Most travellers and 'pilgrims' to Cambridge make their way to the splendid Chapel of King's College, built between 1446-1515. There with bated breath they gaze at the stained glass windows, the colourful coats of arms, the exquisite carvings, and the ethereal fan-vaulting, all of which bespeak something of man's creative genius under God. Who cannot but be moved?

Yet, not far from King's College, tucked away among old buildings and adjacent to a small lane, stands the less pretentious church of St Edward, king and martyr, built in 1175. Only the base remains of the tower of that twelfth-century church, the rest being rebuilt in 1400. For evangelicals who treasure the Reformation of the Christian Church, the comely shrine of St Edward witnesses to the early English reformers whose hearts the Holy Spirit opened to the Scriptures.

On this subject Professor A. G. Dickens has these timely words:

If modern admirers of early English Protestantism desired to establish a national shrine, they could select none better than the little Cambridge Church of St Edward, King and Martyr. It still contains the small pulpit, made about 1510, from which Barnes, Bilney and Latimer preached. It was the church of Trinity Hall and Clare, the colleges of the two latter Reformers, and its parish contained (on the site now appropriately occupied by the Cavendish Laboratory) the Augustinian Friary whence Robert Barnes went forth on the travels which ultimately led him to the feet of Martin Luther.¹

Within the parish of St Edward stood the White Horse Inn where Cambridge men would resort to study the works of Dr Martin Luther and the Holy Scriptures to which he pointed. The chairman of this company of young scholars was Robert Barnes, an Austin Prior. Among his colleagues attending the meetings in the White Horse were Bilney, Coverdale, Latimer, Stafford, Frith, Lambert, Matthew Parker, Joye, Rowland Taylor, and others who became leaders in the English Reformation, some of them accepting martyrdom in the cause of the gospel. Dr Neelak Tjernagel regards these years as the most significant in the history of Cambridge University:

It is certain, he writes, that Cambridge was to the English Reformation what Wittenberg had been to the Continental Reformation. We shall do Robert Barnes much less than justice if we overlook his crucial role in those days at Cambridge when his personal stature and his qualities of leadership led brave men on to such sacrifices as the Wittenberg men were not asked to make,²

While most evangelicals are well acquainted with names like Tyndale, Cranmer and Parker, less is commonly known of the Augustinian Robert Barnes, who became Luther's 'apostle' to the English. After Barnes' testimony unto death Luther added the words: 'Our good, pious table companion and guest of our home ... this holy martyr, St Robert.'

Scholar and Ambassador⤒🔗

Like Thomas Bilney and John Lambert, Robert Barnes was a Norfolk man. He was born in the ancient market town of King's Lynn in 1495. At the age of 19, he was enrolled with the Austin Friars and, because of his partiality to learning, was directed for advanced study to the University of Louvain noted for its humanist scholarship. It is more than probable that while a student at the Louvain, Barnes met Erasmus, who lectured there from 1517-21. He became a Doctor of Divinity at Louvain and in 1523 he received the same degree at the University of Cambridge by incorporation.

Influenced by the ethos of humanism, Dr Barnes returned to the Augustinian House in Cambridge imbued with the spirit and methodology of the new learning. He introduced the friars to Terence, Plautus and Cicero. His pupils included Miles Coverdale. But a change was coming. Along with Miles Coverdale, Barnes began to read the Pauline Epistles and to school himself in the Scriptures.

Meantime, a Father Thomas Bilney had come to embrace evangelical doctrine and sought to make converts to Christ among the students, priests, and scholars in Cambridge. Foxe informs us that Robert Barnes became acquainted with Bilney and was 'through his instrumentality, converted to Christ.'

Whenever a new thrust forward begins in the cause of Christ and his eternal gospel, God calls a person, and through that person a group is formed to carry out the mission of bringing salvation by grace alone to the world. Repeatedly this occurs in history. Joining the little society which met in the White Horse Inn, Barnes found strengthening, friendship, and nurture in what he came to call 'the most glorious and heavenly Word of God'. Because they studied the writings of Luther the circle was nicknamed 'Little Germany.'

Then something dramatic was to occur. It was Christmas Eve and the fourth Sunday in Advent 1525. By arrangement Barnes exchanged pulpits with his friend, Hugh Latimer. Whilst Latimer was to preach in the Augustinian chapel, Barnes preached from Latimer's pulpit in St Edward's Church. If Barnes was hardly wise on this occasion, he was brave in exposing his life to danger. Instead of preaching directly on the Epistle of the Day (Philippians 4:4-7), the Austin prior used it to launch into a tirade against the moral corruption of the clergy in general, especially the abuse of litigation and observance of festivals, and what was so dear to Cardinal Wolsey in particular, worldly pomp and glory. Soon after leaving the pulpit the preacher was commanded to recant his statements. Failing to reach a compromise with the university authorities, on February 5th, 1526 Barnes was placed under arrest in the Convocation House. Next day he was taken to Westminster to stand trial under Cardinal Wolsey. In a personal interview before the Cardinal he was offered Wolsey's personal help if he would submit to his authority. While Dr Barnes politely thanked his superior for his goodwill, he added: 'I will stick to the Scriptures, and to God's book according to the simple talent that God hath lent me.'

Eventually penance was paid to the ruling authorities of church and university. It was either revoke all before the Court, or die. Barnes chose submission. For his trouble the turbulent priest was committed to Fleet prison for six months. But what a nuisance! After becoming a free prisoner at the Augustinian Priory in London, he began distributing copies of Tyndale's English Bible. Friends in the German Steelyard kept Barnes supplied with Testaments. Buyers were not wanting.

Friend and Confidant of Luther←⤒🔗

Obviously at this stage of life circumstances had made Barnes anticlerical, without a 'carefully conceived system of theology'. ³ But England was no longer safe for a relapsed heretic. In November 1528, under the disguise of a poor man, he fled England for the Continent, whence he was to make his way to Wittenberg. Marcus Loane observes that 'There was a bond between Barnes and Luther in the fact that they had both once belonged to the Augustinian Order, and Barnes was to provide the main personal connection between the English and Lutheran Reformers.' ⁴

As the cause of evangelical doctrine was never far from the thinking of this Cambridge scholar, the 'trim, merry friar' — to quote Stephen Gardiner — was moulded into a reformer, writer, preacher and exponent of Biblical theology. Who could remain unaffected listening to a giant of Luther's calibre both preach and teach the Word of God? From Barnes' pen came the Sentences, a series of nineteen theses defending the faith, likewise formulated in the Augsburg Confession and published in 1530. The most important of Barnes' literary works, The Supplication, was written in English and addressed to King Henry VIII. Throughout his essays there is a constant regard for Scripture as the inspired Word of God.

Difficult Days Under King Henry VIII←⤒🔗

Things were hard for Dr Barnes from the start. The English King imagined that he could win over Luther for an approval of his divorce from Queen Catherine. In no way was the German Reformer willing to bend to the royal whims. A few days before Christmas 1531, Barnes stood before his sovereign to present Luther's unfavourable verdict that King Henry was bound under pain of eternal damnation to retain the wife he had married. How arduous to be an ambassador acting as an intermediary between an unscrupulous king with designs of lording it over the church as supreme head in England, and all the complexities of Continental diplomacy!

Both Thomas Cromwell and Robert Barnes became the victims of Henry's intrigue. Roman Catholics and Protestants alike suffered at the hands of a clever, yet unscrupulous monarch.

A significant period of negotiation between the English and Wittenberg divines and one in which Robert Barnes played no small role, was at Wittenberg in 1536. This Anglo-Lutheran conference, which included Edward Fox, Nicholas Heath and Robert Barnes with the Lutherans of Wittenberg, produced the Wittenberg Articles of 1536. They represent an extraordinary agreement in the apostolic and catholic faith; a precursor of the doctrines set forth in the later 39 Articles of the Church of England. Had not Henry VIII replied with the Ten Articles, which side-stepped the definitive teachings of the Wittenberg Articles, a remarkable degree of unity might have been established between the English and German churches. It was not to be. Barnes was already losing favour in royal circles.

Dr James McGoldrick in his fine study, Luther's English Connection, comes to the conclusion:

By 1530 Robert Barnes had become a thorough-going Lutheran in his beliefs, and from that date forward he was a heretic by Henrys standards ... It was not until Dr Barnes had outlived his usefulness that Henry found his theology intolerable. Clearly Robert Barnes died a victim of expediency.⁵

In 1538 another meeting of German and English theologians took place in London, and spelt out their common faith in the Thirteen Articles. Thomas Cranmer, Frederick Myconius and Robert Barnes were among those present. Two words keep re-appearing in those Articles: 'We teach'. Dr Barnes was not only a gifted preacher and a competent theologian, he was also a teacher of the evangelical faith.

Teacher and Confessor←⤒🔗

On four important issues of his day, indeed of our time too, Barnes writes with great clarity:

1. What is the Church?←↰⤒🔗

Multitudes within and without visualise the church as a building, a society of mutual 'do-gooders', and even a comfortable club for nice people. Let Dr Barnes answer in his own personal and challenging way:

If Christ has not washed you and chosen you, then you are not of this church, though you ride with a thousand spiritual horses and have all the spiritual tokens on earth. But they that believe that Christ has washed them from their sins, and stick fast to his merits and to the promise made to them in him, they are the church.⁶

Faithfulness to God's Word and Sacraments and the living out of the gospel in everyday life are integral to any understanding of Barnes' doctrine of the church: 'It is plain that the holy church is the congregation of faithful men wherever they are in the world.' ⁷ 

He warned: 'As soon as you forsake Christ and his holy Word, so soon are you the congregation of the devil and are thieves and murderers.' ⁸

Lest it be imagined that the church is a 'silent majority' cut off from action in the world there is this earthly statement: 'Where we see good works that do openly agree with the doctrine of the gospel, these are good and sure tokens whereby we may judge that there are some men of the holy church.'⁹

As to the marks of the church and the fruits of faith, they are present when 'the Word of God is purely and sincerely preached and the sacraments orderly ministered after the blessed ordinance of Christ ... Where men patiently suffer for the truth, and the hearers apply their living to Christ's doctrine and with meekness receive the holy sacraments: these are good and perfect tokens to judge that in that place there are members of the church.'¹⁰

2. What is the Ministry?←↰⤒🔗

Barnes refused to advocate one pattern of churchly government. The ministry is the ministry of the Word: 'Man is but a minister and servant to this Word.' ¹¹ 

All authority and godly order in the church flow from the authority of the inscripturated and living Word which Christ gave to his church. The ministers of Christ are therefore ministers of the common treasure and not lords over and above the church. Having said this, Barnes was no enemy of ancient structures in the Church of God. Provided the Word was preached and the sacraments rightly dispensed, as preacher and reformer he accepted the episcopal administration of the visible church. As one responsible for the drafting of the Wittenberg Articles of 1536, Barnes agreed with Article X:

We teach that bishops or pastors have the authority to establish ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies as well as such usages as feast days, ranks of clergymen, etc. Moreover, we teach that all things in the churches should be done decently and in order and that such rites and ceremonies as may be observed without sin and which serve the cause of peace and order ought to be observed by everyone for the sake of peace and Christian love.

3. What is the Place of the Bible?←↰⤒🔗

Is it merely a book of devotion? Is it a mixture of error and truth? Dr McGoldrick draws out teacher Barnes on this question:

Throughout his theological writings Robert Barnes consistently regarded the Scriptures as the Word of God, and therefore his confidence in the authority of the sacred text was unbounded. He was fond of asserting that the words of Scripture were "written by the Holy Ghost". Barnes equated the Word of God with the words of Holy Scripture. He concluded that "to take away the Scriptures from laymen is as much as to take Christ away from them.¹²

Like Luther, Barnes gave priority to the literal-historical sense, to the Christocentric perspective, and the discipline of comparing Scripture with Scripture to arrive at the right interpretation.

4. How is Man Saved from Sin and Hell?←↰⤒🔗

For Robert Barnes the doctrine of justification by faith alone is pivotal to understanding God's Word, and central to the whole plan of God's salvation in Jesus Christ. Marcus Loane regards Barnes' chapter entitled, 'Only Faith justifieth before God', as 'the most able exposition of the doctrine on the part of any early English writer, and it reflects clearly how much he learned from Luther'. ¹³

The reformer was careful to keep the balance between the subjective character of faith and the objective action of God's salvation in the atoning death of Christ upon the Cross. The merits of Christ's work he applied in a personal way:

True it is that we do not mean that faith justifies us for the sake of its own dignity or perfection. But Scripture says that faith alone justifies because it is that through which alone I cling to Christ.¹⁴

Condemned to Death←⤒🔗

Open conflict broke out between Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr Robert Barnes. The climax came in the debate on justification and purgatory. Bishop Gardiner supported the redemptive value of purgatory. These turned into lonely days for Barnes as he upheld the efficacy of the blood of the Lord Jesus. He felt deeply his aloneness: 'But hitherto I stand alone in doing it. For although many persons approve my statements, yet no one stands forward but Latimer.' He was not alone. His Saviour was with him, providing added encouragements in the brave confessions of Jerome and Garrett.

In May 1540, acting on a report of a special council, Henry sent all three to the Tower of London. Having recourse to the terrible Act of Attainder, on July 30th, 1540, the three preachers, along with three Roman Catholics, were taken through the streets of London to be burned at Smithfield. Before the ordeal by fire, Robert Barnes was permitted to speak. Rising to the occasion he affirmed his belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, his own profession of Christian orthodoxy, and his fine exclamation:

I trust in no good work that ever I did, but only in the death of Christ. I do not doubt but through him to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

So, Thomas Garret, curate of London, and William Jerome, vicar of Stepney, along with Dr Robert Barnes, pastor and defender of the Faith, faced the flames with hands joined together. Gentle and unfaltering they died in the cause of the gospel and Jesus Christ, Lord and Saviour of the world.