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priests of Ossory now resolved to retaliate upon their bishop; and while they were endeavoring to compass his death, he fled once more to Holland, and thence passed to Basil in Switzerland, where he remained until Mary's death. In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, he returned from exile, but instead of resuming the duties of bishop of Ossory, he became prebend of Canterbury, and in this office remained until his death, which occurred in the month of November, 1563, and in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

Bale was the author of many severe and intemperate tracts against popery; but his most celebrated production is an Account, in Latin, of the Lives of Eminent Writers of Great Britain, extending from Japhet, one of the sons of Noah, to the year 1557. He left, also, many curious metrical productions in the English language, including several dramatic pieces on sacred subjects, which to a modern taste appear utterly burlesque. Among these are plays on John the Baptist's preaching; on The childhood, temptation, passion, and resurrection of Christ; on The Lord's Supper, The washing of the disciples' feet, and on God's promises the performance of all of which formed a part of the exercises of the Sabbath, at Kilkenny, during Bale's residence in Ireland. In 1544, he published a Brefe Chronycle concernynge the Examinacyon and Death of Sir John Oldecastell the Lorde Cobham, from which we extract the account of Cobham's death. Cobham was executed in 1417, in the reign of Henry the Fifth, for supporting the doctrines of Wickliffe, and was the first martyr among the English nobility.

DEATH OF LORD COBHAM.

Upon the day appointed, he was brought out of the Tower with his arms bound behind him, having a very cheerful countenance. Then was he laid upon a hurdle, as though he had been a most heinous traitor to the crown, and so drawn forth into Saint Giles' Field, where as they had set up a new pair of gallows. As he was coming to the place of execution, and was taken from the hurdle, he fell down devoutly upon his knees, desiring Almighty God to forgive his enemies. Than stood he up, and beheld the multitude, exhorting them in most godly manner to follow the laws of God written in the Scriptures, and in any wise to beware of such teachers as they see contrary to Christ in their conversation and living, with many other special counsels. Then he was hanged up there by the middle in chains of iron, and so consumed alive in the fire, praising the name of God, so long as his life lasted. In the end he commended his soul into the hand of God, and so departed hence most Christenly, his body resolved into ashes.

Lecture the Sirth.

THE STATE OF THE POPULAR MIND-WILLIAM TYNDALE-MILES COVERDALE-JOHN FOX-JOHN LELAND-GEORGE CAVENDISH-LORD BERNERS-JOHN BELLENDENSIR JOHN CHEKE-THOMAS WILSON-ROGER ASCHAM.

NE of the most striking features of the popular mind of England during the reign of Henry the Eighth, was a disposition to throw off the oppressive yoke of the Romish Church; and the measures which were taken to effect this great object, were wonderfully facilitated by the insufferable pride and pomp of the prelates of that church, and the shameful debaucheries of the monks. The latter had become so notorious that even the advocates themselves of popery did not attempt to deny it; and, accordingly, when it was pressed upon the consciousness of Sir Thomas More, his only reply was, 'Our mater is not of the lyuynge but of the doctryne.' This, it was early perceived, could be done so effectually in no other way as by affording to the people the means of reading the Scriptures in their vernacular language. To the attainment of this great end, the life of Tyndale was therefore devoted.

WILLIAM TYNDALE, the son of John Tyndale, of baronial dignity, was born at Hunt's Court in Gloucestershire, in 1477. From childhood he was destined for the church, and at a very early age he, accordingly, became a diligent student in the university at Oxford. He continued at Oxford till his proficiency in the Greek and Latin languages enabled him to read the New Testament to his fellow-students in Magdalen Hall, and also to those of Magdalen College. In this manner he laid the foundation of that skill in the learned languages so essential to the successful accomplishment of the great enterprise upon which he was soon to enter. Having taken his degrees at Oxford, Tyndale, for some reason not now known, entered the university of Cambridge, where he also took a degree, immediately after which he was ordained, and on the eleventh of March, 1502, was set apart as priest to the nunnery of Lambley in the diocess of Carlisle. He took the vows and became a friar in the monastery of Greenwich, in 1508. For some years previous to taking the vows, he had not only read the Scriptures to

his fellow-students, but by presenting, in an English dress, various portions of the New Testament, evinced his early zeal for the noble enterprise which has perpetuated his name.

How long Tyndale remained with the Greenwich community is uncertain; but having returned to his native county, he exchanged the life of a friar for that of tutor and chaplain in the family of Sir John Welch, a knight of Gloucestershire, whose liberal table was certain to procure him the frequent visits of the neighboring prelates and clergy. Luther, at this time, having become, from his bold defiance of the Pope, the all-absorbing topic, the chaplain was often betrayed into disputes with his patron's guests on the new heresy. When mortified at the ignorance of his authorized guides, he would warmly urge upon them the study of the New Testament. This led them, in Fuller's witty phrase, 'to prefer resigning Squire Welch's good cheer, rather than to have the sour sauce of Master Tyndale's company.' At this display of Tyndale's independence and conscientious integrity, Sir John Welch's lady expressed strong disapprobation; but Tyndale took no other notice of her displeasure, than to translate and to dedicate to herself and Sir John 'Erasmus Enchiridion,' the attentive reading of which resulted in the happy conversion of both. He was now firmly seated anew in their regard; but the hostility of the beneficed clergy had been thoroughly aroused, and was not quieted until he was cited to appear before the ordinary. 'With a deep sense of his danger, it was his earnest prayer on the way, that God would strengthen him to contend firmly, at all hazards, for the truth of his word. His persecutors had assembled strong; but whether from the influence of his protecting knight, or the secret providence of God, their courage failed, and he escaped without accusation. The ordinary, however, 'rated him like a dog.'

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Tyndale now found it necessary, for better security, to leave the service of Sir John Welch, and he, therefore, made application to Tonstall, bishop of London, to become one of his chaplains; but while the fate of his application was pending, he happened to fall in company with a popish divine, with whom he argued the necessity of a vernacular translation of the Bible so conclusively, that the priest, unable to answer him, exclaimed, We had better be without God's law than the Pope's.' This audacity so fired the spirit of Tyndale that he indignantly replied, 'I defy the Pope and all his laws; and if God give me life, ere many years the plow-boys shall know more of the Scriptures than you do'—a pledge which he afterward amply redeemed.

Having failed in his application for a chaplaincy under the protection of the bishop of London, Tyndale found an asylum in the house of Humphrey Munmouth, a wealthy alderman of London, with whom he continued to reside for about six months. The design of translating the New Testament into the English language, had now become the settled purpose of his life; and finding that his native country would no longer afford him even a

1 Offor.

temporary retreat in which to effect this purpose, he left England in 1523, and for conscience' sake became a voluntary exile from his native land for the remainder of his life. Having arrived at Hamburgh in Germany, he immediately passed thence into Saxony, and after a conference with Luther, who had just then published the New Testament in the German language he at once completed and published at Wyttemburg in 1526, the first transla tion of the New Testament ever made from the original Greek into the English language. The sensation produced in England by this publication was intense; and notwithstanding every effort that the strength of the government could put forth, or the rage of the clergy invent to suppress it, still the word of God in the vernacular tongue, 'grew and prevailed.'

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From this period Tyndale became the object of such deep hatred by the Romish clergy, that they hunted him from place to place without intermission, until 1530, when he found, for a few years, comparative repose as chaplain to a company of English merchants at Antwerp, in Holland. During his sojourn in this city, he literally went about doing good.' He was,' says Mr. Offor, the almoner of his more wealthy countrymen. Saturday and Sunday were his days of relaxation from severe study: on the former, he visited the sick and dying foreigners, and on Sunday, both before and after divine service, he visited and relieved his fellow-exiles. Persecution for conscience' sake, swept like a pestilence over his native land; and carried along with it, the worthiest of her sons. Many fled to Antwerp as their asylum in the greatest distress; and found from Tyndale's generous sympathy, both refreshment to the spirit, and assistance in purse; he, in his charities, appearing like an angel of mercy; in preaching, like an apostle.'

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At length, however, in 1534, he was treacherously apprehended through the agency of one Philips, an emissary of the English king, and immediately conveyed to a prison at Vilvoord, a small village situated between Brussels and Malines. During the greater part of his imprisonment, which lasted two years, he was treated by his jailor with great kindness; and he, therefore, improved the lenity thus extended to him by redeeming the pledge long before given to the priest of Gloucestershire that the plow-boys should have the New Testament to read.' With this view he caused to be printed in 1535, an edition of his version, in a provincial orthography, probably that of his native county, peculiarly adapted to agricultural laborers. The formalities of a trial were at length gone through with, and he was condemned, by virtue of a decree made at Augsburgh, against what was called heresy. In September 1536, he suffered the dreadful sentence of death by strangulation, immediately after which his body was bound to a stake and burned; and in his dying moments he uttered the fervent ejaculation, Lord, open the king of England's eyes.'

Besides the New Testament from the Greek, Tyndale translated the Pentateuch and other portions of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. He also wrote many tracts of a controversial character, in vindication of his conduct in endeavoring to give the Scriptures to the laity; the principal of

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