The Gospelers and the Sacrament of the Altar.
“THE disciples of Wycliffe,” said a writer of his time, “explain the Scripture in a different way from the holy doctors of the Church of Rome.” This charge, made so early, was the charge constantly brought against the “gospelers,” and not twenty years after the death of Wycliffe there were some who suffered death because they thus explained the Scriptures. If we look back a little, over the years―nearly two hundred―which passed from that time to the period at which we have now arrived, we shall find that the grand point of difference was ever the same; from those early times, even to the reign of Queen Mary, the question was whether the Scripture or the Church was to be believed touching the “real presence” of Christ in the “Sacrament of the altar.” Not to believe what the Church taught upon this point—that was the unpardonable heresy.
Thus, in the time of Henry the Fourth, we read of a priest who was brought before the Archbishop of Canterbury, charged not only with holding, but with teaching heresy. “He saith,” so his accusation ran, “that he will not worship the cross whereon Christ suffered, but only Christ who suffered thereon.” Then, as his trial went on, a more terrible accusation was laid against him; for he had said that after the pronouncing of the words of consecration the sacramental bread did not then become the very body and blood of Christ, “but it remaineth of the same nature that it was before; neither doth it cease to be bread.”
Again, ten years later, we find the record of a tailor who was brought before the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and a grand array of dignitaries of the Church, to answer to a like charge; for he, too, had denied that the sacramental words whispered over it by the priest could make any change in the bread. It was said of some of old, who for Christ’s sake were not mindful of what they had left behind, that they “might have had opportunity to have returned,” and these words occur to us as we think of the touching story of the end of this martyr, and remember that he was but one out of many of whose faith and courage no earthly record has been preserved. When he was led out, we are told, to suffer at Smithfield, the Prince of Wales, afterward the brave young King Henry the Fifth, came to him, and tried by promises and threats in turn, to win him from what he considered his pestilent opinions back to the true faith. Then, as the crowd gave way on all sides, and the people everywhere dropped upon their knees, a grand procession approached.
The prior of St. Bartholomew was coming, walking in state under a rich canopy, and carrying the Host, while twelve men bearing torches marched before him. The poor tailor, who had resisted the entreaties of his prince, and refused to save his life by denying what he had learned from God to be true, was to be put to yet another trial before the end came.
The people saw the procession stop in front of John Badby as he stood alone, ready for his death. The prior, showing him the consecrated bread in its silver casket, asked him in solemn tones what he believed that to be. We may imagine the breathless pause with which the crowd awaited the reply. By God’s grace to him, the answer came in no doubtful tone: “I know it well,” he said; “it is bread―hallowed bread; but nothing more.”
Even at the last moment, when the fire had already been lighted around him, one more opportunity was offered to him. At a cry from the sufferer, which those who were nearest believed to be an appeal for mercy, Prince Harry bade them quench the flames and once more tried to induce him to save his life, at the same time offering a pension and reward if only he would give up his heresy and return to the true faith. But it was in vain; John Badby refused to love his life too well.
Concerning another, a priest, whom we cannot trace further than the prison to which he was sent back, after having been brought before the same Archbishop Arundel we read that when the archbishop threatened him with the sure end of those who held heresies contrary to the teaching of the church―that he should be burned at Smithfield―he received the stern words as though they brought him some welcome message. “At this saying,” he wrote, “I stood still and spake not, but I thought in my heart that God did me great grace, if He would of His great mercy, bring me to such an end ... . and in my heart I prayed the Lord God to comfort me, and strengthen me against them; and I prayed God for His goodness to me then and always, for that grace to speak with a meek and easy spirit, and whatsoever thing that I should speak, I might thereto have the authority of Scripture, or open reason.”
The many who were, as the saying of the time was, “troubled” on account of the sacrament of the altar are said generally to have answered from two books; the “Wicket” by Wycliffe, and “The Shepherds’ Calendar,” ‘in both of which the teaching of the gospels and the epistles concerning the Lord’s Supper was clearly set forth—that it was given by our Lord Himself as a remembrance of His death. They were wont to quote the words, “Eat ye: this is My body,” and to explain that when Christ sat at supper with His disciples, He had not His body in His hand to distribute to them, but spoke figuratively then, as He had often done at other times, as when He said, “I am the Bread which came down from heaven;” I am the true Vine;” “I am the Door.” The words of one, a simple unlettered man, on this subject, have come down to us.
“Men speak much,” he said, “of the sacrament of the altar, but this will I abide by, that Christ brake bread to His disciples, and bade them eat it, saying it was His flesh; and then He went from them and suffered; and then rose from death to life, and ascended into heaven, and there sitteth on the right hand of the Father.... and therefore how He should be here in the form of bread, I cannot see.”
Another, who suffered in the same great conflict, when visited in prison by one who sought to shake his constancy by reminding him that fire was hot, replied, “Ah, Mr. Wingfield, be at my burning, and you shall say, ‘There standeth a christian soldier in the fire!’ for I know that fire and water, swords and all things, are in the hand of God, and He will suffer no more to be laid upon us than He will give strength to bear.” And we read that when this poor man was brought out to die in the market-place of his own native town of Ipswich, the towns-folk praised God for his constancy he being but a simple peasant of ne learning.
These instances, taken one here ant another there, will suffice to show how dangerous it was for any “to explain the Scripture in a different way from the hob doctors of the Church of Rome”―and the danger only grew as time went on. When Wycliffe first spoke boldly against the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the law “about the burning of a heretic” had not been made, and he escaped with his life; now in Queen Mary’s reign, the ranks of the martyrs were to be swelled by many who suffered because they would not say what they knew to be false and contrary to God’s word in connection with this same doctrine.
In thinking of the history of this unhappy queen, we should remember that her childhood had been embittered by the ill-treatment suffered by her mother; she had known little love or tenderness, and had, during the reign of her young brother, suffered for her constancy to the Romish doctrines in which she had been early trained, great efforts having been made by the king and his council to prevent her hearing mass. The Reforming party, too, had been active in trying to deprive her of her throne, and the remembrance of this made her inclined to deal harshly with them. Her first act was to set free from imprisonment, or recall from banishment, the bishops Bonner, Gardiner and Tunstall. At the beginning of her reign however, she told the Lord Mayor that she “meant not to compel or strain men’s consciences,” and many who had been filled with dismay took heart as the words of the queen passed from mouth to mouth. The Londoners, however, had taken alarm at the return of the bishops, and when a preacher at Paul’s Cross spoke in praise of Bonner the audience interrupted him with loud cries of dissent. On account of the tumult which was made, the queen sent to the Lord Mayor, bidding him make it known that restrictions should at once be placed upon reading the Scriptures, and that no man should henceforth preach unless licensed by her majesty to do so. It is true that this proclamation could not have an immediate effect, for the people as yet had the law on their side, but it served to show them how little they could trust the fair words so lately spoken by their queen. Bishop Gardiner had encouraged Mary to believe that it was yet possible to bring the English people back, like wandering sheep, to the fold of the Church; it was with this idea firmly fixed in her mind that she began her reign, and even before Parliament met she had dismissed many of those bishops who would be most likely to oppose her in carrying it out, had restored mass, and undone, as far as possible, all which had been done in her brother’s reign, bringing the form of Church service back to what it had been in the last year of her father’s reign.
Thus the blind wish of the poor rioters of Edward’s time was granted; and once more in the churches, where the people had listened to the word of God in their own tongue, Latin prayers were heard.
Mary’s first Parliament refused to acknowledge the Pope as head of the English church, but agreed that mass should be restored, and pronounced the marriages of the clergy illegal. This last decree fell like a thunderbolt upon many a happy home; for those of the clergy who had married were now obliged to leave the country, or to separate from their wives. Many took refuge in Geneva, and we shall hear more of them by and by.
We may remember about this first Parliament of Mary’s reign, that it steadfastly refused to pass any acts which would make persecution on account of religion lawful: thus the storm, which was so soon to break, was delayed for a time.