The year 1526 witnessed the completion of the English New Testament, printed at Antwerp; at the end of it is an Address to the Readers, in which he "beseeches them that are learned christenly, that the rudeness of the work, now at the first time offered, offend them not."

per annum for his support, he resolved to leave the kingdom and to reside on the continent, for the purpose of executing his noble design: "right well he perceived and considered," saith Fox," that this only, or chiefly, was the cause of all mischief in the church-that the Scriptures of God were hidden from the people's eyes." He accord- This modest appeal ought to ingly went to Germany, and tra- have disarmed criticism; as Fox velled into Saxony, where, for a remarks, "Wherefore, if any such time, he enjoyed the company of defect had been deserving correcLuther at Wirtemberg, and others tion, it had been the part of courof the German reformers; he then tesie and gentleness, for men of returned and settled at Antwerp, knowledge and judgment to have one of the Hanse-towns, where showed their learning therein, and there were a chartered company of to have redressed that which was English merchants. to be amended. But the spiritual fathers then of the clergy, being not willing to have that book to prosper, cried out upon it, bearing men in hand that there were a thousand heresies in it, and that it was not to be corrected but utterly suppressed. Some said it was not possible to translate the Scripture into English; some that it was not lawful for the lay people to have it in their mother tongue; some that it would make them all heretics ;and, to induce the temporal rulers also unto their purpose, they made matter, and said it would make the people to arise and rebel against the king!"

Before proceeding with the history, it may not be unsuitable to give a short description of Tyndale. It is conjectured he was at this time (probably in 1524) about thirty-eight years of age; his patron, the worthy alderman, about four years after this, in his examination before Stokesley, Bishop of London, for heresy, said of him that "he lived six months in his house, where he lived like a good priest, studying both night and day: he would eat but sodden meat, with his good will, nor drink but small single beer." The next description we have of him is from his own pen, and may thereTyndale also printed, about this fore be depended upon as a correct time, and sent over to England, portrait, making some allowance several considerable treatises, enfor his excessive modesty, which titled, "The Obedience of the is a prominent feature of his cha- Christian Man," "The wicked racter-writing to his beloved Mammon," his "Introduction to young brother, in 1533, John Frith, Paul's epistle to the Romans." These he says, "But God hath made me with some of the works of Luther evil-favoured in this world, and and other German reformers, were without grace in the sight of men, all ordered to be called in and speechless and rude, dull and slow-suppressed, especially " The New witted." Fox seems to confirm this, as being a true picture, " For in the wily subtleties of the world he was simple and inexpert."

Testament in the English tongue!"
This political proclamation is thus
signed by the Bishop of London:-
"Given under our seal, the three

and twentieth of October, in the | Coustantine, "I will tell you truly: fifth year of our consecration, anno it is the Bishop of London that hath

1526."

It was in May, 1526, that Tonstal caused the copies of the New Testament to be burned, John Tyndale, brother to the translator, being

holpen us, for he hath bestowed In order to suppress the New upon us a great deal of money for Testament completely, Tonstal, on New Testaments, to burn them, returning from a mission to the and that hath been, and yet is, our Pope, passed through Antwerp, only succour and comfort." "Now, where meeting with an English by my troth," quoth Sir Thomas, merchant, he was informed that he" I think even the same, for so could buy up the whole of Tyn- much I told the bishop when he dale's New Testaments from the went about it!" Dutch merchants who had bought them of Tyndale: "Do your diligence," saith Tonstal," gentle Master Packington; get them for me, and I will pay for them what-made to ride throughCheapside with soever they cost, for I intend to several copies tied about him. In burn and destroy them all at Paul's- one of his books the next year, cross." Packington acquainted Tyndale, alluding to this, says, Tyndale with the matter; "and so, "And mark, I pray you, what an upon compact made between them," orator he [Fisher, Bishop of Rosays Fox, "the Bishop of London chester] is, and how vehemently he had the books, Packington had the persuadeth it. Martin Luther hath thanks, and Tyndale had the mo- burned the Pope's Decretals, a money!" The Dutch printers find- manifest sign, saith he, that he ing it a profitable concern, reprinted would have burned the Pope's hothe Testament, so that "they came liness also if he had had him. A thick and threefold into England." like argument (which I suppose to The Bishop sent for Packington, be rather new) I make: Rochester (who, it should seem, lived in Lon- and his holy brethren have burned 'ɔn); "How cometh this, gentle Christ's testament, an evident sign Master Packington, that there are they would have burned Christ so many New Testaments abroad? himself also had they had him." On You promised me that you would the 25th of May, the prelates came buy them all." Packington replied, to the King in the Star-chamber, Surely I bought all that were to complaining that Tyndale's and be had; but I perceive they have Joy's translation was not correct, printed more since. I see it never and proposed to get the Bible prowill be better while they have type perly translated, "so that the and presses, wherefore your Lord-people should not be ignorant of ship had better buy the type and the laws of God!" The King compresses too, and then you will be manded it to be done, but the presure." Fox says. "At which an- lates paid no regard to it; and the swer the Bishop smiled, and so the people in consequence read and matter ended." Some time after, studied Tyndale's translation with Sir Thomas More, then chancellor, the greater avidity. having one George Constantine, a reformed priest or friar, before him, desired him, as he expected his favour, to tell him who it was that supplied Tyndale with money at Antwerp?" My lord," replied

66

It ought to be mentioned that, in addition to his labours as a translator of the Scriptures, and the author of several evangelical treatises, he was employed also as the minister and elder of a congregation

of English merchants and their servants at Antwerp; a protestant dissenting minister from the established church of Rome, a most determined enemy to prelacy, as he doubtless would have been, had he lived long enough, to the protestant episcopacy and the presbytery.†

From the time of his having finished the New Testament, he had been actively and laboriously employed in translating the Old Testament also. A very singular event happened in regard to this work; the rage which was excited made it necessary for him to remove to another of the Hanse towns, Hamburgh. The pious John Fox says, "But Satan, the prince of darkness, maligning the happy course and success of the Gospel,

*

Tyndale thus renders Acts, xiv. 23. "When they had ordained elders by election in all the congregations."

+ That Sir Thomas More considered him an enemy to an established hierarchy and a national endowed church appears from what he says, in reply to Tyndale's remark, that "his [More's] darling Erasmus had translated the word ecclesia into congregation and priest into elder, as himself had done." "If," said Sir Thomas, "" my darling Erasmus

set to his might, also how to impede and hinder the blessed travels of that man, as by this, and sundry other ways, may appear. For at what time Tyndale had translated the fifth book of Moses, called Deuteronomium, minding to print the same at Hamborough, he sailed thitherward, when by the way, on the coast of Holland, he suffered shipwreck, by the which he lost all his books, writings, and copies, and so was compelled to begin all again anew, to his hindrance and doubling of his labours. Thus having lost by that ship both money, his copies, and time, he came in another ship to Hamborough, where, according to his appointment, Master Coverdale tarried for him, and helped him in the translating of his whole five books of Moses, from Easter till December, in the house of a worshipful widow, Mistris Margaret Van Emmerson, anno 1529, a great sweating sickness being the same time in the town; so having dispatched his business at Hamborough, he returned afterward to Antwerp again."

This first part of the Old Testament in 12mo., published 1530, hath translated those places with the like" emprinted at Malborow in the wicked intent that Tyndale hath done, he land of Hesse, by me, Hans Luft," shall be no longer my darling, but the Divell's darling," Bad as Luther was, in appears to have been circulated in the estimation of this popish chancellor, distinct books, as there is no uniTyndale was much worse, and therefore we formity in the printing, several of conclude he was the better Protestant of the them being in the old black, and two reformers. "He raileth against the [seven] sacraments," saith More, "much others in the Roman letter. Some worse than Luther, for whereas Luther left of the prologues prefixed, too, yet some confession, and reckoned his secret were printed and circulated as seconfession necessary and profitable, though parate treatises.* In the year 1532, he felt a rude liberty therein. Tyndale taketh it away quite, and says it was begun by the the whole Bible was completed, Devil." So speaking also of the holy Mass, he says, "Luther, mad as he is, was never yet as mad as Tyndale is, which, like himself, so raileth upon us in his frantic book of 'Obedience,' that any good christian man would abhor to read it."-But Tyndale's defending Luther's marriage with "his nunne," as Sir Thomas called her, was his crowning

sin.

*There is no copy, it is presumed, to be found of this Bible. Lewis says, "When the Popish bishops obtained leave of the King to burn the New Testament, they took the liberty of taking another step and burned the Old also."-History of Translations, p.143.

and printed at Antwerp, consisting of four books. It was divided thus, according to Strype:"1. The five books of Moses; 2. From Joshua to the Song of Solomon [or Solomon's Ballette]; 3. From Isaiah to Malachi; 4. The New Testament."*

The popish priests, with their clergy, were now almost driven to madness. Fox says, Fox says, "They were incensed and inflamed in their minds, although having no cause, against the Old and New Testament of the Lord, newly translated by Tyndale; and conspiring together, with all their heads and counsels, how to repeal the same, never rested, before they had brought the King at last to their consent. By reason whereof, a proclamation in all haste was devised and set forth under public authority, but no just reason showed, that the Testament [Bible] of Tyndale's translation, with other works more, both of his and of other writers, were inhibited and abandoned."

address from Tyndale, in exile, shows the influence his name had upon the protestants in England. It is entitled, "A Supplication to the King, Nobles, and Subjects of England." He, in the first place, mentions the vast expense of popery to the kingdom, as a reason for promoting the Reformation; and then says, "For the Frenchman (as it is said) of late days made a play or a disguising [a masquerade] at Paris, in which the Emperor danced with the Pope and the French King and wearied them, the King of England sitting upon a high bench and looking on; and when it was asked why he danced not, it was answered, that he sat there but to pay the minstrels their wages!" London.

J. I.

(To be concluded in our next.)

HINTS ON FASTING.
To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.
DEAR SIR,

IT must afford pleasure to all the
true followers of our self-denying
Master to find that the attention
of the Dissenting Bodies is being
directed to the now almost obsolete
but scriptural observances of fast-
ing, humiliation, and prayer.
hail it as a very interesting and
important feature of the present
them. It is interesting, because it
times that we are trying to revive
them. It is interesting, because it

The King having repudiated Queen Katherine, married Anne Boleyn, November 14, 1530. In September, 1531, Elizabeth (afterwards the celebrated queen) was born. The succession to the throne was now the great matter of struggle between the papists and protestants: the former wishing it to be in Mary, the daughter of Ka-shows that we are, in some degree, therine; the latter in Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne. The following

* Tyndale's phraseology greatly offended this popish champion, Sir Thomas More; as, when he says, "The seven stars are the messengers of the seven congregations, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven congregations.-Unto the messenger of the congregation at Ephesus.-I, Jesus, have sent my messenger to testify these things in the congregations," &c. &c. Coverdale's, Matthews's, and Taverner's editions use the same terms.

I

aware of our deficiencies and lukewarmness in the spiritual and salutary exercises of religlon. It is important, because we are encouraged to expect that the divine blessing will follow them, if observed from pure motives in a devotional spirit.

I would not have troubled you,

This appears to have been published separately, but the chief part is an extract from "The Practice of Prelates," which had been published three years before.

did I not hope that some abler pen | enjoy ourselves after the fatigue of would be drawn on the subject, the day, we have fallen asleep and through marking my deficiencies. forgotten our troubles, together It has struck me, however, that some reasons may be found, without going far, for the almost entire disuse of the custom of observing days of humiliation and prayer, a custom so common in the days of our pious ancestors, and so salutary and profitable in itself, that one almost wonders where we have been and what have been our thoughts, that it should have fallen so far into the shade.