Tyndale. I know no other purging but faith in the cross of Christ; while you, for a groat or a sixpence, buy some secret pills [indulgences] which you take to purge yourselves of your sins.[967]
More. Faith, then, is your purgatory, you say; there is no need, therefore, of works—a most immoral doctrine!
Tyndale. It is faith alone that saves us, but not a bare faith. When a horse beareth a saddle and a man thereon, we may well say that the horse only and alone beareth the saddle, but we do not mean the saddle empty, and no man thereon.[968]
In this manner did the catholic and the evangelical carry on the discussion. According to Tyndale, what constitutes the true church is the work of the Holy Ghost within; according to More, the constitution of the papacy without. The spiritual character of the Gospel is thus put in opposition to the formalist character of the Roman church. The Reformation restored to our belief the solid foundation of the word of God; for the sand it substituted the rock. In the discussion to which we have just been listening, the advantage remained not with the catholic. Erasmus, a friend of More's, embarrassed by the course the latter was taking, wrote to Tonstall: "I cannot heartily congratulate More."[969]
Henry interrupted the celebrated knight in these contests to send him to Cambray, where a peace was negotiating between France and the empire. Wolsey would have been pleased to go himself; but his enemies suggested to the king, "that it was only that he might not expedite the matter of the divorce." Henry, therefore, despatched More, Knight, and Tonstall; but Wolsey had created so many delays that he did not arrive until after the conclusion of the Ladies' Peace (August 1529). The king's vexation was extreme. Du Bellay had in vain helped him to spend a good preparatory July to make him swallow the dose.[970] Henry was angry with Wolsey, Wolsey threw the blame on the ambassador, and the ambassador defended himself, he tells us, "with tooth and nail."[971]
TREATY AGAINST LUTHERAN BOOKS.
By way of compensation, the English envoys concluded with the emperor a treaty prohibiting on both sides the printing and sale of "any Lutheran books."[972] Some of them could have wished for a good persecution, for a few burning piles, it may be. A singular opportunity occurred. In the spring of 1529, Tyndale and Fryth had left Marburg for Antwerp, and were thus in the vicinity of the English envoys. What West had been unable to effect, it was thought the two most intelligent men in Britain could not fail to accomplish. "Tyndale must be captured," said More and Tonstall.—"You do not know what sort of a country you are in," replied Hackett. "Will you believe that on the 7th of April, Harman arrested me at Antwerp for damages, caused by his imprisonment? If you can lay anything to my charge as a private individual, I said to the officer, I am ready to answer for myself; but if you arrest me as ambassador, I know no judge but the emperor. Upon which the procurator had the audacity to reply, that I was arrested as ambassador; and the lords of Antwerp only set me at liberty on condition that I should appear again at the first summons.[973] These merchants are so proud of their franchises, that they would resist even Charles himself." This anecdote was not at all calculated to encourage More; and not caring about a pursuit, which promised to be of little use, he returned to England. But the bishop of London, who was left behind, persisted in the project, and repaired to Antwerp to put it in execution.
TYNDALE'S DANGER.
Tyndale was at that time greatly embarrassed; considerable debts, incurred with his printers, compelled him to suspend his labours. Nor was this all: the prelate who had spurned him so harshly in London, had just arrived in the very city where he lay concealed.... What would become of him?... A merchant, named Augustin Packington, a clever man, but somewhat inclined to dissimulation, happening to be at Antwerp on business, hastened to pay his respects to the bishop. The latter observed, in the course of conversation: "I should like to get hold of the books with which England is poisoned." "I can perhaps serve you in that matter," replied the merchant. "I know the Flemings, who have bought Tyndale's books; so that if your lordship will be pleased to pay for them, I will make you sure of them all."—"Oh, oh!" thought the bishop, "Now, as the proverb says, I shall have God by the toe.[974] Gentle Master Packington," he added in a flattering tone, "I will pay for them whatsoever they cost you. I intend to burn them at St. Paul's cross." The bishop, having his hand already on Tyndale's Testaments, fancied himself on the point of seizing Tyndale himself.
Packington, being one of those men who love to conciliate all parties, ran off to Tyndale, with whom he was intimate, and said:—"William, I know you are a poor man, and have a heap of New Testaments and books by you, for which you have beggared yourself; and I have now found a merchant who will buy them all, and with ready money too."—"Who is the merchant?" said Tyndale.—"The bishop of London."—"Tonstall?... If he buys my books, it can only be to burn them."—"No doubt," answered Packington; "but what will he gain by it? The whole world will cry out against the priest who burns God's word, and the eyes of many will be opened. Come, make up your mind, William; the bishop shall have the books, you the money, and I the thanks."... Tyndale resisted the proposal; Packington became more pressing. "The question comes to this," he said; "shall the bishop pay for the books or shall he not? for, make up your mind ... he will have them."—"I consent," said the Reformer at last; "I shall pay my debts, and bring out a new and more correct edition of the Testament." The bargain was made.