MATTHEW'S GOSPEL, CHAP. VI.

Take hede to youre almes, that ye geve it not in the syght of men to the intent that ye wolde be sene off them, or els ye gett no rewarde off youre father in heven. Whensoever therfore thou gevest thine almes, thou shalt not make a trompet to be blowne before the, as the ypocrites do in the synagoges and in the stretes, ffor to be preysed off men; verily I say vnto you, they have there rewarde. But when thou doest thine almes, let not thy lyfte hond knowe what thy righte hand doth, That thyne almes may be secret, and thy father which seith in secret, shall rewarde the openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt nott be as the ypocrites are, for they love to stond and praye in the synagogges and in corners of the stretes, because they wolde be sene of men ; vereley I saye vnto you, they have there rewarde. But when thou prayest, entre into thy chamber, and shutt thy dore to the, and praye to thy father which ys in secrete, and thy father which seith in secret, shal rewarde the openly. But when ye praye bable not moche, as the gentyls do, for they thincke that they shalbe herde ffor there moche bablynges sake. Be ye not lyke them there fore, for youre father knoweth wherof ye have neade, before ye ax off him. After thys maner there fore praye ye, O oure father which arte in heven, halowed be thy name; Let thy kingdom come; thy wyll be fulfilled as well in erth as hit ys in heven; Geve vs this daye oure dayly breade; And forgeve vs oure treaspases, even as we forgeve them which treaspas vs; Leede vs not into temptacion, but delyvre vs ffrom yvell. Amen. For and yff ye shall forgeve other men there treaspases, youre father in heven shal also forgeve you. But and ye wyll not forgeve men there trespases, no more shall youre father forgeve youre treaspases. Moreovre when ye faste, be not sad as the yprocrites are, for they disfigure there faces, that hit myght apere vnto men that they faste; verely Y say vnto you, they have there rewarde. But thou when thou fastest, annoynte thyne heed, and washe thy face, that it appere nott vnto men howe that thou fastest, but vnto thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seith in secret, shall rewarde the openly. Gaddre not treasure together on erth, where rust and mothes corrupte, and where theves breake through and steale; But gaddre ye treasure togedder in heven, where nether rust nor mothes corrupte, and wher theves nether break vp, not yet steale. For whearesoever youre treasure ys, there are youre hertes also. The light off thy body is thyne eye; wherfore if thyne eye be single, all thy body ys full of light; But and if thyne eye be wycked, then is all thy body full of derckness. Wherefore yf the light that is in the be derckness, howe greate ys that derckness? No man can serve two masters, for other he shall hate the one, and love the other; or els he shall lene? the one, and despise the other. Ye can nott serve God and mammon. Therefore I saye vnto you, be not carefull for youre lyfe, what ye shall eate, or what ye shall dryncke; nor yet for youre boddy, what rayment ye shall weare. Ys not the lyfe more worth then meate, and the boddy more off value then rayment? Beholde the foules of the aier, for they sowe not, neder reepe, nor yet cary into the barnes; and yett youre hevenly father fedeth them. Are ye not better then they? Whiche off you though he toke tought therefore coulde put

one cubit vnto his stature? And why care ye then for rayment ? Beholde the lyles off the felde, howe thy growe. They labour not, nether spynn; And yet for all that I saie vnto you, that even Solomon in all his royalte was nott arayed lyke vnto one of these. Wherfore yf God so clothe the grasse, which ys to daye in the felde, and to morowe shalbe cast into the fournace, shall he not moche more do the same vnto you, o ye off lytle fayth? Therfore take no thought, saynge, What shall we eate? or, What shall we dryncke? or, Wherewith shall we be clothed? Aftre all these thynges seke the gentyls; for youre hevenly father knoweth that ye have neade off all these thynges. But rather seke ye fyrst the kyngdom of heven and the rightewesnes ther of, and all these thynges shalbe ministred vnto you. Care not therfore for the daye foloynge, for the daye foloynge shall care ffor yt sylfe; eche dayes trouble ys sufficient for the same silfe day.

Tyndale in this translation was a follower of Luther. He incorporated in the Prologue to it part of Luther's preface to his translation of the New Testament, and gave marginal notes that were sometimes Luther's and sometimes his own. There was also a consideration of the controversies of the day in Tyndale's method of translation. Because the Pope and the higher clergy were regarded as the Church, and the church in the New Testament meant the whole body of worshippers, Tyndale avoided in his translation the word "church," and substituted "congregation." In like manner he used the word "knowledge" instead of "confession," and "repentance" instead of "penance." The consequence was that some in the Church declared that there Controwere 3,000 errors in Tyndale's translation. versy arose. Tyndale maintained his cause with tracts, and More, the ablest man who held by the old forms of the Church, was licensed by Tunstal to read the tracts written by Tyndale and others, and endeavour to refute their arguments. In 1529 a Dialogue in four books, by Sir Thomas More, dealt with the questions in dispute, and in 1530 Tyndale answered it. A short passage from each of these works will suffice to show the tenor of the argument. More wrote in one of his chapters :—

"Then are ye," quod I, "also fully answered in this, that where ye said ye should not believe the church telling you a tale of their own, but only telling you Scripture, ye now perceive that in such things as we speak of, that is to wit, necessary points of our faith, if they tell you a tale, which if it were false were damnable, ye must believe and may be sure that, sith the church cannot in such things err, it it very true all that the church in such things telleth you; and that it is not their own word, but the word of God, though it be not in Scripture." "That appeareth well," quod he. "Then are ye," quod I, "as fully satisfied that where ye lately said that it were a disobedience to God, preferring of the church before himself, if he shall believe the church in such things as God in His Holy Scripture sayeth himself the contrary, ye now perceive it can in no wise be so. But sith His church, in such things as we speak of, cannot err, it is impossible that the Scripture of God can be contrary to the faith of the church. "That is very true," quod he. "Then it is as true," quod I, "that ye be further fully answered in the principal point, that the Scriptures laid against images, and pilgrimages and worship of saints, make nothing against them. And also

that those things, images I mean and pilgrimages, and praying to saints, are things good, and to be had in honour in Christ's church, sith the church believeth so; which as ye grant, and see cause why ye should grant, can in such points not be suffered, for the special assistance and instruction of the Holy Ghost, to fall into error. And so be we, for this matter, at last, with much work, come to an end."

Tyndale answered :

And upon that M. More concludeth his first book, that whatsoever the church, that is to wit, the Pope and his brood, say, it is God's word, though it be not written, nor confirmed with miracle, nor yet good living; yea, and though they say to-day this, and to-morrow the contrary, all is good enough and God's word; yea, and though one pope condemn another (nine or ten popes a row) with all their works for heretics, as it is to see in the stories, yet all is right, and none error. And thus good night and good rest! Christ is brought asleep, and laid in his grave; and the door sealed to; and the men of arms about the grave to keep him down with pole-axes. For that is the surest argument to help at need, and to be rid of these babbling heretics that so bark at the holy spiritualty with the Scripture; being thereto wretches of no reputation, neither cardinals, nor bishops, nor yet great beneficed men, yea, and without tot quots and pluralities, having no hold but the very Scripture, whereunto they cleave as burs, so fast that they cannot be pulled away save with very singeing them off.

And even Thomas More came to believe in burning.

Tyndale's translation of the New Testament was publicly burnt in the autumn of 1526, and in December of that year appeared in Latin Henry VIII's answer to Luther, who was said, in a preface to the English version of this answer, which appeared early in 1527, to have fallen "into device with one or two lewd persons born in this our realm for the translating of the New Testament into English, as well with many corruptions of that holy text, as certain prefaces and pestilent glosses in the margins, for the advancement and setting forth of his abominable heresies." In 1530 Tyndale finished printing at Marburg his translation of the Pentateuch. In this work he had been helped by Miles Coverdale, a Yorkshireman, who had been an Austin friar at Cambridge, but there was drawn to the opinions of the Church Reformers, and brought into danger that obliged him to escape to the Continent. At the close of 1534, the English clergy in convocation, aided by Thomas Cromwell, carried a petition to the king for an authorised Bible in English. On the 22nd of June, 1535, John Fisher, then eighty years of age, was beheaded on Tower Hill; a fortnight afterwards, on the 6th of July, Sir Thomas More was executed. In the following year, 1536, on the 6th of October, William Tyndale, condemned by the Privy Council of Brussels, was strangled and burnt at Vilvorde, his last words being, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes!" In the same year Tyndale's New Testament was first printed in England, and the completed translation of the whole Bible by Miles Coverdale was admitted into England. In the next year, 1537, it was printed in England. In July of that year appeared a complete English Bible in folio, formed by revi sion of the translations of Tyndale and Coverdale,

and addition of the Apocrypha, by John Rogers, a Birmingham man, who had been their ally when they were at Antwerp and Rogers was chaplain to the English merchants there. John Rogers's was known as Matthew's Bible, because Thomas Matthew was the name upon its title page. Thomas Cromwell, who was then in search of a version that could be authorised, sent Coverdale to Paris, where he was to superintend the finishing of the Bible known as Cromwell's; and, at the same time, Cromwell employed Richard Taverner, an Oxford Reformer, then at court, on the printing of a revision of Rogers's (or Matthew's) Bible. In 1539 there appeared the results of both these endeavours in Taverner's Bible, and that known as Cromwell's (or the Great) Bible. These were followed in 1540 by the revision planned by Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury, and based on direct collation with the Hebrew and Greek texts. This Bible, to which Cranmer wrote a Prologue, at last satisfied the requirements of the time, was authorised, and continued for twenty-eight years to be read in churches.

In the same year, 1540, Clement Marot had presented to Charles V., then a visitor to Francis I., in Paris, the thirty Psalms which he had by that time translated into French verse, and dedicated to King Francis. The dedication was followed by a metrical address to the ladies of France, in which Marot asked, "When will the Golden Time come wherein God alone is adored, praised, sung as He ordains, and His glory shall not be given to another?" He exhorted the ladies of France to banish unclean songs from their lips. "Here," he said, "is matter without offence to sing. But no songs please you that are not of Love. Certes, they are of nothing else but Love; Love itself, by Supreme Wisdom, was their composer, and vain man was the transcriber only. That Love gave you language and voices for your notes of praise. It is a Love that will not torment your hearts, but fill your whole souls with the pleasure angels share. For His Spirit will come into your hearts, and stir your lips, and guide your fingers on the spinet towards holy strains. O happy he who shall see the blossoming of that time when the rustic at his plough, the driver in the street, the workman in his shop, solaces labour with the praise of God! Shall that time come sooner to them than to you? Begin, Ladies, begin! Help on the Golden Age, and singing with gentle hearts these sacred strains, exchange the everchanging God of Foolish Love, for the God of a Love that will not change." Marot's wish was in part fulfilled, for it became a fashion at the French court to sing psalms of his translating set to lively tunes. Ten thousand copies of Marot's thirty Psalms in French were sold soon after they were printed. Music, written for them by Guillaume Franc, was afterwards printed with them. Marot's thirty Psalms, to which twenty were added, even Calvin adopted and published, with a preface of his own, for use at Geneva. They became the basis of the Psalter of the French Protestant Church, which was completed by Theodore Beza. At the English court the Earl of Surrey then wrote paraphrases in verse of the 8th, 55th, 73rd, and 88th Psalms, as well as of the first five chapters of Ecclesiastes; Sir

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Thomas Wyat versified the Penitential Psalms, the 6th, 32nd, 38th, 51st, 102nd, 130th, and 143rd, with a Prologue and connecting stanzas of his own. the Psalms put into music by Surrey only the 8th was in Marot's collection; but of those chosen by Wyat, all except the 102nd are among the fifty that were chosen by Marot. Another English versifier of the Psalms at Henry VIII.'s court was Thomas Sternhold, groom of the Robes to his Majesty. It was Sternhold's expressed desire to do in England with the Psalms what had been done by Marot in France, "thinking thereby that the courtiers would sing them instead of their sonnets; but did not, some few excepted." Sternhold, who died in 1549, published in 1548, Certayne Psalms," nineteen in number. After his death next year there appeared immediately "All such Psalms of David as Thomas Sternhold, late grome of the King's Majestyes Robes, did in his lyfe time drawe into Englysshe metre." This contained thirty-seven Psalms by Sternhold, with seven by John Hopkins, a Suffolk clergyman and schoolmaster. Hopkins, with help of others, laboured on until there was produced a complete metrical setting of the Psalms in English for congregational singing. It appeared in 1562, was in the same year adopted for use in the Church of England, and appended to the Book of Common Prayer. One of the "apt tunes," provided for the 100th Psalm, and known to us now as the Old Hundredth, was a tune that had been provided by Goudimel and Lejeune for the French version of the Psalms by Clement Marot. This is one of the Psalms paraphrased by the Earl of Surrey :

PROEM.

Where reckless youth in an unquiet breast,
Set on by wrath, revenge and cruelty,
After long war patiënce had oppressed,
And justice, wrought by princely equity:
My Denny then, mine error deep imprest,
Began to work despair of liberty;
Had not David, the perfect warrior taught,
That of my fault thus pardon should be sought.

PSALM LXXXVIII.

O Lord! upon whose will dependeth my welfare,

To call upon thy holy name, since day nor night I spare, Grant that the just request of this repentant mind

So pierce thine ears, that in thy sight some favour it may find.

My soul is fraughted full with grief of follies past;

My restless body doth consume, and death approacheth fast; Like them whose fatal thread, thy hand hath cut in twain; Of whom there is no further bruit, which in their graves remain.

O Lord! thou hast me cast headlong, to please my foe,
Into a pit all bottomless, whereas I plain my woe.
The burden of thy wrath it doth me sore oppress:

And sundry storms thou hast me sent of terror and distress.

My durance doth persuade of freedom such despair, That by the tears that bain my breast mine eyesight doth appair.2

Yet do I never cease thine aid for to desire,
With humble heart and stretched hands, for to appease
thine ire.

Wherefore dost thou forbear in the defence of thine,
To show such tokens of thy power in sight of Adam's line

Whereby each feeble heart with faith might so be fed, That in the mouth of thy elect thy mercies might be spread?

The flesh that feedeth worms cannot thy love declare; Nor such set forth thy praise as dwell in the land of despair.

In blind induréd3 hearts light of thy lively name
Cannot appear, nor cannot judge the brightness of the

same.

Nor blazed may thy name be by the mouths of those Whom death hath shut in silence, so as they may not

disclose.

The lively voice of them that in thy Word delight, Must be the trump that must resound the glory of thy might;

Wherefore I shall not cease, in chief of my distress To call on Thee, till that the sleep my wearied limbs oppress,

And in the morning eke when that the sleep is fled, With floods of salt repentant tears to wash my restless bed.

Within this careful mind, burdened with care and grief, Why dost thou not appear, O Lord! that shouldst be his relief?

My wretched state behold, whom death shall straight assail;

Of one, from youth afflicted still, that never did but wail.
The dread, lo! of thine ire hath trod me under feet:
The scourges of thine angry hand hath made death seem
full sweet.

Like as the roaring waves the sunken ship surround,
Great heaps of care did swallow me, and I no succour

found:

For they whom no mischance could from my love divide, Are forcéd, for my greater grief, from me their face to hide.

This is, with its Introduction, one of the Psalms paraphrased by Sir Thomas Wyat: the Introduction is in the Italian octave rhyme, established by Boccaccio, the Psalm itself is in terza rima, the measure of Dante's Divine Comedy :

THE AUTHOR.

When David had perceivéd in his breast
The Spirit of God return, that was exil'd;
Because he knew he hath alone express'd

These great things that the greater Spirit compil'd;

The faithful friends are fled and banished from my sight: And such as I have held full dear, have set my friendship light.

1 Bain, bathe.

2 Appair, impair.

3 Indured, hardened.

As shawm or pipe lets out the sound impress'd

By music's art forged tofore, and fil'd;

I say, when David had perceived this, The spirit of comfort in him revived is.

For thereupon he maketh argument

Of reconciling, unto the Lord's grace; Although sometime to prophecy have lent

Both brute beastés, and wicked hearts a place. But our David judgeth in his intent

Himself by penance clean out of this case;
Whereby he hath remission of offence,
And ginn'th t' allow his pain and penitence.

But when he weight'h the fault and recompense,
He damneth his deed; and findeth plain
Atween them two no whit equivalence,
Whereby he takes all outward deed in vain,
To bear the name of rightful penitence:

Which is alone the heart returned again And sore contrite, that doth his fault bemoan; And outward deed the sign or fruit alone.

With this he doth defend the sly assault
Of vain allowance of his void desert,
And all the glory of his forgiven fault,

To God alone he doth it whole convert;
His own merít he findeth in default:

And whilst he ponder'd these things in his heart, His knee his arm, his hand sustained his chin, When he his song again thus did begin.

PSALM CXXX.

From depth of sin, and from a deep despair,
From depth of death, from depth of heart's sorrow,
From this deep cave of darkness deep repair,

Thee have I called, O Lord! to be my borrów.
Thou in my voice, O Lord! perceive and hear
My heart, my hope, my plaint, my overthrow,

My will to rise; and let, by grant, appear
That to my voice thine ears do well entend.
No place so far that to Thee is not near,

No depth so deep that thou ne may'st extend
Thine ear thereto; hear then my woeful plaint,
For, Lord, if thou do observe what men offend,

And put thy native mercy in restraint;

If just exaction demand recompence,
Who may endure, O Lord! who shall not faint

At such accompt? dread, and not reverence
Should so reign large: but thou seeks rather love;
For in thy hand is Mercy's residence,

By hope whereof Thou dost our heartés move.
I in the Lord have set my confidence;
My soul such trust doth evermore approve.

Thy Holy Word of eterne excellence,

Thy mercy's promise that is alway just,
Have been my stay, my pillar, and pretence.
My soul in God hath more desirous trust,
Than hath the watchman looking for the day,
By the relief to quench of sleep the thrust.

In the year of the executions of John Fisher and Sir Thomas More (1535), Hugh Latimer, then about forty-five years old, was made Bishop of Worcester in place of a non-resident Italian who was deprived of the office. Hugh Latimer, son of a small farmer at Thurcaston, in Leicestershire, had graduated at Cambridge, and attacked opinions of the Reformers in his oration made on taking his B.D. degree. Thomas Bilney, who was burnt for his Reformed opinions in 1531, heard Latimer speak, went afterwards to his room, and talked over with him privately the matter of his oration. The result was that Latimer's opinions greatly changed. As he opposed the Pope at a time when Henry VIII. had broken with Rome, Latimer was introduced to the king in 1530 by his physician, Dr. Butts, preached before him, and became his chaplain. In 1531 the king gave him a rectory in Wiltshire, at West Kington. Here his plain speaking as a preacher brought Latimer into difficulty. He was accused of heresy, excommunicated, and imprisoned, but the king protected him, and next year also his friend Cranmer became archbishop; so that in 1535 Latimer became, as has been said, Bishop of Worcester. He held that office only until 1539, when the king dictated to Parliament, and imposed as domestic Pope upon the English people, an "Act Abolishing Diversity of Opinions." It required all men, under severe penalties, to adopt the king's opinions which were those of the Church of Romeupon six questions then in dispute: transubstantiation, the confessional, vows of chastity, private masses, denial of the cup to the people at communion, and celibacy of priests. Hugh Latimer, who

could not retain his bishopric by a compliance with this act, resigned, and was silenced for the rest of Henry's reign. When the king died, Latimer was still a prisoner in the Tower, and in danger of his life. Then came, at the end of January, 1547, Edward VI. to the throne. He was but ten years old, and was to come of age at eighteen. During those eight years-which he did not live to complete, for he died in his sixteenth year-Cranmer was among the sixteen executors to whom regal power was entrusted, and his maternal uncle, the Earl of Hertford, created Duke of Somerset-hitherto a secret friend, and now an open friend of the Reformersbecame Lord Protector.

EDWARD VI. (From the Portrait by Holbein.).

There was thus a sudden change of the force of authority in the direction to which the Reformers pointed. Latimer, released from the Tower, preached at Paul's Cross on the 1st of January, 1548. The Parliament proposed to reinstate him in his bishopric, but he preferred to remain free, and speak his heart on all that concerned the religious life of England and of Englishmen, with his own homely directness that went straight to its mark. In January, 1549, he preached in the Shrouds,' at St. Paul's, his sermon on the Ploughers, by which he meant the clergy bound to labour in the field of God. He insisted much on faithful preaching, and in this characteristic passage warned his hearers who was

THE BUSIEST PRELATE IN ENGLAND.

Well, I would all men would look to their duty, as God hath called them, and then we should have a flourishing Christian Commonweal. And now I would ask a strange question. Who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in

1 The Shrouds were covered places by the side of old St. Paul's which might be used by the preacher and audiences at Paul's Cross in case of bad weather. The name was given also to the old church of St. Faith, in the crypt under the cathedral, when that was chosen as the place of shelter.

all England, and passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who he is; I know him well. But now methinks I see you listening and hearkening, that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you. It is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other. He is never out of his diocese, he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied, he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times, ye shall never find him out of the way; call for him when ye will, he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm, he is ever at his plough; no lording nor loitering may hinder him, he is ever applying his business; ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is as ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plough, to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devil is resident, and hath his plough going, there away with books, and up with candles; away with Bibles, and up with beads; away with the light of the Gospel, and up with the light of candles, yea at noon days. Where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, up with all superstition and idolatry, censing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new service of men's inventing, as though man could invent a better way to honour God with than God himself hath appointed. Down with Christ's cross, up with Purgatory pickpurse-up with Popish Purgatory, I mean. Away with clothing the naked, the poor and impotent, up with decking of images, and gay garnishing of stocks and stones; up with man's traditions and his laws, down with God's will and His most holy Word. Down with the old honour due unto God, and up with the new god's honour. Let all things be done in Latin. There must be nothing but Latin, not so much as Memento homo quod cinis es, et in cinerem reverteris-" Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and into ashes thou shalt return." What be the words that the minister speaketh to the ignorant people, when he giveth them ashes upon Ash-Wednesday, but they must be spoken in Latin? And in no wise they must be translated into English. Oh, that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine, as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel. And this is the devilish ploughing, the which worketh to have things in Latin, and hindereth the fruitful edification. But here some man will say to me, "What, sir, are ye so privy to the devil's council, that ye know all this to be true?" Truly, I know him too well, and have obeyed him a little too much, in condescending to some follies; and I know him, as other men do, that he is ever occupied, and ever busied in following the plough. I know him by St. Peter's words, which saith of him, Sicut leo rugiens circuit quærens quem devoret-" He goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." I would have this text well viewed, and examined every word of it. Circuit, he goeth about every corner of his diocese; he goeth on visitation daily, and leaveth no place of his cure unvisited; he walketh round about from place to place, and ceaseth not. Sicut leo, as a lion-that is, strongly, boldly, fiercely, and proudly, with haughty looks, with a proud countenance, and stately braggings. Rugiens, roaring, for he letteth not slip any occasion to speak or to roar out when he seeth his time. Quærens, he goeth about seeking, and not sleeping, as our bishops do, but he seeketh diligently-he searcheth diligently all corners, where as he may have his prey. He roveth abroad in every place of his diocese-he standeth not still, he is never at rest, but ever in hand with his plough that it may go forward.