Full Text for Church History 2- Volume 41 - Did England Become a Reformed Country? (Video)

File 41. >> I'm still thinking about Scotland. Since the English were instrumental in helping the Scots, did England also become a reformed country? >> Well, the answer to that is: Not exactly. Although in a certain respect, doctrinally, you can identify the English reformation of the 16th century with the reformed, it did have its peculiarities that make it different from some of the other reformed churches that we've talked about, whether Scotland, France, or Geneva or Switzerland. In particular, we have here a very close and personal involvement by the monarch in the course of the English reformation, and when it's all said and done, the monarch will be identified as the supreme governor of the church in England, and that's a little different from what we see in other places. Also, there are ways in which the English church never does change either its form of church government or its form of church worship so radically as was characteristic of other reformed countries. So there's a way in which the reformation in England forms yet another kind of reformation. But I would like to talk with you about the course of the reformation in England. Even before the 16th century, way back into the 14th century, there had been severe critics of the established medieval religion. I'm thinking especially of John Wycliffe and his followers who were known as Lollards. Wycliffe and his folders were condemned as heretics. Wycliffe died, but his followers persisted in his movement. They formed actually kind of an underground church in England in the late Middle Ages. Then, too, in the late 15th and early 16th century, England produced humanist reformers, men who followers and friends of Erasmus wanted kind of a more biblical kind of Christianity to be established, and they were evident, too, then in England part of the reformation. But it's true also that after Luther began his reformation career and some of his writings and works made their way into England, we find some authentic Protestant reformers emerging. It's especially in intellectual circles at the University of Cambridge that we find some of these some of these folk. Apparently some of the younger men there at Cambridge liked to talk over theology, Luther's works and the like, over a good glass of beer or ale. They used to meet at the White Horse Inn. And a goodly number of those who would become Protestant reformers later are associated with this early circle of let's call them proto Protestants at the University of Cambridge in the 1520s. Among those who actually came to be Protestant reformers at Cambridge, there's a man who is sometimes thought of as the English Luther. His name was Robert Barnes. He was Augustinian, a man who began to preach reform in Cambridge in the 1520s. It got him into trouble. He was forced to flee to the continent, and he eventually made his way to Wittenburg, where he met and studied with Luther personally. Then in the 1530s, after Henry VIII had broken from Rome, he came back to England, served the King, served the church in England, in order to promote authentic reformation theology in England. Unfortunately, Barnes was caught up in kind of a Catholic reaction that was promoted by Henry VIII during the course of the late 1530s, and Barnes was actually executed for his Lutheran faith by Henry VIII. So he's a martyr for his faith in reformation England. Barnes' last words, as he was about to be burned at the stake in July of 1540, were these: "I trust in no good works that ever I did, but only in the death of Christ. I do not doubt but through him to inherit the kingdom of heaven." That's a pretty brave confession, and a powerful confession of the kind of faith that we associate with Martin Luther, but here, too, now in the words of Robert Barnes. Another early Protestant voice in the 1520s was that of William Tyndale. Tyndale was an Oxford man, although there's some evidence that he might have studied at Cambridge as well, a man who embraced kind of the Biblical reform movement of Erasmus and the humanists, and as a young Catholic priest in the west west of England, came into conflict with some of the local clergy on account of their persistence in medieval religion, cult of the saints, pilgrimage, outward forms and ceremonies, which Tyndale thought had no basis within the within the Christian religion. And when he discussed or argued these things with his opponents, he found tremendous ignorance of the Bible. And so this led him to think that what was needed in England was an English Bible, so that people could see for themselves what it was that the scriptures really taught about true religion. So he moved to London, hoping to find a patron for his work in the Bishop of London. The Bishop of London was something of a humanist, but he wasn't interested in supporting Tyndale's work, and so Tyndale linked up with some English merchants who were willing to patronize him. But in order for him to do his work and to find good printing establishments, Tyndale too left England for study and work on the continent. And it was there in England in the mid 1520s that Tyndale completed a manuscript of the New Testament in English. Basing his work upon the Greek which Erasmus had published some years earlier, but also having in front of him Luther's German translation, Tyndale put into the English language the New Testament, the New Testament scriptures. Very clearly, he's influenced by Luther in this work, in that he follows the order of the books as Luther has them in the German Bible, and he even includes as his prefaces translations into English of the prefaces that Luther had written for the German Bible, the German New Testament of 1522. So Tyndale was very much influenced by Luther in his work of translation and in his theological outlook generally. Now, this New Testament translation was complete by 1525, and Tyndale turned it over to printers in Cologne for production, and from there it would be smuggled back into England. The printers in Cologne did work for Catholics as well, and one of their Catholic patrons discovered that they were producing this Protestant Bible and he got the authorities to go after the printer, as a result of which Tyndale had to leave Cologne with his work only partly published and only a couple of copies of that first New Testament publication, and it only consists of about the first book, maybe the first book and a half, of the New Testament. That's usually known as the Cologne Fragment. It wasn't until the next year, 1526, that Tyndale was able to find a publisher in Worms for the production of the entire New Testament. So the first printed New Testament in English comes out in 1526, and that's really a milestone for English speaking Christianity. As it turns out, Tyndale was the beginning of what we sometimes call the great tradition of English Bible translation, because when later translations when later translators did their work, they often started with Tyndale. That actually proves to be true with the great King James Bible of 1611, and then the King James becomes the foundation of some of the more important versions in the 20th century. For example, the Revised Standard Version or the New King James Version or the English Standard Version. All of these prominent translations of our times have their roots and origins in Tyndale's pioneering work in the 1520s. So Tyndale was not only one of the first Protestants, he actually lays the foundations for the tradition of English Bibles that still characterize our times. Well, Tyndale finally located in Antwerp. There he continued his translation work, actually tackling parts of the Old Testament. He also wrote tracks in the English language for distribution in England. They had to be smuggled into England. Henry VIII wasn't interested in Protestant tracks or Protestant works. But, nonetheless, Tyndale was one of the first Englishmen to promote the Protestant cause through his writings, through his publications in England. Now, Tyndale's end, like Barnes' end, is tragic. Locating in Antwerp, which was under the rule of the forces of Charles V, Tyndale was eventually arrested by those authorities. He was found guilty of heresy. And he, like Barnes, was put to death for his faith. In his particular case, the means of execution was ostensibly more humane than being burned at the stake, because you were strangled first, and then burned. Nonetheless, Tyndale too then becomes a martyr for his Protestant faith.