History of the Reformation, vol. 5

Chapter 7

Discussion between the Evangelicals and the Catholics—Union of Learning and Life—The Laity: Tewkesbury—His Appearance before the Bishop’s Court—He is tortured—Two Classes of Opponents—A Theological Duel—Scripture and the Church—Emancipation of the Mind—Mission to the Low Countries—Tyndale’s Embarrassment—Tonstall wishes to buy the Books—Packington’s Strategem—Tyndale departs for Antwerp—His Shipwreck—Arrival at Hamburg—Meets Coverdale

Other circumstances from day to day rendered the emancipation of the church more necessary. If behind these political debates there had not been found a Christian people, resolved never to temporize with error, it is probable that England, after a few years of independence, would have fallen back into the bosom of Rome. The affair of the divorce was not the only one agitating men’s minds; the religious controversies, which for some years filled the continent, were always more animated at Oxford and Cambridge. The Evangelicals and the Catholics (not very catholic indeed) warmly discussed the great questions which the progress of events brought before the world. The former maintained that the primitive church of the apostles and the actual church of the papacy were not identical; the latter affirmed, on the contrary, the identity of popery and apostolic Christianity. Other Romish doctors in later times, finding this position somewhat embarrassing, have asserted that Catholicism existed only in the germ in the apostolic church, and had subsequently developed itself. But a thousand abuses, a thousand errors may creep into a church under cover of this theory. A plant springs from the seed and grows up in accordance with immutable laws; while a doctrine cannot be transformed in the mind of man without falling under the influence of sin. It is true that the disciples of popery have supposed a constant action of the Divine Spirit in the Catholic Church, which excludes every influence of error. To stamp on the development of the church the character of truth, they have stamped on the church itself the character of infallibility; quod erat demonstrandum. Their reasoning is a mere begging of the question. To know whether the Romish development is identical with the gospel, we must examine it by Scripture. HRSCV5 832.2

It was not university men alone who occupied themselves with Christian truth. The separation which has been remarked in other times between the opinions of the people and of the learned, did not now exist. What the doctors taught, the citizens practiced; Oxford and London embraced each other. The theologians knew that learning has need of life, and the citizens believed that life has need of that learning which derives the doctrine from the wells of the Scriptures of God. It was the harmony between these two elements, the one theological, the other practical, which constituted the strength of the English reformation. HRSCV5 832.3

The evangelical life in the capital alarmed the clergy more than the evangelical doctrine in the colleges. Since Monmouth had escaped, they must strike another. Among the London merchants was John Tewkesbury, one of the oldest friends of the Scriptures in England. As early as 1512 he had become possessor of a manuscript copy of the Bible, and had attentively studied it; when Tyndale’s New Testament appeared, he read it with avidity; and, finally, The Wicked Mammon had completed the work of his conversion. Being a man of heart and understanding, clever in all he undertook, a ready and fluent speaker, and liking to get to the bottom of everything, Tewkesbury like Monmouth became very influential in the city, and one of the most learned in Scripture of any of the evangelicals. These generous Christians, being determined to consecrate to God the good things they had received from him, were the first among that long series of laymen who were destined to be more useful to the truth than many ministers and bishops. They found time to interest themselves about the most trifling details of the kingdom of God; and in the history of the Reformation in Britain their names should be inscribed beside those of Latimer and Tyndale. HRSCV5 832.4

The activity of these laymen could not escape the cardinal’s notice. Clement VII was abandoning England: it was necessary for the English bishops, by crushing the heretics, to show that they would not abandon the popedom. We can understand the zeal of these prelates, and without excusing their persecutions, we are disposed to extenuate their crime. The bishops determined to ruin Tewkesbury. One day in April 1529, as he was busy among his peltries, the officers entered his warehouse, arrested him, and led him away to the bishop of London’s chapel, where, besides the ordinary (Tonstall), the bishops of Ely, St. Asaph, Bath, and Lincoln, with the abbot of Westminster, were on the bench. The composition of this tribunal indicated the importance of his case. The emancipation of the laity, thought these judges, is perhaps a more dangerous heresy than justification by faith. HRSCV5 832.5

“John Tewkesbury,” said the bishop of London, “I exhort you to trust less to your own wit and learning, and more unto the doctrine of the holy mother the church.” Tewkesbury made answer, that in his judgment he held no other doctrine than that of the church of Christ. Tonstall then broached the principle charge, that of having read the Wicked Mammon, and after quoting several passages, he exclaimed: “Renounce these errors.”—“I find no fault in the book,” replied Tewkesbury. “It has enlightened my conscience and consoled my heart. But it is not my gospel. I have studied the Holy Scriptures these seventeen years, and as a man sees the spots of his face in a glass, so by reading them I have learnt the faults of my soul. If there is a disagreement between you and the New Testament, put yourselves in harmony with it, rather than desire to put that in accord with you.” The bishops were surprised that a leather-seller should speak so well, and quote Scripture so happily that they were unable to resist him. Annoyed at being catechized by a layman, the bishops of Bath, St. Asaph, and Lincoln thought they could conquer him more easily by the rack than by their arguments. He was taken to the Tower, where they ordered him to be put to the torture. His limbs were crushed, which was contrary to the laws of England, and the violence of the rack tore from him a cry of agony to which the priests replied by a shout of exultation. The inflexible merchant had promised at last to renounce Tyndale’s Wicked Mammon. Tewkesbury left the Tower “almost a cripple,” and returned to his house to lament the fatal word which the question had extorted from him, and to prepare in the silence of faith to confess in the burning pile the precious name of Christ Jesus. HRSCV5 833.1

We must, however, acknowledge that the “question” was not Rome’s only argument. The gospel had two classes of opponents in the sixteenth century, as in the first ages of the church. Some attacked it with the torture, others with their writings. Sir Thomas More, a few years later, was to have recourse to the first of these arguments; but for the moment he took up his pen. He had first studied the writings of the Fathers of the church, and of the Reformers, but rather as an advocate than as a theologian; and then, armed at all points, he rushed into the arena of polemics, and in his attacks dealt those “technical convictions and that malevolent subtlety,” says one of his greatest admirers, “from which the honestest men of his profession are not free.” Jests and sarcasms had fallen from his pen in his discussion with Tyndale, as in his controversy with Luther. Shortly after Tewkesbury’ affair (in June 1529) there appeared A Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, Knt., touching the pestilent Sect of Luther and Tyndale, by the one begun in Saxony, and by the other labored to be brought into England. HRSCV5 833.2

Tyndale soon became informed of More’s publication, and a remarkable combat ensued between these two representatives of the two doctrines that were destined to divide Christendom—Tyndale the champion of Scripture, and More the champion of the church. More having called his book a dialogue, Tyndale adopted this form in his reply, and the two combatants valiantly crossed their swords, though wide seas lay between them. This theological duel is not without importance in the history of the Reformation. The struggles of diplomacy, of sacerdotalism, and of royalty were not enough; there must be struggles of doctrine. Rome had set the hierarchy above the faith; the Reformation was to restore faith to its place above the hierarchy. HRSCV5 833.3

More. Christ said not, the Holy Ghost shall write, but shall teach. Whatsoever the church says, it is the word of God, though it be not in Scripture. HRSCV5 833.4

Tyndale. What! Christ and the apostles not spoken of Scriptures! These are written, says St. John, that ye believe, and through belief have life. (1 John 2:1; Romans 15:4; Matthew 22:29.) HRSCV5 833.5

More. The apostles have taught by mouth many things they did not write, because they should not come into the hands of the heathen for mocking. HRSCV5 833.6

Tyndale. I pray you what thing more to be mocked by the heathen could they teach than the resurrection; and that Christ was God and man, and died between two thieves? And yet all these things the apostles wrote. And again, purgatory, penance, and satisfaction for sin, and praying to saints, are marvelous agreeable unto the superstition of the heathen people, so that they need not to abstain from writing of them for fear lest the heathen should have mocked them. HRSCV5 833.7

More. We must not examine the teaching of the church by Scripture, but understand Scripture by means of what the church says. HRSCV5 833.8

Tyndale. What! Does the air give light to the sun, or the sun to the air? Is the church before the gospel, or the gospel before the church? Is not the father older than the son? God begat us with his own will, with the word of truth, says St. James (i. 18). If he who begetteth is before him who is begotten, the word is before the church, or, to speak more correctly, before the congregation. HRSCV5 833.9

More. Why do you say congregation and not church? HRSCV5 834.1

Tyndale. Because by that word church, you understand nothing but a multitude of shorn and oiled, which we now call the spirituality or clergy; while the word of right is common unto all the congregation of them that believe in Christ. HRSCV5 834.2

More. The church is the pope and his sect or followers. HRSCV5 834.3

Tyndale. The pope teacheth us to trust in holy works for salvation, as penance, saints’ merits, and friars’ coats. Now, he that hath no faith to be saved through Christ, is not of Christ’s church. HRSCV5 834.4

More. The Romish church from which the Lutherans came out, was before them, and therefore is the right one. HRSCV5 834.5

Tyndale. In like manner you may say, the church of the Pharisees, whence Christ and his apostles came out, was before them, and was therefore the right church, and consequently Christ and his disciples are heretics. HRSCV5 834.6

More. No: the apostles came out from the church of the Pharisees because they found not Christ there; but your priests in Germany and elsewhere have come out of our church because they wanted wives. HRSCV5 834.7

Tyndale. Wrong these priests were at first attached to what you call heresies, and then they took wives; but yours were first attached to the holy doctrine of the pope, and then they took harlots. HRSCV5 834.8

More. Luther’s books be open, if ye will not believe us. HRSCV5 834.9

Tyndale. Nay, ye have shut them up, and have even burnt them HRSCV5 834.10

More. I marvel that you deny purgatory, Sir William, except it be a plain point with you to go straight to hell. HRSCV5 834.11

Tyndale. I know no other purging but faith in the cross of Christ; while you, for a groat or a sixpence, buy some secret pills [indulgences] which you take to purge yourselves of your sins. HRSCV5 834.12

More. Faith, then, is your purgatory, you say; there is no need, therefore, of works—a most immoral doctrine! HRSCV5 834.13

Tyndale. It is faith alone that saves us, but not a bare faith. When a horse beareth a saddle and a man thereon, we may well say that the horse only and alone beareth the saddle, but we do not mean the saddle empty, and no man thereon. HRSCV5 834.14

In this manner did the catholic and the evangelical carry on the discussion. According to Tyndale, what constitutes the true church is the work of the Holy Ghost within; according to More, the constitution of the papacy without. The spiritual character of the gospel is thus put in opposition to the formalist character of the Roman church. The Reformation restored to our belief the solid foundation of the word of God; for the sand it substituted the rock. In the discussion to which we have just been listening, the advantage remained not with the catholic. Erasmus, a friend of More’s, embarrassed by the course the latter was taking, wrote to Tonstall: “I cannot heartily congratulate More.” HRSCV5 834.15

Henry interrupted the celebrated knight in these contests to send him to Cambray, where a peace was negotiating between France and the empire. Wolsey would have been pleased to go himself; but his enemies suggested to the king, “that it was only that he might not expedite the matter of the divorce.” Henry, therefore, despatched More, Knight, and Tonstall; but Wolsey had created so many delays that they did not arrive until after the conclusion of the Ladies’ Peace (August 1529). The king’s vexation was extreme. Du Bellay had in vain helped him to spend a good preparatory July to make him swallow the dose. Henry was angry with Wolsey, Wolsey threw the blame on the ambassador, and the ambassador defended himself, he tells us, “with tooth and nail.” HRSCV5 834.16

By way of compensation, the English envoys concluded with the emperor a treaty prohibiting on both sides the printing and sale of “any Lutheran books.” Some of them could have wished for a good persecution, for a few burning piles, it may be. A singular opportunity occurred. In the spring of 1529, Tyndale and Fryth had left Marburg for Antwerp, and were thus in the vicinity of the English envoys. What West had been unable to effect, it was thought the two most intelligent men in Britain could not fail to accomplish. “Tyndale must be captured,” said More and Tonstall.—“You do not know what sort of a country you are in,” replied Hackett. “Will you believe that on the 7th of April, Harman arrested me at Antwerp for damages, caused by his imprisonment? If you can lay anything to my charge as a private individual, I said to the officer, I am ready to answer for myself; but if you arrest me as ambassador, I know no judge but the emperor. Upon which the procurator had the audacity to reply, that I was arrested as ambassador; and the lords of Antwerp only set me at liberty on condition that I should appear again at the first summons. These merchants are so proud of their franchises, that they would resist even Charles himself.” This anecdote was not at all calculated to encourage More; and not caring about a pursuit, which promised to be of little use, he returned to England. But the bishop of London, who was left behind, persisted in the project, and repaired to Antwerp to put it in execution. HRSCV5 834.17

Tyndale was at that time greatly embarrassed; considerable debts, incurred with his printers, compelled him to suspend his labors. Nor was this all: the prelate who had spurned him so harshly in London, had just arrived in the very city where he lay concealed… What would become of him? A merchant, named Augustin Packington, a clever man, but somewhat inclined to dissimulation, happening to be at Antwerp on business, hastened to pay his respects to the bishop. The latter observed, in the course of conversation: “I should like to get hold of the books with which England is poisoned.”—“I can perhaps serve you in that matter,” replied the merchant. “I know the Flemings, who have bought Tyndale’s books; so that if your lordship will be pleased to pay for them, I will make sure of them all.”—“Oh, oh!” thought the bishop, “Now, as the proverb says, I shall have God by the toe. Gentle Master Packington,” he added in a flattering tone, “I will pay for them whatsoever they cost you. I intend to burn them at St. Paul’s cross.” The bishop, having his hand already on Tyndale’s Testaments, fancied himself on the point of seizing Tyndale himself. HRSCV5 835.1

Packington, being one of those men who love to conciliate all parties, ran off to Tyndale, with whom he was intimate, and said:—“William, I know you are a poor man, and have a heap of New Testaments and books by you, for which you have beggared yourself; and I have now found a merchant who will buy them all, and with ready money too.”—“Who is the merchant?” said Tyndale.—“The bishop of London.”—“Tonstall? If he buys my books, it can only be to burn them—“No doubt,” answered Packington; “but what will he gain by it? The whole world will cry out against the priest who burns God’s word, and the eyes of many will be opened. Come, make up your mind, William; the bishop shall have the books, you the money, and I the thanks.” Tyndale resisted the proposal; Packington became more pressing. “The question comes to this,” he said; “shall the bishop pay for the books or shall he not? for, make up your mind he will have them,”—“I consent,” said the reformer at last; “I shall pay my debts, and bring out a new and more correct edition of the Testament.” The bargain was made. HRSCV5 835.2

Erelong the danger thickened around Tyndale. Placards, posted at Antwerp and throughout the province, announced that the emperor, in conformity with the treaty of Cambray, was about to proceed against the reformers and their writings. Not an officer of justice appeared in the street but Tyndale’s friends trembled for his liberty. Under such circumstances, how could he print his translation of Genesis and Deuteronomy? He made up his mind about the end of August to go to Hamburg, and took his passage in a vessel loading for that port. Embarking with his books, his manuscripts, and the rest of his money, he glided down the Scheldt, and soon found himself afloat on the German Ocean. HRSCV5 835.3

But one danger followed close upon another. He had scarcely passed the mouth of the Meuse when a tempest burst upon him, and his ship, like that of old which bore St. Paul, was almost swallowed up by the waves.—“Satan, envying the happy course and success of the gospel,” says a chronicler, “set to his might how to hinder the blessed labors of this man.” The seamen toiled, Tyndale prayed, all hope was lost. The reformer alone was full of courage, not doubting that God would preserve him for the accomplishment of his work. All the exertions of the crew proved useless; the vessel was dashed on the coast, and the passengers escaped with their lives. Tyndale gazed with sorrow upon that ocean which had swallowed up his beloved books and precious manuscripts, and deprived him of his resources. What labors, what perils! banishment, poverty, thirst, insults, watchings, persecution, imprisonment, the stake! Like Paul, he was in perils by his own countrymen, in perils among strange people, in perils in the city, in perils in the sea. Recovering his spirits, however, he went on board another ship, entered the Elbe, and at last reached Hamburg. HRSCV5 835.4

Great joy was in store for him in that city. Coverdale, Foxe informs us, was waiting there to confer with him and to help him in his labors. It has been supposed that Coverdale went to Hamburg to invite Tyndale, in Cromwell’s name, to return to England; but it is merely a conjecture, and requires confirmation. As early as 1527, Coverdale had made known to Cromwell his desire to translate the Scriptures. It was natural that, meeting with difficulties in this undertaking, he should desire to converse with Tyndale. The two friends lodged with a pious woman named Margaret van Emmersen, and spent some time together in the autumn of 1529, undisturbed by the sweating sickness which was making such cruel havoc all around them. Coverdale returned to England shortly after; the two reformers had, no doubt, discovered that it was better for each of them to translate the Scriptures separately. HRSCV5 835.5

Before Coverdale’s return, Tonstall had gone back to London, exulting at carrying with him the books he had bought so dearly. But when he reached the capital, he thought he had better defer the meditated auto da fe until some striking event should give it increased importance. And besides, just at that moment, very different matters were engaging public attention on the banks of the Thames, and the liveliest emotions agitated every mind. HRSCV5 835.6