledge of the gospel.
Nor prepared myself unto it but ran another
way clean country in my blindness and sought
not that way but he sought me and
found me and he showed it me and
therewith he drew me to himself and I
bow the knees of my heart unto God
night and day that he will show it
unto all other men.
And with that conviction Tyndale at this period
was giving himself to prayer and to preparation
for his life's work.
He never wrote his spiritual experience but from
time to time he writes sentences which give
us an idea of what went on in
his innermost being.
For example he says in one place, whom
God chooses to reign everlastingly with Christ, him
he seals with his mighty spirit and pours
strength into his heart to suffer afflictions also
with Christ for bearing witness unto the truth.
He poureth strength into his heart to suffer
afflictions with Christ for bearing witness for the
truth.
And very soon Tyndale began to find his
experience of suffering affliction with Christ.
It was first of all the warning that
one of the old clergymen in the district
gave to him.
I'm sure you've read the story.
This old man came to Tyndale and he
said to him, do you not know that
the Pope is the very antichrist of which
scripture speaks?
And then he says, but beware what you
say for if it is known that you
are of that opinion it will cost you
your life.
Now Tyndale knew a little already no doubt
of the persecution that to some extent was
already being carried on.
In the year that he left Cambridge, if
he left Cambridge in 1521, in that same
year Martin Luther's books had been publicly burnt
in Cambridge.
And worse than that two years earlier in
1519, seven Christians had been burnt to death
at Coventry because they were so-called Lollards.
They possessed part of the Bible handwritten of
course in their own language.
That was in 1519.
And Tyndale within a short space of time
was summoned before the Archdeacon of Gloucestershire, a
man by the name of John Bell at
Chipping Sodbury.
He was summoned to appear before his ecclesiastical
court.
And we are told evidently by a friend
of Tyndale's who had the report from him,
that as Tyndale walked that day to Chipping
Sodbury, in going thitherwards he prayed in his
mind heartily to God to strengthen him to
stand fast in the truth of his word.
When the meeting took place the Chancellor, the
Archdeacon rated him like a dog.
You bear yourself he said boldly among the
gentlemen in this county.
Obviously angered at the way Sir John Walsh
was favouring Tyndale.
You bear yourself boldly but you shall be
otherwise talked with.
And he went on to threaten his removal
to some other place.
And although this was only a first warning,
Tyndale came to the conviction that he as
one voice, as one solitary figure in Gloucestershire
was surrounded by such tremendous forces of prejudice
and ignorance and evil.
Better to be without God's laws than without
the Pope's he was told one day.
Just as those walls of Sodbury Manor were
about eight foot thick, the prejudice of the
ignorance of the people was even thicker.
On one occasion Tyndale says that error was
like a great ivy tree with its roots
planted in the middle of England and spreading
under every little house and village all over
the country.
Like a great, he says, a great ivy
tree.
And he came to the conclusion, the momentous
conclusion that as he had been converted by
the word of God alone as it seems,
that if that word could be brought to
the hands of the people even though they
had no preachers to preach it to them,
that word could be the means of subduing
a nation to the gospel of Christ.
I perceived by experience, he says, how that
it was impossible to establish the lay people
in any truth unless the scripture were plainly
laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.
In order that they might see the process
and the order and the meaning of the
text.
For otherwise whatsoever truth is taught them, these
enemies of all truth quench it again resting
the scriptures onto their own purpose and deluding
the people by distanting upon it with allegories
and expounding it in many senses before the
unlearned people when it has in truth but
one simple and literal sense.
Which thing, he says, moved me to translate
the New Testament?
Well, one can see Tyndale's experience developing and
evidently in this earlier part of his life
he felt that probably the greatest problem was
the sheer ignorance of the people.
He later came to the conclusion that the
problem was deeper.
It was a problem of evil and of
superhuman darkness.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood.
It was not merely the absence of light
but it was the positive power of darkness.
But that was something that grew in his
consciousness as the years went by.
His first step then was to go to
the Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, who had
a reputation for favouring the Renaissance learning and
was himself a scholar.
And Tyndale translated a portion of the Greek
writer Isocrates and with this translation of Isocrates
he went to Tunstall in order to plead
the benefit of translating the New Testament.
And he evidently thought that Tunstall as a
reasonable and scholarly man would approve of this
proposal.
But Cuthbert Tunstall understood something of what might
be involved.
He was very cool and reserved and evasive
and he apologised to Tyndale that he had
no room in his Bishop's Palace to give
him any hospitality or to give him any
support for his proposal.
And in so many words he told him
that he was not to proceed with it.
Now as I mentioned earlier on, the authority
to translate Scripture was vested entirely in the
Bishops.
That's why Tyndale went to Tunstall.
And when he received this reception he was
led to that great step which seems to
us perhaps a straightforward step.
But it was the turning point in the
history of England in the 16th century.
In 1524 William Tyndale voluntarily became an exile.
In order that in hiding, hunted, pursued, he
might bring to the English people the Scriptures
in their own tongue.
There is a fine portrait of Tyndale in
Oxford and underneath that portrait there is a
verse written by an anonymous hand which goes
something like this.
That light or all my darkness roam might
arise freely an exile I became freely a
sacrifice.
It's a translation from a very old verse
and I cannot give it to you exactly
but this is the heart of it.
Freely an exile I became freely a sacrifice.
He was given 10 pounds by Humphrey Monmouth
who was a Christian merchant and with that
10 pounds he crossed the English Channel never
to return and began his journeyings in Europe.
I say journeyings because once it was known
that Tyndale was abroad and once it was
known what he was doing he was hunted
and pursued through the 11 years that he
was free.
11 years of life were given to him
to complete the work that God intended him
to do and that is a very thrilling
and marvellous story.
You can read it at much greater length
in Dalbini's Reformation in England.
I hope many of you have already read
this but if you haven't it is a
truly wonderful and readable book.
This is volume one there is a second
volume and that takes you right through Tyndale's
period on the continent and earlier.
Thomas Moore who was Tyndale's great enemy and
opponent he wrote on one occasion that Tyndale
he is an exile he said both nowhere
and everywhere because Tyndale's books were filling the
country coming into London going to Scotland to
Edinburgh to St Andrews he is an exile
nowhere nobody could put their hand on him
and yet his voice Moore exclaimed was being
heard everywhere and John Fox wrote it cannot
be spoken what a door of light this
man's writings opened to the eyes of the
whole English nation.
Now when Tyndale first went to the continent
he went to Wittenberg and no doubt he
met Martin Luther and it is quite likely
that he spent several months in the university
at Wittenberg but then in 1525 we find
him at Cologne and at Cologne he completed
the New Testament into the English tongue and
he handed it over to the printer Peter
Crensnaw with an order for 6,000 copies
later on the Catholics heard the quantity that
he had ordered and were staggered at the
man's audacity 6,000 copies it was a
great quantity in actual fact I think less
was to be printed but that was the
original order as it was in fact none
were printed complete because the printer had completed
Matthew's gospel and was just starting mark when
one of the printers of course not being
a Christian was out at the pub drinking
that night and he began to tell some
of the people the odd book they were
printing in the English tongue uh something on
the gospels and mentioned Matthew and Mark and
of course word traveled fast and the next
day the authorities were at the printers and
only gave Tyndale time for he evidently had
news of what had happened to board a
boat on the Rhine he took from the
printers what was completed just these handfuls of
Matthew in the beginning of Mark and fled
up the Rhine to Berns and that was
the end of the first venture to print
the New Testament those fragments the Cologne fragment
was the first Bible ever printed in the
English tongue the first parcel of the Bible
well at Berns they had to start again
because the printing presses were different sizes it
wasn't a question of just continuing but the
New Testament was completed at Berns and in
the year 1526 began to appear in England
in London Gloucestershire copies furtively and secretly handed
from person to person often read in the
dead of night so on and I'll read
you a few words from the prefaces to
these New Testaments it was the first time
that an Englishman had ever used print as
a way of communicating the gospel of Jesus
Christ that's extraordinary thing first time the printing
press was ever used for this purpose and
Tyndale said in his preface that it was
not he that was doing this work but
he said it is God himself who is
sending unto our Englishman the scripture in their
own tongue and he is but the translator
of that word for he says we have
not not received the gifts of God for
ourselves only or for men to hide them
but to bestow them unto the honoring of
God and Christ and we have received these
gifts he says for the edifying of the
congregation which is the body of Christ and
then he goes on to say what the
gospel is the New Testament is a book
wherein are contained the promises of God and
the deeds of those that believe them or
believe them not that which we call gospel
is a Greek word and means good merry
glad joyful tidings that makes a man's heart
glad and maketh him sing dance and leap
for joy this gospel is called the New
Testament because that as a man when he
shall die appoints his goods to be dealt
and shared after his death among those whom
he names as his heirs even so Christ
before his death commanded and appointed that such
gospel or tidings should be declared throughout all
the world and therewith to give unto all
that believe all his goods that is to
say his life wherewith he swallowed and devoured
death his righteousness wherewith he banished sin his
salvation wherewith he overcame eternal damnation now the
cinder can the wretched man that is in
sin and in danger to death and hell
hear a more joyous thing than such glad
and comfortable tidings of Christ so that he
cannot but be glad and laugh from the
low bottom of his heart if he believes
that these tidings are true and so he
goes on beautifully to write of what the
gospel is now i said at the beginning
that 80 perhaps 90 percent of the authorized
version is tindale and we forget how many
words tindale actually coined you have heard bible
translators and missionaries today speaking of the difficulty
of finding new words in languages where the
bible has not yet been printed that was
so with tindale in the 16th century and
the words that he coined or some of
them let me give you a few the
word pass over the pass over the scapegoat
the mercy seat these were all words that
tindale coined for the very first time and
then words to do with the attributes of
god which did not exist in our time
the long suffering of god that's tindale's word
the tender mercies of god that's another of
his words and you know it's said that
even when the revised version was completed in
the last century that 75 percent of the
words of the revised version were still tindale's
words now our time is running fast on
he completed the new testament then in 1526
and then he then he proceeded to other
books he wrote the parable of the wicked
mammon which is really a little treatise on
justification by faith alone he printed an epilogue
on the epistle to the romans or i
should say a prologue to the epistle to
the romans then he proceeded to the obedience
of the christian man the book which speaks
of the relationship between the christian and the
state and then the relation between the christian
and the professing church and at the latter
point tindale said that it was their duty
while obeying the secular powers to disobey all
spiritual powers unless those powers themselves bowed to
the word of christ and he warned those
who were receiving the gospel that their receiving
of this message would lead many of them
to the fires of martyrdom nevertheless he says
be bold in the lord and comfort your
soul christ is with us unto the world's
end let his little flock be bold therefore
for if god be on our side what
matter is it who be against us be
they bishops cardinals popes or whatsoever names they
will we are called not to dispute as
the pope's disciples do but to die with
christ that we may live with him we
are called to suffer with christ that we
may reign with him that was 1528 then
you have the very exciting years that followed
let me just give you a little sketch
perhaps of one year in 1529 tindale was
in antwerp and the english spies were searching
antwerp they had arrested more than one printer
and the thing the place was becoming very
hot so tindale took ship to hamburg that
is up the coast of holland of course
and into germany but on that voyage the
ship was wrecked and the most disastrous thing
for tindale was all the work that he
had done on the pentachuc beginning he was
beginning the old testament from the hebrew it
was all lost in the wreck and when
he got to hamburg he had to start
again from the beginning when he got to
hamburg he stayed in the home of a
christian woman he tells us that the plague
was raging in the city so that for
several months he was unable apparently even to
venture out of doors so you see this
exile in a strange city with the tremendous
disappointment of losing all his manuscripts beginning again
on the pentachuc and in 1530 the pentachuc
was ready and it's one of the most
beautiful parts of tindale's work and with with
his translation he always added marginal notes as
thou readest he says in book of genesis
think that every syllable pertains to yourself and
suck the piss out of scripture and i
can't give you more of his notes but
they are splendid notes well who were tindale's
friends he had a little group of friends
who were responsible some of them for carrying
the bibles and new testaments across the channel
several of them were fellow cambridge students and
of this little group of friends only one
survived to die a natural death of the
others everyone died as a martyr the one
who survived was miles coveredale the others your
names their names you perhaps have scarcely heard
of john lambert was one he lived in
antwerp across the channel carrying these books until
he was captured and burnt to death it
was lambert who said at the stake none
but christ none but christ richard byfield was
another man who carried these new testaments thomas
bilney little bilney he was called was also
a friend of tindale's and he was martyred
in 1531 perhaps tindale's greatest loss was the
death of john frith one day maybe you
will go to western and visit the home
of sir winston churchill at chartwell but when
you go there you must remember that in
western there was born and grew up tindale's
great friend john frith frith was a man
whose reputation was uh esteemed all over the
country and king henry the eighth attempted very
uh diligently to separate frith from tindale he
made a special offer of pardon to him
if he would return and so on but
frith did return secretly to evangelize he was
captured imprisoned and martyred in 1533 and before
he was executed he was again offered a
pardon on condition that he would desist from
the work he was doing and this is
what he said in reply i assure you
he said he told his judge i assure
you i neither will nor can cease to
speak for the word of god boil up
in my body like a fervent fire and
must needs have an outlet two years later
william tindale himself was arrested he was then
in the home of thomas points in antwerp
an englishman who played the part of judas
uh gained tindale's friendship then he revealed his
whereabouts tindale was arrested thrown into prison without
anything except the clothes in which he stood
spent 16 months of in cold and suffering
in the castle of veal board and then
at the beginning of october 1536 was taken
out into the marketplace at veal board strangled
and then burnt to death the last words
that he was heard to cry were words
of lord he said open the king of
england's eyes when tindale published his pentateuch he
speaks about joseph being put in prison in
egypt and i think these words parallel his
own experience those promises of god accompanied him
always and went down with him even into
the deep dungeon and brought him up again
and never forsook him till all that was
promised was fulfilled and there's a verse of
john milton which describes so perfectly what william
tindale was faithful found among the faithless faithful
only he among innumerable false unmoved unshaken unseduced
unterrified his loyalty he kept his love his
zeal nor number nor example with him wrought
to swerve from truth or change his constant
mind though single now our time has gone
and i think perhaps i should break off
at that point if i have just said
enough to stir you up to read torpini
then my greatest purpose will have been fulfilled
after reflecting on yesterday morning i decided to
take another session today on the reformation and
that means that i shall give you perhaps
another 10 minutes or quarter of an hour
at the most on tindale and then an
overall sketch and survey of some of the
events which followed tindale's death and led to
the establishment of the reformation and perhaps the
years that followed now i had not intended
to do the latter and have not had
reference to notes on the subject and i'd
like you to check any particular dates that
i may throw out because i won't guarantee
that they'll all be accurate now a little
more then on tindale and particularly on the
characteristics of the man which made him the
christian leader that he was we saw yesterday
how he was converted as a young child
or certainly not much more than a youth
at oxford how having been in gloucestershire in
the home of sir john walsh for a
few years he crossed founders in 1524 and
how he had 11 years of freedom before
his martyrdom in 1536 and in those years
his greatest work was the translation of the
new testament and of the old testament i
think he went as far as the second
book of chronicles as well as that he
published a number of important books which circulated
with the bible and these were all printed
in the last century in three large volumes
in the parker society collection now the first
thing then tindale was the first english reformer
to bring out again what it means to
be a christian and while tindale brought forward
a great deal of biblical truth he was
continually returning to this one great theme it
is his first point and the point that
he was always compelling people to listen to
what is a christian now in the day
in which he lived a christian met a
person who belonged to holy church that is
to say a person who said prayers in
a sacred building who respected the priesthood who
observed the sacraments who was submissive to the
ceremonies of the church and such was a
christian tindale says of this general opinion that
to be a christian was nothing else than
to serve ceremonies and him that was not
popish and ceremonial was no christian man at
all and sir thomas moore tindale's great opponent
charges tindale with impiety because says moore he
says no service at all neither matins even
song nor mass nor cometh at church nor
cometh at no church but either to gaze
or to talk in other words tindale was
no longer as moore had heard partaking in
the ritual and ceremony of the church so
called of his day and to tindale that
definition of christian was false at the foundation
because it made no account of a man's
individual relationship to christ so that a man
could be as ungodly as cardinal wolsey or
a pope alexander the sixth and yet be
a christian in terms of that definition and
the great shame of medieval christianity was that
by corrupting the scriptures it had brought into
being a system of religion which was compatible
with wilderness and with corruption and which nevertheless
gave to men a false assurance of their
relationship to god now in contrast to this
tindale says two things are required to be
in a christian man the first is a
steadfast faith and trust in almighty god to
obtain all the mercy that he hath promised
us through the deserving and merits of christ
blood only without all respect to our works
and the other is that we forsake evil
and turn to god to keep his laws
to fight against ourselves and our corrupt nature
perpetually that we may do the will of
god every day better and better now i
won't stop on the first a steadfast faith
and trust in almighty god to obtain all
through the deserving of christ blood but tindale
was in the english language the first to
expound in its fullness the doctrine of justification
by faith alone that is to say that
the ungodly sinner is justified by the receiving
of the righteousness of christ and the obedience
of christ unto death is counted as our
obedience and christ deserving becomes the ground upon
which we obtain all the blessings of calvary
let me give you just a sentence from
speaking to a believer he says christ is
thine and all his deeds are thy deeds
christ is in thee and thou in him
knit together inseparably neither canst thou be damned
except christ be damned with thee neither can
christ be saved except thou be saved with
him the believer is one with christ in
his righteousness and in his redemption then let
me just say a little more on tindale's
exposition of the living of the christian life
and his key words here are the words
obedience and the words love christians do not
seek to do god's will he says in
order to obtain his favor for he loved
them when they were yet evil and his
enemies in their hearts and before they came
to the knowledge of his son he loved
them and before his law was written in
their hearts so that the christians obedience is
not in order to obtain the favor of
god but on the contrary it is the
knowledge of god's eternal love to us in
christ that leads us to obedience and a
true believer says tindale must obey christ's word
even though it cost him his life because
what christ has done for him makes him
put him more precious than all the world
so when the question was put to tindale
why must a christian man obey if he's
already accepted and justified before god tindale says
why must i work i answer because love
compels me for as long as my soul
feeleth what love god has showed me in
christ i cannot but love god again and
his will and commandments love god again and
his will and commandments and out of love
work then so he has this great emphasis
on love as the fulfillment of the christian's
living it compels him to obedience let me
give you one more quotation if we be
in christ we work for no worldly purpose
but of love as paul says to corinthians
time the love of christ compels us we
are otherwise minded than when peter drew his
sword to fight for christ we are ready
to suffer with christ and to lose life
and all for our very enemies to bring
them unto christ if we be in christ
we are like-minded unto christ christ is
all to a christian man christ is the
cause why i love thee why i am
ready to do the uttermost of my power
for thee and why i pray for thee
and as long as the cause abides so
long lasts the effect even as it is
always day as long as the sun shines
do therefore the worst thou canst unto me
take away my goods take away my good
name yet as long as christ remains in
my heart so long i love thee not
a whit the less and so long are
thou dear unto me as mine own soul
and so long am i ready to do
thee good for thine evil and so long
i pray for thee with all my heart
for christ desires it of me and hath
deserved it of me thine unkindness compared unto
his kindness is nothing at all yea it
is swallowed up as a little smoke by
a mighty wind and is no more seen
or thought upon and in contrast to that
teaching the whole system of Rome was cold
and heartless indeed when Tyndale's charges were laid
by the church against him one of the
charges was that he taught the heresy and
quoting Tyndale Tyndale had said they charged him
with saying i am bound to love the
Turk with the very bottom of my heart
the Turk of course in the 16th century
was supposedly great enemy of Christendom and that
was a heretical statement in the eyes of
the church and the church so called did
nothing to bring the scriptures to men she
said prayers and masses for them for their
for the church's profit and not for their
own good and this was the kind of
cloister love which Tyndale castigates with tremendous vehemence
the so-called love of the contemporary church
was a love which had no regard to
the salvation of poor sinners listen to Tyndale
as he talks about this cloister love if
i stick up to the middle in the
mire ready to perish without immediate help and
you stand by and will not succor me
but kneel down and pray will God hear
the prayers of such a hypocrite God bid
of thee so to love me that thou
put thyself in jeopardy to help me and
that your heart of while your body labors
doth pray and trust in God that he
will assist and hypocrite that will not put
neither body nor soul in peril to help
me in my need loveth me not neither
have compassion on me and therefore his heart
cannot pray though he wag his lips never
so much and although we don't know a
great deal about Tyndale's personal life what we
do know illustrates this fact people who knew
him likened him to the apostle John the
apostle of love when John Frith was on
trial and Tyndale's name was brought up and
denounced Frith said to Sir Thomas Moore I
am sure that no man can reprove him
of any sin and Tyndale had this great
gentleness and kindness about him when he was
for those last months of his life in
the castle at Veil Ward the jailer's daughter
was converted and I believe one or two
others in the household when he was in
Antwerp we read how he used to take
Sunday services amongst the merchants they would meet
in an upper room with their doors no
doubt locked and there Tyndale would preach to
them and John Fox says that he did
it so fruitfully so sweetly and so gently
that it seemed much like to the writing
of John the evangelist and Tyndale's motto was
concerning his concerning those to whom he witnessed
tell them their fault lovingly and with kindness
win them to thy father so much then
in these few words on Tyndale as the
recoverer of the meaning of the word Christian
a one with steadfast faith and trust in
almighty God and one who out of a
consciousness of the love of Christ seeks truly
to love and serve his fellow men now
secondly a word or two on Tyndale as
a reformer in the dependence which he showed
upon God and here is something which it
is indeed extraordinarily difficult for us to realize
here was one man with no support from
anyone in the professing church singly going into
exile to translate scripture taking a course of
action which no one else had taken and
doing it in steadfast dependence upon God and
refusing in any point to trim the truth
or to adjust his policy in order to
obtain favor from men do I now seek
to persuade men or gods as the apostle
Paul for if I yet please men I
should not be the servant of Christ and
as one reads Tyndale one sees this uh
shining through the man he was constantly telling
other Christians that it was their business to
serve God alone and to leave all consequences
with him God wills he says that we
care not to know what shall come that
is as a result of our serving he
will have us care only to keep his
commandments and to commit all events unto him
all things are in his hand he can
remedy all things and will for his truth's
sake if we pray to him and after
John Frist was arrested in England and put
in the Tower of London Tyndale somehow managed
to get two letters to him and these
letters still survive and in one of them
we have this sentence in which Tyndale exhorts
his friend if you give yourself cast yourself
yield yourself wholly and only to your loving
father then shall his power be in you
and make you strong to look for no
man's help brings the help of God to
them who seem to be overcome in the
eyes of 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 falls not a
hair until his hour become and when his
hour is come then necessity carries us hence
well that could be illustrated in many respects
but he was a man whose policy was
framed by the word of God and in
a policy in which he refused to deviate
in any degree to accommodate the opinions of
men there is one a striking illustration of
that i'm sure you all know how many
wives King Henry VIII had and i need
not to remind you of such historical facts
but the second wife of Henry VIII was
Anne Boleyn and Anne Boleyn became the second
wife of Henry VIII through the divorce of
Catherine of Aragon now in that divorce dispute
there were those who favored the protestant cause
who condoned and even supported the divorce and
they could see as they believed um no
doubt good consequences following from the remarriage of
the king but Tyndale from the very outset
of all Catherine of Aragon was a staunch
a Roman Catholic he steadfastly opposed the divorce
and in doing so he brought a great
deal of wrath down upon him and this
is why he says he opposed I could
not but declare my mind to discharge my
conscience lest any man should later cast in
my teeth when this old marriage was broken
and a new one made why I had
not spoken earlier a last thing on Tyndale
is before we move on Tyndale gave to
this country as we've seen the English Bible
but with the Bible he restored along with
other reformers the doctrine of the authority of
scripture and the explanation why people were willing
to translate the scriptures and die for the
scriptures was the belief that when scripture spoke
God was speaking it wasn't simply that the
scriptures were a novelty or that the translation
was remarkably beautiful though it was beautiful it
was the fact as Tyndale says that you
should deal with scripture so that you believe
that God himself is speaking and they taught
that the word of God is not the
word of popes it is not the word
of the church it is not the word
of tradition it is the word of the
written scriptures and one stands in awe at
the sense of the majesty of scripture which
these men had at one point in 1531
in the middle of that period when Tyndale
was being hunted by spies and pursued in
Flanders he made an offer to King Henry
VIII and this was the offer that he
made I give it to you in his
own words he offered to suffer what pain
or torture yea what death his grace will
that is the king wills if it will
stand with the king's most gracious pleasure to
grant only a bare text of the scripture
to be put forth among his people that
was his offer he would surrender himself at
once if the king would but put forth
the bare word of scripture and another time
writing to John Frith Tyndale said this I
call God to record against the day when
we shall appear before our Lord Jesus to
give a reckoning of our doings that I
never altered one syllable of God's word against
my conscience nor would I this day if
all that is in the earth whether it
be pleasure honor or riches might be given
to me he was bound solely to the
word of God now let me then try
to sketch in a very broad way for
the benefit of those of you who have
done perhaps a little reading of what happened
following Tyndale's death two
things were happening in England there were those
within the church itself whose eyes were gradually
being opened to the gospel and among these
men was the archbishop of Canterbury himself Thomas
Cranmer Cranmer who became archbishop in the days
of Henry VIII another was Nicholas Ridley who
was bishop of Rochester and Cranmer and Ridley
and one or two others of the bishops
began to work for the furtherance of scripture
the great bible was printed in England a
few years after Tyndale's death consisted very largely
of Tyndale's own work but without his name
on the title page so there began a
movement within the church for reform then the
second thing conversions took place in the monasteries
and in other places of men who became
a fervent preachers and evangelists and these men
often were not able to stay within the
church but were driven into exile I give
you one who is a typical instance John
Hooper Hooper was born about the same time
as Tyndale at the end of the previous
century he graduated at Oxford and then he
became a Sir Sir Stein monk he went
down to the beautiful abbey of Cleve in
Somerset and he seems to have been there
about 17 or 18 years completely immersed in
the religion of his day and then Henry
VIII dissolved the monasteries and so Hooper was
thrown adrift he went back to Oxford and
there he was converted he was a very
young Christian with very imperfect knowledge and his
next post was the post of a courtier
really in the household of a nobleman in
London and in London Hooper found some of
the books of Henry Bullinger the reformer of
Zurich and other books from the continent and
as he read these reformed books his knowledge
advanced swiftly and he found that he was
forced to flee into exile crossed over the
channel he found a young lady to be
his wife he was married and he had
two years study in Zurich now Hooper was
typical of other men in whom the same
thing was happening you see in periods where
there has been great corruption and darkness Christ
builds his church by causing a mutiny in
the camp of satan in days of spiritual
prosperity when Christian homes are being blessed then
many children are called from the families of
God's people but there are ages in the
history of the church where there are hardly
any Christian families and in those ages in
a singular way God takes his people and
the leaders of his people from the very
strongholds of the kingdom of satan now of
course he's always doing that in the world
but in the times such as the reformation
that stands out now Henry VIII went on
living to 1547 and he was a godless
tyrant as you well know his policies changed
sometimes he favoured reform sometimes he was against
it but at the time of his death
the cause of reform was growing in strength
and his successor was his only son Edward
VI and in Edward VI we have the
first Christian king since the English reformation he
was only 16 years old when he died
but there's no question whatever concerning his piety
and his attachment to the Lord Jesus Christ
he came to the throne in 1547 and
now two things happened one was that the
men in the church like Cranmer and Ridley
and began to press forward the reformation more
openly the other thing was that those who
had been in exile like Hooper came back
home and herein lay a difficulty because there
were two different policies in existence Cranmer's policy
was the broader policy it was the slower
policy it was a policy which aimed to
carry along as many as possible of the
professing church into the reformed church whereas men
like Hooper and others believed that the professing
church was so far gone from the word
of God that there should be a new
beginning and that those men who have been
in the priesthood all these years should be
cast out of their office and that the
reformed church should stand upon a new foundation
now both these parties were Christians one was
more thoroughgoing the other was more broad but
there's no question that the spirit of God
was working in both but it led to
tensions and these tensions came to a height
in the year 1550 in the middle of
Edward VI reign John Hooper was asked to
preach the open air sermons at Paul's cross
now of course it was a feature of
the time of the movement of the spirit
but great numbers of people now gathered for
the preaching of the word and the most
famous place was Paul's cross in London out
just outside St Paul's Cathedral sometimes as many
as 6,000 people would gather in the
open air there for the preaching of God's
word and it was an annual event in
the month in the uh months preceding Easter
in the Lent period that a series of
sermons should be given and John Hooper was
the preacher in 1550 and he expounded the
book of Jonah right through beginning to end
you can read his expositions and he began
by speaking of the disobedience of the prophet
Jonah a true servant of God yet a
disobedient servant and then he went on to
show how Jonah's disobedience brought the whole ship
into jeopardy and then he had many practical
applications and how many Jonas as he said
and he went for the broad policy of
Canberra and other bishops and he insisted that
everything should be brought down to obedience to
the word of God and we must not
he would say depart from one hair's breadth
from holy scripture the word of God is
not a reed but a scepter of iron
and we must bend to it and not
bend scripture to us well there was quite
an uproar with Hooper's sermons and there was
a division not only through the church but
through the Privy Council which governed in the
king's name and there were those in the
Privy Council who were very taken with Hooper's
earnestness and through their encouragement he was appointed
Bishop of Gloucester now I mustn't be sidetracked
into an account of what took place and
so on he became the Bishop of Gloucester
other men who were in England then were
John Knox, Knox who had entered the ministry
in 1547 being captured by the French galleys
from the castle at St. Andrews spent 18
months as a galley slave then he was
released probably by English intervention he came to
England in 1549 and he gave four years
to preaching the gospel in England another man
was John Rogers, John Rogers was a priest
in Antwerp who was converted through the personal
witness of Tyndale he now came home and
Rogers also became an eminent preacher and then
in the university something was happening, Continental reformers
came across to Oxford and Cambridge, Peter Martyr
in Oxford Martin Butzer or Butzer in Cambridge
and students began to receive the love of
the truth we have descriptions of how they
would rise at five in the morning how
the scriptures became their first love and so
on all this went on until the year
1553 and then after that comparatively short reign
Edward VI died as I said before at
the early age of 16.
He had no other brothers but the lawful
successor to the throne was the daughter of
Catherine of Aragon and you can well understand
why Mary Tudor or Bloody Mary as she
was sometimes or he'd often called you can
well understand why she was hostile to many
Protestants they had been some of them at
any rate responsible for her mother's divorce and
you can see too how considerations of policy
which earlier seemed to favor perhaps the cause
of reform now rebounded against it Mary Tudor
came to the throne of course she promised
that there would be religious toleration but her
promise only survived well indeed it had only
survived a matter of months and in the
year 1554 began the great Marian burnings and
Mary Tudor has gone down in history as
the woman who was responsible for the martyrdom
of some 282 or 283 men and women
within about three or four years this number
was burnt to death the first to die
was John Rogers that priest from Antwerp converted
through Tyndale's witness he died in the early
days of February walking to the stake in
Smithfield said the French ambassador as though he
was walking to his wedding leaving behind him
a wife and 11 children in the baby
arms John Rogers was first to break the
ice and the policy was to put these
men to death and women too but mostly
men in different parts of the country some
of you may go to Chester this afternoon
there George Marsh was tried and condemned they
were moved around the country in order to
terrorize the people and so Hooper was sent
down to Gloucester for his martyrdom Roland Taylor
was sent to Hadley in Suffolk and they
were scattered around Hooper of course had been
arrested stripped of all his titles then he
was taken down to Gloucester in disgrace burnt
to death at a spot which you can
still see close to the cathedral it said
that when Hooper came to Gloucester people were
afraid to own him or even recognize him
one nobleman came to visit him before his
death and he said to Hooper master Hooper
he said remember that life is sweet and
death is bitter and he tried to win
Hooper back but Hooper replied that eternal life
is sweeter and eternal death is more bitter
but Hooper had a very lonely night and
day in Gloucester before his death with one
exception a young boy came to the place
where Hooper was imprisoned and asked if he
might see Hooper he was totally blind he
was committed to see him and this young
boy with fervent love to Christ in his
heart was a means of encouraging the old
man as he prepared for his death I
say old he was perhaps approaching 60 years
of age which was old in those days
Roland Taylor as I told you died at
Hadley approaching the last style before the village
green where he was to die why he
said one more style to cross and I
shall be at home the famous story of
how Ridley and Mattimer died together in that
ditch outside Balliol College in Oxford play the
man master Ridley said Mattimer we shall today
by God's grace light such a candle in
England as I trust shall never be put
out and then he added and we shall
have a merry supper with our lord this
night most of the martyrs were burnt in
London some of them were so popular amongst
the people that they did not seem to
dare to move them to their own counties
John Bradford was a Lancashire man and he
was meant to have died in Lancashire but
they didn't move him from London he was
burnt to death in Smithfield when he died
it was said that he embraced the flames
like a cool breeze on a hot summer's
day and the last word that he was
heard to speak were the words of Christ
on the sermon on the mount straight is
the gate and narrow is the way that
leadeth unto life and few that be that
find it well you may read at length
the story of the Marian burnings and there's
no question at all that those burnings opened
a great door for the gospel far more
people were converted in those years than were
burnt and the reason for that or at
least one of the reasons was that people
were given a tangible demonstration of the point
which Tyndale had made to Lady Walsh that
this wasn't just a matter of learning and
one opinion against another it was a matter
of being able to die at peace with
joy instead of the old fear of death
which had prevailed under potpourri the fear of
purgatory here were men and women dying with
triumph and with confidence and that led others
to search the scriptures and the Marian burnings
gave a great move forward in the history
of the reformation while Mary's reign was short
she died in 1558 and towards the end
of that year good Queen Beth as she
was called began to reign reign of Queen
Elizabeth sometimes of course Protestants extolled Queen Elizabeth
as though she was a Christian saint she
was hardly that on her deathbed it is
said that she cried out a thousand pounds
for an inch of time and she said
call time again she was a woman who
followed the vile media she was moderate in
her religion moderate in her worldliness she did
great good for England under the hand of
God but she was no favorer of the
reformed gospel her reign then lasted until the
turn of the century and it was in
that reign that the Puritan movement gathered such
strength one reason why it did so was
that in the reign of Mary Tudor when
the burnings were going on others had gone
into exile again on the continent and some
of those students that I mentioned from Oxford
and Cambridge they had gone to the continent
they formed little churches in Frankfurt and in
Geneva and elsewhere and the church in Geneva
became the kind of pioneer church of the
Puritan movement there were never more than 200
people in that church they had four ruling
elders and two preaching elders but their greatest
work under God's hand was the publication in
1560 of the Geneva Bible and that Bible
went through 140 editions by the middle of
the 17th century and it was very slowly
that the authorized version gradually superseded it in
the 17th century now our time is almost
gone and here we are in midstream in
the Elizabethan period fellows
and dons and professors one of the first
was Thomas Cartwright in Cambridge and under Cartwright
many young men were these young men were
then sent out to parishes scattered all around
England they came to parishes where the gospel
had never been heard sometimes they labored for
15 years without seeing a conversion but these
men multiplied in their numbers they started village
schools they taught the people they expounded these
great books that we have these Puritan commentaries
were often beaten out in the pulpits of
these parishes first of all men like Richard
Rogers at Wethersfield in Essex he had a
cousin called John Rogers and he paid for
John Rogers to go up to Cambridge to
study twice Rogers was sent down from Cambridge
on account of his blunkeness the third time
his uncle sent him back and he was
converted John Rogers became one of the most
famous of all the preachers of the 17th
century and then moving on a little in
time but illustrating the same thing a Philip
Henry was a student at Oxford his first
charge was at Worthingbury about what 15 miles
from here last year we went to see
the church and an old lady showed us
round and she opened up a big chest
big as this table and what did we
find in this chest but the old church
records of Philip Henry's day in his own
writing and some of the enthusiastic men with
their cameras you can imagine we had there
we had quite a day well Philip Henry
was turned out of his church at the
great ejection of 1660 and lived for the
rest of his life at Broad Oak which
is just three miles from which church where
some of the friends are staying at the
moment almost at Broad Oak and then what
did Philip Henry do well he trained a
son Matthew Henry and Matthew Henry's commentary has
sold by 7 million in all parts of
the English-speaking world Matthew Henry labored at
Chester until the year 1712 you can see
I've taken a pretty big step in those
dates well I think we must break off
at that point it's quarter to 11 and
this is just then by way of wetting
your appetite more to read these things shall
we close in prayer we
thank thee for the assurance thou art the
one that maketh crooked ways straight thou dost
lead the blind in a way that they
know not and we praise thee that thou
art leading thy church in this day and
lord it is our prayer that we might
have in our hearts that faith and confidence
that thou didst give to those who belong
to thee in that day of which we
have thought oh god it is by thy
hand and providence that we are gathered here
this week and we pray that thy hand
may lead us on that we may each
one be deepened in our conviction of the
truth of thy word and lord help us
that we may wholly surrender ourselves unto thee
and spend our lives in that which will
be pleasing in my sight lord may thy
blessing then be upon us this day bless
our fellowship together our discussions and in all
that we do we ask it with the
pardon of our sins through jesus christ our
lord and savior amen