to hear, that in his will he commended his soul "unto Christ Jesus, my Maker and Redeemer, in whom, and by the merits of whose blessed passion, is all my whole trust of clean remission and forgiveness of my sins." Tyndale's zeal was inflamed by what he saw in London of clerical and prelatic pomp; and he sorrowfully "understood at the last, not only that there was no room in my Lord of London's palace to translate the New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England."

Wolsey and his minions were pursuing what they were bold enough to call the quarrel of God;" but they were aware that the world was "marvellously bent against" them. Their defenders are accustomed to refer, with an air of triumph, to the establishment of Cardinal College, Oxford; but the plea will not serve them. In this it is easy to detect "a grand systematic attempt, under the guise of learning, to retain the human mind in bondage; to prevent, if possible, the entrance of divine truth into England, and thus so far retard its progress in Europe. Here, it will be found, was, in embryo, what may be styled the first Jesuit College; projected, too, in the very year when Ignatius Loyola was no farther than Rome, imploring the benediction of the Pontiff, and seven years before he came begging into England. Well might Lord Herbert say, that the Cardinal thought, since printing could not be put down, it were best to set up learning against learning, and by introducing able persons to dispute, suspend the laity betwixt fear and controversy-as this, at the worst, would yet make them attentive to their superiors and teachers!"" From the land that seemed so unpropitious to his great design, Tyndale hastened to the Continent. "Solitary and alone," says our annalist, "he went out, as far as we yet know, and with the exception of the port to which he sailed, like the Patriarch of old, not knowing whither he went.' By faith, it may be truly said, he left his native country, not unmindful of it, but, on the contrary, loaded with a sense of genuine pity for its inhabitants, from the King downward." He sailed for Hamburgh, then much excited by religious questions; and it is probable that he remained there, at least throughout 1524. He denies any association at this time with Luther, -a thing asserted only under torture. Before the publishing of his New Testament, indeed, he did not see the illustrious German, nor set his foot in Saxony. Though he also disclaims assistance from prior English translators, and says "he had no man to counterfeit" (imitate), yet, according to Mr. Anderson, he brought out within two years an edition of Matthew, one of Mark, and two of the New Testament. Of the second of his amanuenses, 66 a Friar observant of the Franciscan order at Greenwich," he gives a curious account :

While I abode, a faithful companion, which now hath taken another voyage upon him, to preach Christ where, I suppose, He was never yet preached, (God, which put it in his heart thither to go, send His Spirit with him, comfort him, and bring his purpose to good effect!) one William Roye, a man somewhat crafty, when he cometh unto new acquaintance, and before he be thorough known, and namely, when all is spent, came unto me and offered his help. As long as he had no money, somewhat I

could rule him; but as soon as he had gotten him money, he became like himself again. Nevertheless, I suffered all things till that was ended, which I could not do alone without one, both to write and to help me to compare the texts together. When that was ended, I took my leave, and bade him farewell for our two lives, and, as men say, a day longer. After we were departed, (separated,) he went and gat him new friends, which thing to do, he passeth all that ever I yet knew.................(Vol. i., p. 49.)

In the spring of 1525, Tyndale and Roye arrived at Cologne. They quickly proceeded with the New Testament, in quarto; but when the printers were engaged on the tenth sheet, the work was interdicted by the alarmed authorities. Securing the sheets printed off, Tyndale hastened up the Rhine to Worms, where he enjoyed greater freedom, and prosecuted his design. It was a remarkable result that two editions appeared, instead of one. The interference at Cologne was procured by John Cochlæus; whose virulent and untiring enmity to the circulation of Scripture in any vernacular tongue was expressed in more than one hundred and twenty publications! This zealot, an exile at the time, speaking of himself in the third person, unblushingly relates the occurrences :-That he heard the printers boast, "when in their cups," that England would soon be Lutheran; that he invited these men to his own residence, and, when they were heated with wine," elicited all that they knew of Tyndale and his plans; that, disguising his anger, he pretended to admire the whole proceeding; and finally, that the arch deceiver prevailed on an influential patrician, and by his means on the Senate, to check the impression. The first of these points may render the remark not unseasonable, that Tyndale did not translate from Luther, as some of the enemies of both pretended. A fragment of the very book which was interrupted in the Cologne press, containing the "prologge " of fourteen pages, has been rescued from oblivion. "The first page of the sacred text is preceded by a large spirited cut of the Evangelist Matthew, at his work, dipping his pen the inkstand, held to him by an angel." Of the first and quarto New Testament, in three thousand copies, this is the only relic known to exist. The translator remained at Worms till 1527.

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The long-prevailing opinion that the first New Testament in English was printed at Antwerp, is subverted by Mr. Anderson's researches. He decides that it was the third edition that appeared in that city, a.d. 1526. The octavo printed at Worms, under Tyndale's eye, was the first issued; though the quarto was the first begun. This is the solution of a peculiar difficulty. The quarto had been described, and marked out for seizure: hence the size was changed, but the quarto was not consigned to oblivion. The two appear to have reached the designed shores about the same time, and to have been read in England early in 1526. Luther had entered Worms, surrounded by Electors, Princes, and an animated crowd: Tyndale came, humble and ungreeted, with his bale of printed sheets. But thence Luther, "hardly escaping," had been "carried off to his Patmos," his "castle on the heights of the Wartburg," quietly to translate his New Testament; and yet to Worms Tyndale repaired, with eye full-fixed on his kindred and unalterable purpose. One perfect copy of the octavo New Testament remains,-"the phoenix of the entire library " which it once enriched, now preserved in the Baptist Museum of Bristol. In this edition the prologue and glosses are omitted; * and, indeed, henceforth the motto of Tyndale and his devoted friend Fryth was, "THE SCRIPTURE WITHOUT NOTE OR COMMENT." ""I assure you,' said Tyndale, the very next year, to his Majesty's Ambassador, then hunting for him on the Continent, 'I assure you, if it would stand with the King's most gracious pleasure, to grant only a bare text of the Scriptures to be put forth among his people, I shall immediately make faithful promise never to write more?' And so

* The book with glosses was first condemned in England; the smaller volume meanwhile passing into wide circulation.

afterwards, in 1533, said Fryth, upon English ground, to the Lord Chancellor More; But this hath been offered you, is offered, and shall be offered. Grant that the word of God, I mean the text of Scripture, may go abroad in our English tongue; and my brother William Tyndale and I have done, and will promise you to write no more. If you will not grant this condition, then will we be doing while we have breath, and shew in few words that the Scripture doth in many, and so, at the least, save some.””

The hypercritical censors of Tyndale's work found heresy in every error of typography, and in every i that wanted a dot! Two thousand of these awful blemishes were catalogued; and Tunstal expatiated on the enormity, at St. Paul's, with ridiculous earnestness. Yet it could not be shown, even by this omnicaptious Prelate, that Tyndale sought to found a sect, or to gain for his own temples any chaplet that the world could award. From his first intention of anonymous publication he deviated, only for reasons which add to the praise of genuine modesty. But his zeal for the Bible alone, for A PURE TEXT,-is eloquent of lasting instruction. A voice which breaks from the tomb of all the martyrs, and becomes louder with the rush of ages, challenges our reverence and awakens us to profitable thought. The simple WORD confutes the principles from which ever-varying details of human error spring. It rebukes, by oracles that have descended from prescient wisdom, the follies that appear thousands of years after the canon is complete. It tears up by the root the wild efflorescence of a corrupt soil. The evidence of its sufficiency shall yet flash, with more than lightning's fire, on the misguided controversialists who would add to its power or "gild” its “refined gold." And bright the day when all shall confess that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Allusion has been made, more than once, to a man whose ambition knew no bound; whose sinuous policy implicated all Western Europe; who dared to lecture and reprove the Chair before which Monarchs trembled,— himself, nevertheless, hoping to be its future incumbent. But it may be observed that, before the introduction of the word of God, the power of WOLSEY was in some degree waning. His magnificence had absorbed the people's wealth, and his exactions had tried their patience to the uttermost. He was regarded as the enemy of liberty, and of equal laws. From his last demands an insurgent nation was relieved only by royal interference ; and the response was an acclaim, from all but the humbled Ecclesiastic, "God save the King!" The art of printing made him tremble. He saw, in prospect, a true republic of letters. Notions were spreading, that glared before him with more than spectral terrors. Not a few presumed to think that men, unaided by the Clergy, might "make their own way to heaven;" and that prayers in the native speech "might pierce heaven as well as Latin!" We have already marked the effort of Wolsey to divert and contract a stream which he knew not how to stem. Cardinal College was to be the centre of learning, influence, and orthodoxy,-to maintain, with most conservative tenacity, the ancient opinions. But there is ONE who can "turn the counsel of" diplomatists "into foolishness," "frustrate the tokens of the liars, and make diviners mad;" who can "drive back the tide," and bid the arrested sun scorch the enemies of His truth, or light its champions to signal and decisive victory.

(To be continued.)

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