The Calm Before the Storm.
SOME of our readers may have followed the history of our English Bible from the beginning, as it was traced in the short sketches which appeared in this Magazine last year. They will remember the strong opposition which the very idea of such a thing as the word of God being given to the common people, in their own tongue, had to encounter, and the dangers which threatened those who, not counting their lives dear to themselves, undertook the perilous task of translating it, and sending it abroad among their countrymen. We are now coming to a time in our country’s history when the most serious opposition to the free course of the word of God through the land came, no longer from those in authority, but from the people themselves―those very “workmen, servants, husbandmen, and laborers” who had been forbidden, by the last proclamation of Henry the Eighth, to read either in public or in private the translations of Tyndale and Coverdale. That it should have been so is a sad commentary upon the long centuries of ignorance and error at which we have taken a passing glance. To the people, accustomed to darkness, the light came as a thing to be feared.
One year after the proclamation of which we have spoken, every restriction upon reading or possessing the Scriptures in English was removed, and, within a short time, an English Bible―the version known by the name of the Great Bible―and the Commentary on the Gospels, by Erasmus, was placed in every parish church.
A story is told of our boy—king, Edward the Sixth, which, if true, shows that he reverenced the Bible. At his coronation, which was celebrated on the Sunday after his father’s death, with great pomp and splendor, in Westminster Abbey, it is said that when the boy’s eye―he was but ten years old―fell upon the three swords, which were, as part of the ceremonial, carried before him, he asked, pointing to them, “But where is the fourth?” As those around him did not understand his meaning, he said, “Where is the Bible? The word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit, ought to be preferred before these swords.” We are told that the young king went on to speak to the nobles who pressed around him, each eager to do him honor, of the Bible as the only source whence he could hope for strength and wisdom to govern his people aright.
The language said to have been used by the young Edward on this occasion seems far beyond his years, but if the story is true, we at least see that he had right thoughts as to the responsibility of a king, and that he began his short reign in a spirit of humble dependence upon God, and a desire to know His will, as revealed in His word.
But anxious though he might be to seek the good of his people, the boy-king was too young to rule the kingdom, especially in such troublous times.
Of the sixteen councilors appointed by Henry in his will to take care of the kingdom during the childhood of his son, Edward’s uncle, the Duke of Somerset, was made president. He, as guardian of his nephew and protector of the realm, was the real ruler, and governed until overthrown by his rival Warwick, who was also uncle to the young king.
Naturally amiable, and a great favorite with the people, Somerset sought to keep his place in their affections by repealing all Acts against heresy, enriching himself in the meantime by plunder from the monasteries.
The Act of Six Articles, sometimes called the “Bloody Statute,” sometimes the “Whir with six strings,” was immediately done away with. This Act had enjoined upon all persons belief in those of the doctrines of the Romish Church which are most plainly contrary to the teaching of Scripture, and the penalty for disobedience was in some cases death. About the same time it was ordered that all images should be removed from the churches; the Book of Common Prayer was compiled, and by the passing of the “Act of Uniformity” all were obliged to use it. This was soon followed by the publication of a book of homilies―the word means an exhortation to a general gathering of people―and the “Forty-two Articles of Religion,” which set forth the doctrines held by the English Reformers, and were made binding on all the clergy by Act of Parliament. By a second “Act of Uniformity” a person going to any religious service where the Book of Common Prayer was not used became liable to imprisonment; for, although Somerset gloried in being called the peoples’ friend, he did not scruple to make all conform to his own thoughts of what was fitting in matters of religion. Surely amid all this planning and arranging for the worship of God those solemn words from the lips of Him who was the Revealer of the Father would have sounded strangely out of place― “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.”
The year 1549 dawned upon a distracted England. It was a time of terrible distress throughout the country. There was not work enough for the laborers; those who had been employed or supported by the religious houses were now homeless, for the monasteries which had sheltered them no longer existed. There were no poorhouses, no means of relief for the old and sick, and the country swarmed with poor folk who wandered from shire to shire, until the terribly severe laws against vagrants frightened them from the high roads to miserable hiding-places, where they must too often have perished, no man regarding them.
Those who survived, hungry and hopeless, lent a ready ear to the startling tales told by the homeless monks, as they assured them that all would be well if they could but bring back again the good old times before these changes in religion, which were the cause of all the want and misery, came about.
As we look back upon this time we can see that the first Parliament of Edward had done good work in sweeping away at one stroke all the old persecuting measures, and better work still in freely giving the Scriptures to the people. Yet we can understand that many, amid such sudden changes, knew not what to think.
The humblest farm laborer might now, if he had but so much learning as would enable him to spell out the words in the old black-letter printing, read for himself openly the sacred books which but a short time before had been sealed to all but the rich or learned. This was an unspeakable boon, but there were many to whom it as yet meant nothing. Leave to read did not profit those who were unskilled in letters, to whom all books, Latin and English alike, were objects of reverence perhaps, but could be nothing more. Very rapid changes were taking place, and we may well believe that to the country folk in the remote villages it seemed as if all which they had been taught to hold sacred was passing away.
In some of the large towns, especially in London, a wild zeal for reform led some of those who now began to be called “Protestants” to many lawless doings. The name Protestant came from Germany, and was first given to those who protested against a law passed by a great council to forbid all changes in religion. Rumors came of churches being spoiled and plundered of their sacred treasures. Men said that even the great church of St. Paul in London had become a place for idle lounging, and gossip, and for the changing of money, and that the images of Christ and of the blessed Virgin were cast down from their high places and made of no account. Surely, if such things were true, the country-folk thought they had fallen on evil days, indeed. A panic, lest in the general wreck they should lose all they held dear, seized them, and the men of the west country armed themselves with such weapons as they could procure, and began to form in wild, disorderly bands, demanding with one voice that Latin prayers should be restored, that they should be allowed to worship God as their fathers had done before them, that the images and paintings which had been torn from the churches should be replaced, and that all who would not worship the sacrament should die as heretics.
Perhaps it was not unnatural that untaught people should think there was some special charm, some effectual grace in words which they could not understand. Surely God, who is so pitiful, looked in His compassion upon these poor people, in their blind ignorance trying to rivet more closely around them the chains which had bound them so long.
At first preachers were sent to teach them, among them Miles Coverdale; but sterner arguments were soon brought to bear upon the misguided people. They gathered in wild mobs about Exeter, and held the town for six weeks, but were at last attacked and beaten by the king’s soldiers, and Coverdale, whom we find preaching the thanksgiving sermon after the victory, was made Bishop of Exeter.
There were also formidable risings in Norfolk and in Cornwall, and much misery on every hand, with but little power to relieve it, though the young king showed a desire to care for the destitute poor, and was active in founding hospitals for the sick.
In his reign, too, though no new translation of the Bible was made, a great many editions were printed. It was a time of great freedom for the circulation of the scriptures, and for the preaching of the gospel; beclouded though that “good story of God” might be by the traditions of men, yet, for those who had ears to hear, it came as a message of peace and deliverance.
The time was short, how short none knew; alas for those who did not embrace the opportunity which that brief day of good tidings afforded! a time was coming which would show whether the word had indeed been received into the heart, or had merely fallen, as a pleasant sound, upon the ears of those who heard it.