Let us then begin with me welcoming everybody to Chapter 27 of Sketches from Church History by S.M. Houghton. Specifically today, we're going to be taking a look at England Receives the Light, Part 1. God willing, on Tuesday of next week, we will do Part 2. But let me go ahead and begin with some words of prayer. God our gracious father we are so thankful for that you are the one who brings the light after the darkness as the Reformation motto was post ten of us Lux after darkness light so you brought the light of the word to Europe. You enlightened men's minds and helped them to find their way to Christ through the effectual calling of your Holy Spirit. You raised up men with fire in their bones to preach your word who were willing even to go to the stake and be burned to death for the sake of their testimony. We thank you, Lord, that you did this for your own glory. We thank you that we are still benefiting from the works of those men and women who went before us, who had that spirit within them that caused them to continue to strive to see Christ's word spread abroad. Oh Lord, help us to have the same kind of spirit. Help us to understand now. And we pray these things in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Chapter 27, England Receives the Light. It was inevitable that the influence of the movement begun by Luther on the continent of Europe should be felt in England, and especially in the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge, where the doctrine of the German Reformer was earnestly and doubtless hotly debated. Indeed, the inn where a few Cambridge scholars congregated became known as Little Germany. The group included Little Thomas Billman, Hugh Latimer, Miles Coverdale, Matthew Parker, and in all probability, William Tyndale, all of whom rose to fame in Protestant annals. Now that inn, of course, was the White Horse Inn, which has, that name has been made famous by Mike Horton and Kim Riddlebarger. with their their reformed podcast. So the English king of the time was Henry VIII who until his death in 1547 remained a bitter enemy of the Reformed faith, even though it has often been claimed that he was responsible for the Reformation in England. Whatever else he did, he had no love for Protestant doctrine and Protestant worship. In opposition to the teachings of Luther, he wrote a treatise for which Pope Leo X rewarded him with the title of Defender of the Faith. To this day, British coins remind us of the award, for they are inscribed as FIDEF or FD, Defensor Fidei, and there are still those who look to the British Crown to defend the Christian faith. Yeah, fat chance of that today, I'm afraid. Henry had been granted permission by the Pope to marry Catherine of Aragon after the death of his brother Arthur, her previous husband. But as his love for Catherine waned, especially after her failure to give birth to a living son and heir to the king, two sons had died in infancy, he requested another Pope to annul the marriage. To state the matter more exactly, Henry asked the Pope to declare that the papal permission given him to marry Catherine was contrary to the law of God, and that in consequence he had not been married to Catherine in any true sense at all. Hence he was free to marry another. Pope Clement VII did not actually refuse Henry's request, but deliberately prolonged negotiations, never intending to reach a decision favorable to the king. The Emperor Charles V, who had presided over Luther's trial at the Diet of Worms in 1521, was Catherine's nephew, and the Pope could not afford to displease him. He was the most powerful monarch of his time, so the English king waited and fumed in vain." Now, some of the back-channel politics that were going on here. Charles V, obviously, as Houghton stated, was the nephew of Catherine of Aragon. He specifically did not want his aunt to have her marriage annulled, because not only would that have removed obviously Catholic influence and Spanish influence specifically on the throne, it would have made her daughter, who later became Bloody Mary, Mary, it would have made her illegitimate and therefore he was very, very opposed to this particular scheme. He was also upset at how the Reformation, despite Henry's disapproval of it and working against it, seemed to be progressing within England. In any event, he was essentially, with his armies, he was essentially sitting on the Pope, so the Pope couldn't make a decision favorable to Henry, so God aligned things. for the good of his church in the political realm, and we see that happening again and again. Henry wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting at the court, and finally, in desperation, he broke with the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. Without papal approval, he secured the appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury of Thomas Cranmer. a man willing to accept Henry's claim that he had never been married to Catherine according to the law of God, and to join Henry and Anne in marriage. The king then declared himself head of the church in England. He beheaded Thomas More and John Fisher, two principal men opposed to his actions, persuaded Parliament to pass acts making the new arrangements in church and state lawful, and dissolved the numerous monasteries. The monasteries were strongholds of the papacy. By these measures, the king brought about the political reformation. Henry also handed over the lands, the huge amount of land that was taken from these monasteries because you've got to understand for hundreds of years medieval peasants, not peasants, medieval lords and ladies had been dying and leaving behind giant properties as bequests to the church. The reason for this was they felt, they were told in essence by the church that by doing so It was the same as buying an indulgence. You could get time off in purgatory by willing your lands, willing your fortune to the church. And so it became very, very popular. So when Henry declared that he was the head of the church in England and dissolved or essentially broke the connection between the Pope and England, what happened was these properties were handed over obviously first to the king and then the king gave many of them to his favorites to solidify his political position. So as I said politics played, politics and of course money, played a huge part in the Reformation just as politics played a huge part in the spread of the gospel. The Roman Empire had to stretch throughout the Mediterranean. There had to be roads established. The Romans had to have waged war on the pirates in the Mediterranean to make it safe for sea travel and so on, for Paul to take his missionary journeys and things like that. The Lord had to order things. Of course, before then, Alexander the Great had to conquer the Persian Empire in order for Koine Greek to become the lingua franca of that particular region so that when the New Testament was written there was a common language for all the people. In any event, so political things in England definitely led to a more, shall we say, a more favorable setting for the English Reformation. Anyway, back to Henry and what was going on there. But as we've said already, Henry was never a Protestant. He continued to defend the principal teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, required all people in England and Wales to adhere to the Roman Creed, and was quite willing to put to death men and women who opposed his will by embracing Protestant doctrine. In one matter, however, Henry advised by Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, his chief minister of state, took a very important decision concerning the Bible. In the year 1538, he required a copy of the scriptures and an English translation to be placed in every parish church in his kingdom. And the churches were to be left open at all convenient hours of the day so that people might have access to the volume. Two years earlier, the Reformer Tyndale, when dying at the stake, had prayed, Lord, open the King of England's eyes. And many believed that the giving of the Bible to the people was the fulfillment of this prayer. The title page of what was called the Great Bible of 1539 shows Henry as king giving the Bible to Cranmer and Cromwell who in turn present the Bible Cranmer to the clergy of the land, Cromwell to the people of the land. Now this was called the Great Bible not in the sense of wow that's great, but back in those days in the sense of very large. These were enormous pulpit Bibles, very thick, printed on thick paper with the old printing presses of the time. And at the time, they used to chain them because they were tremendously valuable to the pulpit itself. So if you wanted to read the Bible, you actually had to enter into those churches and then open up the Bible on the outside. and read it, and that was possible. And because it was in the common tongue of the English people, you didn't have to be a scholar, you just needed to be literate in order to begin reading the Bible. And so the Bible was finally made available. In a work of amazing irony, Cranmer's translation of the English, of the scriptures into English, was one of the bases of this great Bible that Henry authorized, and later on would become obviously the basis of the KJV version of the Bible. Many of the words that we take for granted, like atonement, were actually created by Tyndale in order to sum up biblical ideas. Atonement, the idea of being made at one with God, at one mint. He actually created that word, that compound word. so that we might have a theological way of explaining what it was that Jesus did through his propitiatory death and he would atone for our sins making us at one with God. In any event, In 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth to a daughter, later Queen Elizabeth I, but the king's affections were already growing cold, and as she had not presented him with the son and heir he wished for, he soon brought false accusations of unfaithfulness against her, and Anne was executed. To the king's great joy, his next wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to a son, Edward, who succeeded his father upon the throne when he was a mere nine years of age. He reigned until 1553, dying at the age of 16. Between 1547 and 1553, the Reformation in England and Wales made very rapid progress. Cranmer, by this time a genuine Protestant, welcomed reformers from the continent, cooperated with the king's regents in removing images from churches, and replaced the Roman Catholic Missal, that is, service book. by the English Prayer Book. Actually, two such books were issued, the first in 1549, the second in 1552. The former retained certain Roman usages, and as Protestant teaching became more firmly established, it gave place to the 1552 book, which also contained 42 articles of religion, still printed in the Church of England Prayer Book, but reduced to 39. Now, one of the things that we need to understand is that while The prayer book, the Book of Common Prayer, was more Protestant, and indeed John Knox was one of the chaplains of Edward, the short-lived but very Protestant young man who reigned for a short period of time after the death of his father Henry VIII. While that was a Protestant book, it still followed the general formulary of Roman Catholic worship. In Roman Catholic worship, none of it is extempore, that is, at the time, and none of the service was particularly tailored to the needs of the people in terms of preaching and the exposition of scripture. It was all centered around the Mass It was all in Latin, all unintelligible, but while the Book of Common Prayer gave collects for the people in English, it was still in a liturgical pattern. Every day was plotted out. Part of the reason for that was because the average British priest at this point in time, although vicar was becoming more common in describing them, did not have enough enough training or understanding to actually conduct a service in English the way that a pastor would today, and certainly not extempore, to pray at the time. It was just unknown, it was uncommon. And also the king wanted to be able to, and later the queen, Queen Elizabeth I, wanted to be able to direct the course of the sermons and the teaching. they didn't want anything being taught that might overturn the things that they wanted understood by their people. There was a very strong political reason there for the King and Queen of England to want to continue to constrain the Reformation, to separate from Rome, to introduce Protestant elements, but not to have a thoroughgoing Reformation, especially because they associated with the kind of reformation that occurred in Geneva with Republicanism. And by that I don't mean Democrat and Republican in the American sense. I mean the idea of an elected government made up of representatives from the people, the kind of government you had in Switzerland, the kind of government you had in Holland. They didn't like that at all. They wanted, obviously, kings and queens. They wanted the ability to put religious leaders in the places that they wanted. They wanted to be able to control the government. And so therefore, they wanted to be able to control the worship as well, to make sure that nothing was being preached and taught that would go against the setup that they had created for themselves. So their religion, for them, was an incredibly important aspect of their rule. And as Elizabeth put it, following exactly what her father Henry VIII had said, you know, no bishop, no queen, and then later on, James would take that up, no bishop, no king. He associated the hierarchy of the Episcopalian system in the church with the system of rule amongst the royalty in England. The death of youthful Edward VI Saturday was a tragedy for the British nation for in those days in England as on the continent of Europe it was taken for granted that the religion professed and followed by a nation must correspond with that professed by the occupant of the throne. An attempt was made to enthrone the Protestant Lady Jane Grey but it failed. She was the famous Nine Days Queen. and Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, became queen. She determined to establish Roman Catholicism throughout her realm. Shortly, she married Philip of Spain, the son of the Emperor Charles V, and the persecution of the Protestants commenced. Many leading churchmen fled to the continent to escape her wrath. Some found refuge in Germany, others in Calvin's Geneva. The story of the persecutions of Mary's reign is told in great detail by John Fox in his famous Book of Martyrs. He spared no pains to collect reliable information from public records and from eyewitnesses about the trial of Protestants before Catholic bishops and others, and he gave graphic accounts of the actual burnings. In all, nearly 300 men and women were burned at the stake. Chief among them were Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester and Gloucester, Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. The three were burned at Oxford, though Cranmer's burning was about six months later than that of the others. Latimer encouraged his fellow sufferer with the famous words, be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out. Bishop John Hooper of Gloucester, he had taken Latimer's place in the city, was burned outside his cathedral. A person who visited him shortly before he suffered urged him to consider that life is sweet and death is bitter, and that if he would yield to the Queen, he might thereafter do much good. He replied, True it is that death is bitter and life is sweet, but the death to come is more bitter, and the life to come is more sweet. Therefore, for the desire and love I have to the one, and the terror and fear of the other, I do not so much regard this death nor esteem this life, but have steadied myself through the strength of God's Holy Spirit, patiently to pass through the torments and extremities of the fire now prepared for me, rather than to deny the truth of God's word. Another prominent reformer, John Bradford of Manchester, was among the many burned at Smithfield, London. Robert Farrar, Bishop of Davids, Wales, was burned at the town of Carmarthen. Soon after Mary's reign began, Archbishop Cranmer was imprisoned in London. but later was sent to Oxford and sentenced to undergo degradation. That is, various ceremonies were gone through to indicate that he no longer held office in the church. For instance, Bonner, Catholic Bishop of London, scraped Cranmer's fingernails and nails to undo the effects of the anointing. which he had received 23 years previously when made Archbishop. This having been done, however, his enemies suddenly changed their minds. They placed him in pleasant apartments, gave him liberty to walk in the open air, and spoke in such a kind way to him that he was overcome and persuaded to sign a paper renouncing his Protestant beliefs. Now, another thing that they had done is they had taken him to a high window looking out on the place in which Latimer and Ridley were being burned. And he was so horrified. Their burning was not particularly... One of the bizarre things is you become... You become very well aware of what a good burning and a bad burning was. A good burning was one in which the wood took. It was old and seasoned and the person was killed by the flames very quickly. A bad burning was when the wood was green or wet and it did not take very readily and the person just gradually slowly cooked. It was seen as a great act of mercy of the executioner usually because the relatives or friends had paid for the service, the executioner placed a bag of gunpowder around the neck of the person. What would happen would be that when the flames reached it, it didn't explode, but what would happen is it would suddenly go off in a giant burst and hopefully the extreme heat and flame that was suddenly kindled right at the base of their head would kill them instantly. That was the great hope at least. But Latimer and Ridley, it was not a good burn. And Cranmer's, I'm giving away the, well, I won't tell you what happens with Cranmer. Let's just move on. So sorry. Yet the queen was not satisfied. She had never forgiven Cranmer for his share in the setting aside of Henry VIII's marriage with her mother, and it was her will that Cranmer, despite his renunciation, of his Protestant beliefs should still be burned. On the morning of Saturday, 21st March, 1556, 150 faggots of wood were piled in Oxford's Broad Street. A sermon was to be preached to the assembled crowds, but it was a wet morning and the preaching took place in the packed university church where a small platform had been erected on which the archbishop stood. After the sermon, he was called upon to speak to the congregation and to inform them that he had returned to Holy Mother Church, But to the amazement and confusion of his accusers, he boldly announced that in signing a recantation of his former beliefs, his hand had offended in the writing contrary to his heart. Therefore, he continued, my hand shall first be punished, for if I may come to the fire, it shall be the first burned. And as for the Pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy and Antichrist and all his false doctrine. Stop the heretics mouth the priest shouted. He must be out of his mind said a chief bystander There was no need to hurry Cranmer to the stake He ran rather than walk there from the church and as he had vowed he held his right hand steadfastly in the flames Except that once he was seen to stroke his face with it as if to wipe away the flames This unworthy right hand in this hand hath offended he repeated as long as his voice would suffer him. The iron band which holds him to the stake is still to be seen in an Oxford museum." Well, brothers and sisters, we see the testimony there of men who were willing to die for their faith, even men who had at one point denied Christ and then affirmed him, as Peter denied him in the garden, and then later, of course, in that beautiful seen in John chapter 21 on the shores of Galilee he once again reaffirmed his love for Christ. Cranmer did the same. We may waver in faith but God brings his children back. They persevere to the end. And so Cranmer died well despite all. May we hope that we will stand fast in times of persecution and that God will find us faithful at the end or if we do waver that we will return and be restored by a loving father who always receives back the prodigal with open arms.