The infallibility, the authority, and the truth of the doctrines of the Romish Church were denied and scoffed at in the most vigorous language, and, in proof of his assertions, this bold monk quoted Scripture as the authority that what he said was true. That the people might know the truth in this quarrel he promised that the New Testament should be translated into the language of the people, that they might read and judge for themselves in this matter.
"Well, that is fair enough," said Miles, when one of his student friends told him of the crowning enormity, as he considered it.
"What! you would put the Gospels into the hands of the common people?" exclaimed his friend.
"Yes, indeed! if I could, every farmer and every man at the plough should have his Gospel to read when the day's work was done."
"And where would the ploughing be if such a thing could be done? But there, the Church will never allow it," said his friend, in a calmer tone.
Not merely among university students did the conflict of talk rage with ever increasing fury, but the King himself must needs enter the lists against Luther, and in defence of the Church he wrote a book, which he called "The Assertion of the Seven Sacraments." Whether it added very much to the enlightenment of mankind upon the points in dispute was of small moment. It served the statecraft of Pope Leo the Tenth to make much of its royal author, and he had the title of "Defender of the Faith" conferred upon him—a title which every English sovereign has held since—empty of all meaning as it has long since become.
Miles, and many greater men than he, saw with dismay that what they had hoped would be a gradual enlightening of the people from the new learning, would now be a bone of contention and bitterness over which all the angry passions of men would rage and roar. It was evident that this quarrel of friars would become a quarrel of nations, and of friends and families, for already some of his old friends began to breathe the hateful word "heretic" against Miles, because he had taken sides with Luther so far as to say that it was fair for people to have the Scriptures to read for themselves, that they might judge who was in the right—Luther or the Pope.
It was some comfort to Miles to reflect that the man who guided the destinies of England, both civil and religious, was a friend to the new learning, and was doing all he could to foster it. Not only here at Oxford was the great Cardinal Wolsey doing what he could to further the cause of education, but at his own town of Ipswich he had founded a grammar school, much after the pattern of that founded by the good Dean of St. Paul's in London—Dr. Colet. And so, schools being provided for poor lads, who could not otherwise get a good education, they might hope that men would learn to judge fairly and righteously in this quarrel.
The practical outcome of it, so far as Miles was concerned, was to make him the more eager to copy his Gospel, not merely for the money the sale brought him, but because he was anxious to multiply copies of it, that more of those to whom the Greek language was unknown might be able to read it in English.
But while he toiled, and almost starved sometimes, he did not forget the mason's labourer working at the Cardinal's college. Some portion of it was already opened, and professors had been installed in some of the chairs, and more students were flocking to Oxford than ever, drawn thither by the fame of the new college and the wealth that had been lavished upon it.