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THE EARLY REFORMERS-GEORGE JOYE.

The boast of Sthenelus in Homer, is no uncharacteristic motto for the present times: uus r wariga μέγ' ἀμείνονες ευχόμεθ' είναι. -How many do we hear exclaiming, that the collective mind of "all our yesterdays" is as nothing compared with "the march" and "movement of to day?" But the truth is far otherwise. We appeal to every man that coolly observes the present, and rationally reflects upon the past.

When the intellectual dayspring of the age of reformation, the sixteenth century, bursts on the astonished mind, the little fire-flies, flitting and sparkling, through the present day, vanish in insignificance.

But the majority even of the reading public are now too much occupied with the gross and tangible objects of knowledge, to contemplate, with attentive thought, the annals of the past: αταλαίπωρος τοις Πόλλοις, says the historian of the Peloponnesian war, ζήτησις της ἀλήθειας, και έπι τά έτοιμα μάλλov ogiworral, so impatient are the multitude in the search of truth, and ready to adopt any opinions which are made to their hands. Having heard that mechanic arts, manufactures, agriculture, and commerce, have improved, and that every thing that tends to promote our animal comforts, or to multiply the refinements and embellishments of society, has increased beyond any former period, and that the elements of political and scientific knowledge are more generally diffused, most men sit down well contented with the discovery, and with a strange logic, infer that they and their cotemporaries are every way raised in the scale of humanity and intellect above those of former days. But there is no new thing under the sun. We are told by Plato, in a dialogue between Socrates and Hippias, that the Grecian sophists

made the same inference two and twenty hundred years ago! Our readers shall have a portion of the dialogue :-

"Socrates: Hippias! the dandy and the wise man! 'Tis a long time since last you touched at Athens.

Hippias: 'Tis, because I have not had leisure, Socrates!

Socrates: Come, tell me, in the name of Jove! because our other arts have advanced, and the mechanics of former days were contemptible in comparison with ours, must we say that your art has in like manner improved, and that the ancients, who applied themselves to wisdom, were nothing compared with you (march-of-intellectmen) of the present age?

Hippias: Quite right, old Socrates ! this is the very truth.'

How entirely does this dialogue, when considered in relation to the present times, verify the words of Guicciardini, when writing to the Florentine historian, “ vedi che mutati sono i visi degli uomini ed i colori estrinseci : le cose medesime totte ritornano, ne vediamo accidente alcuno, che a altri empi non sia stato veduto!"

But, admitting this boasted spread of physical knowledge, and the enlarged command of the products of the material world, let us ask, "have moral happiness and virtue, and the sympathies which bind man to man increased in equal proportion?" Every one is compelled to admit that they have not; but too many plume themselves in the self-satisfying fiction, that the evils in the world are not so much the result of their own worthlessness and vices as of what their ancestors have done or established. "Delusion all, and vain philosophy!" We are little disposed to disparage the present times. We admit all their peculiar advantages, and thank God for them;

* Σ. Ιππσίας ὁ καλὸς τε και σοφὸς ὡς διὰ χρόνοῦ ἡμιν κατήρας εἰς τας Αθήνας. Ι. οὐ γὰρ σχολή ω Σωκρατες.

Σ. ἀρ' ουν, πρὸς Διος, ώσπερ ἁι ἄλλαι τέχναι ἐπιδέδωκασι και εισι παρὰ τοὺς νῦν δημιουργοὺς οι παλαιὸι φαυλοι, ούτω και τὴν ὑμέτεραν τέχνην ἐπιδέδωκεναι φῶμεν, και εἶναι τῶν ἀρχαιῶν τοὺς περί ΣΟΦΙΑΝ φαυγοὺς πρὸς ὑμᾶς;

Ι. πάνυ μὲν δεν ὀρθώς λέγεις, &c.-Plat. Hipp. Maj.

but, when we contrast the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, those "periods of reviving splendor in the cultivation of the human mind"*-when thought was thought, not reading when the mind of man was stirred and stirred to its depths, and the aspirations of the human heart were for liberty-not licentiousness-and intellect was absorbed in the contemplation of truths spiritual, eternal, and universal, deeply drinking in the soul of things, with an intensity and universality, as if it never could be deadened or satiated-again when we contrast those periods with the present times, we feel like the traveller, who, having beheld the Nile, the Ganges, the River of the Amazons, or the mighty Andes,

"Turns his gaze

place. He was a native of Bedford-
shire, and was educated at Cambridge,
and elected Fellow of Peterhouse
in 1517, about which time Luther
commenced his labours in the cause of
Reformation. Learning was then at a
very low ebb in both the English Uni-
versities. Cambridge was the seat of
ignorance, of bigotry and superstition.
The nurslings of a purer faith and of
religious reform, who remained for a
time unnoticed or neglected within
her cloisters, were soon blasted by the
poison-breath of persecution, and he
who presumed to teach the right of
private judgment, or to promulgate the
truths and expose the corruptions of
the Scriptures, was instantly beset by
a swarm of monkish hornets, who
dreaded, lest the light of God's Word,
shed abroad upon the people, striking
through the blank and settled night

To mark the wanderings of a scanty rill of ignorance and error, should discover
That murmurs at his feet."†

One of the first of those who stood forward in England in the 16th century to advocate the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures amongst the people, and to proclaim the sacred right of private judgment, was George Joye, Though he is mentioned in terms of the highest praise by his most eminent cotemporaries, few notices of his life or writings have been collected in any one

to the world the unholy recesses of their nests of indolence, impiety, and iniquity.

The classical reader will here be reminded of the piteous plight in which Pluto is described by the great Epic Bard, starting from his throne, lest the mysteries of his dark abode should be unveiled to mortals.

ἔδδεισεν δ' ὑπένερθεν ἄναξ ἐνέρων Αϊδωνεὺς, δείσας δ ̓ ἐκ θρόνου αλτο και ἰαχε; μὴ οἱ ύπερθε

* Can the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries assemble such great names as the following:-Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza, Zuinglius, Erasmus, Ecolampadius Bullinger, Martin Bucer, Tyndale, Knox, Ridley, Hooper, Latimer, Jewell, Hooker, N. Bacon, Raleigh, Vaseo de Gama, Bacon, Des Cartes, Gassendi, Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Grotius, Salmasius, Wallis, Sir Matthew Hale, Newton, (born in 1642), Shakspeare, Spencer, Milton, B. Johnson, Sir Philip Sydney, Michael Angelo, Titian, Raphael, Rubens, Guido, Domenechino; or such theologians as Hales, Usher, Bedell, Hall, Fell, Hammond, Calamy, Walton, Baxter, Pearson, Barrow, Cudworth, Boyle, Locke, Chillingworth, Stilling fleet, Mede, Parker, Tillotson; the two Buxtorfs, Voct; the Spanheims, Du Moulin, Abbadie, Saurin, Claude, Whitgift, Donne, Hervert, Nowell, Saunderson, Beveride, (born 1638,) Sir H. Wotton, the two Henrys, Hall, &c. &c.

+ It has been truly remarked by Schiller, in his introduction to the thirty years' war: "Seit dem anfang des religions kriegs in Deutschland bis zum Munsterischen Frieden, ist in der politischen Welt Europens kaum etwas grosses und merkwürdiges geschehen, woran die Reformation nicht den vornehmsten Autheil gehabt hätte. Alle weltbegeben heiten, welche sich in diesem zeitraum ereignen, schliessen sich an dieg lanbens verbesserung an, wo sie nicht ursprünglich, darans herflossen, und jeder noch so grosse und noch so kleine staat hat mehr oder weniger, mittelbarer odd unmittelbarer, den Einfluss derselben empfunden."

"From the beginning of the war of religion in Germany, to the peace of Munster, no great or remarkable event happened in the world of Europe in which the Reformation had not the principal share, All the important events of this period were connected with it, if they did not originate from it, and every country has felt its influence.'

A Life of Latimer, prefixed to the 4th Edition of his Works.

γαῖαν ἀναρρήξεις Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων,
οικία δὲ θνητοισι και ἀθανάτοισι φανείη,
σμερδαλιν, ευρώεντα, τά τε στυγίουσι
θεοι περ.*

It is no matter of surprise that Joye, who advocated the universal diffusion of the Gospel, and who was, as we are told by Fuller, "the great friend of Master Tyndale," became the object of calumny and persecution. Accused of heresy, in a letter from the Prior of Newenham to the Bishop of Lincoln, he was sent for, to use his own words, "as from the Cardinal Wolsey, by one of his officers to Cambridge, with letters delivered to the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Edmunds, then Master of Peterhouse, in which letters he was desired to send me up to appear at Westminster at nine of the clock, with Bilney and Arthure, for certain erroneous opinions. I saw the Cardinal's sign manual subscribed in great letters, and his seal. I got me horse, when it snowed, and was cold, and came to London, and so to Westminister, not long after my houre, when Bilney and Arthure were in examination. When I knew but these two poor sheep among so many cruel wolves, I was not overhasty to thrust in amongst them, for there was a shrewd many of Bishops, besides the Cardinal, with others of that faction. On the Saturday, a Master of mine, William Gascoigne, the Cardinal's treasurer, bade me go to the chamber of presence. I was but a coarse courtiger, never before hearing this term, and I was half ashamed to ask after it, and at last happened upon a door, and knocked, and one opened it, and when I looked in, it was the kitchen! Then the treasurer told me, the Cardinal sent not for me. Then I began to smell their secret conveyance, and how they had counterfeited their Lord the Cardinal's letters. And here the treasurer sent me to the Bishop of Lyncolne; Dr. Barnes shewed my Lord of me, and said that I must come down again in the morning at six of the clock. I did so, and waited at the stair's foot 'till it was about eight. My Lord came down, and I did my duty to him.

He

asked me, "Be you Master Joye?" "Yea! forsooth, my Lord," quoth I.

"Abide," quoth he, "with my Chancellor 'till I come again." I desired my Lord to be good Lord to me, and shew me his pleasure, what his Lordship would with me; and he answered me like a Lord, and said, I should wait upon his leisure. On the morrow, I met with a Scholar of Cambridge, and he told me the Bishop of Lincolne had sent his servant busily to inquire and to seek me. "What is the matter?" quoth I. "Marry," quoth he, "it is said he would give you a benefice!" "A benefice!" quoth I, "yea! a malefice rather, for so reward they men of well-doing!" Then I got my horse, and rode from my benefice, and left College and all that I had. And the Bishop of Lincolne laid privy wait for me to be taken, and my feet bound under an horse's belly, to be brought into him."

Suspecting that the Cardinal had no charitable design towards him, and believing that his religious principles would be more effectually made known to his countrymen from a foreign land, he resigned his fellowship, his home, his country, and his friends, and went to Strasburgh, in 1572.

"Your letters," as he pathetically writes to his calumniator, "wrought me much trouble, and drew out of my breast many a deep sigh, and many a salt tear out of mine eyes; they made me suddenly to fly to forsake my poor living, my college, my learning, my promotion, and all that I had. They drew me out of my native land, whose desire yet holdeth me, for that I would right gladly return, and dare not, being exiled into a strange land, among rude and boisterous people. Your letters caused me not only to forsake my kin and friends, but they slandered me so grievously, that they made them to forsake me, and so to hate me, that yet I cannot come again into their favour, for they abhorred me so sore, after your secret letters had openly defamed me, that they would not suffer me to come into their houses, nor speak with me, nor help me, but fled from me, and loathed me, which before both loved me, and were right glad of my company. But if you had known Christ and his Word, you would never have done thus unto me-I know it well."

* H. 20, 61.

Thus exiled from all that earth held dear to him, he trusted not to dissipation of mind or to length of time to free him from his afflictions. He knew that even sufferings often make a necessary part in the disposition of things as ordained by Providence-he knew that resignation to the will of that Providence was true magnanimity. His mind was in himself his mind in himself was also in God; and therefore he loved and therefore he soared.* He remembered that he was but a pilgrim on the earth, travelling to a better and an eternal world; and if asked where his country lay, he would have pointed, like Anaxagoras, to the heavens. "Expulsed," as he writes in his letter to the Prior, "from my native land, forsaking all my kin and friends, I do daily comfort myself, as God giveth me grace, with this one comSaviour fortable saying of my "Blessed are you when men cast rebukes upon you, persecuting you, and report all manner of evil against you, for great is your reward in Heaven. This one sentence is enough to comfort me against all slanders and false reports."

"Men ignorant of the Gospel," as he writes in another work, "what comfort and deliverance have they in such anxieties? Verily none at all. Wherefore let us embrace the Gospel, love and reverence the very true church? let us know the godly not to be called to sluggishness and idleness, but into the most sharp, hard, and jeopardous battle."

conse

It is this feeling that so eminently distinguishes the writings and deeds of the early Reformers from the spirit of action and of thought in the present are man's, "Duties day. quences are God's," was the motto of their lives. Thus only can their wonderful achievements be accounted for. "Que eût crû," exclaims the eloquent Saurin, "que Luther put triompher de tant d'obstacles, qui s'opposoient au succes de ses predications en Allemagne? et que ce superbe Empereur (Charles 5) qui comptoit parmi ses Captifs des Pontifes et des Rois, ne pût triompher d'un miserable moine ?"

Does the same principle mark the "CalFar from it. present times? culations of presumptuous expediency, groping its way among partial and temporary consequences, have been substituted for the dictates of paramount and infallible donscience."t How strange would it appear to our politico-religious senators of the 19th century, should they be addressed by the Lord Chancellor, on the opening of their councils, as the Lord Keeper Bacon, in the name of Queen Elizabeth, once addressed the Peers of England? "In all councils and conferences, my Lords, first and chiefly there should be sought the advancement of God's glory, as the sure and infallible foundation, whereon the policy of every good public weal is to be built, and as the straight line whereby it is to be directed and governed, and as the chief pillar and buttress wherewith it is continually to be maintained."

Such were the principles by which, under the blessing of the AloneGood, the early Reformers, amid the huge overshadowing train of error that had almost swept all the stars out of the firmament of the Church, went forth conquering and to conquer. “They shrunk not, though assailed With hostile din, and combating in sight

Of angry umpires, partial and unjust;

And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire,

So to declare the conscience satisfied;

Nor for their bodies would accept

release;

But blessing God and praising him, bequeath'd,

With their last breath, from out the smould'ring flame,

The Faith which they by diligence had earned,

And thro' illuminating Grace, received,

For their dear countrymen, and all

mankind;

O high example! constancy divine."
WORDSWORTH.

But we resume the subject of our memoir. From his exile at Strasburg,

* See a most eloquent pamphlet by the truly philosophic Poet, Wordsworth, on "The relations of England, Spain, and Portugal," published in 1809.

† See Milton on "Reformation in England.'

See Gilbert's Hurricane in Notis.

VOL. I.

2 A

Joye wrote his "Answer" to the Prior of Newenham Abbey,* in which he exposed the greatest errors of the Church of Rome, with an honest sincerity, a strength of argument, a piety and command of scriptural illustration which few writers on the abuses of that Church have surpassed.

Speaking of the Scriptures being withheld from the laity, he says, "If ye were well acquainted with Christ his Gospel, you should have read there, Wo be to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven before men. You say the knowledge of God's word is hard and dark for the lay people, but wo be to you, saith Isaiah, that tell the light to be darkness. You say that the Scripture in English would make sedition and breed errors and heresies among the laymen: but wo be to you, saith Isaiah, that say that thing which is good to be evil! You say, the letter slayeth, is unsavoury and bitter for them, but wo be to you, saith Isaiah again, that say, that which is sweet to be better."

As an instance of the grave and weighty arguments by which the translation of the Scriptures into English, was opposed by the clergy of the Roman communion in that day, the reader is referred to a discourse which Dr. Buckenham, Prior of the Blackfriars in Cambridge, delivered against Latimer, that pillar of the Reformation, who did indeed, as he prophesied immediately before his execution, to Ridley, light such a candle, with God's grace, in England, as shall never be extinguished. "If the ploughman," said the learned Prior, "should read in the Gospel, no man that layeth his hand on the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God, he would cease from his labor; and the baker in like manner, finding that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, will peradventure leave our bread un-leavened; a third reading, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, may be induced, in obedience thereto, to pluck out his eyes, and so the world be filled with beggars."

This ingenious piece of argumentation reminds us of the expostulation of the Oulemas, or lawyers, in Turkey, when Achmet the Third wished to establish a printing-press, about 1727, to print the Koran. "Oh!" said they, "it would be an act of impiety if the word of God should be squeezed and pressed together!" It seems that they derived a considerable income from transcribing the Koran, which would thus have been lost.

Latimer promised to reply to the learned Prior of the Blackfriars, on the following Sabbath. Before the sermon began, the Prior entered, with his cowl about his shoulders, and took his seat in front of the pulpit. Latimer gravely recapitulated the doctor's arguments, and then expressed his commiseration for the people, whose understardings were held by their spiritual pastors in such low esteem. He wished, however, that his honest countrymen might only have the use of the Scriptures, until they showed themselves such absurd iuterpreters as the Prior represented them. "A figurative manner of speech," said he, "is common to all languages. Images of this kind are in daily use and generally understood. For instance (addressing himself to that part of the audience where the cowled Prior was sitting), when we see a fox painted in a friar's hood, nobody imagines that a fox is meant, but that craft and hypocrisy are described, which are so often found disguised in that garb.” This comparison, not indeed suited for the sacredness of the pulpit, excited a general smile from the audience. The raillery had the effect of shutting up Friar Buckenham within his monastery, and the reasoning of the preacher drove him eventually from the University.

Does our reader smile at the solemn trifling of the Prior of the sixteenth century? After a lapse of three hundred years, are not the present pretexts for withholding the Bible from the people, equally impious, ridiculous, and absurd? The fact that they are so, should the more stimulate those who sincerely desire to see the Holy Scrip

"The letters which Johan Ashwell, Prior of Newenham Abbey, sent secretly to the Bishop of Lincolne, wherein the said Prior accuseth George Joye of four opinions, with the answere of the said George unto the same opinions," printed at Strasburgh, A.D. 1527.

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