Elizabethan Church of England, Adiaphora, & Imperial Edict

20 March 1563.


On March 20, 1563, an appeal was made to the ecclesiastical commissioners by twenty petitioners to exempt them from the use of vestments. Miles Coverdale was one of them. Later, Miles Coverdale refused to attend Lambeth over the "vestments, fashions and haberdashery" issue as ordered by Mr. (Canterbury) Matthew Parker.


Anglicanism’s adiaphora = “You’ll wear our ecclesiastical uniforms and outfits that we tell ya,’ by God you will.”


Elizabeth's "Adiaphora" = in essence and by another name, was Elizabeth's "divine law."


Miles Coverdale, Godfather at the baptism of one of Knox's children in Geneva, Bible translator, and former Bishop of Exeter, refused mandatory "uniforms and haberdasher" laws. The same for old John Foxe. Willing to use the vast majority of the BCP, they weren't buying the "adiaphora" argument as allegedly adiaphora, but back to old Miles Coverdale--Tyndale's assistant. If truly adiaphora, then the vestments weren't needed but voluntary. But the Crown and Canterbury weren't buying the logical logic.


Old Miles Coverdale, a sensible scholar, Reformed Churchman, Bible translator, comrade of other Marian exiles, who suffered for the faith, never bought into the supremacism nor fashion puerilities of Lambeth and the Royal palace.


By summer of 1566, Coverdale left St. Magnus Martyr by the London Bridge. He was near 80. Mr. Matthew Parker (Canterbury), a pliable tool, had summoned the London clergy to Lambeth for the enforcement of Elizabeth’s vestarian-laws—which Parker did not care about, as a few letters show, but which he supported since Elizabeth had ruled; she was the “Supreme Governor” of the Church of England, after all. Rather than do a “buy-in” for a position, the old scholar, Coverdale, resigned his living at St. Magnus. Several letters from London clerics were sent to Zurich and Geneva about the child-playground-developments. Coverdale discreetly—but visibly—absented himself from Parker’s summons to Lambeth.


Ya’ don’t bulldoze an old, experienced, informed, Biblically-driven, theologically trained and Reformed Churchman long acquainted with suffering, poverty, tyrannies, and exile.


As might be expected, he had a “keen following in Puritan circles” those wicked non-conformists of the lower sort tongue in cheek). But, he accepted poverty over preferment, consistency before compromise, the Scriptures above and ruling tradition, and principles above pandering to a Queen. He genuinely believed in Scriptures, the “supreme” [and final] Judge in all things, matters, opinions, councils and independent thoughts. That’s Reformed theology.


In JAN 1569, he preached his last sermon, about 83 years old, at his former parish, St. Magnus. In other words, he was the former minister in attendance but without the post—having resigned over principle. However, for whatever reason, the presiding minister was not present or available. But Coverdale was in attendance, but not presiding, an indication of his acceptance of the-then-used 1559 Book of Common Prayer (or, at least, in the main, as was the case for Anglo-Puritans). John Hooker (supra) described it:


“…certain men of the parish came unto him, and earnestly entreated that considering the multitude was great, and that it was pity they should be disappointed of their expectation, that it would please him to take the place for that time. But he excused his age and infirmities thereof, and that his memory failed him, his voice scarce could be heard, and he not able to do it, that they would hold him excused. Nevertheless such were their importunate requests that, would he nould [sic] he, he must and did yield unto their requests: and between two men he was carried up into the pulpit, where God did with his spirit so strengthen him, that he made his last and the best and the most godly sermon that ever he did in all his life. And very shortly after he died, being very honourably buried with the presence of the duchess of Suffolk, the earl of Bedford, and many others, honourable and worshipful personages."


Coverdale died on 20 JAN 1569. He was buried in the chancel of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange under the “communion table” [hint, TFOs, the “table” not the Laudian altar…gotta a problem there? Cranmer and Coverdale didn’t.]


The backstory to the childish-playground debate in Anglican adiaphoristic non-adiaphorisms.


Wikipedia gives some background.


“On March 20, 1563, an appeal was made to the ecclesiastical commissioners by twenty petitioners to exempt them from the use of vestments. These included a number of prominent clergy, mainly in the diocese of London, whose bishop, Grindal, had packed his see with former exiles and activists for reform. The petition was approved by all the commissioners except Parker and Guest, who rejected it.


“Sampson and Humphrey were the first nonconformist leaders to be targeted by Parker and whose steadfast refusal to conform led to Sampson's quick deprivation in 1565, as he was directly under the queen's authority. Humphrey, under the jurisdiction of Robert Horne, the bishop of Winchester, was able to return to his position as president of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was later offered by Horne a benefice in Sarum, though with Sarum's bishop, Jewel, opposing this. At this time, Bullinger was counselling Horne with a position more tolerant of vestments, while nonconformist agitation was taking place among students at St John's College, Cambridge.


“Tuesday, March 26, 1566, brought the peak of enforcement against nonconformity, with the diocese of London targeted as an example, despite Parker's expectation that it would leave many churches `destitute for service this Easter, and that many [clergy] will forsake their livings, and live at printing, teaching their children, or otherwise as they can.' The London clergy were assembled at Lambeth Palace. Parker had requested but failed to gain the attendance of William Cecil, Lord Keeper Nicholas Bacon, and the Lord Marquess of Northampton, so it was left to Parker himself, bishop Grindal, the dean of Westminster, and some canonists. One former nonconformist, Robert Cole, stood before the assembly in full canonical habit. There was no discussion. The ultimatum was issued that the clergy would appear as Cole—in a square cap, gown, tippet, and surplice. They would `inviolably observe the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer, and the Queen majesty's injunctions: and the Book of Convocation.' The clergy were ordered to commit themselves on the spot, in writing, with only the words volo or nolo. Sixty-one subscribed; thirty-seven did not and were immediately suspended with their livings sequestered. A three-month grace period was given for these clergy to change their minds before they would be fully deprived.


“The deprivations were to be carried out under the authority of Parker's Advertisements, which he had just published as a revised form of the original articles defining ecclesiastical conformity. (The full title is Advertisements partly for due order in the publique administration of common prayers and usinge the holy sacramentes, and partly for the apparrell of all persons ecclesiasticall, by vertue of the Queenes maiesties letters commaunding the same.) Parker had not obtained the crown's authorisation for this mandate, however, though he increasingly positioned himself toward the nonconformist clergy as acting on and under the authority of the state. Royal authority stood to simplify the problem for him, because disobedience of the monarch was disobedience of God. However, without explicit backing from the queen and council, this assertion lacked force. Thus, the nonconformist reaction to Parker's crackdown was, as he expected, a vociferous assertion of their persecuted status with some serious displays of disobedience. John Stow records in his Memoranda that in most parishes, the sextons did not change the service if they had conducted it without vestments previously: `in some places the ministers themselves did service in their gowns or cloaks with turning collars and hats as they were wont to do, and preached stoutly and against the order taken by the queen and council and the bishops for consenting there unto.' By some lights, these clergy constituted an emerging Puritan faction, and that word was indeed first recorded as being in use at this time as term of abuse for nonconformists.”


Miles Coverdale, as well as old John Foxe, weren’t up for the “abusive,” “elbows-to-the-head,” “boots-to-the-neck,” hubristic and unnecessary authoritarianism of Elizabeth and Parker.

"Adiaphora" = Elizabeth’s and Parker’s "non-adiaphora."

Dr. Daniell's "Bible in English:" (Ch. 15) Plain Style & Bible Reading

Daniell, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-English-History-Influence/dp/0300099304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385668294&sr=8-1&keywords=david+daniell+english+bible

 
Chapter 15—ENGLISH PLAIN STYLE AND BIBLE READING, 248-274

Prof. Daniell moves in a side-direction, to wit, to demonstrate the influence of plain speech and plain speaking mediated through Tyndale’s Biblical influences (and the translational progeny).

He raises several issues: (1) 3 influential plain stylists, (2) influences on Tyndale, (3) Magdalen College Vulgaria, (4) Queen Mary, (5) Bible reading, (6) Bible reading by individuals, (7) Bible reading and a national resurgence, and (8) the arrival of English.

English was a “poor thing” spoken on a tiny island “off the shelf of Europe,” a language unknown in Europe and spoken by over 2 million Englanders (compared to our time…2 billion as the first languagers?). Thomas More, the viciously anti-Reformed Anglo-Italian, claimed that 2/3rds could read English in England. This may have been over-stated in order to fan the hostile flames of De Haeretico Comburendo. We know he was given to over-blown and highly exaggerated language, viciously and murderously so. Even one strongly committed Anglo-Italian ass, Nicholas Harpsfield, operating during Elizabeth’s time, felt More was over-the-top. We'll stick with Tyndale's term, "asses."

But, whatever the literacy rate was in England, Prof. Daniell warms to his theme again: “I argue that the switch was thrown” by the English Bible and Tyndale (248). Prof. Daniell appears to like the metaphor of “switch” or “power switch” for a power-line or turning on the lights on a national level.

England alone.

England was alone in not having a vernacular Bible. Prof. Daniell points to these vernacular Bibles from European presses: 1466—Germany, 1471—Italy, 1474—France, 1477—Dutch, 1478—Catalin, and before 1500—Spain and Portugal. These were not for the “swine” (an Anglo-Italian term of art for the laity) or public use, liturgy or homes. Nevertheless, there were 1000 presses in Europe compared to 3 in England—Caxton, de Worde, and Pynsson. These vernaculars were translated from the Latin text and for use by one licensed by an Italian-based senior ass.

Luther’s German Bible in 1522 was based on Erasmus’ 1516 Greek NT. We previously reviewed the stern, murderous and oppressive policy of the Anglo-Italian asses in England: (1) the Parliamentary Act of 1401, De Haeretico Comburendo, (2) the repressive canons of the 1407 Provincial Council of Oxford, and the (3) works of the Ass-bishop of Canterbury, Lord Arundel, with his 11 deadly Constitutions, adopted in Canterbury, York, Lambeth, Oxford and across the nation. It was directed at Wyclif and his poor preachers. England was alone and under the Anglo-Italian thumb.

But, on Prof. Daniell’s reading, “something was happening in the 1520s-1530s internationally, nationally and locally” (250). The printers in Antwerp were all too happy to collect the profits trading off an English appetite. The hunger was for the English Bible—with more print runs than the Aeneid or Iliad.

“Plain style.” Tyndale made efforts to avoid the “colours of rhetoric.” The Bible was for the “mass of ordinary men and women,” not for the “Neoplatonic courtly poets” of Elizabeth’s period (251).

Prof. Daniell offers several examples of the impact.

1. Thomas Hobbes was constantly defending his plain style (253).

2. Addison continually defended this style. He desired this:

“It was said of Socrates that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-tables and in Coffee-houses” (253).

3. Samuel Johnson, an advocate of heavily-Latinized English, nevertheless concluded this—negatively but illustratively—about Addison:

“Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison” (253).

4. Bishop John Wilkins, a man with a colorful background, wrote of the need for plain style speech in Ecclesiastes or a Discourse concerning the Gift of Preaching, as it falls under the rules of Art: 

“…must be plain and natural, not being darkened with the affections of Scholastical harshness or Rhetorical flourishes. Obscurity in the discourse is an argument of ignorance in the mind. The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness. The more clearly we understand anything ourselves, the more easily can we expound it to others. When the notion itself is good, the best way to set it off is in the most obvious plain expression. St. Paul does often glory in this” (254).

We would add a few logs to this fire: (1) Cornelius Van Til’s densities will largely die with his few enthusiasts. He never learned to write with clarity. (2) Jean Calvin, Martin Luther, Guido de Bres, Zachary Ursinus, William Tyndale and Thomas Cranmer learned to write with clarity. (3) Hooker "was and is" a thicket so thick as to be virtually in-penetrable. (4) Even Owen, though dense, is understandable. (5) Bishop J.C. Ryle (one of the men we willingly call “Bishop”) observed that many of his colleagues were caught up in the Victorian efforts at rhetorical flourish and flair. As an Eton and Oxford man, he witnessed it. He vowed to do the opposite. The old master of Liverpool is ever-accessible and direct. (6) Or, we would add the Rev. Dr. Prof. Allen C. Gulezo who writes with clarity, wit, scholarship and insight—it communicates. While the scholarship is powerful, it is not lost through obfuscation. (7) Or, who can ever forget the inimitably dense, uncommunicative yet widely hailed brilliance of the former Canterbury, Rowan Williams, talkative but saying nothing notable? Awful stuff. No English fogs from the Channel please, at least not for Tyndale and Cranmer.

But, rather wildly and out-of-the-blue, Prof. Daniell observes that this plain style speech—even in the scientific community—held forth “until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when Germanic-American obfuscation took over” (256). No evidence, just the claim. We’ll leave that there.

INFLUENCES ON TYNDALE, 256-258

Thomas More offered the jibe that “all England list now to go to school with Tyndale to learn English” (257). There is truth here for “many erstwhile illiterates did indeed go to school with Tyndale” (257).

For example, William Maldon of Chelmsford (about 40 miles to the NE of London, about 2 o'clock as the crow flies) spoke of the Sunday evening gatherings of poor men gathering to hear the “glad tidings” read. This itself led William himself to learn reading. It led him to buy, read, and treasure the NT. It also led to his father beating him and disputes with his mother about the English Bible. Prof. Daniell will have more to say later about Maldon.

Influences?

West Country speech patterns of Gloucestershire? Prof. Daniell thinks so, but believes more academic work is needed on a literary level. Numerous words need evaluation.

Prof. Daniell calls attention to William Langland’s Piers Ploughman written in the 1380s and just a few miles north of Tyndale’s birthplace in Gloucestershire. Yet while Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales was repeatedly published for courtly reading, Langland languished and was never printed…at least until 1550.

Prof. Daniell continues the discussion under his next rubric.

MAGDALEN COLLEGE VULGARIA, 258-263

Apparently, there was a “war of the grammarians.” Do we teach English grammar in English? In Latin? Do we teach Latin with Latin? If so, how? And who? Or, do we teach Latin using English? Tyndale had been at Magdalen Hall for 10 years while experiments and debates were to be had. Varied teaching books survive. The struggle was to translate “neither too high nor too low” (258).

Whatever the impact, Tyndale had a “registry of phrases just above the level of common speech” (258). This much, he was an exploratory connoisseur of words.

Prof. Daniell registers his familiar theme regarding Tyndale, Coverdale and the progeny of translations: “short, punchy Saxon forms,” clear and powerful verbs, and subject-verb-object forms. While Shakespeare never feared a good Latinized line, he often would alternate with a quick, punchy Saxon line in parallelistic clarification.

QUEEN MARY 1, 263-264

No English Bibles were printed during her reign (1553-1558). No surprises there. That was standard English policy from 1401 until Henry’s Great Bible, some 140 plus years. And even with its publication and distribution of the Great Bible with Cranmer's wonderful Preface, there were reversals, e.g. “pay and obey, but don’t read and think” in a few monumentally absurd proclamations by Henry and Parliament. Now, Cardinal Pole, an Anglo-Italian, had been out of country for 34 years. Mary recalled him. He advocated for the revival of the 1401 Act of De Haeretico Comburendo. Close to 300 were burned at the stake.

John Rogers was her first victim. Rogers was Tyndale’s friend, collaborator, and maker of the Thomas Matthew’s Bible (again, renamed as a theologico-political screen for Tyndale’s and Coverdale’s works and names). These were picked up by Henry as the Great Bible and it was now awash throughout the land. Rogers was burned at Smithfield on 11 FEB 1555. Prof. Daniell offers this quote:

“…with heroic fortitude. Even Catholic [=Anglo-Italians, not Reformed Catholics] opponents said so. The godly who had gathered wept and prayed God to give him courage to bear the pain and not to recant. Rogers’ ashes were collected, a martyr’s relics, and some seeing birds fly over as he expired thought this a sign of the Holy Ghost” (264).

Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer would be caught in the dragoons’ dragnets in the effort to extinguish God’s Gospel. The Anglo-Italian demons were roiling and raging.

800 Reformed Churchmen sailed the Channel to the Continent as fugitives and exiles for the Biblical faith, including some significant Biblical scholars. Mary’s policy did not extinguish the true faith nor did it advance the Anglo-Italian, Imperial or Roman-Vatican cause. The day of the English Bible had arrived and was to stay.

BIBLE READING, 264-268

Prof. Daniell will give portraits.

Richard Tracy, for example, wrote King Henry VIII in 1544. It is entitled A Supplication to our most Sovereign Lord King Henry VIII.  He argued that the Romanish conventicles [our word for them] had only been able to stand through the suppression of the vernacular Bibles. While the Great Bible was going into the 9000 national churches, Parliament had passed a proclamation warning that the “lower classes” were not to read the Bible” (264). But, the reality was outstripping Anglo-Italian imperialism. The Bible had seeped into the national life and was being read.

We return to the story of William Maldon of Chelmsford. A.W. Pollard, the Cranmer scholar, tells the story:

“…divers poor men of the town of Chelmsford in the county of Essex where my father dwelt and I born and with him brought up, the said poor men bought the New Testament of Jesus Christ and on Sundays did sit reading in the lower end of the church, and many would flock about them to hear their reading, then I came among the said readers to hear their reading of that glad tidings of the gospel, then my father seeing this that I listened to them every Sunday, then came he and sought me among them, and brought me away from the hearing of them and would have me say the Latin matins with him, the which grieved me very much, and thus did fetch me away divers times, then I see I could not be in rest, then I thought, I will learn to read English, and then I will have the New Testament and read thereon myself, and then I had learned of an English primer as far as patris sapientia and then on Sundays I plied my English primer, the Maytide following I and my father’s apprentice Thomas Jeffary laid our money together, and bought the New Testament in English, and hid it in our bedstraw and so exercised it at convenient times” (265).

A few self-evident observations: (1) The NT had surfaced in a parish 40 miles NE of London. (2) Sunday evenings were the occasion for the readings (following Latin-based services). (3) Apparently, many illiterates were gathered, but one amongst them could read. (4) Maldon was an illiterate, but resolved to learn to read English from a primer. (5) From the story, this was a continuing endeavor on his part. Reformed and Confessional Churchman call it the "due and ordinary means of grace." (6) The father was not pleased. (6) He buys a NT himself and “exercises” himself with/in it. Prof. Daniell refers to fights with his mother and father over it.

Prof. Daniell warms again to his frequent theme: many print-runs of the Tyndale, Coverdale Bibles and NTs for the English public, notwithstanding efforts to roll back the movement.

There is evidence for large assemblies doing this, which is, gathering for Bible reading. Some were so large that even Mary did not disrupt the practice: two notable illustrations come from a large parish in Bristol and one in London. It would appear that reading might occur provided there were no theological statements or reflections contrary to Anglo-Italian theology. But, the cat was out of the bag.

Here is one example of an assembly.

“We begin with prayer; after, read some one or two chapters of the Bible, give the sense thereof, and confer upon the same: that done, we lay aside our books, and after solemn prayer by the first speaker, he propoundeth some text out of the Scripture, and prophesieth [=teacheth, speaketh forth] out of the same by space of one hour or three quarters of an hour. After him standeth up a second speaker… [he is followed similarly by] the third, the fourth, the fifth, etc. as the time will give leave. Then the first speaker concludeth with prayer as he began with prayer, with an exhortation to contribution to the poor, which collection being made, is also concluded with a prayer. This morning exercise beginneth at eight of the clock and continueth until twelve of the clock. The like course and exercise is observed in the afternoon from two of the clock unto five or six of the clock. Last of all the business of the government of our church is handled” (267).

Unfortunately, Prof. Daniell does not date this record. This might be what Elizabeth had in mind regarding “prophesyings,” although the evidence for that appeared to be directed at Presbyters doing similarly. This appears to be a Congregationalist affair.

BIBLE REFERENCES BY INDIVIDUALS, 266-267

The Reformation was an “intellectual event” led by university men from the top of the academic food chain. It drew laymen into its orbit and gave them a new liberty. Many “ordinary people were bewildered…from their normal moorings” (267). But all the Reformers “wanted a nation of Bible readers” and for “all of England to be a university” in which “ploughboys and milkmaids sang the Scripture as they worked” (267). The Reformers did maintain the “authority of the Bible and control of its interpretation never more so than the Geneva Bible” (268), a note revealing Prof. Daniell's Dissenter roots.

Prof. Daniell returns to more illustrations of the commoner and the Bible.

1. Rawlins White of Cardiff, an illiterate fisherman, burned at the stake in 1555. Cardiff is about 150 miles from London and about 9 o'clock as the crow flies. The Bible was in a fisherman's home. He sent his son to school to learn to read English; they were Welsh-speakers. The boy read the English Bible at night. This indicates that the English Bible was to be had far outside London. The man became seriously literate—in terms of the readings—and was able to cite “chapter and leaf” (267).

2. John Maundrel was burned at Salisbury. Salisbury is about 90 miles from London at about 8 o'clock as the crow flies. He was illiterate too. But, he bought and owned a pocket-sized Tyndalian NT. He would ask anyone who could read to read to him. He too learned to cite and quote the Bible.

3. Joan Waste was a blind woman in Derby. Derby is about 130 miles from London at about 11 o'clock as the crow flies. She too bought a NT. She had others read it to her. She had sections memorized. She was burned at the stake in 1558.

4. Mrs. Prest of Exeter. Exeter is this scribe's ancestral home on mother's side. It is about 200 miles at about 8 o'clock as the crow flies. She was illiterate too, but attended readings and learned much by it. She was burned at the stake in Exeter in 1558.

5. A.G. Dickens in his English Reformation gives examples of youths who could read, did read, and were put to the stake.

Prof. Daniell again repeats his oft-made statement. Between 1536 (when Tyndale was strangled and roasted in Belgium) and 1549 (when the English Book of Common Prayer and English Bible were required in 9000 churches) was a meagre 13-14 years.

Despite the Anglo-Italian reversals of the 1540s, new forces were at work. Cranmer began studying liturgical example as his library at Lambeth reveals. He was absorbing Continental developments and scholarship. He chaired meetings at Windsor and Chertsey to review “phrasing and many other collects” (274).

To close off the chapter, Prof. Daniell offers two Cranmerian collects to show the force of the Saxon effort, the clear and direct language for use in national prayers:

1. The 21st Sunday After Trinity

“Grant we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people, pardon and peace: that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind: through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We would offer that Prayer Book doctrine and piety makes no room for the rampant noises of modern charismania or the free-wingers in worship. People kneel and beseech the divine mercies.

2. The 4th Sunday after Easter drawn from the 4th century Gelasian Sacramentary

“O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they many love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise: that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found: through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

There are reasons to be a Reformed Prayer Book Churchman.

(Wiki) John Rogers: Collaborator in English Bible Translation & First Protestant Martry

From Wiki.

Mary's first martyr, the arch-heretic of the Reformation, John Rogers. His wife and 11 children attended the burning at the stake.

John Rogers (c. 1500 – 4 February 1555) was a clergyman, Bible translator and commentator, and the first English Protestant martyr under Mary I of England.

Contents

1 Biography of John Rogers 1.1 Early life
1.2 Antwerp and the Matthew Bible
1.3 Imprisonment and martyrdom

Biography of John Roger

Early life

Rogers was born in Deritend, an area of Birmingham then within the parish of Aston. His father was also called John Rogers and was a lorimer – a maker of bits and spurs – whose family came from Aston; his mother was Margaret Wyatt, the daughter of a tanner with family in Erdington and Sutton Coldfield.[3]

Rogers was educated at the Guild School of St John the Baptist in Deritend,[4] and at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge University, where he graduated B.A. in 1526.[5] Between 1532 and 1534 he was rector of Holy Trinity the Less in the City of London.[6]

Antwerp and the Matthew Bible

In 1534, Rogers went to Antwerp as chaplain to the English merchants of the Company of the Merchant Adventurers.

Here he met William Tyndale, under whose influence he abandoned the Roman Catholic faith, and married Antwerp native Adriana de Weyden (b. 1522, anglicised to Adrana Pratt in 1552) in 1537. After Tyndale's death, Rogers pushed on with his predecessor's English version of the Old Testament, which he used as far as 2 Chronicles, employing Myles Coverdale's translation (1535) for the remainder and for the Apocrypha. Although it is claimed that Rogers was the first person to ever print a complete English Bible that was translated directly from the original Greek & Hebrew, there was also a reliance upon a Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible by Sebastian Münster and published in 1534/5.

Tyndale's New Testament had been published in 1526. The complete Bible was put out under the pseudonym of Thomas Matthew in 1537; it was printed in Paris and Antwerp by Adriana's uncle, Sir Jacobus van Meteren. Richard Grafton published the sheets and got leave to sell the edition (1500 copies) in England. At the insistence of Archbishop Cranmer, the "King's most gracious license" was granted to this translation. Previously in the same year, the 1537 reprint of the Myles Coverdale's translation had been granted such a lic.

The pseudonym "Matthew" is associated with Rogers, but it seems more probable that Matthew stands for Tyndale's own name, which, back then, was dangerous to employ. Rogers had little to do with the translation; his own share in that work was probably confined to translating the prayer of Manasses (inserted here for the first time in a printed English Bible), the general task of editing the materials at his disposal, and preparing the marginal notes collected from various sources. These are often cited as the first original English language commentary on the Bible. Rogers also contributed the Song of Manasses in the Apocrypha, which he found in a French Bible printed in 1535. His work was largely used by those who prepared the Great Bible (1539–40), and from this came the Bishops' Bible (1568) and the King James Version.

Rogers matriculated at the University of Wittenberg on 25 November 1540, where he remained for three years, becoming a close friend of Philipp Melanchthon and other leading figures of the early Protestant Reformation.[7] On leaving Wittenberg he spent four and a half years as a superintendent of a Lutheran church in Meldorf, Dithmarschen, near the mouth of the River Elbe in the north of Germany.[8]

Rogers returned to England in 1548, where he published a translation of Philipp Melanchthon's Considerations of the Augsburg Interim.

In 1550 he was presented to the crown livings of St Margaret Moses and St Sepulchre in London, and in 1551 was made a prebendary of St. Paul's, where the dean and chapter soon appointed him divinity lecturer. He courageously denounced the greed shown by certain courtiers with reference to the property of the suppressed monasteries, and defended himself before the privy council. He also declined to wear the prescribed vestments, donning instead a simple round cap. On the accession of Mary he preached at Paul's Cross commending the "true doctrine taught in King Edward's days," and warning his hearers against "pestilent Popery, idolatry and superstition."

Rogers was also against radical Protestants. After Joan of Kent was imprisoned in 1548 and convicted in April 1549, John Foxe, one of the few Protestants opposed to burnings, approached Rogers to intervene to save Joan, but he refused with the comment that burning was “sufficiently mild” for a crime as grave as heresy.

Imprisonment and martyrdom

On 16 August 1553 he was summoned before the council and bidden to keep within his own house. His emoluments were taken away and his prebend was filled in October. In January 1554, Bonner, the new Bishop of London, sent him to Newgate Prison, where he lay with John Hooper, Laurence Saunders, John Bradford and others for a year. Their petitions, whether for less rigorous treatment or for opportunity of stating their case, were disregarded. In December 1554, Parliament re-enacted the penal statutes against Lollards, and on 22 January 1555, two days after they took effect, Rogers (with ten other people) came before the council at Gardiner's house in Southwark, and defended himself in the examination that took place. On 28 and 29 January he came before the commission appointed by Cardinal Pole, and was sentenced to death by Gardiner for heretically denying the Christian character of the Church of Rome and the real presence in the sacrament. He awaited and met death cheerfully, though he was even denied a meeting with his wife. He was burned at the stake on 4 February 1555 at Smithfield. Noailles, the French ambassador, speaks of the support given to Rogers by the greatest part of the people: "even his children assisted at it, comforting him in such a manner that it seemed as if he had been led to a wedding."

John Rogers, Vicar of St. Sepulchre's, and Reader of St. Paul's, London

The quotation that follows is from Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Chapter 16. However, it is included here because of its historical significance, being the vehicle by which the story of Rev. John Rogers has been most widely disseminated.

"John Rogers was educated at Cambridge, and was afterward many years chaplain to the merchant adventurers at Antwerp in Brabant. Here he met with the celebrated martyr William Tyndale, and Miles Coverdale, both voluntary exiles from their country for their aversion to popish superstition and idolatry. They were the instruments of his conversion; and he united with them in that translation of the Bible into English, entitled "The Translation of Thomas Matthew." From the Scriptures he knew that unlawful vows may be lawfully broken; hence he married, and removed to Wittenberg in Saxony, for the improvement of learning; and he there learned the Dutch language, and received the charge of a congregation, which he faithfully executed for many years. On King Edward's accession, he left Saxony to promote the work of reformation in England; and, after some time, Nicholas Ridley, then bishop of London, gave him a prebend in St. Paul's Cathedral, and the dean and chapter appointed him reader of the divinity lesson there. Here he continued until Queen Mary's succession to the throne, when the Gospel and true religion were banished, and the Antichrist of Rome, with his superstition and idolatry, introduced.

The circumstance of Mr. Rogers having preached at Paul's cross, after Queen Mary arrived at the Tower, has been already stated. He confirmed in his sermon the true doctrine taught in King Edward's time, and exhorted the people to beware of the pestilence of popery, idolatry, and superstition. For this he was called to account, but so ably defended himself that, for that time, he was dismissed. The proclamation of the queen, however, to prohibit true preaching, gave his enemies a new handle against him. Hence he was again summoned before the council, and commanded to keep to his house. He did so, though he might have escaped; and though he perceived the state of the true religion to be desperate. He knew he could not want a living in Germany; and he could not forget a wife and ten children, and to seek means to succor them. But all these things were insufficient to induce him to depart, and, when once called to answer in Christ's cause, he stoutly defended it, and hazarded his life for that purpose.

After long imprisonment in his own house, the restless Bonner, bishop of London, caused him to be committed to Newgate, there to be lodged among thieves and murderers.

After Mr. Rogers had been long and straitly imprisoned, and lodged in Newgate among thieves, often examined, and very uncharitably entreated, and at length unjustly and most cruelly condemned by Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, the fourth day of February, in the year of our Lord 1555, being Monday in the morning, he was suddenly warned by the keeper of Newgate's wife, to prepare himself for the fire; who, being then sound asleep, could scarce be awaked. At length being raised and awaked, and bid to make haste, then said he, "If it be so, I need not tie my points." And so was had down, first to bishop Bonner to be degraded: which being done, he craved of Bonner but one petition; and Bonner asked what that should be. Mr. Rogers replied that he might speak a few words with his wife before his burning, but that could not be obtained of him.

When the time came that he should be brought out of Newgate to Smithfield, the place of his execution, Mr. Woodroofe, one of the sheriffs, first came to Mr. Rogers, and asked him if he would revoke his abominable doctrine, and the evil opinion of the Sacrament of the altar. Mr. Rogers answered, "That which I have preached I will seal with my blood." Then Mr. Woodroofe said, "Thou art an heretic." "That shall be known," quoth Mr. Rogers, "at the Day of Judgment." "Well," said Mr. Woodroofe, "I will never pray for thee." "But I will pray for you," said Mr. Rogers; and so was brought the same day, the fourth of February, by the sheriffs, towards Smithfield, saying the Psalm Miserere by the way, all the people wonderfully rejoicing at his constancy; with great praises and thanks to God for the same. And there in the presence of Mr. Rochester, comptroller of the queen's household, Sir Richard Southwell, both the sheriffs, and a great number of people, he was burnt to ashes, washing his hands in the flame as he was burning. A little before his burning, his pardon was brought, if he would have recanted; but he utterly refused it. He was the first martyr of all the blessed company that suffered in Queen Mary's time that gave the first adventure upon the fire. His wife and children, being eleven in number, ten able to go, and one sucking at her breast, met him by the way, as he went towards Smithfield. This sorrowful sight of his own flesh and blood could nothing move him, but that he constantly and cheerfully took his death with wonderful patience, in the defence and quarrel of the Gospel of Christ."

Notes

1.Jump up ^ Chester 1861, p. 1
2.Jump up ^ Daniell 2004
3.Jump up ^ Hill 1907, pp. 5–6
4.Jump up ^ Hill 1907, p. 4
5.Jump up ^ "Rogers, John". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
6.Jump up ^ Chester 1861, pp. 3–5
7.Jump up ^ Daniell 2003, p. 191
8.Jump up ^ Daniell 2003, p. 191

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Rogers (Bible editor and martyr).

Chester, Joseph Lemuel (1861), John Rogers: the Compiler of the First Authorised English Bible, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, OCLC 257597540, retrieved 2009-02-14
Daniell, David (2003), The Bible in English, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-09930-4
Daniell, David (2004), "Rogers, John (c.1500–1555)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online ed.), Oxford University Press, retrieved 2009-02-14
Hill, Joseph (1907), The book makers of old Birmingham; authors, printers, and book sellers, Birmingham: Printed at the Shakespeare Press for Cornish Bros., OCLC 3773421

Henry VIII, Coverdale, Tyndale, Cranmer & Great Bible of 1540

Davies, Horton. Worship and Theology in England From Cranmer to Hooker, 1534-1603, Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996.

A few musings, although, in terms of a timeline, this is advanced beyond the divorce issue and other developments.

Chapter One, pages 5-39: “Catholics and Protestants in Controversy (1534-1568)”

Pg.11ff.

Mr. Davies draws attention to the “role of Scripture.” But, he does so pretty widely and broadly.  He is ranging over a 34-year period, but there is a long period before 1534 that is not addressed.

He tells us that in the "early decades of the 16th century," this prevailed:

“It was settled, then, that the Christian prince, presumably advised by his theologians, was the true instrument for the reformation and disciplining of the national church.” Wycliffe and Luther would have agreed. 

But, "it was settled?"   It was for Frederick the Wise, but Henry VIII?  Yes and no.  Yes, Henry VIII made himself the Boss of the Church of England, but was Henry doctrinally "Reformational?"  Henry remained a good orthodox Romanist, but without the Pope. He "reformed" the Church of England into a Non-Papal Roman Church. So, questions arise here.

Mr. Davies states: “In the early decades of the 16th century, however, is was clear that the opinion was that the only authority of the word of God in the Holy Scriptures was sufficient for the reform and rebuilding of the church” (Davies, 12).

This was hardly a "settled opinion," by any stretch.  For Reformers, yes, but it was hardly a "settled opinion" from Romanists.  The Council of Trent will convene shortly after the publication of "The Great Bible" in 1540.


Scripture alone? Scripture, reason and tradition? Two testaments including the Old Testament? King Josiah to justify Tudor monarchies? Apocrypha? Or, as Anglicans argued, the traditio quincquesecularis, the first five centuries?

Mr. Davies cites Erasmus: “Inherent in the appeal of Erasmus to the new translated New Testament.”

In 1535, Coverdale produced an English translation. It was published on the Continent, but not in England. This was 19 years after Erasmus produced his New Testament Greek text.

Mr. Davies tells us that "the adoption of an English translation was slow in England" and "a convocation petitioned Henry for a translation in 1534."   Cranmer convinced Henry VIII to commission Coverdale.

In 1537, “Matthew’s Bible” was produced but it was really Coverdale’s. And Coverdale's was largely Tyndale's. (By the way, Tyndale opposed Henry VIII's divorce and yet, oddly, Ann Boleyn would enjoy some of Tyndale's writings.) Tyndale will get roasted at the stake in 1536 compliments of the search engine of the Bishop of London.   Ms. Boleyn wouldn't be long for life either, but we digress.

As an aside on Tyndale, we recommend: Daniel, David. William Tyndale: A Biography.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Two years after Tyndale's death on the Continent, an Injunction was issued in 1538 that an English Bible should be placed in every church throughout England. This is huge.

Cranmer puts his “Preface” in the Bible.

The title page of the Great Bible of 1540 states: “This is appointed for use of the churches.” This is a serious advance for the Church of England. It was a beach-head. However, there were no divine services (e.g. Masses only all in Latin), throughout the land, in English.   Those Latin Masses would prevail until our generation, the 1970s.  English, sorry. Nor any public lections in English at this point, insofar as we can see.

If we assume 10,000 churches throughout England and if, by a gratuitous assumption, this was a successful campaign of distribution, this would have been a massive effort; but do we have confirmation of the success of this effort?

How successful was this Injunction? Was there compliance on a national scale? Or, was this a "publishing phenomenon" in London, Oxford, Cambridge and a few other influential centers? Who was reading this "Great Bible?"

While this gets good press from those favoring the English Reformation, we have questions of context. Yes, it was significant that it was published in 1540, but let the inferences be fair. There was continuing opposition to the Bible in English.

But, it's publication does just that...it RAISED many questions.  It would be these questions that would spawn something of a Reformation in England.

We draw a few notes from Mr. Cranmer’s “Preface.”

1. This is for “two sorts of sundry people.”

2. Some are “too slow” and “need the spur.” These are those who refuse “to read or hear in the vulgar tongue."  Cranmer uses metaphors from horsemanship. Of note, Cranmer was noted for his horsemanship. In fact, his long-term secretary (throughout his regnancy in Canterbury) and well-trusted friend, Ralph Morice, stated that Cranmer could ride the toughest horses in the Archbishop's stables.

3. Some are “too quick” and need “more of the bridle,” that is, those who by “inordinate reading” engage in “contentious disputing.”   Well, what else did Cranmer himself do in his marginalia?  In his own books?  Dealing with assertions, objections and counter-objections in good Aristotelian fashion?  Mr. Cranmer might object to disputation, but he practiced it himself.  And what else was it that was going on in Germany and elsewhere?  Or, does Cranmer have Anabaptists in mind? 1525, the Peasants Revolt, the death of 1000s and the Munster-chaos were internationally known…even feared. Cranmer always feared the Anabaptist revolts on the Continent.

4. Both “deserve in effect like reproach.”  However the above is viewed, Cranmer wisely argues for cautious, learned, and sober reading. 

5. The Bible is the "Lucerna pedibus meis, verbum tuum," that is, "Thy Word is a lantern to my feet."

6. Over 100 years before, Cranmer notes, the Bible began to be read in English. A reference to Wycliffe? We are not sure. Wycliffe and Lollards in the late 14th and 15th centuries ran into heavy seas with the production of English Bibles.   What the Lollards had engaged in was strenuously opposed by Papal Romano-English bishops. What does Cranmer know, believe, assert or deny regarding Wycliffites? This appears to be a reference to Lollardy.  If so, Cranmer's present context acknowledges, implicitly and explicitly, that Wycliffe and the Lollards had been right all along!!  Imagine that!

7. 100s of year before this (Lollardy), Bibles were produced in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. This was evident in many abbeys, but “few could read and understand” these old manuscripts.   Cranmer observed that they still existed in his time. Beyond Cranmer's references here, we point to Mr. (abc) Matthew Parker who--later--referred to an ancient Anglo-Saxon manuscript that he collected. Mr. Parker noted that it showed heavy signs of use. In other words, the Bible in the national tongue was in use before the Latin tongue shoved the Bible from the Churches and God's people.  At what point did the Anglo-Saxon versions succumb to Romano-Latin domination?

8. Cranmer refers to Chrysostom in "De Lazaro," to wit, that “every man should read” the Bible “between sermon and sermon.” He should not read just “in church” but “when you are in your houses.” “Let no man excuse himself.”

9. “Take the book in your own hands.”

10. “The Apostles and prophets had special intent and purpose” that the Scriptures "might be perceived and understood by every reader.”  Well, well.  Chrysostom, Wycliffe, Luther, and Cranmer agree.  We again repeat: it is within this scribe's memory, yours truly, that Roman Masses in the United States were still in Latin and Papal Romanists were not allowed to read the Bible.  Do the math:  1540 for Cranmer's "Great Bible" in English and in England and 1960s Masses in Latin in the USA. 420 years is the difference.  It's called Romano-Latin dominionism.

11. The Bible is not for “disputes” and “fists.” Cranmer cites Gregory of Nazianzus where there were ungodly contentions.

12. Learning, which Cranmer recommends, should “be in the fear of the Lord.”

 

Thomas Cranmer's Early Years: Jesus College, Cambridge

Pollard, Albert Frederick. Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906.

   
      A few notes and interpolated musings. (The indents/page edges are sovereign and unwieldy.)

      Cranmer was called an “ostler,” an “hostler” or “tapster” perhaps, an “elbow-bender with ales” or an innkeeper of sorts at the Dolphin Inn, an inn close to Jesus’s College.  This might be an imputation by a bigot against marriage or a social slight from a hostile source.  But, be that as it is.  Even poor Elizabeth 1 was habituated to this ill-advised view of married clerics. In any event, it’s not a flattering term.  He married Joan, a niece of the owner-mistress of the Inn. But, by statute, as a married man, he had to withdraw as a Fellow at Jesus. 

During the 12-month period of his “dis-fellowship,” he was a “common reader” and “divinity lecturer” at Buckingham College in 1515, a school that existed from 1428-1542 and a school that would later morph into Magdalene College.  His wife and child died in childbirth. 

In 1516, Cranmer was “re-elected” to Jesus’s College. Age 27.

        Of interest, Erasmus was at Queens’ from 1510-1515 and was a daily lecturer for the University at large.  He was the Lady Margaret Lecturer in Divinity.  At the time, Erasmus noted that a “change had come over the atmosphere of Cambridge.”[1]  The scholasticism was giving “way to literature and the Bible.”

        After Erasmus left Cambridge and repaired to the Continent, he published the NT Greek edition in 1516.  By 31 October 1517, Luther’s Ninety-five Theses were nailed to Wittenberg’s door.  They went Europe-wide in academic centers. Pollard avers that this time-frame dates Cranmer’s inaugural, diligent and systematic examination of the Scriptures.

        Here is an interesting portrait of Cranmer.  Inescapably, he’s been acquainted with the stirrings of the Reformation. A biographer says of Cranmer in this early period:

"Then he considering what great controversy was in matters of religion (not only in trifles but in the chiefest articles of our salvation), bent himself to try out the truth therein: and, forasmuch as he perceived that he could not judge indifferently in so weighty matters without the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures (before he were infected with any man’s opinions or errors) he applied his whole study three years to the said Scriptures. After this he gave his mind to good writers both old and new, not rashly running over them, for he was a slow reader; for he seldom read without a pen in his hand, and whatsoever made either for one part or the other of things being in controversy, he wrote it out if it were short, or at the least, noted the author and the place, that he might find it and write it out by leisure; which was of great help to him in debating matters ever after.  This kind of study he used till he was made Doctor of Divinity which was about the thirty-fourth of his age.”[2]

In summary of these insights:  (1) Cranmer gets his doctorate at age 34 or in 1523, (2) great substantial theological controversies exist, Cranmer knows of them and is determined to investigate them, (3) these matters are “substantial” and not “trifles,” (4) he “bends” (an interesting term) himself to learn of them, (5) he studies “Scriptures” for three years, (6) he studies new and old authors, (7) he reads slowly, and (8) he takes diligent notes. Cranmer, a proto-Reformer and proto-Puritan, involved with Continental matters, is in the making.  Time to drain the dirty bath water without tossing the baby out with the wash.

       A few general and personal characteristics are noted about Cranmer’s person.  He is a man of “immense industry.”  Or, more largely, it is noted:

He had in his favour a dignified presence, adorned with a semblance of goodness, considerable reputation for learning, and manners so courteous, kindly and pleasant, that he seemed like an old friend to those whom he encountered for the first time. He gave signs of modesty, seriousness and application.[3]

While we require other documentation, this viewpoint tends to be confirmed by other writers…even to Cranmer’s end:  studious, widely read, diligent note-taker, Bible student, polite, forgiving, and ever-cautious.

      Soon after his “re-election” to fellowship at Jesus in 1516, age 27, he becomes a lecturer in divinity.  In 1520, age 31, he was ordained, but two other duties emerged: a Cambridge “university preacher” and a candidate examiner of postulants to orders (and he was demanding, particularly as to Bible knowledge). In 1524, age 35 and now Dr. Cranmer, Cardinal Wolsey offered him a “canonry,” or, the term, title and office of “canon” at Cardinal College, Oxford.  “Canons” are chosen for this because of eminence in learning and character. Cranmer turned it down.

        It should be noted that in 1521, when Cranmer was age 33 and near completion of his doctoral studies, the “White Horse Inn” (WHI) was gaining a reputation as “Little Germany” full of English “Germans,” as it were, discussing Continental developments.  “Luther” was the subject.  By 1521, Luther had been "excommunicated" by Rome and was under the imperial ban of the Holy Roman Emperor.  By 1522, Luther's Bible in German is on the streets.  As for the WHI, Tyndale and Coverdale, Bible translators, were involved.  England’s racy prophet, old Hugh Latimer, was involved.  Some of England’s early martyrs were involved: Bilney, Barnes, Crome, and Lambert.  Other proto-Reformers and proto-Puritans were involved also: Matthew Parker (Elizabeth 1’s first archbishop of Canterbury), Nicholas Shaxton, John Rogers and John Bale.[4]  We infer that it was near-wise impossible that Cranmer was not aware of these developments. But details and questions emerge.

        By 1525, the “High Steward of Cambridge” was busy giving root canals, as it were, to these errors.  Called “vagaries” by Pollard.  By 1528, sterner measures were being taken and “recantations” were sought.

        Also, by 1525, at age 36, Cranmer is privately praying “for the abolition of papal power in England.”  That’s really not a new issue, since Wycliffe and Lollards had fought this battle.  So had Anselm and Thomas a Becket in earlier centuries.  But, now Luther is on the loose in Germany and Cranmer knew it.  And...it was washing ashore in the English Channel and in English ports (books).

      But, as we watch Cranmer, he was the “very reverse of an enthusiast,” was a “slow reader,” always took “painful hesitant steps,” and had “no burning zeal.”  He was a scholar.  Later, he would be a Reformer.

    God willing, more to come.

---

[1] Erasmus, Epistolae, cxlviii.

[2] “Narratives of the Reformation” (Camden Society), 3.  Available at:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1407777386/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

[3] Pollard cites this quote from Ed. Gairdner’s, Bishop Cranmer’s Retcantacyons, 3. Gairdner is allegedly available at: http://www.amazon.com/English-Historical-Documents-Volume-1485-1558/dp/0415143705/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373747760&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=cranmer%27s+recantacysons+gairdner.  However, it costs $532.00 and is beyond our reach.

[4] Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph.  England under the Tudors: Third Edition. (Routledge, 1991), 111.  Available at: http://www.amazon.com/England-Under-Tudors-G-Elton/dp/041506533X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373749016&sr=1-1&keywords=elton+england+under+the+tudors