Volume III Part 5 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Exertions of Cranmer.]

[Sidenote: The bishops are immoveable.]

All these were condemned with equal emphasis--all continued to spread.

The progress of the work of propagation had, in 1531, become so considerable as to be the subject of an anxious protest to the crown from the episcopal bench. They complained of the translations as inaccurate--of unbecoming reflections on themselves in the prefaces and side-notes. They required stronger powers of repression, more frequent holocausts, a more efficient inquisitorial police. In Henry's reply they found that the waters of their life were poisoned at the spring. The king, too, was infected with the madness. The king would have the Bible in English; he directed them, if the translation was unsound, to prepare a better translation without delay. If they had been wise in their generation they would have secured the ground when it was offered to them, and gladly complied. But the work of Reformation in England was not to be accomplished, in any one of its purer details, by the official clergy; it was to be done by volunteers from the ranks, and forced upon the Church by the secular arm. The bishops remained for two years inactive. In 1533, the king becoming more peremptory, Cranmer carried a resolution for a translation through convocation. The resolution, however, would not advance into act. The next year he brought the subject forward again; and finding his brother prelates fixed in their neglect, he divided Tyndal's work into ten parts, sending one part to each bishop to correct. The Bishop of London alone ventured an open refusal; the remainder complied in words, and did nothing.[76]

[Sidenote: Miles Coverdale publishes the first complete version with the king's sanction.]

Finally, the king's patience was exhausted. The legitimate methods having been tried in vain, he acted on his own responsibility. Miles Coverdale, a member of the same Cambridge circle which had given birth to Cranmer, to Latimer, to Barnes, to the Scotch Wishart, silently went abroad with a licence from Cromwell; with Tyndal's help he collected and edited the scattered portions; and in 1536[77] there appeared in London, published _c.u.m privilegio_ and dedicated to Henry VIII., the first complete copy of the English Bible. The separate translations, still anomalously prohibited in detail, were exposed freely to sale in a single volume, under the royal sanction. The canon and text-book of the new opinions--so long dreaded, so long execrated--was thenceforth to lie open in every church in England; and the clergy were ordered not to permit only, but to exhort and encourage, all men to resort to it and read.[78]

In this act was laid the foundation-stone on which the whole later history of England, civil as well as ecclesiastical, has been reared; the most minute incidents become interesting, connected with an event of so mighty moment.

[Sidenote: Coverdale's preface and dedication.]

”Caiphas,” said Coverdale in the dedicatory preface, ”being bishop of his year, prophesied that it was better to put Christ to death than that all the people should perish: he meaning that Christ was a heretic and a deceiver of the people, when in truth he was the Saviour of the world, sent by his Father to suffer death for man's redemption.

”After the same manner the Bishop of Rome conferred on King Henry VIII.

the t.i.tle of Defender of the Faith, because his Highness suffered the bishops to burn G.o.d's Word, the root of faith, and to persecute the lovers and ministers of the same; where in very deed the Bishop, though he knew not what he did, prophesied that, by the righteous administration of his Grace, the faith should be so defended that G.o.d's Word, the mother of faith, should have free course through all Christendom, but especially in his own realm.

”The Bishop of Rome has studied long to keep the Bible from the people, and specially from princes, lest they should find out his tricks and his falsehoods, lest they should turn from his false obedience to the true obedience commanded by G.o.d; knowing well enough that, if the clear sun of G.o.d's Word came over the heat of the day, it would drive away the foul mist of his devilish doctrines. The Scripture was lost before the time of that n.o.ble king Josiah, as it hath also been among us unto the time of his Grace. Through the merciful goodness of G.o.d it is now found again as it was in the days of that virtuous king; and praised be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, world without end, which so excellently hath endowed the princely heart of his Highness with such ferventness to his honour and the wealth of his subjects, that he may be compared worthily unto that n.o.ble king, that lantern among princes, who commanded straitly, as his Grace doth, that the law of G.o.d should be read and taught unto all the people.

”May it be found a general comfort to all Christian hearts--a continual subject of thankfulness, both of old and young, unto G.o.d and to his Grace, who, being our Moses, has brought us out of the old aegypt, and from the cruel hands of our spiritual Pharaoh. Not by the thousandth part were the Jews so much bound unto King David for subduing of great Goliah as we are to his Grace for delivering us out of our old Babylonish captivity. For the which deliverance and victory I beseech our only Mediator, Jesus Christ, to make such mean with us unto his heavenly Father, that we may never be unthankful unto Him nor unto his Grace, but increase in fear of G.o.d, in obedience to the King's Highness, in love unfeigned to our neighbours, and in all virtue that cometh of G.o.d, to whom, for the defending of his blessed Word, be honour and thanks, glory and dominion, world without end.”[79]

[Sidenote: The frontispiece.]

Equally remarkable, and even more emphatic in the recognition of the share in the work borne by the king, was the frontispiece.

This was divided into four compartments.

In the first, the Almighty was seen in the clouds with outstretched arms. Two scrolls proceeded out of his mouth, to the right, and the left. On the former was the verse, ”the word which goeth forth from me shall not return to me empty, but shall accomplish whatsoever I will have done.” The other was addressed to Henry, who was kneeling at a distance bareheaded, with his crown lying at his feet. The scroll said, ”I have found me a man after my own heart, who shall fulfil all my will.” Henry answered, ”Thy word is a lantern unto my feet.”

Immediately below, the king was seated on his throne, holding in each hand a book, on which was written ”the Word of G.o.d.” One of these he was giving to Cranmer and another bishop, who with a group of priests were on the right of the picture, saying, ”Take this and teach;” the other on the opposite side he held to Cromwell and the lay peers, and the words were, ”I make a decree that, in all my kingdom, men shall tremble and fear before the living G.o.d.” A third scroll, falling downwards over his feet, said alike to peer and prelate, ”Judge righteous judgment. Turn not away your ear from the prayer of the poor man.” The king's face was directed sternly towards the bishops, with a look which said, ”Obey at last, or worse will befal you.”

In the third compartment, Cranmer and Cromwell were distributing the Bible to kneeling priests and laymen; and, at the bottom, a preacher with a benevolent beautiful face was addressing a crowd from a pulpit in the open air. He was apparently commencing a sermon with the text, ”I exhort therefore that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men--for kings”--and at the word ”kings” the people were shouting ”Vivat Rex!--Vivat Rex!”

children who knew no Latin lisping ”G.o.d save the King!” and, at the extreme left, at a gaol window, a prisoner was joining in the cry of delight, as if he, too, were delivered from a worse bondage.

[Sidenote: The entire translation substantially the work of Tyndal.]

This was the introduction of the English Bible--this the seeming acknowledgment of Henry's services. Of the translation itself, though since that time it has been many times revised and altered, we may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are all familiar. The peculiar genius--if such a word may be permitted--which breathes through it--the mingled tenderness and majesty--the Saxon simplicity--the preternatural grandeur--unequalled, unapproached, in the attempted improvements of modern scholars--all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man--William Tyndal. Lying, while engaged in that great office, under the shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any moment to fall, he worked, under circ.u.mstances alone perhaps truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him--his spirit, as it were divorced from the world, moved in a purer element than common air.

[Sidenote: Tyndal's martyrdom.]

His work was done. He lived to see the Bible no longer carried by stealth into his country, where the possession of it was a crime, but borne in by the solemn will of the king--solemnly recognised as the word of the Most High G.o.d. And then his occupation in this earth was gone.

His eyes saw the salvation for which he had longed, and he might depart to his place. He was denounced to the regent of Flanders; he was enticed by the suborned treachery of a miserable English fanatic beyond the town under whose liberties he had been secure; and with the reward which, at other times as well as those, has been held fitting by human justice for the earth's great ones, he pa.s.sed away in smoke and flame to his rest.

CHAPTER XIII.