Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
By W. A. S.
The Hand of God in History — No. 16
Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
The "Two Witnesses" (Concluded)
"THAT is the book that makes heretics," said the Oxford priests to William Tyndale, the English tutor, as they saw him earnestly studying the Greek New Testament, just issued by Erasmus. They were right. Tyndale found the saving grace of the Lord Jesus in the Sacred Book. The witness of divine truth in his soul led to the resolve: "If God spares my life, I will, before many years have passed, cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than the priests do." Driven to the Continent, he began in seclusion and quiet to print the New Testament in English, shipping the books to faithful agents in London, who scattered them abroad. He worked as under sentence of death. But before he could be brought to the stake, the witnessing of the word had marked England for the Reformation. "Rome thundered death, but Tyndale's dauntless eye
Looked in Death's face and smiled, Death standing by.
In spite of Rome, for England's faith he stood,
And in the flames he sealed it with his blood." The agents might perish, but the witness of the Scriptures themselves could never be suppressed. "The Scriptures sowed the seed in England," says Wylie, "and the blood of martyrs watered it." Brave Anne Askew, who went to the stake in London with "an angel's countenance and a smiling face," as an eyewitness bore record, made her last confession of faith in the living Word as the everlasting light: "Therefore look; what he hath said unto me with his own mouth in his holy gospel, that have I, with God's grace, closed up in my heart; and my full trust is, as David saith, that it shall be a lantern to my footsteps." And "after the death of Anne Askew," says Foxe, proclamation was made (July 8, 1546):— First, from henceforth no man, woman, nor person, of what estate, condition, or degree soever he or they be, shall, after the last day of August next ensuing, receive, have, take, or keep in his or their possession, the text of the New Testament of Tyndale's or Coverdale's translation in English, nor any other than is permitted by the act of Parliament made in the session of the Parliament holden at Westminster in the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth year of His Majesty's most noble reign; nor after the said day shall receive, have, take, or keep, . . . —"Acts and Monuments," Vol. V, page 565. All copies of the forbidden books or portions were ordered delivered to the authorities to be "openly burned." What a hunger for the life-giving word is revealed in the wonderful and yet cheering story of those days. "God's Holy Word was prized when 'twas unsafe to read it." Here are several items from among many copied out by John Foxe from just one episcopal register, that of Longland, bishop of Lincoln (for the years 1518-21). Indictments were found against Bible lovers as follows:— Against John Barret—"because he, John Barret, was heard in his own home, before his wife and maid there present, to recite the epistle of St. James, which epistle with many other things he had perfectly without book." "John Newman was impeached because he was present in the house of John Barret, at the reading of Scripture." Wm. Haliday "was detected for having in his custody a book of the Acts of the Apostles in English." One Fredway and several others because they were heard "to recite the ten commandments in their house in English." John Butler, carpenter, and others, because they sat "reading all the night in a book of Scripture." John Littlepage, "because the said John was said to have learned the ten commandments in English." Robert Colins, for reading to a friend "in a certain thick book of Scripture in English." One Durant, because, after sending a servant out of the room where he was sitting at table with his wife and children, he "did recite certain places unto them out of the epistles of St. Paul and of the Gospels." Agnes Ashford had taught one James Morden to recite the beatitudes and several other portions of the sermon on the mount. "These lessons the said Agnes was bid to recite before six bishops, who straightway enjoined and commanded her that she should teach those lessons no more to any man, and especially not to her children."—"Acts and Monuments," Vol. IV, page 221. Let these few names stand for unnumbered multitudes whose names are written in heaven, who loved and heeded the voice of the Two Witnesses through the long night of papal supremacy. The record of this history corresponds to the striking figure of the prophecy, which represented the Two Witnesses of9Jesus bearing their testimony clothed in sackcloth, while the apostasy trampled the truth under its feet and persecuted the saints to the death. It was of this time of tribulation to the church, foretold through Daniel, that Christ said,— "Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Matt. 24: 21, 22. The persecutions of the 1260 years were cut short by the rise and influence of the great Reformation of the sixteenth century. For the elect's sake the days were shortened. And it was by the witnessing power of the translated Word of God that the work was done. Rome could not hold its old-time power before the open Bible. Providence raised up agents who wrought simultaneously in many lands to give the Word to the people. Professor Gaussen gives the dates of various Bible translations:— The whole Bible was translated into Flemish in 1526; into German, by Luther, in 1530; into French, by Olivetan, in 1535; into English, by Tyndale and Coverdale, in 1535; into Bohemian, by the United Brethren, ever since 1488; into Swedish, by Laurentius; into Danish, in 1550; into Polish, in 1551; into Italian, by Bruccioli, in 1532, and by Teofilo, in 1550; into Spanish, by De Reyna, in 1569; into French-Basque, by order of the queen of Navarre, in 1571; into Slavonian, in 1581; into the languages of Carniola, in 1581; into Icelandic, in 1584; into Welsh, by Morgan, in 1588; into Hungarian, by Caroli, in 1589; into Esthonian, by Fischer, in 1589. Thirty versions may be counted, it is said, for Europe alone—"Canon of the Holy Scriptures," par. 643. With the witnessing of the Old and New Testaments in the vernacular, the tide of reform swept over northern Europe. The hour had struck for the promised shortening of the days of papal supremacy. The Papacy could no more stay the movement when the time for it came than could human hands hold back the ocean tides. "The entrance of thy words," says the psalmist, "giveth light." In another paragraph Professor Gaussen records the historic and blessed results of this entering of the word:— Those effects were immediate. Scarcely had the Flemish Bible, Luther's Bible, Tyndale's Bible, Olivetan's Bible, issued from the tomb, but directly the angel of the Reformation made his powerful voice from God heard throughout all Europe. It came from heaven, sudden, unexpected, by the most humble instruments, and at once the astonished world felt itself shaken to the foundations. Everything indicated an agency from on high. At the end of a few months, in Germany, in Switzerland, in France, in Flanders, in England, in Scotland, and soon afterward in Italy, and even in Spain, the sheep of Jesus had heard his voice and followed. Thus the testimony of the Two Witnesses was shaping events toward the ending of the 1260 years of the special papal supremacy. But just at the close of this period, according to the further prophecy of Revelation 11, a fierce onslaught upon the divine witnesses was to be made. This came just at the time indicated, as the history will show.