The seventh chapter of Daniel brings to view a line of symbols on the application of which all Protestant commentators are agreed. In the twenty-fifth verse of that chapter, it is said of the little horn that he should wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and that they (the saints and laws) should be given into his hand for a stated time. It is evident to all that the quickest and most effectual way to make the change here spoken of, and bring the people of God under another regime, would be to suppress that word so dear to them as a rule of life, and in its stead give another by which the minds of the people could be led in a different direction, and their affections be made to center on another object.
In consenting as we do to the universal application of the symbol of the little horn to Papal Rome, we do so because we find its specifications fulfilled in the course which this power has taken with the word of God and his people.
But we shall find that the policy of Rome has ever been to suppress the Scriptures, at least since their translation into the English language. Prior to that time she had no incentive for destroying them, as they, being in the Latin tongue, were already beyond the reach of the common people; and their knowledge of them, if they had any, must come through the corrupting medium of the priesthood. Hence the minds of the people must follow in the channel marked out by those who had selfish interests to serve, and consequently they fell an easy prey to superstition and error, and became the votaries of a haughty, arrogating power.
But gradually the minds of men began to be aroused to the necessity of a version of the Scriptures which could be read by all; and, preparatory to the fulfillment of the word of God by the prophet that this arrogant power should wane, John Wickliffe appeared and produced a translation of the Bible into the vernacular tongue, which was completed A. D. 1380. This work was placed in the hands of, and began to be read by, the laity of England, when ecclesiastical decrees made it a forbidden book, and strenuous efforts were made to wrest it from the hands of the common people.
Prior to this time, however, portions of the Scriptures had been translated, and there is good reason to believe that even the whole Bible was in use among the Waldenses in their native tongue before the appearance of Wickliffe's version. Perrin, their historian, has carefully preserved their Articles and Confession of Faith, in which the books of the sacred writings are enumerated in such a manner as to leave the impression that they had access to God's word in their own language. Reference may be made to a decree enacted with special reference to the Waldensian heretics by the Council of Toulouse in 1229: “We forbid and prohibit the books of the Old Testament to the laity, unless they will have the Psalter or some Breviary for divine service, or the Prayer-book of the blessed Virgin Mary for their devotion; most expressly forbidding them to have the said books translated into the vulgar tongue.”
Henry Knighton, a fierce slanderer of Wickliffe, and a contemporary, lamented that by this general spread of Scripture truth the Bible was no longer regarded as the special talisman of the priesthood; and that which was once precious to both clergy and laity had been rendered the common jest of both. The grand objection of Rome against the laity having the Bible has ever been that its doctrines are too obscure and mystical for their comprehension.
A sincere love for the truths of the sacred writings has always been accompanied by an earnest zeal for the principles of freedom, both civil and religious, which was true in the case of the reformer. In the month of May, 1377, Pope Gregory XI. issued four bulls against Wickliffe, which called out from him an answer not in the mildest language. He says: “Let him [the pope] not be ashamed to perform the ministry of the church, since he is, or at least ought to be, the servant of the servants of God. But a prohibition of reading the sacred Scriptures and a vanity of secular dominion would seem to partake too much of a disposition towards the blasphemous advancement of Antichrist, especially while the truths of a scriptural faith are reputed tares, and said to be opposed to Christian truth by certain leaders, who arrogate that we must abide by their decision respecting every article of faith, notwithstanding they themselves are plainly ignorant of the faith of the Scriptures.”
Rome’s hatred of the Bible has been shown to be the most intense by her course toward those who loved it. In 1390, an attempt was made to suppress the Scriptures in England by an act of Parliament which proved abortive; but in 1400, Archbishop Arundel commenced to harass and oppress all who were suspected of adhering to the Lollards. Their name was derived from Walter Lollard, a German monk who had been an inquisitor, but, upon conversion, became a zealous preacher of the faith he once sought to destroy.
Wickliffe died a natural death, Dec. 31, 1384. But when the Council of Constance was called, thirty years after, his memory was consigned to infamy and execration, and a decree was issued that his bones should be disinterred and burned; which was put into execution forty-three years after his death, and his ashes scattered upon the surface of the river. “And so,” exclaims Fox, “he was resolved into three elements, earth, fire, and water; they thinking thereby utterly to extinct and abolish both the name and doctrine of Wickliffe forever.”
The art of printing was invented near the middle of this century, which opened the way for copies of the Bible to be multiplied both in England and on the Continent. And the hours of midnight were used by the faithful, while their persecutors slept, in reading the sacred writings and hearing them expounded. So vigilant were the emissaries of Rome at this time that many were apprehended and cruelly tortured.
A lady named Joan Boughton, who was eighty years of age, was publicly burned at Smithfield in 1494, upon being convicted of heresy. William Tylsworth suffered in 1506. His only daughter was compelled to set fire to the pile which consumed her father! By pursuing such a course, Rome had nearly succeeded in destroying the sacred writings, when another person appeared who was destined to stir the ire of the pope, and help pave the way for the overthrow of the papacy in England.
But little is known of Tyndale’s early history. He was ordained a priest of the Roman Church in 1502. He afterwards became a monk, and joined the convent of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. About the time that Luther was publishing his theses in Germany, Tyndale and others were preaching the same doctrines in Cambridge. Being in dispute with a learned theologian of the Romish Church, the papist exclaimed: “We were better to be without God’s law than the pope’s!” Tyndale replied, “I defy the pope and all his laws! If God spares my life, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do.”
Tyndale was himself poor, but he passed over to Hamburg for security, where Sir Humphrey Monmouth furnished him with the means of support, and about two years from that time, 1526, the first edition of his book (the New Testament) was printed and ready for circulation. The second edition, which soon followed, was speedily denounced by Bishop Tunstall as a “pestiferous and most pernicious poison,” and he commanded all persons who had received copies of it to deliver them to the Vicar General within thirty days after the publication of his injunction, under pain of excommunication.
All the copies of this work which were for sale were bought up by Tunstall and burned. Tyndale, however, without being daunted, labored assiduously to prepare other books and tracts for general distribution; and, in connection with Miles Coverdale, prosecuted his translation of the Old Testament in spite of the proclamation which consigned his other work to the flames. Again the people were admonished to “detest and abhor the New Testament in English,” and to deliver all the copies in their possession to the proper authorities. But the very means employed to suppress the Scriptures only tended to increase the desires of the people to possess them.
In 1534 Tyndale published another edition of the New Testament, after which he became the object of the most malignant hatred of the papacy, and they were determined on his destruction. He was arrested at Antwerp the same year and committed to prison. In September 1536, after a long and tedious confinement, he was first strangled, and then burned. His last words were: “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.”
In the same year that Tyndale suffered, Henry VIII. decided that the people should have the Scriptures. An order was therefore issued that every parson of a church parish within his realm should provide a copy of the Bible in Latin, and also in English, and place it where all could read it. An act of Parliament, however, in 1543, prohibited the indiscriminate reading of the Scriptures. The penalty for the first offense was a fine of ten pounds, and for the second, forfeiture of all goods and imprisonment for life.
On account of personal difficulties with the pope, Henry VIII. became alienated from the Romish Church. Even after this, neither he nor his immediate successors were entirely free from papal influence; and, in many cases, the majority of those who composed the English Parliament were papists. We may not, therefore, be astonished to find the minions of the pope exercising an influence to return the king and his subjects to their former allegiance; hence, in 1546, a prohibition was published in a royal proclamation, enjoining that no person of whatever condition or degree, keep or take in their possession Tyndale’s or Coverdale’s translation of the New Testament, or any other religious books written by the reformers, but give them up to those appointed to receive them that they might be burned.
Henry did not long survive the enactment of the prohibition. He died the next year, and was succeeded by Edward VI., a prince of an amiable disposition, and favorably disposed toward the Reformation. In the early part of his reign, the Duke of Somerset was made Lord Protector; and one of his first acts was to reverse the restrictions upon the reading of the Scriptures, which brought upon him the fury of the bishops and clergy. They succeeded in ruining him, and he was beheaded Jan. 22, 1552.
The next ruler of England was the “Bloody Queen Mary,” who ascended the throne upon the death of Edward VI., in 1553. One of her first acts was every way worthy of that intolerant sect of which she was an adherent, and was only one of the many acts of infamy by which her life and reign were characterized. A prohibition was published which forbade all ministers from preaching without license from the queen. It also forbade the reading of the Scriptures in the churches. The publication of this was followed by the arrest of the most eminent friends of the Reformation, among whom were Bishops Cranmer, Ridley, and others. These with Latimer were sent to Oxford to hold a debate respecting the real presence, and were convicted and condemned for heresy. In less than four years, during this reign two hundred and seventy-seven persons were burned in England by papal authority!
The death of Mary, in 1558, delivered the people of England from a most cruel yoke; and her departure was hailed by many as a national blessing. She was succeeded by Elizabeth, who immediately restored the Scriptures and the God-given privileges which had been so cruelly torn from the people, privileges which have never since been wholly withdrawn.
When it was seen that the Scriptures could not be suppressed, and England restored to allegiance by such aggressive measures, another policy was adopted to effect the purpose of the papacy. In 1582, a version of the New Testament in English, with copious notes, was issued by the English College of Rheims, which was intended to supersede the popular translation then in use, and to prove that the doctrines of popery are taught in the word of God.
In this version the plainest texts of Scripture were made to contradict one another, or were so shaded by sophistry and falsehood that the ignorant could no longer discern their meaning. The Rhemish version is valuable for one thing. It is a perfect portrait of Rome’s policy to cover up her defects, and justify, nay, even extol, her infernal course in wearing out the saints of God.
We give a few extracts from the notes accompanying this version, which were republished in New York in 1834.
To Rev. 17:6; where the woman drunken with the blood of the saints is described, the following note is appended:—
“Verse 6: Drunken of the blood. It is plain, that this woman signifieth the whole corps of all the persecutors that have and shall shed so much blood of the just; of the prophets, apostles, and other martyrs from the beginning of the world to the end. The Protestants foolishly expound it of Rome, for that there they put heretics to death, and allow of their punishment in other countries. But their blood is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors; for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer.”
Speaking of the unclean spirits that cried out, “Thou art the Son of God,” they say:—
“Verse 12: Thou art the Son. The confession of the truth is not grateful to God, proceeding from every person. The devil, acknowledging our Saviour to be the Son of God, was bidden hold his peace. Peter’s confession of the same was highly allowed, and rewarded.—Aug. tract. 10. in ep. Joan. ser. 30, 31. de verb. Apostoli. Therefore, neither heretics’ sermons must be heard, no, not though they preach the truth. So is it of their prayer and service, which being never so good in itself, is not acceptable to God, out of their mouths; yea, it is no better than the howling of wolves,—Hiero, in 7. Osee.”
It is not to be wondered at that the bishops of America repudiate the Rhemish version. They say it was never formally recognized by the church; but how could the church express her sanction? The last Ecumenical and infallible council before that of 1870 was in 1545, and the Rhemish version did not appear until 1582; so that the authority of the church, as expressed in council, could not be given to this translation, for the simple reason that it knew nothing of the forthcoming version.
As we come down, however, a little nearer to the time when the saints should be released from the power of the papacy, and the seal should be taken from the words of God, as spoken by the mouth of the prophet, the minds of the people are being prepared for the great event. In 1604, soon after the accession of James I. to the throne of England, measures were adopted for the preparation of a new version of the Scriptures. The translators were appointed by the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and by the king. Fifty-four of the most eminent scholars of the age were appointed to the task, but the number was subsequently reduced to forty-seven. The work was completed in 1613, and is the Bible now in common use. The “Protestant version,” as it is called by the Romanists, has always received their denunciations and invectives, and even now is a forbidden book among them.
We give an extract from a Catholic Herald, for November, 1843, which plainly shows the hatred of the so-called faithful against the word of God:—
“What have the Bible Societies accomplished for the United States? Let the universal complaint, now told in almost every newspaper, testify. Let the vast scale on which dishonesty has been practiced by men in responsible situations—let the forgeries, breaches of trust, assassinations, murders—the conflict of eminent men in political affrays—the bowie knife and the pistol, and the disposition manifested by the rising generation, in the late riots of this city—let all these speak of the result of scattering Bibles through the land.”
Do not be startled, friends, at the above language, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;” and you may cease to wonder when you know that it is but the voice of Rome, in imitation of her ancestors, exhausting her harmless thunder against the word of God. Could this power speak greater words against the Most High than these? It would seem that to attribute all these crimes, so fearfully prevalent at the present time, to the use of God’s word can be nothing else than the height of blasphemy.
The time of the end was to mark an era when many should run to and fro, and knowledge should be increased. The year 1798, the time looked forward to by the prophet, was distinguished by the capture of the pope by Berthier, and the temporary overthrow of the papacy. Since that time, the Bible has been translated into two hundred different languages, and sent to all parts of the world. Its principles are being taught, and many of its glorious truths which had been lost sight of and covered up for ages by the intrigues of this subtle power, are being revived and instilled into the hearts of God’s people. The seal of his law, the Sabbath of the Lord, is being restored, in fulfillment of the third angel’s message of Rev. 14, which says, “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”
And when that message shall have done its work, then, with all the faithful of both dispensations, will the martyrs of the Dark Ages rise from their dusty beds, the prison-house of Satan, to shout victory over death, and enjoy eternal felicity and bliss in the kingdom of our Lord. “He which testifieth these things saith, Surely, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”