Loading…
Chapter 14—Truth Advances in Britain
While Luther was opening a closed Bible to the people of Germany, the Spirit of God was leading Tyndale to do the same for England. Wycliffe had translated the Bible from the Latin text, which had many errors. The cost of manuscript copies was so great that not many were produced. 5TC 145.2
In 1516, for the first time the New Testament was printed in the original Greek language. This printing corrected many errors of former versions and conveyed the meaning more clearly. It led many of the educated people to a better knowledge of truth and gave a new energy to the work of reform. But to a great extent the common people were still shut away from God's Word. Tyndale would complete Wycliffe's work in giving the Bible to the people of England. 5TC 145.3
He preached his convictions fearlessly. To the Catholic 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.”1J. H. Merle D'Aubigné, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, book 18, chapter 4. 5TC 146.1
Tyndale's preaching stirred up great interest. But the priests tried to destroy his work. “What can be done?” he exclaimed. “I cannot be everywhere. Oh, if Christians just possessed the Holy Scriptures in their own language, they themselves could resist these clever deceivers. Without the Bible it is impossible to establish the people in the truth.”2J. H. Merle D'Aubigné, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, book 18, chapter 4. 5TC 146.2
A new purpose now took hold of his mind. “Shouldn’t the gospel speak the language of England among us? ... Should the church have less light at noonday than at the dawn, when it began? ... Christians must read the New Testament in their mother tongue.”3J. H. Merle D'Aubigné, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, book 18, chapter 4. Only by the Bible could people arrive at the truth. 5TC 146.3
In a dispute with Tyndale an educated Catholic exclaimed, “We would be better off without God's laws than the pope's.” Tyndale replied, “I defy the pope and all his laws; and if God spares my life, in a few years I will see to it that a boy driving a plow knows more of the Bible than you do.”4Anderson, Annals of the English Bible (revised edition, 1862), page 19. 5TC 146.4
Tyndale Translates the New Testament Into English
Driven from home by persecution, Tyndale went to London and for a while worked there undisturbed. But again the Catholic officials forced him to leave. All England seemed closed against him. In Germany he began the printing of the English New Testament. When he was forbidden to print in one city, he went to another. He finally made his way to Worms, where Luther had defended the gospel before the assembly a few years before. There were many friends of the Reformation in that city. Three thousand copies of the New Testament were soon finished, and another edition followed. 5TC 146.5
The Word of God was taken to London secretly and circulated throughout the country. Catholic officials tried to suppress the truth, but they failed. The bishop of Durham bought a bookseller's whole stock of Bibles in order to destroy them, thinking that this would harm the work. But the money this provided bought material for a new and better edition. Later, when Tyndale was taken prisoner, he was offered freedom if he would reveal the names of those who helped him with the expense of printing his Bibles. He replied that the bishop of Durham had done more than any other person by paying a large price for the books left in stock. 5TC 146.6
Tyndale finally witnessed for his faith by a martyr's death, but the weapons he prepared enabled other soldiers to do battle through the centuries, even down to our own time. 5TC 147.1
Latimer said from the pulpit that the Bible ought to be read in the language of the people. “Let us not take any side paths, but let God's word direct us. Let us not walk after ... our forefathers, nor seek not what they did, but what they should have done.”5Hugh Latimer, “First Sermon Preached Before King Edward VI.” 5TC 147.2
Barnes and Frith, Ridley and Cranmer, leaders in the English Reformation, were men of learning, highly regarded for zeal or piety in the Catholic religion. They opposed the papacy because they knew the errors of the “holy see.” 5TC 147.3
Infallible Authority of Scripture
The grand principle that these Reformers maintained—the same that the Waldenses, Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Zwingli, and those with them also held—was the infallible authority of Scripture. By its teaching they tested all doctrines and all claims. Faith in God's Word sustained these holy men as they yielded up their lives at the stake. “Be of good comfort,” exclaimed Latimer to his fellow martyr as the flames were about to silence their voices. “Today, by God's grace, we will light such a candle in England as I believe will never be put out.”6Works of Hugh Latimer, volume 1, page xiii. 5TC 147.4
For hundreds of years after the churches of England submitted to Rome, the churches in Scotland kept their freedom. In the twelfth century, however, Catholicism became established, and in no country was the darkness deeper. Still, rays of light came to pierce the gloom. The Lollards came from England with the Bible and the teachings of Wycliffe, and they did much to preserve the knowledge of the gospel. With the opening of the Reformation came Luther's writings and Tyndale's English New Testament. These messengers silently passed through the mountains and valleys, fanning into new life the torch of truth that had so nearly died out and undoing the work that four centuries of oppression had done. 5TC 147.5
Then, suddenly realizing the danger, the Catholic leaders brought to the stake some of the noblest men in Scotland. These dying witnesses filled the hearts of the people throughout the land with an undying determination to cast off the chains of Rome. 5TC 148.1
John Knox
Hamilton and Wishart, with a long line of less prominent disciples, yielded up their lives at the stake. But from the burning pile of Wishart another man came forward whom the flames were not to silence, one who under God was to end the power of Rome in Scotland. 5TC 148.2
John Knox turned away from the traditions of the church to feed on the truths of God's Word. The teaching of Wishart confirmed his decision to forsake Rome and join the persecuted Reformers. 5TC 148.3
His companions urged him to preach, but he trembled with fear at its responsibility. Only after days of painful conflict with himself did he consent. But once he had accepted the position, he pressed ahead with unfailing courage. This truehearted Reformer had no fear of anyone. When he was brought face-to-face with the queen of Scotland, John Knox was not to be won by favors, nor did he lose courage in the face of threats. The queen said that he had taught the people to receive a religion prohibited by the state, and so he had transgressed God's command for subjects to obey their princes. Knox answered firmly: “If all the descendants of Abraham had followed the religion of Pharaoh, whose subjects they were for many years, I ask you, madam, what religion would there have been in the world? Or if everyone in the days of the apostles had followed the religion of the Roman emperors, what religion would there have been on the face of the earth?” 5TC 148.4
Mary said, “You interpret the Scriptures in one way, and they [Roman Catholics] interpret in another; whom shall I believe, and who shall be judge?” 5TC 148.5
“You shall believe God, who plainly speaks in His word,” answered the Reformer. “The word of God is plain in itself; and if any obscurity appears in one place, the Holy Spirit, who never contradicts Himself, explains it more clearly in other places.”7David Laing, The Collected Works of John Knox, volume 2, pages 281, 284. 5TC 149.1
At the risk of his life and with unfailing courage, the fearless Reformer kept at his mission, until Scotland was free from Catholicism. 5TC 149.2
In England the establishment of Protestantism as the national religion reduced the persecution but did not stop it completely. Many of Rome's forms were retained. Protestants rejected the supremacy of the pope, but in his place they enthroned the king as head of the church. The religion still departed widely from the purity of the gospel. English Protestants did not yet understand religious liberty. Though the Protestant rulers rarely resorted to the horrible cruelties that Rome employed, they did not acknowledge the right of all to worship God according to their own consciences. Dissenters suffered persecution for hundreds of years. 5TC 149.3
Thousands of Pastors Expelled
In the seventeenth century, thousands of pastors were expelled, and the people were forbidden to attend any religious meetings except those that the church approved. In the sheltering depths of the forest, those persecuted children of the Lord met together to pour out their hearts in prayer and praise. Many suffered for their faith. The jails were crowded, families broken up. Yet persecution could not silence their testimony. Many were driven across the ocean to America, and there they laid the foundations of civil and religious liberty. 5TC 149.4
In a dungeon crowded with criminals, John Bunyan breathed the atmosphere of heaven and wrote his wonderful allegory of the pilgrim's journey from the land of destruction to the heavenly city. Pilgrim's Progress and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners have guided many feet into the path of life. 5TC 149.5
In a time of spiritual darkness, Whitefield and the Wesleys appeared as light bearers for God. Under the established church the people had fallen into a condition that was hardly different from heathenism. The higher classes sneered at godly living; the lower classes reveled in vice. The church had no courage or faith to support the struggling cause of truth. 5TC 149.6
Justification by Faith
People had almost completely lost sight of the great doctrine of justification by faith that Luther had taught so clearly. The Catholic principle of trusting to good works for salvation had taken its place. Whitefield and the Wesleys were sincere seekers for God's favor. They had been taught that they could obtain it by living uprightly and by keeping the rules of the church. 5TC 150.1
Once when Charles Wesley became ill and expected to die soon, someone asked him on what basis he hoped to have eternal life. His answer: “I have used my best efforts to serve God.” The friend did not seem fully satisfied with this answer. Wesley thought: “What! ... Would he rob me of my efforts? I have nothing else in which to trust.”8John Whitehead, Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, page 102. This was the kind of darkness that had settled on the church, turning people from their only hope of salvation—the blood of the crucified Redeemer. 5TC 150.2
Wesley and his associates came to see that God's law extends to the thoughts as well as to the words and actions. By diligent and prayerful efforts they tried to subdue the evils of the natural heart. They lived a life of self-denial and humiliation, carefully following every practice that they thought could help them become holy enough to win God's favor. But their efforts failed to free them from sin's condemnation or to break its power. 5TC 150.3
The fires of divine truth had nearly died out on the altars of Protestantism, but they were about to be relit from the ancient torch handed down by the Christians of Bohemia. Some of these, who found safety in Saxony, kept the ancient faith alive. Light came to Wesley from these Christians. 5TC 150.4
John and Charles Wesley were sent on a mission to America. A company of Moravians was also on board the ship. On the journey they encountered violent storms, and John, face to face with death, realized he did not have the assurance of peace with God. The Germans showed a calmness and trust that he didn’t know. “Long before this,” he said, “I had observed the great seriousness of their behavior.... Now there was an opportunity to see whether they were delivered from the spirit of fear, as well as from that of pride, anger, and revenge. In the middle of the psalm that began their religious service, the sea broke over the ship, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sang on. I asked one of them afterwards, ‘Were you not afraid?’ He answered, ‘I thank God, no.’ I asked, ‘But were not your women and children afraid?’ He replied calmly, ‘No, our women and children are not afraid to die.’”9John Whitehead, Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, page 10. 5TC 150.5
Wesley's Heart “Strangely Warmed”
When he returned to England, Wesley gained a clearer understanding of Bible faith under the instruction of a Moravian. At a meeting of the Moravian society in London someone read a statement from Luther. As Wesley listened, faith stirred in him. “I felt my heart strangely warmed,” he says. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, and God gave me assurance that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”10John Whitehead, Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, page 52. 5TC 151.1
Now he had found that the grace he had worked so hard to win by prayers and fasts and self-denial was a gift, “without money and without price.” His whole heart filled with the desire to spread the glorious gospel of God's free grace everywhere. “I see all the world as my parish,” he said. “In whatever part of it I am, I consider it fitting, right, and my solemn duty, to declare the glad tidings of salvation to all who are willing to hear.”11John Whitehead, Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, page 74. 5TC 151.2
He continued his strict and self-denying life, but now it was not the basis for his faith, but the result of it; not the root, but the fruit of holiness. The grace of God in Christ will show itself in obedience. Wesley devoted his life to preaching the great truths he had received—justification through faith in Christ's atoning blood, and the renewing power of the Holy Spirit on the heart, which produces fruit in a life that follows Christ's example. 5TC 151.3
In their university days, George Whitefield and the Wesleys were contemptuously called “Methodists” by their ungodly fellow students—a name regarded as honorable today. The Holy Spirit urged them to preach Christ and Him crucified, and thousands were truly converted. It was necessary to protect these sheep from the prowling wolves. John Wesley had no thought of forming a new denomination, but he organized the converts under what was called the Methodist Connection. 5TC 152.1
The opposition that these preachers met from the established church was mysterious and trying, but the truth found entrance where doors would otherwise remain closed. Some of the pastors awoke from their moral stupor and became zealous preachers in their own districts. 5TC 152.2
In Wesley's time, people of different gifts did not agree on every point of doctrine. At one point, the differences between Whitefield and the Wesleys threatened to divide them, but as they learned meekness in the school of Christ, mutual restraint and goodwill brought them back together. They had no time to dispute while error and sin were all around them. 5TC 152.3
Wesley Escapes Death
Influential people tried to stop them. Many pastors were hostile, and they closed the doors of the churches against a pure faith. The pastors who denounced the Reformers from the pulpit stirred up the elements of darkness and evil. John Wesley escaped death again and again by a miracle of God's mercy. When there seemed no way to escape, an angel in human form came to his side, the mob fell back, and the servant of Christ walked away from the danger in safety. 5TC 152.4
Speaking of one such deliverance, Wesley said: “Although many tried to take hold of my collar or clothes, to pull me down, they could not hold on at all. Only one got a firm grip on the flap of my vest, which was soon left in his hand; the other flap, covering a pocket in which was a bank note, was only half torn off.... A vigorous man just behind me struck at me several times with a large oak stick. If he had struck me with it once on the back of my head, it would have saved him all further trouble. But every time, the blow was turned aside, I don’t know how, for I could not move to the right or the left.”12John Wesley, Works, volume 3, pages 297, 298. 5TC 152.5
The Methodists of those days endured ridicule and persecution, and often violence. In some cases, people posted signs inviting those who wanted to break the windows and rob the houses of the Methodists to gather at a certain time and place. Unbelievers carried on systematic persecution against a group of people whose only fault was that they tried to turn sinners to the path of holiness. 5TC 153.1
To a great degree, the spiritual decline in England just before the time of Wesley had resulted from teaching that Christ had done away with the moral law and that Christians are under no obligation to keep it. Others declared that it was unnecessary for ministers to urge the people to obey its teachings, since those whom God had chosen for salvation would “be led to a life of piety and virtue,” while those doomed to eternal damnation “did not have power to obey the divine law.” 5TC 153.2
Others believed that “the ones God has chosen to save cannot fall from grace nor lose God's favor.” This led them to the dreadful conclusion that “the wicked actions they commit are not really sinful, ... and that, consequently, they have no reason either to confess their sins or to break them off by repentance.”13McClintock & Strong, Cyclopedia, article “Antinomians.” So, they concluded, even one of the worst sins “that everyone considers an enormous violation of the divine law is not a sin in the sight of God” if committed by one of God's chosen ones. “They cannot do anything that is either displeasing to God or prohibited by the law.” 5TC 153.3
These shocking doctrines are essentially the same as the later teaching that there is no unchangeable divine law as the standard of right, but that morality is something that society itself decides and is constantly subject to change. All these ideas are inspired by Satan, who among the sinless inhabitants of heaven began his work to break down the righteous restraints of God's law. 5TC 153.4
The doctrine that divine decrees made people's characters unchangeable had led many to reject the law of God. Wesley firmly opposed this doctrine that led to lawless living. “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” “God our Savior ... desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” Christ is “the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.” (Titus 2:11; 1 Timothy 2:3-6; John 1:9.) People lose out on salvation because of their own willful refusal to accept the gift of life. 5TC 153.5
In Defense of the Law of God
In answer to the claim that Christ's death had abolished the Ten Commandments along with the ceremonial law, Wesley said: “The moral law, contained in the Ten Commandments and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away. This is a law that can never be broken, which ‘stands firm as the faithful witness in heaven.’” 5TC 154.1
Wesley declared that the law and the gospel were in perfect harmony. “On the one hand, the law continually makes way for the gospel and points us to it. On the other hand, the gospel continually leads us to fulfill the law more exactly. For instance, the law requires us to love God, to love our neighbor, to be meek, humble, or holy. We feel that we are not able to do these things.... But we see a promise of God to give us this love and to make us humble, meek, and holy. We lay hold of this gospel, this good news.... ‘The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us,’ through faith in Christ Jesus.... 5TC 154.2
“Among the worst enemies of the gospel of Christ,” said Wesley, “are people who ... teach others to break ... not only one commandment, whether of the least or of the greatest, but all the commandments at once.... They honor Him just as Judas did when he said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi,’ and kissed Him.... It is nothing less than betraying Him with a kiss, to talk of His blood and take away His crown, to make light of any part of His law under the pretense of advancing His gospel.”14Wesley, Sermon 25. 5TC 154.3
Harmony of Law and Gospel
To those who claimed that “the preaching of the gospel fulfills all the purposes of the law,” Wesley replied: “It does not fulfill the very first purpose of the law, which is to convict people of sin, awakening those who are still asleep on the brink of hell.... It is absurd, therefore, to offer a physician to those who are well, or who at least imagine that they are well. You must first convince them that they are sick; otherwise they will not appreciate your efforts. It is equally absurd to offer Christ to those whose hearts are whole, having never been broken.”15Wesley, Sermon 35. 5TC 154.4
While preaching the gospel of the grace of God, Wesley, like Jesus his Master, tried to “exalt the law and make it honorable” (Isaiah 42:21). And he lived to see glorious results. At the close of more than half a century he spent in ministry, his followers numbered more than half a million. But we will not know how many people were lifted from the degradation of sin to a higher and purer life through his efforts until the whole family of the redeemed gather in the kingdom of God. His life presents a priceless lesson to every Christian. 5TC 155.1
If only the faith, untiring zeal, self-sacrifice, and devotion of this servant of Christ were reflected in the churches of today! 5TC 155.2