The Story From Erasmus to Cranmer
The protests and the new churches in order, from their own records.
Erasmus's Greek New Testament was out of Froben's press at Basel by 7 March 1516.
In its preface Erasmus wished that the husbandman would sing the Scriptures "as he follows the plough", and the weaver "to the tune of his shuttle".
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Erasmus wanted the word on every worker's lips.
On 31 October 1517 Luther wrote to Archbishop Albert of Mainz. He grieved that people believed that "so soon as they cast their contributions into the money-box, souls fly out of purgatory."
His first thesis says Christ "willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance."
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
Luther's first thesis reads this command as a call for the whole of life.
Matthew 4:17BSB
In 1520 Luther wrote To the Christian Nobility against Rome's "three walls", and the Freedom of a Christian on liberty and service.
On 10 December 1520, outside Wittenberg's Elster gate, Luther burned the papal bull against him with the canon law.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
To the Christian Nobility counts every baptized Christian a priest.
1 Peter 2:9BSB
At Worms on 18 April 1521 Luther told the emperor and the diet that his "conscience is captive to the Word of God." Smith's English of the record ends, "God help me. Amen."
The Edict of Worms, dated 8 May and signed on 26 May, put him under the ban of the empire and forbade anyone to shelter him.
But Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.
Luther, like the apostles before the council, would not recant.
Acts 5:29BSB
Luther's German New Testament appeared on 21 September 1522 without his name, and the whole Bible followed in 1534.
At Romans 3:28 he wrote "allein", alone, and in 1530 he defended the word: "Therefore the word allein shall remain in my New Testament."
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Luther's German set the word alone in this verse.
Romans 3:28BSB
In January 1523 six hundred priests and laymen met in Zurich's town hall to debate Zwingli's sixty-seven articles.
Hegenwald, a Zurich schoolmaster, wrote the debate down from memory, and the bishop's vicar John Faber published his own account.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
Zwingli set Scripture above the church's approval.
In January 1525 some of Zwingli's own followers in Zurich baptized one another as believers. The Hutterite chronicle tells that Grebel baptized Blaurock, who then baptized the rest.
On 24 February 1527 a meeting led by Michael Sattler agreed seven articles, which hold the sword to be "an ordinance of God outside of the perfection of Christ." Sattler was put to death that May.
But I tell you not to resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also;
The articles of 1527 refuse the sword to Christians.
Matthew 5:39BSB
At Marburg in October 1529 Luther chalked "Hoc est corpus meum", this is my body, on the table. He and Zwingli agreed on fourteen articles and parted over the bodily presence in the Supper.
On 25 June 1530 the Lutheran princes presented their confession to Charles V at Augsburg.
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.”
Zwingli read the word "is" here as "signifies", and Luther would not.
Foxe reports that Tyndale said he would make "a boy that driveth the plough" know more of the Scripture than a learned opponent. His New Testament was stopped in the press at Cologne in 1525, and copies printed at Worms reached England from the spring of 1526.
Thomas More charged that Tyndale had mistranslated "Priests", "the Church" and "Charity". Betrayed at Antwerp, Tyndale was strangled and burned at Vilvoorde, and Foxe gives his last words: "Lord! open the king of England's eyes."
How is it then that each of us hears them in his own native language?
Tyndale wanted the English to hear the word in their own tongue.
Acts 2:8BSB
Cromwell's injunctions of 1538 ordered "one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume, in English" set up in every parish church.
Cranmer's prayer book of 1549 gave its reason from Paul: the Latin service had been heard "with theyr eares onely".
But in the church, I would rather speak five coherent words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.
The preface of 1549 rests on this rule of Paul's.
Calvin's Institutes was printed at Basel in March 1536 with a preface to King Francis I. That July, Calvin wrote, Farel kept him in Geneva "by a dreadful imprecation."
In November 1541 Geneva's General Council passed his ordinances, which set four orders of office: pastors, doctors, elders and deacons.
And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence.
The ordinances order the church's offices under Christ its head.
Under Queen Mary, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burned at Oxford on 16 October 1555. Foxe reports Latimer's words: "Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man."
Thomas Cranmer had signed recantations, and on 21 March of the next year he withdrew them. Foxe and the Venetian ambassador report that he held the hand that signed them in the fire first.
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
The verse answers the fear of the fire: those who kill the body cannot kill the soul.
1 Peter 2:9, Acts 5:29, Romans 3:28, 2 Timothy 3:16, Matthew 5:39, Matthew 26:26, Acts 2:8, 1 Corinthians 14:19 and 2 more