CHAPTER II.

TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT.

AFTER the view just given of the influences at work in England, it can be no matter of surprise, to find the design of a new translation of the Scriptures already ripened in the bosom of an English scholar, years before Luther began the publication of the Bible in German. That scholar was WILLIAM TYNDALE.

Tyndale was born about the year 1484, and at a very early age was sent to Oxford, which was one of the most celebrated schools of learning then existing. Here he soon attained high rank, and was particularly distinguished for his knowledge of the tongues. But though a proficient in classical literature, his most diligent study was given to the Greek New Testament, in which, also, he was accustomed to read to his fellow students. There is even strong reason for believing that, while still at the University and before he had reached his twentieth year, the purpose of translating the Scriptures was already working in his mind. An autograph collection in the hands of one of his biogra

phers, of translations made by him of select portions of the New Testament, shows in its ornamental, missal-like captions and borders, the initials W. T., and the date 1502, several times repeated. To the latter are prefixed, in one instance, the significant words "TIME TRIETH;" as if the youthful translator even then had it in view, to submit his labors to the test of publication. It is a fact no less remarkable than interesting, that these early attempts were transferred, for the most part verbatim, into his complete New Testament; and that many passages have come down, through the successive revisions, unaltered into our common version! Thus the bent of his mind, from its first known development, marks him out as a man of earnest purpose, who already comprehends what is his work and calling in the age.

Still, however, he was a member of the Romish church, and had probably thought of nothing beyond a reformation. in the existing ecclesiastical institutions. In 1502, the date already mentioned, he was ordained a priest, and in 1508, became a friar in the monastery at Greenwich. We are not informed of the circumstances which induced him to withdraw from this relation; but in 1522 he had returned to his native Gloucestershire, and was filling the office of private tutor and chaplain in a family of rank. While here, he made no secret of his reformatory senti ments, which soon became well known in the surrounding region.

The hospitable mansion of his patron was a favorite resort of the prelates and clergy of the neighborhood, and frequent discussions arose at table in respect to the doctrines and measures of Luther, which were now making much noise in England. The dogmatism and de

*Offor's Memoir prefixed to Tyndale's New Testament, London, 1836.

plorable ignorance, exhibited by the clerical visitors on these occasions, often drew from the modest tutor a spirited defence of the Reformer, and an earnest recommendation to test his views by the New Testament. "He spared not," says Foxe, "to show them simply and plainly his judgment; and when they at any time did vary from his opinions, he would show them in the book, and lay before them the manifest places of Scripture, to confute their errors and confirm his sayings." In these controversies the dignitaries were so uniformly mortified by defeat, that they gradually ceased their visits; "preferring," as Fuller remarks, "the loss of Squire Welch's good cheer, to the sour sauce of Master Tyndale's company."

But if they could not reason, they could persecute; and their ill will soon exhibited itself in the citation of Tyndale before the chancellor of the diocese, on a charge of heresy. There was quite a rally of the clergy to witness his humiliation. In his own words,-"All the priests of the country were present the same day." But under some influence not now apparent, the Chancellor, after "threatening him grievously, and reviling and rating him as though he had been a dog," allowed him to depart without punishment. Some of his friends counselled a prudent concealment of his views in future; but "the fire in his bones" refused to be shut up. A Popish clergyman soon after remarked to Tyndale, in reply to an earnest plea for a vernacular Bible: "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's!" "I defy the Pope and all his laws," cried the indignant Reformer; "and if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do!” A pledge which he nobly redeemed at the price of exile,

poverty, a life of toil and persecution, and finally of a martyr's death.

It is interesting to remark how firmly, at this period, the thought had fixed itself in Tyndale's mind, that the translation of the Scriptures out of the original tongues, was emphatically the work demanded by the wants of the He thus explains the motives which moved him to put his hand to the task.

"A thousand books had they lever to be put forth against their abominable doings and doctrines, than that the SCRIPTURE should come to light. For as long as they may keep that down, they will so darken the right way with their mist of sophistry, and so tangle them that either rebuke or despise their abominations, with arguments of philosophy, and with worldly similitudes, and apparent reasons of natural wisdom; and with wresting the Scriptures unto their own purpose, clean contrary unto the process, order and meaning of the text; and so delude them in descanting upon it with allegories; and amaze them, expounding it in many senses before the unlearned lay people, (when it hath but one plain literal sense, whose light the owls cannot abide,) that though thou feel in thine heart, and art sure, how that all is false that they say, yet couldst thou not solve their subtle riddles.

"Which thing only moved me to translate the New Testament. Because I perceived by experience, how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, Except the Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue."

Convinced that the prosecution of his design was impracticable where he then was, and fearing, moreover, to jeopardize the family of his kind patrons, by remaining

under their roof, Tyndale now resolved to seek another home. The plan he formed in this exigency, strikingly illustrates his simplicity of character, and his ignorance of the state of things in "high places." The opposition from which he had suffered, he ascribed to the peculiar ignorance and stupidity of the Gloucestershire clergy.

When," says he, "I was so turmoiled in the country where I was, that I could no longer dwell there,. . . . . . I thiswise thought in myself: this I suffer, because the priests of the country be unlearned, as God knoweth they are a full ignorant sort, which have seen no more Latin than they read in their Portesses, and Missals, which yet many of them can scarcely read. And therefore, because they are thus unlearned, thought I, when they come together to the ale-house, which is their preaching place, they affirm that my sayings are heresy."

From the enlightened clergy of the metropolis, he expected very different treatment. He fixed his eyes on Tunstal, Bishop of London, whom Erasmus, in his Annotations on the New Testament, had proclaimed a paragon of learning and liberality, as the man under whose countenance he was to execute, in safety and quiet, and with all such aids as he might need, the beneficent task of giving the Bible to England. "I thought," says he, " if I might come into this man's service, I were happy. For even in the Bishop of London's house, I intended to have done it."

Bidding farewell to his pleasant home in Little Sodbury Manor, Tyndale now turned his steps towards London, provided with a letter from his patron to Sir Harry Guildford, the King's Comptroller. The story of his disappointment must be given in his own words:

"And so," he says, "I gat me to London, and through