Above thee rules in love, through weal and woe,
Guiding thy king and thee, the King of kings.”
—Charles Kingsley.
“It is not our business to stand before Scripture and admire it; but to stand within, that we may believe and obey it. In the way of inward communion and obedience only shall we see the beauty of its treasures.”—Dr. Angus.
THE BOOK OF JONAH TRANSLATED—POWER LENT BY GOD—WANDERING BUT WORKING—COMFORTING FRYTH—FRYTH’S NOBLE DEFENCE—TYNDALE’S MODE OF LIFE.
Vaughan, who during the interviews of which we have spoken had become strongly attached to Tyndale, was recalled by Cromwell in 1532, and a less scrupulous envoy was employed in his place. Sir Thomas Elyot, the new tool of Henry’s policy, did not seek for a friendly interview with Tyndale, as his predecessor had done; but, on the contrary, he sought by all possible means to apprehend the exile. Whether this indicated a change in the King’s intention toward Tyndale, or were merely an unmasking of purposes which it had been deemed expedient to dissemble while Vaughan was the envoy, the danger to Tyndale was equally as great. “I gave many rewards,” Elyot wrote to Cromwell, “partly to the Emperor’s servants to get knowledge, and partly to such as by whose means I trusted to apprehend Tyndale, according to the King’s commandment.”
Encompassed as he thus was with snares and perils, Tyndale, however, did not desist from his heroic efforts. He eluded Elyot’s plots, and successfully translated and published the Book of Jonah, and even prefixed his initials to the preface, as he had not done with the New Testament. So successful, however, were the efforts of the Papists to suppress this book, that for a long time no copy of it was known to be in existence; but in the year 1861 one was unexpectedly discovered in an old library. The Book of Jonah furnished Tyndale with a theme whereon he preached important truths to his fellow-countrymen. Nineveh he made a parable of England; and, as did Jonah, Tyndale preached the need of immediate repentance.
“Christ, to preach repentance,” he wrote, “is risen once more out of His sepulchre, in which the pope had buried Him, and kept Him down with his pillars and pole-axes and all disguisings of hypocrisy, with guile, wiles, and falsehood, and with the sword of all princes, which he had blinded with his false merchandise. And as I doubt not of the ensamples that are past, so am I sure that great wrath will follow except repentance turn it back again and cease it.”
Beside this translation of Jonah, Tyndale also issued an “Exposition of the First Epistle of St. John” during the same year. From this “Exposition” we extract the following passage:—