IT was, probably, early in the year 1526 that Tyndale’s English Testaments began to arrive in this country. They were carried over sea by some merchants of Antwerp, who had been accustomed to conceal the forbidden Lutheran books, among their merchandise, which were now so eagerly sought for by the English people. Thus, silently and by stealth, were the first printed copies of the English New Testament conveyed to our shores from a foreign land, by stranger hands.
After reaching London, many of the books were soon on their way to country towns, carried among their other wares by pedlars, who everywhere found a ready sale for them.
But this silent circulation of a book counted so dangerous to the welfare of the people, was not long to continue. We have seen that warning had been given by Cochlœus of the coming of the English Testaments before they crossed the sea. Not long after this King Henry received another warning from an English gentleman traveling abroad, who wrote in haste from France to tell him that he had learned in his travels that an Englishman had translated the New Testament into English. “Within few days," so ran the letter, "he intendeth to arrive with the same imprinted in England "; and the writer concluded by earnestly entreating the king, knowing what harm such books had done in his realm in time past, and how strictly the publication of English Bibles had been forbidden by the bishops, to have a care for the integrity of the christian faith within his realm, "which cannot long endure if these books may come in."
We may not doubt that the man who wrote thus, wrote honestly and faithfully, believing that he was doing his country service in giving warning of a coming danger. But does not such a warning tell its own sad tale? The state of darkness and ignorance in which our countrymen then were may be judged from the fact that the coming of God's own message of mercy to them, in words which they could understand without need of an interpreter, should be thus spoken of as if it were some pestilence or overwhelming national calamity!
This twofold warning, however, was not lost upon the king. Henry was acquainted with the German doctrines, as they were called, for he had lately been at the pains to examine some of Luther's writings, and had written a book against him, which won for him from the pope the title of Defender of the Faith, the initial letters of which title, in Latin, you may read upon coins of the present time. In the preface to this book-which was in English, for the king had a mind that his people should understand what he had to say to them, though they were counted unworthy to receive the words of God in their own common speech-in this preface he told his people that he had, " out of love and care for their welfare," determined that these "untrue translations," which would only mislead them, should be burned.
You will observe that the king condemned the new translation as “untrue”; this was, indeed, the ground taken by most of those who undertook to judge it. One orate most learned men of the time spoke of it as "ignorant, dishonest, and heretical," and another had read it only to find two thousand errors in it. Yet students of Scripture to-day wonder at the precision and accuracy with which Tyndale, in spite of almost overwhelming difficulties and discouragements, accomplished his work. At that time there was no appeal from a sentence once pronounced by the great Churchmen, especially when their judgment was confirmed by so absolute a king as Henry VIII. Tonstall, Bishop of London, at whose house Tyndale had once hoped to make his translation, was appointed to preach at St. Paul's Cross against the books, and then they were to be thrown into the flames. Men whispered that the volumes said to be so full of errors were burned lest any should examine them and find none; but there was one person to whom the news of this wholesale destruction brought no shock of surprise. " In burning the New Testament," wrote Tyndale, "they did none other thing than I looked for; no more shall they do if they burn me also; if it be God's will it shall so be. Nevertheless, in translating the New Testament I did my duty."
Not long after Tonstall's sermon, in the autumn of the same year in which the books first appeared, proclamation was made that, whereas the New Testament had been craftily translated into English, and copies, some with glosses and some without, had been widely dispersed, every man in London must deliver up any copy which he possessed, that it might be cast in the fire. A careful search was made, and numbers of Testaments were burnt in Antwerp, London, and Oxford, while those with whom the books were found were counted heretics; but still the people hungered for the words of life, and the circulation of the English Testament went on.
You may wonder; since so many copies were burned, how the supply of books was kept up. This is the story told about it:— Tonstall, who was a kindly man, and unwilling that any should suffer, if suffering could be avoided, devised a plan for taking the troublesome books out of the way, that he might not be obliged to punish those who read them. He asked a well-known London merchant, trading to Antwerp, to procure for him as many Testaments as he could. The merchant, who was well disposed to Tyndale and his work, accepted the commission, and executed it, taking care, however, that a fair price should be paid for the books. Hundreds were, accordingly, bought up in Antwerp, brought over to London, and burned at Cheapside; but' the result of this plan proved very different from what the Bishop of London expected. Some Dutch printers, seeing such an extraordinary demand for English books, took upon themselves to reprint Tyndale's Testament; and so, in a year's time, to the astonishment of Tonstall, the books which he fancied he had well-nigh destroyed to the last leaf were coming over in greater numbers than ever.
Sending for his friend the merchant, he accused him of having deceived him. “You told me you had bought up every copy—what does this mean?” he said, angrily.
“The books were bought, my lord, as you desired," replied the merchant; " but they have printed more since, and I don't see how you can put an end to this printing, unless you buy up all the types and presses."
Sometime afterward Tonstall learned that Tyndale, who was then busily at work upon his translation of the early books of the Old Testament, had been enabled, by means of the money which he had been paid for these Testaments bought only to be destroyed, to live in quiet security, and give himself wholly to his work.
Thus did God make the wrath of man to praise Him, and bring good out of evil. The Dutch printers were but instruments in His hands; for it was not from any love of the truth that they printed the fresh supply of Tyndale's books, but because they were shrewd enough to see that the English people were determined to have them, and that, either by friends or enemies, they would certainly be bought. One of these Dutchmen, being convicted of causing fifteen hundred English New Testaments to be printed at Antwerp, and bringing five hundred of them into England, was severely punished.
When we compare the price at which these first printed Testaments were sold with the prices of books at the present time, we shall think them to have been costly, as well as dangerous to the purchaser. It is true that the difference made by the invention of printing was very great. Before this wonderful discovery a written book cost at the rate of two shillings a leaf. Tyndale's Testaments, if bought in large quantities, only cost thirteen pence each, while the price of a single copy was about thirty pence. We must not forget, however, that these sums of money were then worth quite ten times as much as they are now.
By the year 1530, six editions—in all, perhaps, as many as 15,000 books—had been secretly printed; yet so careful was the search for them, that now, in England, there remains of the larger volume only one fragment, containing only thirty-one pages, which was lately discovered bound up with another book, and is carefully preserved in the British Museum, and of the smaller only two copies.
The fragment contains a list of the books of the New Testament, and a picture of St. Matthew, who is represented as writing his gospel, dipping his pen into an inkstand held by an angel. It ends with the twenty-second chapter of his gospel. Upon the inner margin there are some references, as in our Bibles, only much fewer; upon the outer the glosses or explanatory notes, some of which merely explained words which might not be readily understood, while others were calculated to give grievous offense by the bold way in which they pointed out how ill the doctrines and customs of those high in office in both Church and State agreed with the Scripture.
The prologue, or introduction to this larger volume which, you will remember, was the first, the printing of which was interrupted at Cologne, is very interesting, as showing the singleness of the translator's aim. Here are a few words from the beginning of it, just as Tyndale wrote them, but not given in the spelling of his time, which is very old-fashioned now:—
“I have here translated, brethren and sisters most dear and tenderly beloved in Christ, the New Testament, for your spiritual edifying, consolation, and solace; exhorting instantly, and beseeching those that are better seen in the tongues than I, and that have higher gifts of grace to interpret the sense of the Scripture and the meaning of the Spirit than I, to consider and ponder my labor, and that with the spirit of meekness. And if they perceive in any places that I have not attained the very sense of the tongue, or meaning of the Scripture, or have not given the right English word, that they put to their hands to amend it, remembering that so is their duty to do.
"For we have not received the gifts of God for ourselves only, or for to hide them, but for to bestow them unto the honoring of God and Christ, and edifying of the congregation, which is the body of Christ."