THE four clergymen who were, as we have seen, the first to be brought before the special court which had been set up for the purpose of trying those suspected of heresy, had, before their trial, set forth a declaration of their readiness to die rather than give up what they believed to be the truth of God concerning justification by faith, and had expressly said that they counted the word of God―not the traditions of the Church―the only sure guide, the only absolute authority to which all Christians must submit; for they judged that none could be of the true church who refused to listen to Scripture. In conclusion, they promised all due submission to the will of the queen, but added, like the apostles of old, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” It is interesting to see that this declaration, set forth in May, 1554, was signed by several who were prisoners at the time, and the last signature is that of Coverdale. “To these things aforesaid,” he writes, “do I, Myles Coverdale, consent and agree, with these mine afflicted brethren, being prisoners―mine own hand.”
We are told that Rogers, when he had listened to the sentence passed upon him as “an obstinate heretic,” looked round upon his accusers and spoke in thrilling tones of the day when both he and they “should come before a Judge that is righteous.”
“I nothing doubt,” he said, “but that I shall be found there a true member of the Catholic Church of Christ, and everlastingly saved; and for your false church, ye need not excommunicate me forth of it; I have not been in it these twenty years, the Lord be thanked therefor.” Then changing his lofty tone to one of entreaty, he added, “But now that ye have done what ye can, my lord, I pray you yet grant me one thing―that my wife, being a stranger, may come to speak with me so long as I live; for she hath ten children, which are hers and mine, and somewhat I would counsel her what were best for her to do.”
This request was not granted; yet did Rogers look upon his wife once more; for on that February morning, when he was led forth to suffer at Smithfield, the brave woman went to meet her husband on his way to his death. As he walked, repeating aloud the fifty-first Psalm, along the street in which the church where he had so often preached stood, he lifted up his eyes and saw her accompanied by all her children. The sight of her grief, and of the children whom he was to leave without a father, did not unman him; he refused the pardon which at the last was brought to tempt him, and made good, in God’s strength, the words which he had spoken long before― “That which have preached I will seal with my blood.”
A letter written a few days after to Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, at Oxford, shows the spirit which animated many at that time Speaking of the sentence passed upon the prisoners tried in London, the writer adds: “Our dear brother Rogers hath broken the ice valiantly, as this day, I think, or tomorrow at the uttermost, hearty Hooper, sincere Sandars, and trusty Taylor take their course and receive their crown. The next am I, which hourly look for the Porter, to open me the gates after them, to enter into the desired rest. God forgive me mine unthankfulness for this exceeding great mercy, and choose me to be one in whom He will suffer.”
Hooper was burned before his own cathedral at Gloucester. We read of him that in his extremity “some came to persuade him to accept of God’s mercy, since life was sweet and death was bitter.” He answered that “the death which was to come after was more bitter, and that the life which was to follow was more sweet,” — and so, refusing the Queen’s pardon, which was pressed upon him at the last, and praying earnestly to God to strengthen him, he suffered.
Sandars and Taylor, too, were taken back to their own parishes, that those whom they had taught might take warning by their end. Sandars, like Taylor, when he was led out to die, had a pardon offered him, if he would give up his wrong opinions, but he said that he held no heresies, but the blessed gospel of Christ, and embraced the post to which they chained him, with the words, “Welcome the Cross of Christ; welcome everlasting life.”
Taylor had been earnestly entreated by his friends, who saw the coming storm, to escape while there was yet time. But to all their prayers he had one answer. “Must not I follow Christ,” he said, “the Good Shepherd who not only fed His flock, but died for it?” And so, when he found himself once more among his people, he told them that as he had taught them nothing but the truth contained in God’s holy word, so now he was come to seal it with his blood.
The English people looked on at such scenes as these with horror and amazement. It was whispered―for men dared not speak openly―that many who thus suffered had done nothing contrary to the law; since the laws for breaking which they were condemned had been made binding while they were in prison. As an instance of the truth of this, we may mention a poor fisherman burnt at Cardiff in this fatal year. He was an old man, and had been imprisoned a year before, because he had sent his son to school, that he might have the comfort in his old age of hearing the words of the Bible from the child’s lips―for he could not read it for himself.
Taken from prison, and brought before the court, he was condemned as a heretic, because of the way in which he answered the questions put to him. In like manner, many were “taken” because they were not seen at church or at confession, and “having articles put to them”―that is, being questioned by the judges as to their belief in the doctrines laid down by the law as those which were to be believed by all―were found guilty of heresy, condemned by the very words in which they expressed their simple faith in what they had been taught from God’s word, and their conviction that the doctrines which they were required to believe were not to be found there.
Among those who proved their faith and courage in their lives, though they were not called to show them by their death, was one Augustine Bernher, a Swiss, who had been long Latimer’s servant, and of whom we read the simple record that he was “excellently serviceable to the poor prisoners and martyrs, traveling continually from place to place, and from one prison to another, and standing upon no pain or danger to do good offices for the poor professors.”
When Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were prisoners at Oxford this faithful messenger went to them, taking with him letters for them, and whatever he could procure for their necessity. Nor did his service end when those for whom he had risked his own life were beyond the need of them: he looked after the desolate wives and fatherless children of such as died for their faith, and we find one on the eve of martyrdom, in his last letter to his wife, speaking of him thus:― “As Christ,” he writes, “committed His mother to John, so I commit you in this world to the angel of God, Augustine Bernher.”
The writer of this letter had told Bernher a few days before his end that he had no joy or comfort. The Lord for whose name’s sake he was about to lay down his life seemed far from him: His face as the face of a stranger. Augustine cheered him, assuring him that both joy and comfort would be his in due time, and begging him to give some sign that it was even so. The sign was given, for when the martyr was on his way to death, at the moment of his sorest need, he suddenly clapped his hands, and exclaimed, with a radiant smile, “Austin, He is come! He is come!”
A letter written by Latimer to one who was in prison for the gospel’s sake has been preserved. This man had been offered money that he might buy himself off, and escape from prison, but had refused it, thinking it “a thing unlawful to buy off the cross which Christ had laid upon” him. Latimer encourages him, saying, “It is given to us, not to believe only, but to suffer for His name’; if suffering be the gift of God, how can we sell the gift of God, and give money to be rid of it? It is written also, A man must abide in the vocation wherein he is called’; but to suffer for the truth is God’s calling, and therefore we must abide in this calling.”
Again, writing from his prison at Oxford, the old man reminds his brethren who were in like danger of their lives, that now was the time “when the Lord’s ground would be known” (alluding to the “good ground” of the parable), “for such will not shrink from a little heat or burning weather.” He earnestly exhorted them all to go forward, after their Master, Christ, “not sticking at the foul way or stormy weather, being certain that the end of the storm will be pleasant and joyful, and such a perpetual rest and blessedness as will swallow up” all their present trouble. He reminds them that they are not alone, for many of their brethren and sisters were pressing on the same way, the way to the heavenly Jerusalem, which was ever through persecution, and bids them follow the footsteps of Christ and His friends, wherever they may lead.