Miles Coverdale was born in Yorkshire in 1488, so that he was only a few years younger than Tyndale. Little that is authentic appears to be known about his childhood and early youth. He seems to have been connected, when a very young man, with the reforming party, and, after his ordination, to have preached openly against the Mass, the Confessional, and worship of images. Probably the profession of such views rendered it dangerous for him to remain in England; at any rate, he is said to have been at Hamburg in 1529, and to have met William Tyndale there. And he is known to have been at Antwerp in 1535, the year he published his English Bible.

Though he spoke humbly of his own attainments, yet it is evident that he was endowed with many excellent qualities suited to the task he had to accomplish and the difficult part he was called upon to play. He was wanting in the manly independence and noble courage of many of the Reformers, but his very timidity and servility of manner may have been needful then in order to deliver the English Scriptures from the ban under which they laboured and to obtain Royal license for their free circulation. Certain it is that, while his great contemporary was hated, maligned, and persecuted, he carried on similar work under the smile of the powers that be. He made no profession of Greek and Hebrew learning. He translated from the German and Latin; consequently his renderings have the faults from which a knowledge of the originals alone could have saved them. But on the other hand, his English style was dignified, chaste, and poetic ; and many of his beautiful expressions remain in our Authorised Version, especially in those parts which Tyndale was unable to finish. To him belong the honor of publishing the first complete printed English Bible.

Rogers, The Compiler of Matthew's Bible⤒🔗

After him comes John Rogers. This good man was chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp, during Tyndale's sojourn there. He was a familiar friend and companion of the great scholar, and doubtless imbibed from some of his loving zeal for Biblical learning. He has been called Tyndale's "literary executor," for the martyr's books, papers, and manuscripts came into his hands. To go over these and arrange them carefully must have given him a kind of melancholy pleasure. It was like hear­ing a voice that would speak to him on earth no more, and conversing with a loved friend whom he would never see again.

By the help of these, and by supplying what they lacked from Coverdale's Bible, he was able to compile a Bible, which was published under the title of Matthew's Bible, in the year 1537. For some reason he must have thought it better and wiser not to fix his own name to it, but the preface was signed with his initials, J. R.

This book possesses a twofold interest for students of English History. In the first place, it formed the basis of all subsequent revisions; and, in the second place, it received Royal license, and was made free to the people of this land. Cranmer, after looking over it, declared that it pleased him much, and that if they were to wait till the Bishops made a better, then they must wait till Doomsday. He brought it under the notice of Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, who in turn, succeeded in obtaining for it the approval and sanction of Henry VIII. Why the king, who was by no means a pliable man, and who continued a Romanist to the end of his days, should have granted this license, we cannot tell. How it was that he did not find out that the book was largely the work of the "arch-heretic," Tyndale, before he sanctioned it, we do not know. How Cromwell dared to ask such a favour from the "Old Lion," and what took place in that momentous interview, history has not recorded. But the fact remains that this Bible was put forth with authority; and it is very noteworthy, also, that one of the consenting Bishops, whose name appears on the title page, was Tunstall, the former persecutor of the Word. Such was the wonder that occurred a year after the dying martyr had breathed his last prayer, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." So surely and speedily came the answer of God. The eyes of Henry VIII were so far opened as to allow the people to read the Sacred Scriptures in their own tongue, and to compel his bishops to do the same.

The Great Bible←⤒🔗

It was impossible, however, that this Bible could be long in circulation without causing great offence. Many of the marginal notes were pungently Protestant. Some of the introductions to the several Books were highly controversial. Tyndale's own preface, for example, to the Epistle to the Romans, was an unsparing indictment of Romish errors. Attempts to efface these offensive parts may be seen in an extant copy at the present day; but such attempts could only be effectual to a very limited extent. It was advisable, therefore, that a new Bible should be issued without these objectionable notes and comments. As the work was to come forth under royal patronage, a sumptuous style was deemed necessary for it. Accordingly Coverdale, with some others, was appointed to go to Paris where the best type and printers could then be found. They had been engaged in the printing for some time when a persecution was raised against them, and they were compelled to return to London. They succeeded in bringing with them all the matter which was in type and also a few skilled printers; and so they were able to finish a fine edition, which was published in London in 1539. It could not in any sense be called a new translation, it could scarcely be termed a revision; it was rather a reprint, without the prefaces and notes of the existing Matthew's Bible. So that, once again, we see the Royal patronage extended to the "arch-heretic" Tyndale's work. From its size it received the name of the Great Bible.

Three things combine to give it a peculiar interest.

The version of the Psalms, which is found in the Book of Common Prayer, and is read or sung in the services of the Church of England, was taken from it. Of course this version was originally made by Miles Coverdale, and first appeared in his Bible of 1535.

Again, it was set up by command in the Churches, and for safe keeping was chained to desks or pillars; and accordingly these copies came to be called the "Chained Bibles." Some of these remain still to remind us of the past, and as we look upon them the picture rises up before us of the reader standing before the desk and reading aloud the "beautiful words of life;" of the people, men, women and children gathered round him, listening so intently that when they returned home they could repeat very faithfully large portions of what they had heard. We can easily understand how much this must have contributed to the preparation for the vast changes in doctrine and worship which were effected in the following reign.

And once again, this Great Bible had a very remarkable title page. It was a picture designed and drawn by the Dutch artist, Holbein. Besides other figures and scrolls, this picture contained three principal groups – at the top a representation of Christ in the clouds, with two scrolls coming out of His mouth; beneath that, and occupying the most prominent place in the picture, Henry VIII, seated on his throne and handing copies of the Bible to Archbishop Cranmer on the one side and to Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, on the other side, thus making the Word free both to the clergy and laity; below that again, a preacher addressing a crowd of people, and evidently extolling the royal virtues, for the congregation is depicted as crying out, "God save the King!" The following inscription fills the center:

The Byble in Englyshe, that is to saye, the content of all the holy scrypture, both of ye olde and newe testament, truly translated after the veryte (verity, truth) of the Hebrue and Greke texts, by ye dylygent studye of dyuerse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde tonges.

Prynted by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch.

Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum.*

1539.

*(That is, "with the privilege of printing alone." These printers had the sole right of printing the Great Bible: any other attempting to do so would be liable to prosecution.)

Doubtless, the chief idea of this elaborate title page was to flatter the King, and give prominence to the fact that he had been gracious enough to make the Bible free to all classes of the people alike. But this season of liberty did not last long. Henry VIII never had any real liking for Protestantism, he only inclined towards it at times from motives of political expediency. The reaction came. Thomas Cromwell lost the royal favour and was degraded, condemned, and beheaded. Movements in the direc­tion of reform were checked. Persecuting edicts were put forth once more. Among them was one curtail­ing the use of the Bible, and making it unlawful for any layman under the rank of noble to read it. None can tell what afflictions God's servants might have been called upon to suffer for the truth had Henry VIII lived long. But his death put an end to that strange period of light and darkness, liberty and bondage, hope and fear, gain and loss, progress and reaction. And it was succeeded by a few short years of real freedom, during which the Word of God had free course in the land, found a home in many an enlightened heart, and trained the martyrs for the fiery trial that was to come.

Coronation of Edward VI←⤒🔗

Edward VI was only ten years old when his father died. But even at that tender age he displayed a seriousness of mind, an experimental knowledge of religion, and a love for the truth not unworthy of a mature Christian. We are told that at his coronation the three swords of State were borne before him. But he asked where the "fourth sword" was. "What sword, your Majesty?" said one of the attendants; and he solemnly answered, "The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Thus, "the sword of the Spirit" was, for the first time in all our history, placed above the swords of State. The duties of government, which the king was too young to discharge, devolved chiefly upon "Protector" Somerset and Archbishop Cranmer. As they were both, like Prince Edward himself, ardent supporters of the Reformation, the movement advanced rapidly. In 1549 the English service Book took the place of the Latin Missal, and in 1552 the Book of Common Prayer, almost in the same form as we have it now, was placed in the Churches and used in the services. Thus the Sacrifice of the Mass, that great usurper, was dethroned and the primitive Communion was restored. It is needless to say that the Sacred Scriptures, in their own tongue, were then free to the people; much more than that, they occupied the principal place in the reformed worship, and they were ordered to be read and preached in every Church throughout the kingdom.

Queen Mary←⤒🔗

The young king fell a victim to consumption and died when only 16 years of age, and in the 7^th year of his reign. And then, as it often happens in individual lives also, the period of peace and blessing was followed by one of the saddest trouble and suffering. Edward was succeeded by step-sister, Mary, daughter of Catherine of Arragon, who had been brought up as a bigoted Romanist. On coming to the throne she professed principles of toleration and declared that it was her intention "not to compel or strain either men's consciences," but no sooner was she securely established as queen than she began to show her bitter hatred of Protestantism. Death by fire was the awful punishment decreed against all who would not accept the monstrous and impossible dogma of Transubstantiation, and it was inflicted with a remorseless cruelty which spared neither age nor sex.

Those five years during which the all wise providence of God allowed Queen Mary to display her "obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, malignity, revenge and tyranny," added a galaxy of noble names to England's roll of martyrs and infused such an inveterate dislike and dread of Popery into the English people that they have never permitted it to dominate them since.

The Protestant Martyrs←⤒🔗

John Rogers, Tyndale's friend, and editor of Matthew's Bible, was the first to suffer death for the truth. After him came such heroes of the faith as Taylor, Hunter, Bradford, Hooper, Latimer, Ridley, 4Cranmer and well nigh three hundred more who loved not their lives unto death, "of whom the world was not worthy." The fiery chariots carried them by "the nearest way to the celestial city," but their record remained for an inspiration and example to all after time. Efface those martyr-names from his­tory! Root them out of the affectionate remembrance of posterity! Impossible! Jesuit scribes may be clever and unscrupulous, but this is a task beyond even them. The famous words of Latimer, to his companion at the stake, have come ringing down the centuries and still stir the hearts of millions, "Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as by God's grace will never be put out."

During this persecution one Derrick Carver was burnt at Lewes in Sussex. He was placed standing in a barrel at the stake and his Bible was cast into the same barrel. As the flames were kindling round him he stooped down, picked up the Bible, and threw it among the crowd, hoping, no doubt, that it might be blessed to some soul after he had passed to glory. It was taken away and preserved, and it has been handed down from one to another. It still exists, scorched and bloodstained, a visible witness of what our martyrs endured for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

This incident brings us to the prime cause of all that cruelty, namely, hatred of Divine truth, and it shows us how the saints of Jesus were sustained by the comfort of Scripture in their sorrows and their pains. All which is a striking testimony to the enduring value of Tyndale's self-denying work.

Memoir of Jonathan Edwards←⤒🔗

Edwards had continued in the office of tutor at Yale for just over two years when he received an invitation from the church at Northampton to join his grandfather, Mr. Stoddard, in the ministry there. Many factors conspired to prompt his acceptance. Northampton was the shire town of New Hampshire – a county which embraced nearly one half of the area of the colony – and its strong and united church had long held considerable influence among the churches of New England. It was thus a situation which afforded opportunities for extensive usefulness. Moreover his grandfather, now in his eighty-fourth year, stood in need of his assistance, and wished him to be his successor. His parents were close friends of many of the inhabitants and he had grown up to be familiar both with the place and the people. Edwards therefore resigned his tutorship in September, 1726, and on the 15^th of February 1727, at the age of twenty-three, he was ordained as a minister of the Gospel and placed over the congregation at Northampton, as the colleague of his grandfather.

Great changes had taken place in New England since Solomon Stoddard had begun preaching in Northampton in 1669. It is true he had witnessed five powerful revivals at Northampton during his long ministry. Indeed Whitefield tells us that on one occasion as many as two or three hundred souls were awakened by a sermon of Stoddard's on the text, "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep." Nevertheless it is evident that towns such as Northampton and East Windsor were exceptions to the general condition of the colony, and that men of Stoddard's age had lived to see a great decline in the power and life of the churches at large. Few had arisen to succeed the spiritual giants who had led the first generation of Puritan settlers; growing material prosperity displaced spiritual concerns; preaching lost first its unction, then, in some places, its orthodoxy; morality became confused with god­liness and the old practices of secret prayer, family government and sabbath observance began to fall into disuse. The outbreak of the dreadful Indian Wars in the latter part of the century, with the se­vere toll it took of the rising generation, aroused some concern at the spiritual condition of the col­ony. In 1679 the General Court at Boston considered, "What are the provoking evils of New England?" In 1698 an awakening sermon preached in Boston, probably by Cotton Mather, enforced the following solemn considerations upon the hearers:

"What changes have we seen in point of religion! Certainly the power of godliness is now grievously decayed among us. As the prophet of old exclaimed, in Joel 1:2, 'Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, ye inhabitants! Has this been in your days?' Thus may I say, 'Hear this, ye old men, that are the inhabitants of the town: can't you remember that in your days, a prayerful, watchful, fruitful Christian, and a well governed family, was a more common sight, than it is now in our days? Can't you remember that in your days those abominable things did not show their heads, that are now bare faced among us? Here then is a petition to be made unto our God: 'Lord, help us to remember whence we are fallen, and to repent, and to do the first works!'

Again, what changes have we seen in point of mortality? By mortality almost all the old race of our first planters here are carried off; the old stock is in a manner expired. We see the fulfilment of that word in Eccl. 1:4, 'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.' It would be no un­profitable thing for you to pass over the several streets, and call to mind, who lived here so many years ago? Why! In that place lived such an one. But, where are they now? Oh! they are gone; they are gone into that eternal world, whither we must quickly follow them. Here is another petition to be made unto God: 'Lord, help us to number our days, and apply our hearts unto wisdom, that when the places that now know us, do know us no more, we may be gone into the city of God'!

Dr. Increase Mather in a book entitled, "The Glory departing from New England," printed in 1702, writes: "We are the posterity of the good old Puritan Nonconformists in England, who were a strict and holy people. Such were our fathers who followed the Lord into this wilderness. O New England! New England! Look to it, that the glory be not removed from thee! For it begins to go! O tremble: for it is going, it is gradually departing! … You that are aged persons, and can remember what New England was fifty years ago, that saw these churches in their first glory; is there not a sad decay and dimunition of that glory! How is the gold become dim … When will Boston see a Cotton and a Norton again? When will New England see a Hooker, a Shepard, a Mitchel, not to mention others? No little part of the glory was laid in the dust, when these eminent servants of Christ were laid in their graves."

As the years of the eighteenth century passed by there was little alteration, and the condition of New England about the commencement of Edwards' min­istry at Northampton is clearly described in a letter recorded in Gillies' valuable "Historical Collections."

A very lamentable ignorance of the main essentials of true practical religion, and the doctrines nextly relating thereunto, very generaly prevailed. The na­ture and necessity of the new birth was but little known or thought of. The necessity of a conviction of sin and misery, by the Holy Spirit opening and applying the law to the conscience, in order to a sav­ing closure with Christ, was hardly known at all to the most. It was thought that if there was any need of a heart-distressing sight of the soul's danger, and fear of Divine wrath, it was only needful for the grosser sort of manners … The common names for such soul-concern were, melancholy, trouble of mind, or despair, and trouble of mind was looked upon as a great evil, which all persons, that made any sober profession and practice of religion, ought carefully to avoid. According to these principles, and this ig­norance of some of the most soul-concerning truths of the Gospel, people were very generally thro' the land careless at heart, and stupidly indifferent about the great concerns of eternity; and indeed the wise, for the most part, were in a great degree asleep with the foolish. It was sad to see with what a careless behaviour the public ordinances were attended, and how people were given to unsuitable worldly discourse on the Lord's day. In public companies, a vain and frothy lightness was apparent in the deportment of many professors.

A religious awakening – the last of Stoddard's "five harvests" as he called them – had taken place in Northampton in 1718. But it was succeeded, says Edwards, by "a far more degenerate time (at least among the young people), I suppose, than ever before." Immediately after his settlement Edwards be­gan to preach twice weekly, once on the Sabbath and once as a lecture on a week-day evening. These joint labours with his grandfather, which continued until the latter's death in February, 1729, led to "no small appearances of a divine work among some … In these two years there were nearly twenty that Mr. Stoddard hoped to be savingly converted; but there was nothing of any general awakening. The greater part seemed to be at that time very insensible of the things of religion, and engaged in other cares and pursuits."

It was in July, 1731, that the young minister of Northampton began to become widely known. In that month he had the honour of being invited to preach the "public lecture" at Boston. Edwards took for his subject the absolute dependence of man upon God in all parts of his salvation, expounding the text 1 Cor. 1:29, 30, "That no flesh should glory in his presence…" It was a doctrine that had been ordinary enough to Puritan congregations, but the power and clarity of his presentation was novel for his times, and it produced a profound impression. Its publication was not only demanded, but two of the leading ministers of Boston felt called to bear their testimony to its worth, and to record their thankfulness to God "who has been pleased to raise up such men for the defence of evangelical truth." This event was a land-mark not only in Edwards' life, but in the history of New England theology. It was an uncompromising declaration of the faith of their fathers and a clarion call to return to the doctrines of the previous century. The theme was one which, as we shall see, was to have increasing prominence in Edwards' ministry.

The events leading up to the unforgettable winter of 1734-5 are detailed by Edwards in his "Narrative of Surprising Conversions." The outbreak of a deep religious concern in a nearby village, the sudden and awful death of a young man, followed by that of a young married woman who died earnestly warning and counseling others, all contributed to promoting a serious concern among the Northampton congregation. At the same time a form of doctrinal error, which had hitherto found no place with the orthodox Reformers and Puritans, appeared to be making considerable advances in New England, and caused a serious alarm among the godly. This was the Arminian heresy, and, as we shall have further occasion to refer to it, a short amplification of this teaching is necessary. Stanley Gower, an eminent Puritan divine and a member of the Westminster Assembly, defines the two leading principles of Arminianism as follows:

The one is, That God loveth all alike, Cain as well as Abel, Judas as the rest of the apostles. The other is, That God giveth both Christ, the great gift of His eternal love, for all alike to work out their redemption, and power to believe in Christ to all alike to whom He gives the Gospel; whereby that redemption may effectu­ally be applied for their salvation, if they please to make right use of that which is put into their power. The former destroys the free and special grace of God, by making it universal; the latter gives cause to man of glorying in himself rather than in God – God concurring no farther to the salvation of a believer than a reprobate. Christ died for both alike – God giving power of accepting Christ to both alike, men themselves determining the whole matter by their freewill; Christ making both savable, them­selves make them to be saved.

"About this time," writes Edwards, referring to the winter of 1734, "began the great noise, in this part of the country, about Arminianism, which seemed to appear with a very threatening aspect upon the interest of religion here. The friends of vital piety trembled for fear of the issue … Many who looked on themselves as in a Christless condition, seemed to be awakened by it, with fear that God was about to withdraw from the land, and that we should be given up to heterodoxy and corrupt principles; and that then their opportunity for obtaining salvation would be past." Edwards, "well-knowing that the points at issue had an immediate bearing on the great subject of salvation," determined, in opposition to the fears and counsels of many of his friends, to deal with the various Arminian errors in a series of sermons. He had already spoken on this heresy in his famous Boston sermon in 1731, but now he was convinced of the necessity of dealing with it at much greater length. The discourses which were thus occasioned by this controversy led to one of the greatest awakenings since the time of the apostles. "Although great fault was found with meddling with the controversy in the pulpit," Edwards' narrative continues, "yet it proved a word spoken in season here; and was most evidently attended with a very remarkable blessing of heaven to the souls of the people in this town … Then it was, in the latter part of December, that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in, and wonderfully to work amongst us." In that month, five or six appeared to be very suddenly and savingly converted, one after another, and in such a remarkable manner that it led to the awakening of great numbers, of all ages and conditions.