15
March 1543. The Scottish Parliament on 15th March 1543 declares the English Bible “was made free to all men and women to read the Scriptures
in their own language, or in the English language, and so were all Acts made in
contrary abolished.”
South of the border, Henry VIII had ordered English
Bibles into all 9000 parishes...some 3 years after William Tyndale was
murdered. Miles Coverdale and William Whittingham would carry on the work at Geneva resulting in England's influential "Geneva Bible" that ruled for 100 years.
But, “the toothpaste was never going back into that tube
again.”
By contrast, the Tridentine Mass of 1570 would ensure
Latin services for Latin-illiterate Roman throngs until the 1970s.
By contrast to Rome and Vaticanaphiliacs,
English-speakers would have access to God’s Word in their own tongue.
Here’s John Knox’s
account as told by PCA historians.
The story is told at: http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2014/03/march-15-2/
The Gospel, for All Peoples, Everywhere.
We are privileged to have as our guest author this day
John Knox . . . yes, that John Knox . . . of sixteenth century Scotland.
Writing in chapter 2 of his History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland,
the Protestant and Presbyterian Reformer of Scotland describes for us the
beginnings of “the People’s Bible” on pages 37 and following. It was the day
when the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in English were made available
to the masses, instead of only been printed in Latin and chained to ancient
churches of the realm. Knox writes:
“Men began to inquire, if it were not as lawful to men
that understood no Latin to use the Word of their Salvation in the tongue (i.e.
language) they understood, as it was for Latin men to have it in Latin, and
Grecians to Hebrews in their languages. It was answered, that the Kirk
had forbidden all kinds of languages but these three, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
But men demanded when that inhibition was given, and what Council had
ordained it, considering that in the days of Chrysostom, he complained that the
people used not the psalms, and other Holy Books, in their own languages? And
if you say they were Greeks, and understood the Greek language, we answer that
CHRIST JESUS HAS COMMANDED HIS WORD TO BE PREACHED TO ALL NATIONS. Now if it
ought to be preached to all nations, it must be preached in the language they
understand; and if it be lawful to preach it, and to hear it preached in all languages,
why shall it not be lawful to read it, and to hear it read in all languages, to
the end that the people may ‘try the spirits,’ according to the commandment of
the Apostle?
“(After further discussion) the conclusion was ‘by Act of
Parliament (15th March 1543) ‘it was made free to all men and women to
read the Scriptures in their own language, or in the English language, and so
were all Acts made in contrary abolished.’
“This was no small victory of Christ Jesus, fighting
against the conjured enemies of his Verity, no small comfort to such as before
were holden in such bondage.
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