Not Without Witness – Part One

From 1521 onwards the “White Horse” in Cambridge was increasingly fre­quented by scholars from the schools who met together to discuss the Scriptures. Among them was William Tyndale, a noble and generous-hearted Englishman. His style of writing is at once gentle yet compelling. He could see that, stripped of its horrid masks of Romish superstition and paganism, the gospel of Jesus was meant to be a joyous, comforting, uplifting, soul-stirring message He was always writing of the “glad tidings “a man can hear no more joyous a thing than the glad and comfortable tidings of Christ, so that he cannot but be glad and laugh from the low bottom of his heart, if he believe that the tidings are true” As with all who feel the thrilling pulse of the message of love within, lie longed to impart it to others by making the Word available to all in their own tongue Only then would men learn how intolerable was as the Roman thraldom He could not understand how men could claim to be Christ’s and yet be unmoved by any urge to spread the good news ‘I do greatly marvel, dearly beloved in Christ,” he wrote, “that ever any man should repugn or speak against the Scripture to be had in every language and that of every man For I thought that no man had been so blind as to ask why light should be showed to them that walk in darkness ‘ He wrote instructions and notes to his translations of the books of the Bible In them he reveals what were then startlingly revolutionary interpretations Expounding Genesis 3 15, he says “Christ hath trodden under foot the devil’s head, that is to say sin and before all bad deeds, as bad fruit, there must be unbelief in the heart, as in the root which unbelief and ignorance is called the head of the serpent, of the old dragon, which the woman’s seed, Christ, must tread under foot as promised ” Again, in “A Path­way into the Holy Scripture” (1525) ‘The plunging of the body under the water signifyeth that we repent and profess to fight against sin and lusts and kill them every day more and more with the help of God ” It is “faith in the promises of God” which saves, not the sacraments of the church Perhaps most interesting is his “Exposition upon Certain Words in Holy Scripture,” where he explains that gehenna is the “valley of Hennon, a place by Jerusalem” where the rejected will be cast “after the general judgment,” while hades is any manner of place beneath the earth, as a grave, sepulchre or cave ” Because he wanted to carry light into the darkness, this gentle man was hunted down and killed.

At the same time a similar gathering together of independent Bible students was taking place some hundreds of miles away in the Swiss city of Zurich One of them, Felix Manx, gathered around him a group of likeminded folk He was so intent on conformity to the Word that he used the Scriptures in the original lang­uages in preaching, translating as he went along The group began “believers bap­tism” and “celebration of the Supper in the same simple way ” They came to a realization that the “Reformation” which was then taking place through the influence of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli was very far from a return to the doctrines of early Apostolic Christianity. It was still far closer to Rome than it was to Christ The simple Scriptural beliefs and practice of this group were in great contrast to the power-seeking political aspirations of the “reformers ” Not all their tenets are known, but there is evidence that in theology they were both mortalist and anti­trinitarian It is admitted, says one authority, that they were “quiet, pious, law-abiding people, with some oddities due to their strictness They stood for a church composed of (baptised) believers only and complete freedom for the individual conscience * “They refused to bear arms, to serve as civil officers, and to take the oath” They considered that religion should be supported by voluntary donations not ecclesiastical taxes, and viewed all their possessions as not their own, but God’s, with themselves as stewards having the duty of using them for relief of the needy They called themselves ‘ Taufer,” the Baptizers All these scriptural ideals were utterly intolerable to the so-called “Reformers” like Zwingli, Luther and company. Manx and others were imprisoned, but through some connivance they escaped. The “protestant” Zurich authorities re-arrested him, and he was given a trial as inquisa­torial as any under popery. Convicted of “heresy,” he was put to death by drowning.

His friends were hunted out. imprisoned, fined and flogged. The group was dispersed, with the result that their influence grew elsewhere in Switzerland. So there began a terrible persecution by the “reformers” throughout Switzerland. In Berne forty members were put to death, and similar numbers suffered similarly elsewhere. By 1532 all the leaders were dead. “The movement lay in ruins, destroyed by the civil power.” Hundreds fled to Austria, but they were hunted down as savagely by the Catholic authorities there and most of them were massacred. Others found temporary refuge in Moravia. Among them was Hubmaier. He is described as “learned, eloquent, free from fanaticism, without rancour in debate, a careful exegete, possessed of an excellent literary style: he set forth with force and clearness the great principles that characterized his people.” It is interesting to find a secular historian referring to the things which we hold dear as “great principles.” However, Hubmaier was betrayed by the Moravian authorities and taken to Vienna. There was no chance of mercy there and he was burnt at the stake as a public spectacle. Some fugitives made their way to Poland, but there they received no better treatment. Women and men were treated alike. It is reported that in Krakow a certain Catherine Vogel was subjected to many terrible torments and finally roasted alive for the heinous crime of believing in the “existence of one God.” The incredible savagery with which the supposedly Christian churches of Europe, Protestant as well as Catholic, sought to exterminate people who only wanted peace to worship God according to His Word is sad reading. But it ought to help us to appreciate and use our own privileges.

But the worst efforts of Satan to stamp out the Truth entirely were ineffective. “Heretics” (and in many places Bibles) might be burnt, but the Word had been unfettered from the chains of the Latin Vulgate and here and there all over Europe groups of faithful adherents to the primitive gospel came into being. They used various names: “Apostolic Christians,” “Brethren,” “Believing baptised children of God,” and so on. Ecclesial life as we understand it was impossible. They had always to be on the move, hiding their identity. A tract on the true nature of man preserved in a London library has a Dutch imprint to disguise the identity of the London printer. Another tract about 1535 in the Guildhall opposes as unscriptural the episcopal notion (still held) that at ordination ministers “receive the Holy Ghost.” At this period also appears a delightful word to describe the practice of infant sprinkling: “babism!”