Part Two beginneth.
Tyndale’s Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord after the True Meaning of John VI and 1 Cor. XI and William Tracy’s Testament Expounded, ed. By Parker Society (Cambridge Press, 1850).[1]
This work is available, free, and downloadable at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=TOLOU6-00yUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=tyndale+parker+society&lr=&as_brr=1&ei=MOtHSqqNKIzayQSB9NRA
William Tyndale’s opening prayer or wish is a beautiful one as he opens his preface to the reader.
“The grace of our Lord, the light of his Spirit, to see and to judge, true repentance towards God’s law, a fast faith in the merciful promises that are in our Saviour Christ, fervent love toward thy neighbour after the ensample of Christ and his saints, be with thee, O reader, and with all that love the truth, and long for the redemption of God’s elect. Amen.”[2]
This prayer is offered by William Tyndale in reponse to Sir Thomas More’s Confutation. Here is Thomas More’s unflattering comments about the Reformers:
"Tyndale here beginneth with an holy salutation, and so doth Luther too, and so doth friar Huskyne [Ooeolampadius] too, and so doth every fond fellow of any of their sects. But when men consider that where he prayeth `God send them a fast faith,’ himself teacheth a false faith against the sacraments, and meaneth that they should be fast in the same, there will no good christian man thank him for that holy prayer. And where he prayeth here so holily for the love of the neighbour, if men look on the love that is used among all the masters of that holy sect, and consider that their livings, and look upon friar Luther, the very father of that holy sect, and see him run out of religion and fallen to flesh and carrion, and live in letchery with a nun under thename of wedlock, and all the chief heads of them, late monks and friars, and now apostates and living with harlots under the name of wives; he that looseth on this and then seeth them and their scholars, as Tyndale here &c.”[3]
We observed in part one that More largely rails and is roiled over Luther’s marriage, but more as that develops. Our effort here is to assay the Reformed and Reformation views of William Tyndale, including his view of the Lord’s Supper. We see above his view of election which is inescapable for Bible readers, so there are no surprises here.
Tyndale notes from John 16 that the Holy Spirit will bring judgment to the world. This will make his Gospel odorific to unbelievers and they will bring judgment to themselves, corrupting their own judgments and bringing blind superstition. One is reminded of St. Paul’s comment that the Gospel is sweet-smelling to the believer and is the odour of death to the unbeliever.
Even at this early point in this volume by Tyndale, we hear an anti-Rome polemic emerging, including a “zeal of which yet they persecute the true service of God” with a “corrupt judgment” and “blind affection of which yet they persecute the true law of God and them that keep it.”[4]
He calls attention to 1 Corinthians 2.10-15: But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For God searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the tings of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God who I from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but the which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet e himself is rightly judged by non one. For `who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.
Tyndale only alludes to the chapter without the quotation, but he knows the text and it is an opening shot. We have quoted it since it is the Word of the Lord; thanks be to God. It is more important than Tyndale or any theological scribbler. Tyndale knows this and cites this great Pauline text.
Even the Pharisees, wise and educated, were blind. Philosophical and biblical command of details is no guarantee of an understanding to get to the “quick, the life, the spirit, the marrow, and very cause why…”[5] This sort of confidence will not read well in the Roman Curia or in Romish England…at Canterbury, London, Oxford, or Cambridge. Tyndale's underlying view is that the Reformers have insights and spiritual understanding from God's Word. The dawning light will raise up Warriors in the Church Militant and hell hath no fury like that towards Christ in His fullness, His Gospel in it's power (Romans 1.16-17) and those servants who follow it.
We can see why Rome and More will react as they do. Tyndale’s view is that blindness prevails in Rome; his opening prayer considers that the individual Christian, the elect, can and do understand the law and the promises of Christ.
The Christian can know divine things and have an understanding of the reality and relevance of God’s revealed word through the ordinary means of salvation, the Word itself. The “natural man” lacks that understanding and is like a blind man leading the blind. The heart is darkened. The mind is hostile and un-subdued. The feelings are alienated from the affections for God. The Christian has an “anointing from the Holy One…and know all things.” (1 John 2.20)
During the Reformation, theologians spoke of illumination, to wit, that divine operation which occurs with exposure to God’s Word and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit therewith, convicting one of sin and bringing assurance of salvation. They also spoke of spiritual nourishment from the two sacraments. Rome’s view of the work of Christ was a “half-Christ” with a “half-salvation.” The counterfeit Gospel halves and quarters Christ’s Person and work.
Calvin would say somewhere that, in essence, “if we would but be satisfied with a half-of-a-Christ, we could remain inside Rome.” But of course, the Reformers recovered the ancient, biblical and Nicene Christology.
Tyndale informs us that ceremonies without good doctrine are to be rejected. He informs us that men create “wonderful imaginations” that are not easily subdued even were there “ten John the Baptists” to instruct them. These are shots across the bow.
We’ll bring this to a close for tonight, but we can see already, lines being drawn in the sand and the conflict between the Church Militant at war with Anti-Christ’s pride and Ich-theologie. He will be burned at the stake for his heresy of advocacy of God's Word to and for the Church Militant.
Part Two Endeth
Footnotes:
[1] Again, the frontispiece to the Parker Society editions gives this purpose: For the publication of the works of the fathers and early writers of the Reformed English Church.” Unabashedly, the term “Reformed” is employed for Anglicanism. We have been calling attention to this fact given that there are hyper-allergies, ignorance, indifference and amnesia in vast sections of Western Anglicanism.
[2] Tyndale’s Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord after the True Meaning of John VI and 1 Cor. XI and William Tracy’s Testament Expounded, ed. By Parker Society (Cambridge Press, 1850), 16.
[3] Tyndale, op.cit., footnote 2, 16.
[4] Tyndale, op.cit., 17.
[5] Tyndale, op.cit., 17.
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