The Practice of Prelates

By William Tyndale

When the old scribes and Pharisees had darkened the scripture with their traditions, and false interpretations, and wicked persuasions of fleshly wisdom; and shut up the kingdom of heaven, which is God’s word, that the people could not enter in unto the knowledge of the true way, as Christ complaineth in the gospel (Matt. 23); then they sat in the hearts of men with their false doctrine in the stead of God and his word, and slew the souls of the people to devour their bodies, and to rob them of their worldly substance. But when Christ and John the Baptist had restored the scripture again unto the true understanding, and had uttered their falsehood, and improved their traditions, and confounded their false interpretations with the clear and evident texts, and with power of the Holy Ghost, and had brought all their juggling and hypocrisy to light; then they gat them unto the elders of the people, and persuaded them, saying, ‘This man is surely of the devil; and his miracles be of the devil, no doubt. And these good works which he doth in healing the people, yea, and his preaching against our covetousness, are but a cloak to bring him unto his purpose; that, when he hath gotten him disciples enough, he may rise against the emperor and make himself king. And then shall the Romans come, and take our land from us, and carry away our people, and put other nations in our realm: and so shall we lose all that we have, and the most part of us our lives thereto. Take heed, therefore, betimes, while there is remedy, ere he go so far that ye be not able to resist him.’

CrossReach Publications

• Language: English
• Publisher: CrossReach Publications
• Release date: Sep 19, 2018

Book preview

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE

The earliest known production of Tyndale, belonging to the class properly styled polemical, was ‘The practice of prelates.’ It issued from Hans Luft’s press at Marburg, in 1530; and the editor has collated a copy of that first edition with the text of an edition published in the reign of Edward VI. by Scoloker and Seres, and with that of Day’s folio reprint of Tyndale, edited for him by Foxe in the reign of Elizabeth. As the prelates whose conduct Tyndale intended to expose were indisputably those of the church of Rome, it was thought proper to mark this, in an edition issued after the establishment of a protestant prelacy; especially when that prelacy had begun to be assailed by men who might be tempted to cite Tyndale’s words as meant to condemn any inequality of ranks, amongst the presbyters of a Christian church. Hence in Day’s reprint this treatise is called ‘The practise of papistical prelates,’ and its running title, at the head of Day’s pages, is ‘The practise of popishe prelates.’

But, besides this unimportant alteration, there are considerable suppressions in both of the old reprints. For when its author was composing this treatise, it was notorious that Henry VIII. was bent on having his marriage with Catharine of Aragon dissolved as unlawful; and Tyndale, thinking that the king’s popish prelates had instilled needless scruples into his breast for treacherous ends, announced in the original title-page, that the question of the lawfulness of putting her away was therein considered; and towards the close of the treatise he contended at some length, that it was neither necessary nor right to deny that Catharine was the king’s lawful wife. As the English reformers were eventually well nigh unanimous in holding the contrary opinion, Scoloker and Seres omitted every passage which bore upon this question, to make their edition more acceptable to their protestant customers; and as Day and Foxe must have felt that arguments tending to prove the validity of Catharine’s marriage, must also tend to prove that it was not lawful for Henry to marry Anne Boleyn, and consequently made the legitimacy of Elizabeth’s birth a disputable point, their attachment to their protestant sovereign naturally led them to continue the like suppressions, though they did not carry their caution to quite the same extent. The Parker Society cannot follow the example of these editors; for whilst it only reproduces the works of such writers as appear to its council to have been faithful expositors of scriptural truths, it does not desire to have them regarded as infallible teachers. Its principle is to issue honest reprints of such works as it selects for republication; leaving it to its readers to compare what is written with the law and the testimony; that test which it was the glory of the reformers to have restored to its due authority. In the present instance, suppression could not have consigned to oblivion what may be objectionable; for the ‘Practice of Prelates’ was reprinted entire but a few years ago, in the Rev. T. Russell’s edition of Tyndale’s works: and respectable historians would have been unjustly made liable to the suspicion of being either culpably heedless, or dishonest, if a treatise to which they have referred had been republished as correct, after the excision of passages which they have quoted.]

WILLIAM TYNDALE

to the

CHRISTIAN READER

When the old scribes and Pharisees had darkened the scripture with their traditions, and false interpretations, and wicked persuasions of fleshly wisdom; and shut up the kingdom of heaven, which is God’s word, that the people could not enter in unto the knowledge of the true way, as Christ complaineth in the gospel (Matt. 23); then they sat in the hearts of men with their false doctrine in the stead of God and his word, and slew the souls of the people to devour their bodies, and to rob them of their worldly substance. But when Christ and John the Baptist had restored the scripture again unto the true understanding, and had uttered their falsehood, and improved their traditions, and confounded their false interpretations with the clear and evident texts, and with power of the Holy Ghost, and had brought all their juggling and hypocrisy to light; then they gat them unto the elders of the people, and persuaded them, saying, ‘This man is surely of the devil; and his miracles be of the devil, no doubt. And these good works which he doth in healing the people, yea, and his preaching against our covetousness, are but a cloak to bring him unto his purpose; that, when he hath gotten him disciples enough, he may rise against the emperor and make himself king. And then shall the Romans come, and take our land from us, and carry away our people, and put other nations in our realm: and so shall we lose all that we have, and the most part of us our lives thereto. Take heed, therefore, betimes, while there is remedy, ere he go so far that ye be not able to resist him.’

The elders of the people, which were rich and wealthy, though before they in a manner favoured Christ, or at the least way were indifferent, not greatly caring whether God or the devil reigned, so that they might bide in their authority, feared immediately (as Herod did of the loss of his kingdom, when the wise men asked where the newborn king of the Jews was), and conspired with the scribes and Pharisees against Christ, and took him and brought him unto Pilate, saying, We have found this fellow perverting the people, and forbidding to pay tribute unto Cæsar, and saying that he is a king, and moving the people from Galilee unto this place. Then Pilate, though he likewise was before indifferent, put now in fear of the loss of his office, through such persuasions, slew innocent Christ. And in very deed, as the scribes and Pharisees were all their lives before blind guides, unto the destruction of their souls; even so were they at their last end blind prophets, unto the destruction of their bodies. For after that they had slain Christ and divers of his apostles, and persecuted those poor wretches that believed on him, God, to avenge the poor innocent blood that bare witness unto his truth, poured his wrath among them, that they themselves rose against the emperor: and the Romans came (according as they blindly prophesied), and slew the most part of them, and carried the rest captive into all nations, and put other nations in the realm. But whose fault was that insurrection against the emperor, and mischief that followed? Christ’s and his apostles, whom they falsely accused beforehand? Nay, Christ taught that they should give Cæsar that which pertained unto Cæsar, and God that which belonged to God: even that they should give Cæsar their lawful bodily service, and God the heart; and that they should love God’s law, and repent of their evil, and come and receive mercy, and let the wrath of God be taken from off them. And the apostles taught that all souls should obey the higher powers, or temporal rulers. But their obstinate malice, that so hardened their hearts that they could not repent, and their railing upon the open and manifest truth, which they could not improve, and resisting the Holy Ghost, and slaying of the preachers of righteousness, brought the wrath of God upon them, and was cause of their utter destruction.

Even so our scribes and Pharisees, now that their hypocrisy is disclosed, and their falsehood so brought to light that it can no longer be hid, get them unto the elders of the people, the lords, gentlemen, and temporal officers, and to all that love this world as they do, and unto whosoever is great with the king, and unto the king’s grace himself; and after the same ensample, and with the same persuasions, cast them into like fear of losing of their worldly dominions, and roar unto them, saying, ‘Ye be negligent, and care nothing at all, but have a good sport that the heretics rail on us. But give them space a while, till they be grown unto a multitude, and then ye shall see them preach as fast against you, and move the people against you, and do their best to thrust you down also, and shall cry havoc, and make all common.’ O generation of serpents, how well declare ye that ye be the right sons of the father of all lies! For they, which ye call heretics, preach nothing save that which our Saviour Jesus Christ preached, and his apostles; adding nought thereto, nor plucking aught therefrom, as the scripture commandeth; and teach all men repentance to God and his holy law, and faith unto our Saviour Jesus Christ, and the promises of mercy made in him, and obedience unto all that God commandeth to obey. Neither teach we so much as to resist your most cruel tyranny with bodily violence, save with God’s word only; intending nothing but to drive you out of the temple of Christ, the hearts, consciences, and souls of men (wherein with your falsehood ye sit), and to restore again Jesus our Saviour unto his possession and inheritance bought with his blood, whence ye have driven him out with your manifold wiles and subtilty.

Take heed, therefore, wicked prelates, blind leaders of the blind; indurate and obstinate hypocrites, take heed. For if the Pharisees for their resisting the Holy Ghost, that is to say, persecuting the open and manifest truth, and slaying the preachers thereof, escaped not the wrath and vengeance of God; how shall ye escape, which are far worse than the Pharisees? For though the Pharisees had shut up the scripture, and set up their own professions; yet they kept their own professions, for the most part. But ye will be the chiefest in Christ’s flock, and yet will not keep one jot of the right way of his doctrine. Ye have thereto set up wonderful professions, to be more holy thereby than ye think that Christ’s doctrine is able to make you, and yet keep as little thereof, except it be with dispensations; insomuch that if a man ask you, what your marvellous fashioned playing coats and your other puppetry mean, and what your disfigured heads and all your apish play mean, ye know not: and yet are they but signs of things which ye have professed. Thirdly, ye will be papists and hold of the pope; and yet, look in the pope’s law, and ye keep thereof almost nought at all. But whatsoever soundeth to make for your bellies, and to maintain your honour, whether in the scripture, or in your own traditions, or in the pope’s law, that ye compel the lay-people to observe; violently threatening them with your excommunications and curses, that they shall be damned, both body and soul, if they keep them not. And if that help you not, then ye murder them mercilessly with the sword of the temporal powers; whom ye have made so blind that they be ready to slay whom ye command, and will not yet hear his cause examined, nor give him room to answer for himself.

And ye elders of the people, fear ye God also. For as the elders of the Jews, which were partakers with the scribes and Pharisees in resisting the Holy Ghost, and in persecuting the open truth, and slaying the witnesses thereof, and in provoking the wrath of God, had their part with them also in the day of wrath and sharp vengeance, which shortly after fell upon them, (as the nature of the sin against the Holy Ghost is, to have her damnation, not only in the world to come, but also in this life, according unto all the ensamples of the bible and authentic stories since the world began;) even likewise ye, if ye will wink in so open and clear light, and let yourselves be led blindfold, and have your part with the hypocrites in like sin and mischief, be sure ye shall have your part with them in like wrath and vengeance, that is like shortly to fall upon them.

And concerning that the hypocrites put you in fear of the rising of