A FRIEND UNTO DEATH; OR, COMFORTING A SUFFERER
“A friend is worth all hazards we can run,
Poor is the friendless master of a world.
A world in purchase for a friend were gain.”
—YOUNG.
“Be still, fond heart, nor ask thy fate to know;
Face bravely what each God-sent moment brings;
Above thee rules in love, through weal and woe,
Guiding thy king and thee, the King of kings.”
—CHARLES KINGSLEY.
“It is not our business to stand before Scripture and admire it; but to stand within, that we may believe and obey it. In the way of inward communion and obedience only shall we see the beauty of its treasures."—DR. ANGUS.
THE BOOK OF JONAH TRANSLATED—POWER LENT BY GOD—WANDERING BUT WORKING—COMFORTING FRYTH—FRYTH'S NOBLE DEFENSE—TYNDALE'S MODE OF LIFE
VAUGHAN, who during the interviews of which we have spoken had become strongly attached to Tyndale, was recalled by Cromwell in 1532, and a less scrupulous envoy was employed in his place. Sir Thomas Elyot, the new tool of Henry's policy, did not seek for a friendly interview with Tyndale, as his predecessor had done; but, on the contrary, he sought by all possible means to apprehend the exile. Whether this indicated a change in the King's intention toward Tyndale, or were merely an unmasking of purposes which it had been deemed expedient to dissemble while Vaughan was the envoy, the danger to Tyndale was equally as great. "I gave many rewards," Elyot wrote to Cromwell, "partly to the Emperor's servants to get knowledge, and partly to such as by whose means I trusted to apprehend Tyndale, according to the King's commandment.”
Encompassed as he thus was with snares and perils, Tyndale, however, did not desist from his heroic efforts. He eluded Elyot's plots, and successfully translated and published the Book of Jonah, and even prefixed his initials to the preface, as he had not done with the New Testament. So successful, however, were the efforts of the Papists to suppress this book, that for a long time no copy of it was known to be in existence; but in the year 1861 one was unexpectedly discovered in an old library. The Book of Jonah furnished Tyndale with a theme whereon he preached important truths to his fellow-countrymen. Nineveh he made a parable of England; and, as did Jonah, Tyndale preached the need of immediate repentance.
“Christ, to preach repentance," he wrote, "is risen once more out of His sepulcher, in which the pope had buried Him, and kept Him down with his pillars and pole-axes and all disguising of hypocrisy, with guile, wiles, and falsehood, and with the sword of all princes, which he had blinded with his false merchandise. And as I doubt not of the en-samples that are past, so am I sure that great wrath will follow except repentance turn it back again and cease it.”
Beside this translation of Jonah, Tyndale also issued an "Exposition of the First Epistle of St. John" during the same year. From this "Exposition" we extract the following passage:—
“Preaching of the doctrine which is light," says Tyndale,” hath but small effect to move the heart if the ensample of living do disagree....
“And that we worship saints for fear, lest they should be displeased and angry with us, and plague us, or hurt us (as who is not afraid of St. Lawrence? Who dare deny St. Anthony a fleece of wool, for fear of his terrible fire or lest he send the pox among our sheep?), is heathen image service, and clean against the first commandment, which is, ' Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God.' Now, God in the Hebrew is called El, or Elohim in the plural number; i.e., strength or might. So that the commandment is: Hear, O Israel, He that is thy power and might; thy sword and shield is but One; that is, there is none of might to help or hurt thee, save One, which is altogether thine, and at thy commandment, if thou wilt hear His voice. And all other might in the world is borrowed of Him; and He will lend no might against thee, contrary to His promises. Keep, therefore, His commandments, and He shall keep thee; and if thou have broken them, and He have lent of His power against thee, repent and come again unto thy profession; and He will return again unto His mercy, and fetch His power home again, which He lent to vex thee, because thou forsakest Him and brakest His commandments. And fear no other creature; for false fear is the cause of all idolatry.”
The dangers thickened so rapidly around Tyndale that, in order to elude the restless vigilance of his powerful enemies, he left Antwerp for a time, and wandered from city to city in Germany, homeless and possibly lonely.
Yet he was not idle, for even during this period of wandering he issued his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. The spirit and style of this work may be estimated from the two following extracts, the one taken from the Prologue, and the other from the exposition upon Matt. 5:1313Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. (Matthew 5:13):—
“To believe in Christ's blood for the remission of sin, and purchasing of all good promises that help to the life to come, and to love the law, and to long for the life to come, is the inward baptism of the soul, the only baptism that availeth in the sight of Christ; the only key also to bind and loose sinners; the touchstone to try all doctrines; the lantern and light that scattereth and expelleth the mist and darkness of all hypocrisy, and a preservative against all error and heresy; the mother of good works; the earnest of everlasting life, and title whereby we challenge our inheritance.”
With a terrible inner consciousness of his own lamentable condition, the exile wrote: "True preaching is a salt that stirreth up persecution, and an office that no man is meet for, save he that is seasoned himself before with poverty in spirit, softness, meekness, patience, mercifulness, pureness of heart, and hunger of righteousness, and looking for persecution also; and hath his hope, comfort, and solace in the blessing only, and in no worldly theory.”
About this time, also, a great sorrow fell upon Tyndale, for his trusted friend, John Fryth, who had ventured into England, was there apprehended and brought up for trial as a heretic. Tyndale had some surmise as to his friend's danger before the tidings of Fryth's arrest reached him. He had written a tender letter of counsel and warning, in which he advised his friend to be prudent, and especially to avoid controversy about the Sacrament.
“Wherefore," said Tyndale, " cleave fast to the rock of the help of God, and commit the end of all things to Him; and if God shall call you, that you may then use the wisdom of the worldly so far as you perceive the glory of God may come thereof, refuse it not; and ever among thrust in that the Scripture may be in the mother-tongue, and learning set up in the Universities. But and if aught be required contrary to the glory of God and His Christ, then stand fast, and commit yourself to God; and be not overcome of men's persuasions "to abjure. After professing his love for Fryth and his confidence in him, Tyndale says grandly:—
“I call God to record against the day 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 this day if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honor, or riches, might be given me.
"My soul is not faint, though my body is weary," he says pathetically and touchingly. He concludes his letter with a sentence which exhibits his own feelings:—
“He is our God, if we despair in ourselves and trust in Him; and His is the glory. Amen!
WILLIAM TYNDALE.
“I hope our redemption is nigh.”
Fryth's bearing before his judges was princely. He confined his defense to four principal themes, and these he conclusively argued so that his accusers were silenced. They were:— " I. That the Pope's opinion respecting the Sacrament cannot be considered as an article of faith necessary to be believed upon pain of damnation. 2. That, as Christ's natural body was in all respects like unto ours, sin only excepted, there can be no reason why it should be in two or many places at once, contrary to the nature of our body. 3. That we are not to understand Christ's words by what we may conceive to be the meaning of the words, but by comparing one passage of Scripture with another. 4. That the manner in which the Sacrament is administered by the priests is quite different from that in which it was administered by Christ Himself.”
In the spirit of his friend Tyndale, is also Fryth's vigorous and noble reply to Sir Thomas More:—
“Until we see some means found by the which a reasonable Reformation may be had, and sufficient instruction for the poor commoners, I assure you I neither can nor will cease to speak. For the Word of God boileth in my body like a fervent fire, and will needs have issue, and breaketh, out when occasion is given. But this hath been offered you, is offered, and shall be offered: Grant that the Word of God, I mean the text of Scripture, may go abroad in our English tongue, as other nations have it in their tongues, and my brother William Tyndale and I have done, and will promise you to write no more. If you will not grant this condition, THEN WILL WE BE DOING WHILE WE HAVE BREATH.”
Tyndale wrote a second letter to his noble friend, and in it he says:—
“Dearly beloved, be of good courage, and comfort your soul with the hope of this high reward, and bear the image of Christ in your mortal body, that it may, at His coming, be made like to His, immortal; and follow the example of all your other dear brethren which chose to suffer in hope of a better resurrection. Keep your conscience pure and undefiled, and say against that, nothing. Stick at necessary things, and remember the blasphemies of the enemies of Christ, saying, they find none but will abjure rather than suffer the extremity. Moreover, the death of them that come again after they have once denied, though it be accepted with God and all that believe, yet it is not glorious: for the hypocrites say he must needs die, denying helpeth not. But might it have holpen, they would have denied five hundred times; but seeing it would not help them, therefore of pure pride and mere malice together, they speak with their mouths that their conscience knoweth to be false. IF YOU GIVE YOURSELF, CAST YOURSELF, YIELD YOURSELF, COMMIT YOURSELF WHOLLY AND ONLY TO YOUR LOVING FATHER —THEN SHALL HIS POWER BE IN YOU AND MAKE YOU STRONG; and that so strong that you shall feel no pain, which should be to another present death, and His Spirit shall speak in you, and teach you what to answer, according to His promise.
“Fear not threatening, therefore, neither be overcome of sweet words; with which twain methods the hypocrites shall assail you. Neither let the persuasions of worldly wisdom bear rule in your heart, not though they be your friends that counsel.”
In a postscript Tyndale adds a sentence behind which there lies a breaking heart striving to accept the will of God in heroic faith:—
“Sir, your wife is well content with the will of God, and would not for her sake have the glory of God hindered.”
The glory of God was not hindered, for Fryth went to the stake, and three years after his martyrdom, Tyndale was also called upon in like manner to suffer for the truth.
Meanwhile Tyndale had quietly settled down at Antwerp, and Foxe has given to us a picture of his life and doings there. The reader will probably prefer to read the narrative in Foxe's own words:—
"And here to end and conclude this history with a few notes touching his private behavior in diet, study, and especially his charitable zeal and tender relieving of the poor. First, he was a man very frugal and spare of body, a great student and earnest laborer, namely [especially] in the setting forth of the Scriptures of God. He reserved or hallowed to himself two days in the week, which he named his days of pastime, and those days were Monday the first day in the week, and Saturday the last day in the week. On the Monday he visited all such poor men and women as were fled out of England by reason of persecution into Antwerp; and those, well understanding their good exercises and qualities, he did very liberally comfort and relieve; and in like manner provided for the sick and diseased persons. On the Saturday he walked round about the town in Antwerp, seeking out every corner and hole where he suspected any poor person to dwell (as God knoweth there are many); and where he found any to be well occupied, and yet overburdened with children, or else were aged or weak, those also he plentifully relieved. And thus he spent his two days of pastime, as he called them. And truly his almose [alms] was very large and great; and so it might well be, for his exhibition that he had yearly of the English merchants was very much; and that for the most part he bestowed upon the poor, as aforesaid. The rest of the days in the week he gave him wholly to his book, wherein most diligently he travailed. When the Sunday came, then went he to some one merchant's chamber or other, whither came many other merchants; and unto them would he read some one parcel of Scripture, either out of the Old Testament or out of the New; the which proceeded so fruitfully, sweetly, and gently from him (much like to the writing of St. John the Evangelist), that it was a heavenly comfort and joy to the audience to hear him read the Scriptures; and in likewise after dinner he spent an hour in the aforesaid manner. He was a man without any spot or blemish of rancor or malice, full of mercy and compassion, so that no man living was able to reprove him of any kind of sin or crime; albeit his righteousness and justification depended not thereupon before God, but only upon the blood of Christ and his faith upon the same, in which faith constantly he died, as is said at Vilvorde, and now resteth with the glorious company of Christ's martyrs blessedly in the Lord, who be blessed in all His saints. Amen.”