The Great ("Chained") Bible;
Tyndale's Legacy Lives On
Chapter 7
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At the request of King henry VIII,
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, commissioned Miles Coverdale to
produce a Bible that would be licensed by the king and placed in every church in
England.
In 1539 Covendale finalized and printed
the Great Bible. It was named for its great size, each page measuring
sixteen and one half inches tall and eleven inches wide.
You will recall that Miles Coverdale
had produced his own English translation of the Bible, which was actually little
more than a revision of Tyndale's work with his own translation of the Old
Testament Books Tyndale was unable to complete before his martyrdom.
Nevertheless, Coverdale had produced a Bible in 1535 that bore his
name.
One might just be tempted, when
approached by the king of England to come up wth a Bible to be placed in every
pulpit in every church across England, to suggest and even highly recommend
one's own translation of the Bible that bears one's name. But such was not
the case with Miles Coverdale. So great was his reverence and resspect for
William Tyndale and his monumental translation work that he turned to Tyndale's
ible instead of his own. The Great Bible, published by Miles Coverdale in
answer to the king's request, is William Tyndale's text without his
sometimesscathing marginal notes.
Henry VIII officially authorized the
Great Bible for use in the churches in England, where they were chained to the
pulpits to each particular church, hence the Great Bible is also commonly known
as the "Chained Bible."
All who so desired were to have lawful
access to read the Great...
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Bible for themselves. The king
appointed each church an official reader to be provided for those who were
unable to read, which accounted for the vast majority of the English populace at
that time.
Great crowds would stand for many hours
to hear the reading of the Bible. As in the days of Samuel, the prophet of
old, "the word of the Lord was precious in those days." If, after hours of
continuous reading, the reader would stop merely to catch his breath, the crowd
would cry out in unison, "Read on! Read on!"
Toleration for religious liberty ws
short lived, however, and in 1543 Parliament outlawed preaching or Bible reading
without a license. The English Christians quickly learned a lesson tht
most Americans seem to have forgotten in our generation: there is a vast
difference between liberty and license.
Liberty is something that God alone can
give. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us
free." Liberty is not something that can be ligislated. Liberty
cannot be imposed upon or compromised and still truly be called
liberty.
License, on the other hand, is not
freedom or liberty at all. LIcense is the granting of a temporary,
conditional privilege to perform or operate in a certain capacity or
function. Liberty or freedom cannot be lawfully denied. License, by
definition, may be revoked at any time at the discretion of the one who grants
it.
Preachers all across our great nation
are facing criminal charges, incarceration and unreasonable fines for refusing
to take a license to preach or to operate Christian ministries. Some
preachers compromise and take the license, denying that it is God who calls men
to preach and God who leads men to build works and ministries, thereby granting
sovereignty to the government, who had the power to license the preachers, and
also wields the power to revoke the license and shut the preachers and their
ministries down. God bless those men of God who will not bow to Baal's
idols, or to Baal's license!
In 1546 all Bibles but the Great Bible
were banned. All the Tyndale Bibles and Coverdale Bibles that could be had
were...
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confiscated and burned, along with
their owners. King Henry VIII decreed that no man or woman of what estate,
condition, or degree was to receive, have, take or keep Tyndale's or Coverdale's
New Testament.
Ironically, and more so tragically, the
Bible William Tyndale produced and died for, the Bible Miles Coverdale
published and was persistently hounded and persecuted for, the Bible for which
so many English Christians were beaten, jailed, excommunicated, tortured and
executed, became the Great Bible, and was given royal approval and commanded to
be placed in every church in England.
William Hunter, a nineteen year old
young man who was converted to Christ in his youth, was arrested for refusing to
attend the mass. He was threatened and released.
His heart was aflame with a hunger for
God and His Word. All English Bibles had been banned and burned, with the
exception of the Great Bible, and it was chained to the pulpit in the village
church. To be caught reading the Word of God without a license was a
capital crime, and William Hunter was aware of that.
Nevertheless, his desire and longing
for God outweighed his fear for his own life. In the middle of the week,
expecting no one to be in or around the church, he stealthily crept into the
church house and made his way to the pulpit, to which was chained the blessed
Book that so captivated his attention. Looking around him one final time
to make sure he had not been followed or discovered, he picked up the forbidden
Book, opened its pages, and began to read.
Hours passed as he feasted on the Bread
of life. He forgot himself and his predicament, and was found out by the
village's resident bishop. He was tried for heresy, for breaking
Parliament's law against reading the Bible without a license, and condemned to
die.
He was imprisoned for nine months,
where he was heavily chained and shackled, and survived on a bread and water
diet.
On the day of his execution he went
forward cheerfully and...
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was met by his father, who said, "God
be with thee, son William." William said, "God be with thee, good father,
and be of good comfort."
The sheriff stated he had a letter from
the queen, with a promise of pardon, if he would recant. He refused.
A priest, with a popish book, approached him. He said, "Away, thou false
prophet! Beware of them, good people, and come away from their
abominations, lest you be partakers of their plagues."
The said, "Look how thou burnest here,
so shalt thou burn in hell." I cannot help but marvel at the love,
compassion and Christlike spirit of these "men of God," these priests and
bishops so eager to light the fires and consume the flesh of those whose only
crime was devotion to God and His holy Word.
Immediately the fire was lit.
Williams's brother said to him, "William, think on the holy passion of Christ,
and be not afraid of death." William replied triumphantly, "I am not
afraid." Then he lifted his hands to heaven and said, "Lord, Lord, Lord,
receive my spirit," and casting down his head into the smothering smoke, he
yielded up his life for the truth, sealing it with his blood to the praise and
glory of God on March 27, 1555.
In William Hunter's lifetime, one
pageof the Great Bible sold for a pouch of gold, approximately six ounces.
That would be valued at about twenty-four hundred dollars on today's
market. One complete copy of the Great Bible was traded for a four hundred
acre farm, two estate houses, and all the farm implements and
buildings.
After the death of Henry VIII
Archbishop Cranmer, who had approached Coverdale with the king's request for
production of the Great Bible, supported Bloody Mary's ascension to the throne
of England. But in the end he, too, became her
victim.
He was arrested at the meeting of
Parliament and adjudged guilty of high treason against the Catholic Church for
his role in the production of the English Bible, and degraded of his
dignities.
He was induced by his love of life and
by the wiles of his insidious foes to sign a paper condemning the
Reformation. His...
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enemies, though they knew that his
death was already determined upon in council, promised him restoration to all
his former dignities and even the favor of the queen if he would recant.
But the queen's revenge was only to be satiated in Cranmer's
blood.
At a public hearing Cranmer begged the
congregation to pray for him, for he had committed many and grievous sins; but,
of all there was one which awfully lay upon his mind, of which he would speak
shortly.
The Catholics were openly
pleased. They thought Cranmer would renounce all ties to the Reformers and
their theology, recant his faith in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and return
penitently to the holy mother Church. To their shock and horror he
said,
"Now I come to the great thing
which so much troubleth my conscience, more than anything that ever I did or
said in my whole life, andtha is the setting abroad of a writing contrary to the
truth; which now here I renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand
contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of
death, and to save my life, if it might be; and that is, all such bills and
papers which I have written or signed with my hand since my degradation, wherein
I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand hath offended,
writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished; for
when I come to the fire, it shall first be burned. And as for the pope, I
refuse him as Christ's enemy, and antichrist, with all his false
doctrine."
Upon the conclusion of this unexpected
declaration, amazement and indignation were conspicuous in every part of the
Church. The Catholics were completely foiled, their object being
frustrated. Cranmer, like Samson, having completed a greater ruin upon his
enemies in the hour of death than he did in his life.
Cranmer, former Archbishop of
Canterbury, was unceremoniously chained to the stake and the wood stacked around
him...
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was set ablaze. As the flames
began to rise to meet his body, he, remembering his pledge, thrust his right
hand into the fire, the hand with which in his hour of faithlessness he had
signed the recant, and cried, "This hand, this unworthy right
hand!"
Apparently insensible of pain, with a
countenance of venerable resignation, and eyes directed toward Him for whose
cause he suffered, he continued, like Stephen, to say, "Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit," until the fury of the flames terminated his powers of utterance and
existence. He closed a life of glorious martyrdom on March 21,
1556.
CHAPTER
8
