02.03. Chapter 3. The First English Bible.

Chapter 3. The First English Bible. At the close of the seventh century, those British Christians, who had offered so determined an opposition to Rome, were won over, one by one, until, even in the original settlement of Iona, they agreed to recognize the papal supremacy.

Henceforth, instead of the humble preachers of Iona who went forth taking nothing from any man, but preaching the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, Rome brought in her rites and ceremonies, relics and superstitions.. Every effort was used to enslave men’s minds and keep them in ignorance, while at the same time everything Rome supplied had to be bought with money. A writer on the subject has said, "Not an article was there in her creed, not a ceremony in her worship, not a department in her government that did not tend to advance her power and increase her gain. Her dogmas, rites, and orders were so many pretexts for exacting money. Images, purgatory, relics, pilgrimages, indulgences, jubilees, canonisations, miracles, and masses were but taxes under another name, . . . so many drains for conveying the substance of the nations to Rome." And another says, "Rome takes your gold and gives you nothing more solid in return than words." How different to all this is "the gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord." Without money and without price, He invites sinners to come and take of the water of life freely. How thankful we should be that we have an open Bible that tells us of the free grace of God. But the tyranny of Rome was wearing to a close. Though she knew it not, the time was coming when God would raise up a man to give to Britain that best of all gifts — a Bible in her own language. That man was John Wycliffe, born in 1324 in the North Riding district of Yorkshire. He became a student of Merton College, Oxford, and was converted to God when about twenty-four years of age. He had found the way of life in the Holy Scriptures, and determined to show it to others. In 1365 he was elected warden of Canterbury College, and continued to preach the doctrine of free grace with much power.

Let us now digress for a moment to trace shortly the following events which brought Wycliffe forward as the determined opposer of the Pope in his demands on the State, and led him to take up higher ground and oppose Rome’s usurped control over the conscience. In 1213 King John had yielded up "England and Ireland to St. Peter, St. Paul, and Pope Innocent III." He had laid his crown at the feet of Pandulf, the Pope’s legate, who is said to have kicked and rolled it in the dust as a worthless bauble, and consented to allow John to resume it on the annual payment of 1,000 marks (£666 13s. 4d.) to Rome and to become the Pope’s vassal. This payment had been very irregularly made when in the time of Edward III., after a period of thirty-five years, in which it had never been mentioned, Pope Urban V. summoned Edward to recognize him as King of England and renew the annual tribute. But King Edward III. was no weakling like King John. The conqueror of Crecy was little likely to yield to this insolent demand, and summoned his Parliament to support him. The Parliament agreed with the king and enlightened by the lucid and scriptural arguments of Wycliffe, declared against the Pope. The partisans of Rome were infuriated, and declared that by the canon law of the Church the king ought to be deprived of his fief. "The canon law," said Wycliffe, "has no force when it is opposed to the Word of God." But God had more important work for Wycliffe than mere worldly politics, and, having been presented by the king with the living of Lutterworth, he set about preaching the gospel in his parish with his usual activity. At Oxford he lectured to the students as one "having authority;" for while others taught from the sentences of Peter Lombard, or the mystical philosophy of Duns Scotos, he opened up the Scriptures and showed that they were indeed spirit and life. He accused the clergy of having banished the Holy Scriptures, and demanded that the authority of the Word of God should be re-established over the conscience.

These things were not looked upon by his enemies with indifference, and he who would dare to attack the papacy in such high-handed fashion must be dealt with. In 1377 the Pope issued a Bull, enjoining the English clergy to crush this formidable heresy — for such the teaching of the Scriptures was called — and take immediate steps to silence the author of it "by arresting the said John Wycliffe and shutting him up in prison." The clergy needed little incentive. Courtney, bishop of London, had begun the prosecution before the Bull arrived, and cited Wycliffe to appear and answer for his teaching. An immense crowd thronged the approaches to St. Paul’s Cathedral as Wycliffe appeared to attend the convocation. Hands were raised to do violence to the venerable old man, and loud hootings from the partisans of the priests re-echoed through the building. With Wycliffe, however, came John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Lord Percy, Earl Marshal of England. Having two such powerful friends, Courtney could do little but show his hatred by railing at the bold preacher, and the assembly broke up in confusion.

Next year the Bull arrived, and Wycliffe was cited to appear before the bishops at Lambeth Palace. This time no John of Gaunt appeared to protect him, and his patron King Edward was dead. The human arm was withdrawn that his faith and hope might be in God. The sitting was scarcely opened when Sir Lewis Clifford entered with a dispatch from the queen-mother to forbid the court, "as the Pope’s brief could have no authority in the realm of England without the consent of the king." Thus a second time he was preserved from his enemies to continue his work for God. Before retiring he handed in a protest, setting forth the teaching of Scripture as opposed to the errors of Rome, and, "In the first place," said he, "I am resolved with my whole heart, by the grace of God, to live as a sincere Christian, and, while my life shall last, to profess and defend the truth of Christ as far as I have power." Shortly afterwards, Wycliffe, while still continuing his teaching at Oxford, fell suddenly and dangerously ill. He was now an old man, and his incessant labours, with the persistent and harassing persecutions he was called upon to bear, had told upon a constitution never very strong. The monks, whose vices and ignorance he had so scathingly exposed, were delighted. They would now get rid of their enemy, but greater would be their victory if they could get him to recant. A deputation of four waited upon him and urged him to retract all he had said against them. But Wycliffe had been too much convinced of the truth of what he taught in health to retract it in sickness. Raising himself on his couch, he replied in an emphatic voice, "I shall not die but live, and again declare the evil deeds of the friars." They left the room in confusion, and Wycliffe recovered to continue his work. Not content with his own efforts, he sent forth the most earnest of his disciples to preach the gospel all over the land and "seek to convert souls to Jesus Christ." The missionaries Rome sent forth were the begging friars, who strolled over the country filling their wallets, and, in place of preaching the Word of Life, told stupid and foolish legends about the lives of the "saints," or amused the people by stories of Sinon and the wooden horse, from the Trojan War; afterwards wasting their time in the alehouses or at the gaming tables.

Wycliffe’s "poor priests," as they were called, went forth barefoot, staff in hand, taking nothing of any man but sufficient for their daily bread, and visiting the sick, the aged, the poor, and the blind. They became favourites among the people, who gladly listened to them and drank in the good news so long hid, but which, like old wells reopened, gave forth abundant refreshment to all who would come and drink. The clergy had recourse to their usual weapon — persecution, and got a law passed commanding every king’s officer to arrest the preachers and commit them and their followers to prison. The monks watched their opportunity, and when the humble evangelist began to preach they set off for assistance, but when the officers appeared, led on by the priests, a body of stout men stood forth, surrounded their preacher, protected him from the violence of the clergy, and carried him off in safety. Thus, day by day, the work went on, and the light was penetrating into every part of the country. When persecuted in one place the devoted missionaries fled to another, and, whether seated by the cottage hearth or preaching to the crowds at the crossways, to the few as to the many, they spoke of full and free salvation by grace alone, not of works, lest any man should boast.

It has ever been the policy of Rome to withhold the Bible from the people. The teaching of the Church of Rome is at utter variance with the teaching of Scripture, and when the light of the truth contained in the Word of God shines out, all the fabric of superstition, built upon a foundation of ignorance, falls to pieces. Accordingly the priests forbade all laymen under pain of death to read the Scriptures, and told the people to "learn to believe in the Church rather than in the Gospel."

John Wycliffe, both in his controversies with the priests, and in his preaching to the people, ever appealed to the Holy Scriptures as the sole source of authority. The ignorant and dissolute priests and monks both hated and feared him, while by the common people he was loved and honoured because he taught them in their own tongue the pure Gospel of the grace of God. Not content with publicly preaching the Word, he determined to give the people a translation of the Bible in their own language, and this great work he completed about the year 1380. Previous attempts at Bible translation had been made, but with only partial success. King Alfred, with the help of learned men, began a translation, but dying soon after, the work was stopped. Bede, in the eighth century, had translated the Gospel of John, and is said to have expired as he finished the last verse. But these copies, even if any now existed, were only fragmentary and out of reach of the common people. In his quiet retreat at Lutterworth, after nearly fifteen years’ labour, he succeeded in finishing his translation from the Latin Vulgate into the English tongue. There are still several copies of Wycliffe’s Bible in the principal libraries, and one in the British Museum is believed to have been written by Wycliffe himself. Here is a specimen of the language in which the Scriptures were read in the fourteenth century; it is a passage from Luke’s Gospel in Wycliffe’s translation —

"In the days of Eroude Kyng of Judee ther was a prest Zacarye by name: of the sort of Abia, and his wyfe was of the doughtris of Aaron; and hir name was Elizabeth; an bothe weren juste bifore God: goynge in alle the maundementis and justifyingis of the Lord withouten playnt."

Here is another curious specimen from the time of King Alfred —

"On fruman waes Word, and thaet Word mid Gode, and Gode waes thaet Word. Thaet waes on fruman mid Gode. Elle thing waeron geworht thurh hyne; and nanthing waes geworht buttan him. Thaet waes lif the on him geworht waes, and thaet lif waes manna leoht. And thaet leoth lyht on thystrum; and thystro thaet ne gena-mon."

Wycliffe’s translation was completed, but there was then no printing presses and no great publishing houses; however, there was a real desire for the Word of God, and soon many expert hands were engaged in multiplying copies, which were eagerly bought up by the people. They had been taught that there was a graduated series of monks, priests, popes, and "saints," between them and God, but by the Scriptures they learned that there is only "one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." Rome taught that redemption was to be purchased by paying the priests for masses. The Scriptures declare, "We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." That "by Him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses."

Thus the glorious light of God’s Word chased away the errors and darkness of Rome, as the morning mists disappear before the rising sun. The people rejoiced. The clergy mourned. Their gains were in danger. Who would buy worthless masses when they had an open Bible? But they did not long remain inactive; Wycliffe had attacked transubstantiation, which, ever since it had been invented by the monk Radbertus in the ninth century, had been a powerful engine in the hands of the clergy over the people; accordingly he was suspended from teaching at Oxford and expelled from the University, but he appealed to the Parliament, and meantime he retired to his parish of Lutterworth, from which the priests could not as yet expel him, because it was the gift of the king.

Here he spent a few quiet months until Parliament re-opened in November, when, instead of coming forward to defend himself from the priests, he came forward to attack in the face of the whole nation "the corruption, tyranny, and errors of heirarchy." Parliament repealed the persecuting edict, and thus once again God shielded and preserved His servant against the hatred and malice of his enemies.

What Tyler’s insurrectionary followers had seized and beheaded Sudbury, the Primate, and Courtney, now Archbishop of Canterbury and "Primate of all England," would see if in that capacity he could not accomplish the destruction of the man he considered his enemy. Assembling a convocation at Oxford, he summoned Wycliffe once more to appear. Would he come? He came. It was to be his last appearance before either kings or councils — his last public testimony for the truth of Christ. The indictment was read and he rose to reply. As of old, he refuted their charges, challenging them to convince him of error before they condemned his teaching. And growing bolder, his words glowing with eloquence and energy, he turned the accusation against themselves. "Ye are the heretics who teach your foolish traditions instead of the truth of Scripture. Why do you propagate such errors? Why because like the priests of Baal, ye want to vend your masses. With whom think ye are ye contending? with an old man on the brink of the grave? No, with truth; truth which is stronger than you, and will overcome you." His enemies were astounded at his bold words, every one of which they knew to be true. He turned to leave the court, and no one attempted to hinder him. They allowed him to pass through their midst and go back to his beloved parish of Lutterworth.

Here he spent the few remaining days of his life in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. His enemies intended to bring him to the stake, but God, who overruleth all things, frustrated their intentions. On the last Sunday of December, in the year 1384, he was stricken down with paralysis in the midst of his beloved people. They carried him sorrowfully to his home, and tended him night and day, for they loved him as a father. Here he lingered till the last day of the month, and as the year was dying, he entered into rest.

After his death a petition was got up by those who opposed his work, and presented to the Pope (which, however, he refused) to have his body taken out of the grave and buried in a dunghill — so deep was the hatred of his enemies; and forty years afterwards his bones were actually dug up, burned to ashes, and cast into the river. The priests also excommunicated all who bought his books or tracts, and it was at a terrible risk they could be read.

Many men who were found by the priests with a copy of Wycliffe’s Bible were burned to ashes at the stake with the book hung round their necks. Men, and women too, were executed for teaching their children in their mother-tongue the Ten Commandments or the Lord’s Prayer. Children were forced to light the death fires around their parents; and the possessors of the Bible were hunted down and slain like wild beasts.

Old John Fox says, and we may well say the same, "Certes the zeal of these Christians seems much superior to this of our day, and to see their faithfulness may well shame our careless times."

Over a hundred years elapse before we come to another version of the Bible in the English tongue, and any copies made during that period were laboriously written out by hand.

Yet, notwithstanding, copies increased and though the price was about forty pounds a volume, and labourers’ wages a penny a day, yet men denied themselves other things and bought them. Those who were not able to buy them, and had the opportunity, learned whole epistles off by heart, and recited them to the little gatherings who met in fear and trembling, and yet thirsting for the life-giving Word. The Bible was to them a precious Book. Do we value it as we ought?

Wycliffe died, but the fruit of his great life-work remained. His followers took up the work where he laid it down, and assiduously sought to spread not only the truth of the Scriptures but copies of the Book itself whereever they found opportunity. They traversed the country preaching the Gospel, and many of the nobility, as well as the common people, gladly embraced the truth. Where the preacher could not enter, the Word of God often found a place, and Wycliffe’s Testament was seen both in the castles of the nobles and the halls of the gentry. Soon men began to see the difference between the teaching of Rome and the teaching of Scripture, and in proportion as minds were enlightened by the Word of God, so were they set free from the bondage of darkness which had hitherto enthralled them. But the persecuting Arundel was now Primate, and he, seeing the growth of the new opinions, posted off to Ireland, where King Richard II. then was, and entreated him to return and take measures to suppress the Lollards, as Wycliffe’s followers now came to be called. Easily persuaded either to one side or the other, the weak king gave Arundel liberty to commence the persecution, and shortly afterwards set out to return to England, but before Richard set foot on his native shores another had arrived there before him who would contend with him both for place and power.

Henry of Lancaster, son of the famous Duke of Lancaster mentioned in a former paragraph, had been banished by Richard, but suddenly sailed from the Continent, landed in Yorkshire, and deposed Richard, who was imprisoned and starved to death in Pontefract Castle. The crafty and cunning Arundel, who had been wise enough to desert the losing side in time, now came forward (1399) and crowned the usurper as Henry IV. with the "Vial of oil which fell down from the Virgin Mary." The son of Wycliffe’s protector was now king, but he had arrived at the throne by the murder of the rightful king and the help of the priests, and to maintain his usurpation he had to bind himself to "protect the Church." To protect the Church meant, in these days, to persecute every humble follower of Jesus who dared to differ from Rome, and Henry was not long in making good his promise to the priests. In his reign was passed the act ordering every heretic to be burned alive — a stain alike on his memory and the Statute Book. The priests, who can only be likened to blood-thirsty animals, were overjoyed. Hitherto their power was limited by the will of the king, now their persecution was legalised, and they hastened to satiate their cruelty on those who set at nought their traditions.

"I will worship Christ who died on the cross," said William Sawtre, "but not the cross on which Christ died." He was condemned to the fire by the primate, and handed over to the secular power, with the hypocritical request to treat him with mercy. A stake was planted at Smithfield, and he was burned alive in 1401 — another martyr for the truth in England. John Badby was burned for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. William Thorpe was murdered in prison for refusing to worship images. Thus Rome has clearly shown how both in doctrine and practice she is at utter variance with the teaching of Jesus Christ. The prisons in the bishops’ houses were full to overflowing. Not only were they used as places of confinement, but they became dens of torture: fetters and the rack, thumb-screws and the "boot" were brought into requisition with fiendish ingenuity, and men "were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourging, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment." Very touching is the testimony of one who carved on the walls of his dungeon, "Jesus amor meus" — Jesus is my love. These words are said to be still seen on the walls of the Lollard’s tower in Lambeth Palace. Not only did the priests vent their rage on the humble and lowly, but they proceeded against Lord Cobham, and succeeded in inducing the king to allow him to be brought to trial. Accordingly he was seized and imprisoned in the Tower. Brought before Arundel in 1413 he witnessed a good confession for Jesus Christ.

"We must believe what the Church of Rome teaches, whether Christ says so or not," said the primate.

"I am ready to believe all that God desires, but what is contrary to Scripture I can never believe," said Sir John. But he was before judges who knew no mercy, and he was sentenced to death and sent back to the Tower to prepare for the fire. "It is well," said he, "though you condemn my body, through the mercy of the eternal God you cannot harm my soul."

He escaped from the Tower at this time, but four years afterwards he was retaken and drawn on a hurdle through the streets of London to the place of suffering. With diabolical cruelty he was suspended in chains over the fire and slowly burned to death. Yet the Lord stood by His servant and enabled him to endure this awful torture with constancy and firmness unto the end.

Space forbids any attempt to chronicle even the names of those, who, during this period, were called upon to seal their testimony with their blood, and though the hearts of many failed them before the fiery trial, yet the knowledge of the truth had been widely diffused by means of Wycliffe’s New Testament, and the good seed thus sown brought forth fruit at a future day. We are accustomed to look upon Luther as the man whom God raised up to hold forth the lamp of truth in the middle ages, but over a hundred years before, the glorious truth of Salvation by grace was known in England; and Bohemia at the same period had its martyrs for Jesus Christ. On the Continent at this time was seen the curious spectacle of three "infallible" popes, each striving to assert his supremacy at the expense of the other; as old John Fox says, "There were not three crowns on one pope’s head, but three heads in one popish crown." The Council of Constance (1414) had been called to deal with these three rival "infallible" popes which Christendom had found to be very fallible indeed; these three they deposed and elected another "infallible" whom they styled Pope Martin V. Thereupon they cited before them John Huss, who has been called the apostle of Bohemia, and though he came with a safe conduct from the Emperor "to go and return without let or hindrance," yet the Emperor, won over by the priests, broke his most sacred promise and allowed Huss to be arrested and imprisoned. He was commanded to abjure his opinions and submit to the Church. "I would rather," said he, "that a millstone was hanged about my neck, and I was cast into the sea, than offend one of those little ones to whom I have preached the Gospel by abjuring it." He was condemned to the fire, and one of the prelates said, We devote thy soul to the devil." "And I," said Huss, "do commend my soul to Thy hands, O Lord Jesus, for Thou hast redeemed me." Two years afterwards Jerome of Prague suffered and triumphed on the same spot; but Bohemia, through the teaching of these two men had been emancipated from the thraldom of Rome, and a few years afterwards the great majority of the nation embraced the faith for which these noble martyrs died. A day of retribution came when the Government threw off its vassalage, and arraying its armies in the field under the leadership of the famous John Ziska and the no less famed Procopius, repulsed, again and again, with tremendous slaughter, the numerous and well appointed armies Rome brought into the field to exterminate alike the truth and the nation.

Procopius was a theologian as well as a warrior. "Can you show," said he to the priests, "that the order of friars was instituted by either the prophets of the Old Testament, or the apostles of the New? If, not, by whom were they instituted?" To this the priests did not reply. Their argument was force. But better by far, would it have been, had the Bohemians, instead of resorting to the sword, endeavoured to spread the knowledge of the truth so fully taught by Huss and Jerome. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds."