pardon to all who would bring to the bishops heretical books, and declaring that though it is not necessary for the people to have the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, yet when the evil bocks have been cleared away, his Grace may then cause Holy Scripture to be translated into English by great, learned, and catholic persons. 1 § 7. This proclamation, the difference of the tone of which from that of the preceding, marks the rapid growth of reforming opinions in the land, was followed soon after by a public instrument set forth by the bishops, specifying certain errors which were extracted from the condemned books, and giving a form of homily or exhortation which preachers were to use to warn their hearers against them.2 Proclamations, however, whether threatening or bland, could not check the supply of works "of the new learning." Sir Thomas More himself complains that they came into the land "in vats-full." He was not likely to be discharged from his office of literary champion of the Church, nor to find the office a sinecure. § 8. Among the knot of Englishmen who in Germany were busily employed in supplying the English market with books of the reforming type, one of the most distinguished was John Fryth. He was a Cambridge man, but had been brought to Oxford by Wolsey when he established Cardinal College; and like the other Cambridge men who had been selected for this honour, soon fell under suspicion of the Lutheran heresy. He got into prison, but was allowed to escape through Wolsey's means, and going beyond seas, became associated with Tyndale in his literary work. That Fryth was much thought of as a scholar, the special instructions with respect to him sent by King Henry to his ambassador plainly prove. He was to be induced, if possible, to renounce his heretical opinions, and to return to England. He was, however, far too much in earnest to yield to these seductions. About the end of the year 1530 Fryth received from England Sir T. More's Supplication, and two treatises, also in defence of purgatory, written by Bishop Fisher and Mr. Rastall, More's brotherin-law. § 9. He proceeded to answer all three in one treatise, devoting a book to each. The first book was directed against Rastall, who sought to establish purgatory by "natural reason and philosophy." The second against More, who had principally relied on the argument from Scripture. The third against Fisher, who tried to support the doctrine from fathers and doctors. In his reply to More, 1 Wilkins, iii. 741. * Vaughan's letter to the king.-State Papers of Henry VIII. vil 302, 2 Ib. 727. he urges the fact that Sir Thomas had relied merely on the Vulgate, a very inadequate translation, and that the version of his friend Erasmus might have prevented some of his mistakes. treatise is temperately and learnedly written, abstaining from that vituperation which was so marked a feature in More's writings. The § 10. Not long after writing this treatise, Fryth, in spite of the great risk he ran, ventured into England. He was a connection of the Abbot of Reading, and went to that town. Probably the abbot did not receive him very kindly, for while at Reading he was arrested as a vagabond, and put in the stocks. He owed his deliverance to the schoolmaster, who, happening to fall into conversation with him, found him well versed in Latin and Greek, and procured his dismissal. But his presence in England became known to the chancellor, who used every means to capture him. In this he at last succeeded. Fryth was thrown into the Tower, where More and the bishops visited him, but found him very stiff in his opinions. § 11. There was nothing in Fryth's writings as yet sufficient to condemn him, but by a transaction which has a very ugly look of treachery about it, he was brought within the law. One William Holt, a tailor, visited him in prison, and, pretending great desire for instruction, obtained from Fryth a treatise on the eucharist, which he had written in prison. This he at once conveyed to Sir Thomas More, and More wrote a short reply to it. Of this Fryth obtained a copy, and, fired with the spirit of controversy, wrote a rejoinder, which, considering that it was written in prison without books, is a very remarkable production. He specially argues against Sir Thomas on the ground of the Fathers, showing" that there is none of the old Fathers but they call it a sacrament, a mystery, mystical meat, which is not eaten with tooth and belly, but with ears and faith. And, touching the honour and worship done to it, I say it is plain idolatry. And I say that he falsely reporteth on the old holy doctors. For they never taught men to worship it, neither can he allege one place in any of them all which would have men to worship the sacrament. Therefore it followeth that they took not the text after the letter, but only spiritually." Fryth did not follow Luther in his views on this subject, but inclined to the Swiss school of Zwingle and Ecolampadius. He displayed, how ever, a very remarkable moderation. He declared himself not only willing to acquiesce in the Lutheran doctrine, but even in the transubstantiation theory, if his opponents would only grant that the sacrament ought not to be worshipped. Of course his 1 Fryth's Works, p. 150 (ed. 1573). More's Works, p. 833 (ed. 1557), "If you will grant and publish but this one proposition, that it ought "1 antagonists would not concede this point, and Fryth prepared himself to suffer in support of his views. § 12. There was no desire probably to bring him to the stake. His youth and learning pleaded for him. The officers who were conducting him to Croydon for a final examination before Bishops Gardiner, Stokesley, and Longland, gave him the opportunity of escape, and even urged him to take advantage of it; but he refused. At his examination he spoke modestly. He did not desire to make his saying an article of faith, but he desired the doctrine on this mysterious subject to be left an open question, "for all men to judge thereon, as God shall open their heart; and no side to condemn the other, but to nourish in all things brotherly love, and to bear other's infirmities." 1 The bishops were not prepared to adopt this view of the subject, and Fryth was handed over to the secular power to be burned. § 13. Before this was done, Sir T. More had ceased to be chancellor, though still continuing his controversial work; but Fryth was brought into contact with another of the leading men of the period, viz. Archbishop Cranmer. Cranmer tried to convince him, but found himself unable to do so. He writes of him and his impending fate with somewhat of revolting coldness : "He is now at a final end with all examinations, for my lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered him to the secular power, where he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And there is also condemned with him one Andrew, a tailor, of London, for the self-same opinion."2 Fryth was burned in Smithfield on July 4, 1533. § 14. His execution for a mere speculative opinion, which he had never publicly taught, caused a profound sensation, and immediately led to the passing of the Act of Parliament which made it illegal for bishops to proceed ex officio against heretics. more § 15. The principal controversial opponent of the chancellor during this period was William Tyndale. Tyndale was happy as a translator of the Bible into that terse and idiomatic diction which we still admire, than as a controversial writer. His books were bitter in their style, and exaggerated in their statements, while the solifidianism which he advocated gave his acute antagonist an abundance of telling topics to urge against him. § 16. The strife was commenced by More's Dialogue, in which Sir Thomas supposes an imaginary objector advocating the cause of the heretics, and supporting their distinctive opinions, to which not to be worshipped, I promise you I will never write against it."-Fryth to More. 1 Fryth's Works, p. 170. 2 Cranmer to Archdeacon Hawkins.-Works, p. 246. the orthodox interlocutor duly replies. Among other things which come in question is Tyndale's translation of the Testament, of which More says some very hard words, but only specifies a very few exceptions to Tyndale's renderings, such as the use of Presbyters instead of Priests, Congregation instead of Church, Love instead of Charity. He accuses Tyndale of allowing to priests a plurality of wives. He defends the burning of heretics, though at the same time he asserts that the Church never burns any, but merely hands them over to the State.1 66 § 17. Tyndale, finding himself thus attacked, immediately answered More's Dialogue. His reply can scarcely be held satisfactory. He is unable to shake himself free from the logical consequences of his tenets that faith alone saves, and that the "elect" cannot fall. His system is plainly chargeable with the antinomianism which More imputes to him when he declares that Tyndale taught that “a man may have a right faith joined with all manner of sin." Neither does he exhibit more satisfactory views on the subject of the Eucharist, his teaching being that "the sacrament standeth in as good stead as a lively preacher. And as the preacher justifieth me not, but my faith in the doctrine; even so the sign justifieth me not, but the faith in the promise which the sacrament signifieth and preacheth. And to preach is all the virtue of the sacrament." The privileges assigned to the elect are also dangerously antinomian. The elect may dispense with an oath, "if necessity require it, to save life or health." Though I had sworn chastity, and the commonwealth or necessity of another required the contrary, I might break it."2 They may dispense with the observ. ance of the Lord's-day. "As for the Sabbath, a great matter. We be lords over the Sabbath, and may yet change it to the Monday, or any other day as we see need, or may make every tenth day holy-day if we see cause why."3 They are able to determine what is and what is not Scripture. "When they ask us how we know that it is the Scripture of God, the children of God spy out their Father, and Christ's elect spy out their Lord, and trace out the paths of His feet and follow." He is more satisfactory when he comes to the defence of his translation. He had rendered ÉKKλŋoιa congregation, because the word church had been by common use so entirely appropriated to the spiritualty. Every one must confess that ekkλŋoia could not always be rendered church, and Erasmas had translated it by congregatio. For the same reason the special appropriation of terms-he had rendered dyanǹ love, rather than charity; xápis favour, rather than grace. πρεσβύ 1 More's Works, 105-288. 3 Ib. p. 287. Tyndale's Works, p. 315. Tepos he had first translated senior, but had changed this into elder. Of saint-worship, images, pilgrimages, relics, Tyndale speaks with much good sense and candour. He holds that there is nothing wrong in the use of them if they stir up a man to greater devotion towards God. "To kneel down before an image in a man's meditations, to call the living of the saint to mind for to desire God of like grace to follow the example, is not evil." "Whatsoever it be, whether lively preaching, ceremony, relic, or image, that stir up his heart to God, and preach the Word of God and the example of our Saviour Jesus more in one place than another, that ye thither go I am content." But the danger was great, " lest men should serve these things instead of making them serve them." 1 § 18. Sir T. More immediately wrote a "Confutation" of Tyndale's reply, in which he grievously laments the great introduction of heretical books. "Which books, albeit that they neither can be there printed without great cost, nor here sold without great adventure and peril, yet cease they not with money sent from hence to print them there, and send them hither, by the whole fattes full at once, and in some places, looking for no lucre, cast them abroad by night, so great a pestilent pleasure have some devilish people caught, with the labour, travail, cost, charge, peril, hurt, and harm of themselves to seek the destruction of other." 2 Some part of this treatise can hardly be thought to do much honour to Sir Thomas More. He uses very strong invectives against some of the reformers whom his strict administration of what he held to be the duties of his office had brought to the stake, calling them "false knaves, poor forsworn creatures, that would gladly have saved their lives if they could, by agreeing to anything." 3 It was somewhat hard that not even the agonies of the Smithfield fires could be held sufficient satisfaction to outraged orthodoxy. § 19. As we are here, however, only concerned with the literary part of the chancellor's work, we pass to his controversy with Robert Barnes. Barnes has been already mentioned as having to attend as a penitent at the great burning of Lutheran books made by Wolsey at St. Paul's. After this it appears that Barnes had relapsed, or was held to have done so, and he was adjudged to be burned. He escaped, however, abroad, and became one of the literary assailants of the old belief. The point on which Sir 1 Tyndale, Works, pp. 271-2. 2 More's "Confutation," Works, p. 382. 3 For an account of the reformers burned during More's chancellorship, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 4 In his doctrine on the eucharist, Barnes held entirely with Luther, and differed from Fryth and Tyndale. There will be occasion to speak of this hereafter. H |