One more name must be added to the number of those who― like the tradesman in earlier times whom the country people loved to call “doctor” Man, and like Dr. Barnes in the times of which we are now reading―were allowed to glorify God in the fires from which, in the hour of weakness and, perhaps, of self-confidence, they had once turned away―that of Thomas Bilney.
If, in these little sketches of some of those who suffered to win for us the treasure which we now enjoy, the treasure of an open Bible, the story of their weakness is told without any disguise, it is not that we would dwell upon the failure of servants of Christ who truly loved Him, but rather that the grace of the Lord towards them may be seen, and that we may remember, too, how bitter a thing they found it to have listened to their own cowardly hearts, and to the pleadings of those who would have them pity themselves, rather than to Him who said, “My grace is sufficient for the. For My strength is made perfect thorow weakness.” (The words are quoted as Tyndale wrote them.) And, again, “Feare none of thoo thynges which thou shalt soffre. Be faythfull vnto the deeth, and I will geve the a croune of lyfe.”
Perhaps the most touching instance of this sorrow of heart for unfaithfulness is found in the repentance of Bilney, of whom we have read as the means used by God for the conversion of Latimer, Barnes, and many others It was in this same year 1527, the year in which the young men charged with having distributed heretical books were pining in their underground prison at Oxford, the same year in which Dr. Barnes was arrested and brought before Wolsey on the grave count of heresy, that Bilney was accused of having taught Lutheran doctrines at Cambridge. A friar gave evidence that, during a conversation which he had had with him, Bilney had said that the Scripture of God ought to be in English, that all men might know what was for their soul’s health; that he had, moreover; counted the indulgences granted by the pope of no avail, and had spoken blasphemy against the blessed saints, denying that they do always intercede for sinful men, knocking at the door of heaven.
The friar said that Bilney had affirmed, in the words of Scripture, that “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, which is the Man Christ Jesus.” Where upon the friar had answered that there were no saints when Paul wrote that, but that the Church had now taught the faithful to offer up their petitions to God through the blessed Virgin and other holy saints. Again Bilney had replied in the words of Scripture: “Truly our Lord Christ said, Varley, varely, I say onto you, whatsoever ye shall ax the Father, in My name, He will give it you. Let us then,” he said, “ask help in the name of Him who is able to obtain for us from God Hi: Father whatsoever we ask, lest at the day of judgment we should hear Him say, Hither to have ye axed nothing in My name.” It was upon the information given by this friar that the accusation against him was formed. Tonstall, before whom Bilney was taken, that In might answer for himself, was gentle in hi: treatment of him, using every persuasion In could think of to induce him to give way and retract what he had said. At last he succeeded: he could not, thank God, take away from Bilney’s heart the good seed which had taken root there, but he did shake his constancy in maintaining what he knew to be true. Bilney recalled his words, and, after carrying a fagot in a procession, and standing before the preacher at Paul’s Cross as a penitent, he was released.
The Bishop of London had read the letter from Bilney, which told, in simple, earnest language, the story of his conversion, and how the faithful saying that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” had brought him a peace which fasting and prayers and indulgences could never bring. Bilney had also told him, in all simplicity, that he had sought to cause even children to understand that they “should not so trust in these ceremonies that, being satisfied therewith, they should loathe and depart from the Savior.” Perhaps this letter may have touched him; it is certain that, having wrung the act of penance from him, he suffered him to go back to Cambridge unmolested.
From Latimer we learn with what feelings Bilney returned to the little flock, who had so long hung upon his words, and sought his counsel in every difficulty. “For a whole year,” he says, when writing, long after (when this time of persecution for the word of Christ was passed, and that other trial which was to try him had not yet come), “Bilney was in such anguish and agony that nothing did him good, not even the communication of God’s word; for he thought that all the scriptures were against him and sounded to his condemnation. Yet, for all that, God afterward endued him with such strength and perfectness of faith, that he not only confessed his faith in the gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ, but also suffered his body to be burned for that same gospel’s sake which we now preach in England.”
The first ray of hope which came to Bilney while at Cambridge came with the thought that God would yet permit him to witness for Him by making a public confession of the false way into which his fears had betrayed him. For two years he diligently studied the scriptures in secret, and then, with many prayers to God for guidance, strong in a strength not his own, he left the university and went to his native county of Norfolk, where, passing from village to village, he openly confessed his sin in denying what he knew to be true, and preached the gospel to the people.
“I go up to Jerusalem,” he had said to his Cambridge friends, alluding to the words of the Lord Jesus when He was about to suffer, and there is no doubt that Bilney was resolved, if God permitted him to do so, to lay down his life; for he told everywhere the same story, saying that the doctrines he had abjured were indeed the very truth of God, and bidding others take warning by his example of unfaithfulness. It was for giving away Tyndale’s New Testaments, and a book of his called “The Obedience of a Christian Man,” that Bilney was at last arrested and imprisoned. Orders came from London that no mercy should be shown him; he must be burned in his own city of Norwich, as a relapsed heretic―that is, one who having seen and confessed the error of his ways, had again fallen back into his old courses―that those who had drunk in the gospel from his lips, as he preached to them in the fields and by the wayside, might see whither such doctrines as his tended, and might take the stern lesson to heart.
The day before that fixed for his death some friends who came to see him, thinking to cheer the martyr, said that the fire would indeed be of great heat to his body, yet that the comfort of the Holy Spirit would cool it to his everlasting refreshing.
“I feel by experience,” said Bilney calmly, as he put his finger into the flame of a candle which was burning on the table, “and I have long known by philosophy that, by God’s ordinance, fire is naturally hot, but it is but a pain for a time, followed by unspeakable joy.” Then he compared the fire which should consume him on the morrow to that chariot by which Elijah was taken to heaven, for to him, as to God’s prophet of old, the end was sure, though the way to that end might be such as might well make heart and flesh fail, Bilney then repeated those words from Isaiah, which may still be read, deeply marked by his pen, in his Latin Bible―“Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine. When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee; for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.” Then, saying with touching emphasis that he was like a storm-tossed mariner, ready to endure the buffeting of many an angry wave, in the hope of more speedily arriving at the desired haven, he bade his friends farewell. And so, on the morrow, calmly and with steadfast faith, he “fell asleep” ―for in such words we may speak even of death in its most terrible form, when we know that it is for the happy soul redeemed by the wondrous death of Christ only the entrance to the presence of its Savior.
“In the dungeons and in the deserts,
Have Thy saints, by the world despised,
With joy untold, and unmeasured,
Looked on the face of Christ,
In the torture and in the fire,
Midst the scorn and the hate of men,
They have seen but the light of His presence
Around them then.”
To the country folk who saw him die, and who remembered his words, that cruel death, so willingly embraced, came as a solemn confirmation of the truth of what he had told them, a seal set upon his ministry; for had he not proved to them that the truth for which he died was worth dying for? and should not that truth, by God’s grace, henceforth be to them worth living for? C. P.