WILLIAM TINDALE (1492 - 1536) was educated at Oxford and Cambridge. When he was born, only those that knew Latin, Hebrew or Greek could read the Bible. He was the first to translate the Bible into English and did it from the original text, which he followed very closely, using simple language that anyone could understand.
His work exposed him to many dangers and finding it impossible to finish his translation in London on account of the persecution of the clergy, he continued in various towns in Europe.
He was finally arrested for heresy, imprisoned and strangled, before being burnt at the stake, (aged 44).
Tyndale was one of the greatest forces of the English Reformation,
It is reported that, when a prominent clergyman ridiculed him, Tyndale said, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." The remainder of his life was devoted to keeping that vow.
The commonly received doctrine of his time implied that men earn their salvation by good behavior and by penance.
Part of his writings are given here...
"This is plain and a pure conclusion, not to be doubted of…..that there has to be first in the heart of a man, before he do any good work a greater and a preciouser thing than all the good works in the world……to reconcile him to God, to bring the love and favour of God to him, to make him love God again, to make him righteous and good in the sight of God, to do away his sin to deliver him and loose him out of the captivity wherein he was conceived and born, in which he could neither love God, nor the will of God.
Or else how can he work any good work that should please God, if there were not some supernatural goodness in him, given of God, freely, whereof the good work must spring.
Even as a sick man must first be healed, or made whole, ere he can do the deeds of a whole man; and as the blind man must first have sight ere he can see, and he that has his feet in fetters, gyves (shackles) or stocks, must first be loosed, ere he can go, walk or run, and even as they which thou readest of in the gospel, that they were possessed of the devils, would not laud God until the devils were cast out.
That precious thing that must be in the heart ere a man can work any good work..is the Word of God, which in the gospel preacheth, proffereth, and bringeth unto all that repent and believe the favour of God in Christ.
Whosoever hears the word and believes it, the same is thereby righteous, and thereby is given him the spirit of God which leads him into all that is in the will of God: and he is loosed from the captivity and bondage of the devil, and his heart is free to love God, and has to do the will of God.
Therefore it is called ‘the word of life’ ‘the word of grace’ ‘the word of health’ ‘the word of redemption’ ‘the word of forgiveness’ and ‘the word of peace’.
He that heareth not or believeth it not can by no means can be made righteous before God.
NOW is the Word living, pure, righteous and true, and even so maketh it the heart of them that believe thereon.
Some people objected to this teaching, saying that there were many who believe and yet in whose lives no change was able to be seen."
Tyndale replies
"These are they which Jude, in his epistle calls ‘dreamers', which decieve themselves with their own fantasies.
For what other thing is their imagination, which they call faith than a dreaming of the faith and an opinion of their own imagination wrought without the grace of God ?
These must needs be worse at the latter that at the beginning. These are the old vessels that rend when new wine is poured into them: that is they hear God’s word, but hold it not, and therefore wax worse than they were before.
But the right faith springeth not of man’s fantasy, neither is it in any man’s power to obtain it, but it is altogether the pure gift of God poured into is freely, without all manner doing of us, without deserving and merits, yea and without seeking for of us, and is (as says Paul in the second to the Ephesians), even God’s gift and grace, purchased through Christ.
Therefore it is mighty in operations, full of virtue and ever working, which also receiveth a man and begetteth him afresh, alters him, changeth him, and turneth him altogether into a new nature and conversation, so that a man feeleth his heart altogether altered and changed, and far otherwise disposed than before, and has power to love that which before he could not but hate,
And it setteth the soul at liberty and maketh her free to follow the will of God, and doth to the soul even as healing doth to the body, after a man is pined and wasted away with a long exhausting disease.
The legs cannot bear him.
He cannot lift up his hands to help himself.
His taste is corrupt.
Sugar is bitter in his mouth.
His stomach abhorreth good meat* longing after slibbersauce and swash at which a whole stomach is ready to cast his gauge.
When healing comes she changeth and altereth him clean."