Life of Tyndale and the Reformation — Ian Murray

Tyndale’s Influence on the Authorized Version

Now we have just read from the words of the authorised version of the early 17th century and we are often quite unconscious when we hear the authorised version that we are by and large hearing the words that William Tyndale first wrote and had printed in the English language.

It is said that 80 and perhaps even 90 percent of the authorised version was the work of Tyndale and Tyndale wrote and completed his work on the New Testament 80 years, 80 years before the authorised version.

William Tyndale died at the stake in the year 1536. The last commemoration of his death therefore was in the year 1936 and I begin by giving you a few brief words that were written at that time. The Times newspaper in October commemorating Tyndale's death said that Tyndale the controversialist is a figure of pathos whose acrimonious treaties are already forgotten.

But then it paid this tribute that Tyndale the translator of the Bible lives. And Bishop Hensley Henson at the same time said that Tyndale's books were little read and those books which multitudes of readers once ran desperate risks to obtain fail to stir the faintest flicker of interest in our minds.

And one writer went even further than that and said that William Tyndale died for a doctrine which hardly anybody in England now holds. Well I don't want to stay on those words but it was quite clear that in 1936 when people wrote about Tyndale they always said more or less the same thing.

They said that he did do an extraordinary work in the translation of the scripture. But that as a man, as a Christian, as a reformer he is one whose memory has now languished and no doubt will no longer raise any interest.

Let me give you one more quotation from the Times on his work as a translator. The Times said that to have endowed hundreds of millions with such a book through centuries past and centuries to come is a very wonderful achievement and to William Tyndale more than to any other man the chief glory of the achievement belongs.

Well that was a high and just tribute and yet it was inadequate because Tyndale's work as a translator of the Bible was united with his whole conviction of the work of Christ in history, in the revival of nations, in the reformation of churches and you simply cannot make a division between Tyndale as a translator and Tyndale as a reformer of the Church of Christ.

These two things are bound up together. Now as we speak then of Tyndale I shall first try to give you, and this will take no doubt much of our time, some account of his life. The first definite date that we know about Tyndale was that he entered Magdalen College in Oxford in the year 1510.

Tyndale’s Education and Early Devotion to Scripture

Before he was at Magdalen College he was at a school, a kind of preparatory school, to the college. We know that to have entered Magdalen in 1510 he must have been at least 12 years old and possibly 15 or 16 years of age.

That puts his birth somewhere around the year 1495. The place of his birth is in that beautiful Vale of Berkeley at the edge of the Cotswolds, where the Cotswolds come west and fall down into the Valley of the Seven.

There is a hill spur called Stinchcombe Hill. It's approximately perhaps halfway between Bristol and Gloucester and beneath Stinchcombe Hill there are several scattered villages. And in one of these villages for certain William Tyndale was born.

There is today a very old house just beneath Stinchcombe Hill and it is very likely, indeed it is certain, that that house belonged to the Tyndale family. But whether it was there that William was born or in another home of the family there is no certainty.

He went up then to Oxford when he was still a child. And John Fox, the great Reformation historian who wrote his Acts and Monuments of the Martyrs, it was printed in 1563, he wrote in that great history that Tyndale came from the borders of Wales and he tells us that while he was still a child in Oxford he read to others from the Scriptures.

He said he was singularly addicted to the Holy Scriptures insomuch that he, being in Malkin Hall, that was the school for parity to the college, he read some parcel of divinity to his fellow students, instructing them in the knowledge and truth of the Scriptures.

We have therefore the remarkable fact that before the conversion of Martin Luther, before the great Reformation had even begun on the continent of Europe, there was a child in the university city of Oxford who was, as Fox says, singularly addicted to the Holy Scriptures.

Now at one time it was thought that Tyndale's conversion took place as a result of the Greek New Testament of Erasmus. Erasmus, the continental Dutch scholar, produced his Greek New Testament in 1516, which was a very vital date.

But the evidence that we now have shows that William Tyndale was converted before that day, not by the Greek New Testament, but by the Latin Vulgate. He did not of course have an English Bible. Since the year 1428 any circulation of the English Bible had been forbidden and no one could translate or handle the Bible in the native tongue without Episcopal permission.

There were no English Bibles in Oxford. But Tyndale, through the Latin Vulgate version of the Scripture, was evidently early brought to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. He proceeded with his training in arts and he graduated as a Master of Arts in the year 1515.

Now at that point he should have proceeded to become a Bachelor of Divinity, but he did not do so. Instead he went to the University of Cambridge. The reason why he did that is not clear. I think there are probably two reasons.

I think he was utterly wearied with the dead scholasticism which surrounded him in Oxford. In one of his books he says that if all the theological writings that were in existence in England were put into the largest warehouse in London, you probably wouldn't even get them in.

But he says all those books you could not find one that was used in the University which would show a man the way of salvation. I think he was wearied of all the scholasticism, the dead treadmill he talks about of scholasticism.

And secondly there was in Cambridge a revival in the study of the Greek language and Tyndale went to Cambridge from Oxford to study Greek. Erasmus himself had taught in Cambridge and Tyndale stayed in Cambridge until the year 1521.

By which time he was certainly one of the foremost Greek scholars then in this country. And in 1521 or thereabouts he returned to his native home in Gloucestershire. Now I do not know how long he had been away or how many times he had been home.

People did not travel so readily in those days as they do now. But it is quite clear that when he went back to Gloucestershire in 1521 his impression of his native county would have been very different to what it was in the days of his childhood.

Because he now knew and understood the word of God and he read the situation in that light. Now Gloucestershire was one of the most religious counties in England. Religious in the sense of being traditionally a bastion of the Roman religion.

If Tyndale climbed, as I am sure he often did, Stinchcombe Hill, he could have seen in the surrounding countryside perhaps a hundred parish churches. Fifteen miles to the north he would have seen the great Cathedral of Gloucester.

And then from Stinchcombe Hill you could see into seven counties of England. And Tyndale knew as he surveyed that scene that he was looking on a country where there was scarcely a handful of those who understood the way of salvation.

He tells us how he read the 28th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy where God said that in his judgment he would make the brass and the earth under them as iron. And that's how Tyndale read his own situation.

He said a Christian man's heart might well bleed for sorrow at the reading of it. But the proverb was as sure as God's in Gloucester. But God was not in Gloucester. Gloucester had, Gloucestershire had six great abbeys with their abbots including the Abbey of Hales where the blood of Christ was displayed in a bottle.

It was a center of pilgrimages and relics and so on. And this was characteristic of the whole state of the country. John Hooper, the martyr who died in the reign of Queen Mary, he wrote in the year 1547, speaking of the time before Tyndale's work.

He that had sought in all the churches in England before 16 years ago should not have found one Bible. But in every church such abomination and idolatry as the like was not seen since the time of Josiah.

Everywhere idols and all abomination. You have no doubt read in books like J .C. Ryle's, Five English Reformers, the description of the spiritual corruption. At Canterbury for example there was an account kept of the money paid at the various shrines to which people had made their pilgrimages.

And at one shrine in the year the annual amount of gifts at the shrine of Jesus Christ amounted to three pounds two and sixpence. And how at the shrine of the Virgin Mary there were gifts of sixty three pounds five and sixpence.

And then at the great shrine of Sir Thomas of Bagot there was an annual account in the same year of eight hundred and thirty two pounds and twelve shillings. And these kind of little details give you an impression of the complete inversion of all truth.

These abbeys as the Abbey of Hales in Gloucestershire, they all had their relics. Some had pieces of the cross. One had part of the hand of St. James. The spear that pierced the side of Christ. These and countless other things were supposedly to be found all over England.

Tyndale’s Concern for England and Wales

And what was the situation in Wales? Well if anything it was worse. Tyndale as he stood on Stinchcombe Hill he looked across the waters of the River Severn. The river into which the ashes of Whitcliffe had been thrown into one of the upper tributaries.

John Whitcliffe was martyred early in the 15th century. His ashes were thrown into the tributaries of the Severn. On the other side of the Severn Tyndale could see the mountains of Wales. And it was at that time a common joke that the Welsh were wholly ignorant.

Sir Thomas Moore the scholar of the period laughed at the ignorance of the Welsh. And Tyndale replied at a later date he says I wonder that Mr. Moore can laugh at it. But not rather weep for compassion to see the souls for which Christ shed his blood to perish.

Now Tyndale had been ordained some years earlier we're not quite sure of the date. Probably 1514. But by the time he came back to Gloucestershire he had determined that he could not in conscience undertake the work of a parish priest.

So he became a tutor in the home of Sir John Walsh. Sir John Walsh owned the manor house at Little Sodbury. Little Sodbury is about 15 miles south of Stinchcombe. And Sir John Walsh had a six-year-old son and Tyndale came back from Cambridge to tutor the six-year-old son.

And I hope that someday you can all go and stand in the manor house at Little Sodbury because it stands today very much as it was in Tyndale's day. There is the old great hall with its long table where Sir John Walsh used to entertain his guests.

There is a gargoyle up on the wall which was really a spy hole. There's a corridor behind and as you walk down you could look through this gargoyle and see everything that was going on. And then at the end of that corridor you may find the bedroom of William Tyndale.

The room where he began his work and where he spent so much time in meditation and prayer. And when some of us visited that bedroom a couple of years ago we were thrilled to find something on the windowsill of Tyndale's bedroom.

It was a copy of Daubini's Reformation in England by Daubini. And it seemed to me an extraordinary thing that here in the room where that Reformation began in England there should be a copy of this great book by Daubini.

Of course it got there because someone had sent the owner, the present owner, a copy of Daubini's book and he had placed it in Tyndale's room. Well Tyndale went to Little Sudbury Manor House. Sir John Walsh was a very hospitable man and it had been the practice for the local clergy and the abbots and so on to come in often for their dinner in the evening at Little Sudbury Manor.

And when they did that they came into encounter with William Tyndale. You may have read the story of how Tyndale, quietly at first but then more decidedly, John Fox says he confronted these men with open and manifest scripture.

By which of course he meant the Latin Bible. And after several of these experiences Fox says, these great benefic doctors waxed weary and bear a secret grudge in their hearts against Master Tyndale. There's the famous remark that Lady Walsh made one morning.

She had been listening to the debate at the dinner table the evening before and she had come to the conclusion that this was simply a question of one learned view against another. And as William Tyndale was much younger than these other men it was far more likely that the older men would be right.

And she said to Tyndale, she said, were it reason that we should believe you before them so great learned and manifest men? And we don't know what Tyndale replied but we do know that he wrote this on one occasion and I'm sure that it would be in this way that he replied that morning.

It would be to say that the gospel in which he believed did not depend upon mental abilities. That it wasn't a case of one scholarship against another. This is what he wrote. Well I know that I never deserved it.

It is the knowledge of the gospel. Nor prepared myself unto it. But ran another way clean country in my blindness. And sought not that way. But he sought me. And found me. And he showed it me. And therewith he drew me to himself.

And I bow the knees of my heart unto God night and day. That he will show it unto all other men. And with that conviction Tyndale of this period was giving himself to prayer and to preparation for his life's work.

He never wrote his spiritual experience. But from time to time he writes sentences which give us an idea of what went on in his innermost being. For example he says in one place. Whom God chooses to reign everlastingly with Christ.

Him he seals with his mighty spirit. And pours strength into his heart. To suffer afflictions also with Christ. For bearing witness unto the truth. He poureth strength into his heart. To suffer afflictions with Christ.

For bearing witness for the truth. And very soon Tyndale began to find his experience of suffering affliction with Christ. It was first of all the warning that one of the old clergymen in the district gave to him.

I'm sure you've read the story. This old man came to Tyndale. And he said to him. Do you not know that the Pope is the very antichrist of which scripture speaks? And then he says. But beware what you say.

For if it is known that you are of that opinion. It will cost you your life. Now Tyndale knew a little already no doubt of the persecution. That to some extent was already being carried on. In the year that he left Cambridge.

He left Cambridge in 1521. In that same year Martin Luther's books had been publicly burnt in Cambridge. And worse than that two years earlier in 1519. Seven Christians had been burnt to death at Coventry.

Because they were so-called Lollards. They possessed part of the Bible handwritten of course in their own language. That was in 1519. And Tyndale within a short space of time was summoned before the Archdeacon of Gloucestershire.

A man by the name of John Bell and Chipping Sodbury. He was summoned to appear before his ecclesiastical court. And we are told evidently by a friend of Tyndale's who had the report from him. That as Tyndale walked that day to Chipping Sodbury.

In going thitherwards he prayed in his mind heartily to God. To strengthen him. To stand fast in the truth of his word. When the meeting took place the council of the Archdeacon rated him like a dog. You bear yourself he said boldly among the gentlemen in this county.

Obviously angered at the way Sir John Walsh was favouring Tyndale. You bear yourself boldly but you shall be otherwise talked with. And he went on to threaten his removal to some other place. And although this was only a first warning.

Tyndale came to the conviction that he as one voice. As one solitary figure in Gloucestershire. Was surrounded by such tremendous forces of prejudice and ignorance and evil. Better to be without God's laws than without the Pope's he was told one day.

Just as those walls of Sodbury Manor were about eight foot thick. The prejudice and the ignorance of the people was even thicker. On one occasion Tyndale says that error was like a great ivy tree with its roots planted in the middle of England.

And spreading under every little house and village all over the country. Like a great he says a great ivy tree. And he came to the conclusion. The momentous conclusion. That as he had been converted by the word of God alone as it seems.

That if that word could be brought to the hands of the people. Even though they have no preachers to preach it to them. That word could be the means of subduing a nation to the gospel of Christ. I perceived by experience he says.

How that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth. Unless the scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue. In order that they might see the process and the order and the meaning of the text.

For otherwise whatsoever truth is taught them. These enemies of all truth quench it again. Resting the scriptures onto their own purpose. And deluding the people by distanting upon it with allegories.

And expounding it in many senses before the unlearned people. When it has in truth but one simple and literal sense. Which thing he says moved me to translate the new testament. Well one can see Tyndale's experience developing.

And evidently in this earlier part of his life. He felt that probably the greatest problem was the sheer ignorance of the people. He later came to the conclusion that the problem was deeper. It was a problem of evil and a superhuman darkness.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood. It was not merely the absence of light but it was the positive power of darkness. But that was something that grew in his consciousness as the years went by. His first step then was to go to the Bishop of London Cuthbert Tunstall.

Who had a reputation for favoring the renaissance learning and was himself a scholar. And Tyndale translated a portion of the Greek writer Isocrates. And with this translation of Isocrates he went to Tunstall in order to plead the benefit of translating the new testament.

And he evidently thought that Tunstall as a reasonable and scholarly man would approve of this proposal. But Cuthbert Tunstall understood something of what might be involved. He was very cool and reserved and evasive.

And he apologized to Tyndale that he had no room in his bishop's palace to give him any hospitality or to give him any support for his proposal. And in so many words he told him that he was not to proceed with it.

Now as I mentioned earlier on, the authority to translate scripture was vested entirely in the bishops. That's why Tyndale went to Tunstall. He received this reception. He was led to that great step which seems to us perhaps a straightforward step.

Tyndale’s Exile and the Printing of the New Testament

But it was the turning point in the history of England in the 16th century. In 1524 William Tyndale voluntarily became an exile. In order that in hiding, hunted, pursued, he might bring to the English people the scriptures in their own tongue.

There is a fine portrait of Tyndale in Oxford. And underneath that portrait there is a verse written by an anonymous hand which goes something like this. That light or all my darkness roam might arise freely an exile I became freely a sacrifice.

It's a translation from a very old verse and I cannot give it to you exactly but this is the heart of it. Freely an exile I became freely a sacrifice. He was given 10 pounds by Humphrey Monmouth who was a Christian merchant.

And with that 10 pounds he crossed the English Channel never to return and began his journeyings in Europe. I say journeyings because once it was known that Tyndale was abroad and once it was known what he was doing he was hunted and pursued through the 11 years that he was free.

11 years of life were given to him to complete the work that God intended him to do. And that is a very thrilling and marvellous story. You can read it at much greater length in Daubini's Reformation in England.

I hope many of you have already read this but if you haven't it is a truly wonderful and readable book. This is volume 1. There is a second volume and that takes you right through Tyndale's period on the continent and earlier.

Thomas Moore who was Tyndale's great enemy and opponent he wrote on one occasion that Tyndale he is an exile he said both nowhere and everywhere. Because Tyndale's books were filling the country coming into London going to Scotland to Edinburgh to St Andrews.

He is an exile nowhere. Nobody could put their hand on him and yet his voice Moore exclaimed was being heard everywhere. And John Fox wrote it cannot be spoken. What a door of light this man's writings opened to the eyes of the whole English nation.

Now when Tyndale first went to the continent he went to Wittenberg and no doubt he met Martin Luther and it is quite likely that he spent several months in the university at Wittenberg. But then in 1525 we find him at Cologne.

And at Cologne he completed the New Testament into the English tongue and he handed it over to the printer Peter Crentnal with an order for 6 ,000 copies. Later on the Catholics heard the quantity that he had ordered and were staggered at the man's audacity.

6 ,000 copies it was a great quantity. In actual fact I think less was to be printed. But that was the original order as it was in fact but none were printed complete. Because the printer had completed Matthew's Gospel and was just starting Mark when one of the printers of course not being a Christian was out at the pub drinking that night and he began to tell some of the people the odd book they were printing in the English tongue.

Something on the Gospels and mentioned Matthew and Mark and of course word travelled fast. And the next day the authorities were at the printers and only gave Tyndale time for he evidently had news of what had happened to board a boat on the Rhine.

He took from the printers what was completed just these handfuls of Matthew and the beginning of Mark and fled up the Rhine to Burns. And that was the end of the first venture to print the New Testament.

Those fragments, the Cologne fragment was the first Bible ever printed in the English tongue. The first parcel of the Bible. Well at Burns they had to start again because the printing presses were different sizes it wasn't a question of just continuing but the New Testament was completed at Burns and in the year 1526 began to appear in England, in London, in Gloucestershire copies furtively and secretly handed from person to person often read in the dead of night and so on.

And I'll read you a few words from the prefaces to these New Testaments. It was the first time that an Englishman had ever used print a way of communicating the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's an extraordinary thing.

First time the printing press was ever used for this purpose. And Tyndale said in his preface that it was not he that was doing this work but he said it is God himself who is sending unto our Englishman the scripture in their own tongue.

And he is but the translator of that word for he says we have not not received the gifts of God for ourselves only or for men to hide them but to bestow them unto the honoring of God and Christ. And we have received these gifts he says for the edifying of the congregation which is the body of Christ.

And then he goes on to say what the gospel is. The New Testament is a book wherein are contained the promises of God and the deeds of those that believe them or believe them not. That which we call gospel is a Greek word and means good, merry, glad, joyful tidings that makes a man's heart glad and maketh him sing, dance and leap for joy.

This gospel is called the New Testament because that as a man when he shall die appoints his goods to be dealt and shared after his death among those whom he names as his heirs even so Christ before his death commanded and appointed that such gospel or tidings should be declared throughout all the world and therewith to give unto all that believe all his goods that is to say his life wherewith he swallowed and devoured death his righteousness wherewith he banished sin his salvation wherewith he overcame eternal damnation.

Now says Tyndale can the wretched man that is in sin and in danger to death and hell hear a more joyous thing than such glad and comfortable tidings of Christ so that he cannot but be glad and laugh from the low bottom of his heart if he believes that these tidings are true.

And so he goes on beautifully to write of what the gospel is. Now I said at the beginning that 80 perhaps 90 percent of the authorized version is Tyndale and we forget how many words Tyndale actually coined.

You have heard bible translators and missionaries today speaking of the difficulty of finding new words in languages where the bible has not yet been printed. That was so with Tyndale in the 16th century and the words that he coined or some of them let me give you a few.

The word pass over, the pass over, scapegoat, the mercy seat. These were all words that Tyndale coined for the very first time and then words to do with the attributes of God which did not exist in our time.

The long suffering of God, that's Tyndale's word. The tender mercies of God, that's another of his words. And you know it's said that even when the revised version was completed in the last century that 75 percent of the words of the revised version were still Tyndale's words.

Tyndale’s Treatises on Justification and Christian Obedience

Now our time is running fast on. He completed the new testament then in 1526 and then he proceeded to other books. He wrote the parable of the wicked mammon which is really a little treatise on justification by faith alone.

He printed an epilogue on the epistle to the romans or rather I should say a prologue to the epistle to the romans. Then he proceeded to the obedience of the christian man, a book which speaks of the relationship between the christian and the state and then the relation between the christian and the professing church.

And at the latter point Tyndale said that it was their duty while obeying the secular powers to disobey all spiritual powers unless those powers themselves bowed to the word of Christ. And he warned those who were receiving the gospel that their receiving of this message would lead many of them to the fires of martyrdom.

Nevertheless he says be bold in the Lord and comfort your soul. Christ is with us unto the world's end. Let his little flock be bold therefore for if God be on our side what matter is it who be against us be they bishops cardinals popes or whatsoever names they will we are called not to dispute as the pope's disciples do but to die with Christ that we may live with him.

We are called to suffer with Christ that we may reign with him. There's the 1528 then you have the very exciting years that followed. Let me just give you a little sketch perhaps of one year. In 1529 Tyndale was in Antwerp and the English spies were searching Antwerp.

They had arrested more than one printer and the thing the place was becoming very hot. So Tyndale took ship to Hamburg that is up the coast of Holland of course and into Germany but on that voyage the ship was wrecked and the most disastrous thing for Tyndale was all the work that he had done on the Pentateuch beginning he was beginning the Old Testament from the Hebrew it was all lost in the wreck and when he got to Hamburg he had to start again from the beginning.

When he got to Hamburg he stayed in the home of a Christian woman. He tells us that the plague was raging in the city so that several months he was unable apparently even to venture out of doors. So you see this exile strange city with the tremendous disappointment of losing all his manuscripts beginning again on the Pentateuch and in 1530 the Pentateuch was ready and it's one of the most beautiful parts of Tyndale's work and with his translation he always added marginal notes as thou readest he says in book of Genesis think that every syllable pertains to yourself and suck the piss out of scripture and I can't give you more of his notes but they are splendid notes.

Tyndale’s Friends, Persecution, and Martyrdom

Well who were Tyndale's friends? He had a little group of friends who were responsible some of them for carrying the Bibles and New Testaments across the channel several of them were fellow Cambridge students and of this little group of friends only one survived to die a natural death of the others everyone died as a martyr.

The one who survived was Miles Coverdale the others your names their names you perhaps have scarcely heard of. John Lambert was one he lived in Antwerp across the channel carrying these books until he was captured and burned to death.

It was Lambert who said at the stake none but Christ none but Christ. Richard Byfield was another man who carried these New Testaments. Thomas Bilney, Little Bilney he was called was also a friend of Tyndale's and he was martyred in 1531.

Perhaps Tyndale's greatest loss was the death of John Frith. One day maybe you will go to Westrum and visit the home of Sir Winston Churchill at Chartwell but when you go there you must remember that in Westrum there was born and grew up Tyndale's great friend John Frith.

Frith was a man whose reputation was esteemed all over the country and King Henry VIII attempted very diligently to separate Frith from Tyndale. He made a special offer of pardon to him if he would return and so on but Frith did return secretly to evangelize.

He was captured imprisoned and martyred in 1533 and before he was executed he was again offered a pardon on condition that he would desist from the work he was doing and this is what he said in reply.

I assure you he said he told his judge I assure you I neither will nor can cease to speak for the word of God boil up in my body like a fervent fire and must needs have an outlet. Two years later William Tyndale himself was arrested.

He was then in the home of Thomas Points in Antwerp. An Englishman who played the part of Judas gained Tyndale's friendship. Then he revealed his whereabouts. Tyndale was arrested thrown into prison without anything except the clothes in which he stood spent 16 months in cold and suffering in the castle of Veilvord and then at the beginning of October 1536 was taken out into the marketplace at Veilvord strangled and then burnt to death.

The last words that he was heard to cry were words of Lord he said open the king of England's eyes. When Tyndale published his Pentateuch he speaks about Joseph being put in prison in Egypt and I think these words parallel his own experience.

First promises of God accompanied him always and went down with him even into the deep dungeon and brought him up again and never forsook him till all that was promised was fulfilled and there's a verse of John Milton which describes so perfectly what William Tyndale was faithful found among the faithless faithful only he among innumerable false unmoved unshaken unseduced unterrified his loyalty he kept his love his zeal no number nor example with him wrought to swerve from truth or change his constant mind though single.

Now our time has gone and I think perhaps I should break off at that point if I have just said enough to stir you up to read Dolphini then my greatest purpose will have been fulfilled. Reflecting on yesterday morning I decided to take another session today on the Reformation and that means that I shall give you perhaps another 10 minutes or quarter of an hour on Tyndale and then an overall sketch and survey of some of the events which followed Tyndale's death and led to the establishment of the Reformation and perhaps the years that followed.

Now I had not intended to do the latter and have not had reference to notes on the subject and I'd like you to check any particular dates that I may throw out because I won't guarantee that they'll all be accurate.

Tyndale’s Definition of the Christian

Now a little more then on Tyndale and particularly on the characteristics of the man which made him the Christian leader that he was. We saw yesterday how he was converted as a young child or certainly not much more than a youth at Oxford.

How having been in Gloucestershire in the home of Sir John Walsh for a few years he crossed to Flanders in 1524 and how he had 11 years of freedom before his martyrdom in 1536 and in those years his greatest work was the translation of the New Testament and of the Old Testament.

I think he went as far as the second book of Chronicles. As well as that he published a number of important books which circulated with the Bible and these were all printed in the last century in three large volumes in the Parker Society collection.

Now the first thing then, Tyndale was the first English reformer to bring out again what it means to be a Christian and while Tyndale brought forward a great deal of biblical truth he was continually returning to this one great theme.

It is his first point and the point that he was always compelling people to listen to. What is a Christian? Now in the day in which he lived a Christian meant a person who belonged to holy church. That is to say a person who said prayers in a sacred building, who respected the priesthood, who observed the sacraments, who was submissive to the ceremonies of the church and such was a Christian.

Tyndale says of this general opinion that to be a Christian was nothing else than to serve ceremonies and him that was not popish and ceremonial was no Christian man at all. And Sir Thomas Moore, Tyndale's great opponent, charges Tyndale with impiety because, says Moore, he says no service at all, neither matins, even song, nor mass, nor cometh at church, nor cometh at no church, but either to gaze or to talk.

In other words Tyndale was no longer, as Moore had heard, partaking in the ritual and ceremony of the church so called of his day. And to Tyndale that definition of Christian was false at the foundation because it made no account of a man's individual relationship to Christ.

So that a man could be as ungodly as Cardinal Wolsey or Pope Alexander VI and yet be a Christian in terms of that definition. And the great shame of medieval Christianity was that by corrupting the scriptures it had brought into being a system of religion which was compatible with wilderness and with corruption and which nevertheless gave to men a false assurance of their relationship to God.