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Chapter 14—Truth Advances in Britain
While Luther was opening a closed Bible to the people of Ger-
many, Tyndale was impelled by the Spirit of God to do the same for
England. Wycliffe’s Bible had been translated from the Latin text,
which contained many errors. The cost of manuscript copies was so
great that it had had a narrow circulation.
In 1516, for the first time the New Testament was printed in
the original Greek tongue. Many errors of former versions were
corrected, and the sense was more clearly rendered. It led many
among the educated to a better knowledge of truth and gave a new
impetus to the work of reform. But the common people were still, to
a great extent, debarred from God’s Word. Tyndale was to complete
the work of Wycliffe in giving the Bible to his countrymen.
He fearlessly preached his convictions. To the papist claim that
the church had given the Bible, and the church alone could explain
it, Tyndale responded: “Far from having given us the Scriptures,
it is you who have hidden them from us; it is you who burn those
who teach them, and if you could, you would burn the Scriptures
themselves.
Tyndale’s preaching excited great interest. But the priests en-
deavored to destroy his work. “What is to be done?” he exclaimed.
“I cannot be everywhere. Oh! if Christians possessed the Holy
Scriptures in their own tongue, they could of themselves withstand
these sophists. Without the Bible it is impossible to establish the
laity in the truth.
A new purpose now took possession of his mind. “Shall not the
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gospel speak the language of England among us? ... Ought the
church to have less light at noonday than at the dawn? ... Christians
must read the New Testament in their mother tongue.
Only by the
Bible could men arrive at the truth.
1
D’Aubgigne, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, bk. 18, ch. 4.
2
Ibid.
3
Idem.
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