Specimens of Translations, from the Matthews’ Bible

Genesis. ¶ The fyrst Chapter

“In the beginnyng9* God created heauen and erth. The erth was voyde and emptye, and darcknesse was vpon the depe, & the spirite of God10† moued vpon the water.

“Then God sayde: Let there be lyght: & there was lyght. And God sawe the lyght that it was good: & deuyded ye lyght from the darcknesse, & called the lyght the daye, & the darcknesse the nyght: and so of the euenying and mornung was made the fyrst daye.”

John. ¶ The fyrst Chapter

“In the beginnynge was the words, & the words was with God: and the words was God. The same was in the beginnynge wyth God. All thinges were made by it, and wythout it, was made nothynge that was made. In it was lyfe, & the lyfe was the lyght of men, &a11* the lyght shyneth in ye darcknes, but the darcknes comprehended it not.”

Present Authorized Version

Genesis 1:1–5

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

John 1:1–5

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

It may be interesting to some readers to add the same passage so rendered in the New Revised Version.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.”

John Hooper: Bishop and Martyr

In a day of religious controversy, no one is so useful to his generation as the man who contributes a little “light.” Amidst the din and strife of ecclesiastical warfare, amidst the fog and dust stirred up by excited disputants, amidst assertions and counter-assertions, a thinking man will often cry with the dying philosopher,—“I want more light: give me more light.” He that can make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before, has been rightly called a benefactor to mankind. He that can throw a few rays of fresh light on the theological questions of the day, is surely doing a service to the Church and the world.

Thoughts such as these came across my mind when I chose the subject of this biographical paper: “John Hooper, the martyred Bishop of Gloucester: his times, life, death, and opinions.” I chose it with a meaning. I have long felt that the lives and opinions of the English Reformers deserve attentive study in the present day. I think that a picture of John Hooper will throw useful light on points of deep interest in our times.

We live in days when the Romish Church is making gigantic efforts to regain her lost power in England, and thousands of English people are helping her. None are doing the work of Rome so thoroughly as that singular body of English Churchmen, the extreme Ritualists. Consciously or unconsciously, they are paving the way for her advance, and laying down the rails for her trains. They are familiarizing the minds of thousands with Romish ceremonial,—its millinery, its processions, its gestures, its postures, its theatrical, sensuous style of worship. They are boldly preaching and publishing downright Romish doctrine,—the real presence, the priestly character of the ministry, the necessity of auricular confession and sacerdotal absolution. They are loudly proclaiming their desire for re-union with the Church of Rome. In short, it seems as if the battle of the Reformation must be fought over again. Now before we go back to Rome, let us thoroughly understand what English Romanism was. Let us bring in the light. Let us not take a “leap in the dark.”

We live in times when many Churchmen openly sneer at our Reformation, and scoff at our Reformers. The martyrs, whose blood was the seed of our Church, are abused and vilified, and declared to be no martyrs at all. Cranmer is called “a cowardly traitor,” and Latimer, “a coarse, illiterate bully!” The Reformation is said to have been “an unmitigated disaster,” and a “change taken in hand by a conspiracy of adulterers, murderers, and thieves!” (See Church Times, of March 14, 1867.) Let us study one of our leading Reformers to-day, and see what the man was like. Let us pass under review one who was a friend and contemporary of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and a leading fellow-labourer in the work of the Reformation. Let us find out how he lived, and how he preached, and what he thought, and how he died. Once more I say, let us bring in the light.

We live in times when the strangest misrepresentations prevail about the true character of the Church of England. Scores of people all over the country are not ashamed to denounce the very name of Protestantism, and to tell people that “Evangelical” Churchmen are not Churchmen at all! Forsooth, they are Calvinists, Puritans, Dissenters, Methodists, Fanatics, and the like, and ought to leave the Church of England and go to their own place! Let us bring these assertions to the test of a few plain facts.

Let us examine the recorded sentiments, the written opinions, of one of the very divines to whom we owe our Articles and Prayer-book, with very few alterations. Let us hear what Bishop Hooper wrote, and thought, and taught. Let us not hastily concede that Ritualists and High Churchmen are the true representatives of the Church of England. “He that is first in his own cause seemeth just, but his neighbour that cometh after searcheth him.” (Prov. 18:17.) Once more, I say, let us turn on the light.

I. I will begin by giving some account of Bishop Hooper’s times.—What kind of times were they in a religious point of view? Out of the pages of Fox, Strype, Burnet, Soames, and Blunt, let me try to supply a few historical gleanings.

John Hooper was born in 1495 and died in 1555. He first saw the light in the reign of Henry the Seventh, and was burned in the reign of Queen Mary. He lived through the whole reigns of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, and was an eyewitness of all that took place under the government of those two kings. The sixty years of his life take in one of the most eventful periods of English history. It would be impossible to exaggerate the difference there was between England in 1495 and the same England in 1555. In a religious and moral view, the whole country was turned upside down. When Hooper was born, the English Reformation had not begun, and the Church of Rome ruled England undisturbed. When he died, the Reformation had struck such deep root, that neither argument nor persecution could overthrow it.

What were the leading characteristics of English religion before the Reformation? In what state did the mighty change which Hooper witnessed, and helped forward, find our forefathers? In one word, what does England owe to that subversion of Popery and that introduction of Protestantism, in which Hooper was a leading instrument? Let me try to supply a short answer to these questions. They are subjects, I am sorry to say, on which most people seem to know nothing at all. The minds of the vast majority of my countrymen appear to be a total blank about the history of three hundred years ago. With all the stir made about education, the ignorance of our own country’s history is something lamentable and appalling and depressing. I never can believe that extreme Ritualism would have obtained so many adherents, if English people only knew the extent of our debt to the Protestant Reformation. They would never trifle, and tamper, and dabble with Popery, if they only knew what Popery was.

(a) Before the Reformation, one leading feature of English religion was dense ignorance. There was among all classes a conspicuous absence of all knowledge of true Christianity. A gross darkness overspread the land, a darkness that might be felt. Not one in a hundred could have told you as much about the Gospel of Christ as we could now learn from any intelligent Sunday School child.

We need not wonder at this ignorance. The people had neither schools nor Bibles. Wickliffe’s New Testament, the only translation extant till Henry the Eighth’s Bible was printed, cost £2 16s. 3d. of our money. The prayers of the Church were in Latin, and of course the people could not understand them. Preaching there was scarcely any. Quarterly sermons indeed were prescribed to the clergy, but not insisted on. Latimer says that while Mass was never to be left unsaid for a single Sunday, sermons might be omitted for twenty Sundays, and nobody was blamed. After all, when there were sermons, they were utterly unprofitable: and latterly to be a preacher was to be suspected of being a heretic.

To cap all, the return that Hooper got from the diocese of Gloucester, when he was first appointed Bishop in 1551, will give a pretty clear idea of...