[292] Simon, Hist. crit. du. N. Test. p. 246.
[293] Liber volitat inter manus conjuratorum. (Erasm. Ep. p. 746.) The book flitted to and fro among the hands of the conspirators.
[294] Tibi tradita virgula totius orbis censuram fuerit mandaturus. Ibid. p. 742.
The _Annotations_ having triumphed in the convents, the _conspiracy_ took a new flight. In every place of public resort, at fairs and markets, at the dinner-table and in the council-chamber, in shops, and taverns, and houses of ill-fame, in churches and in the universities, in cottages and in palaces, the league blattered against Erasmus and the Greek Testament.[295] Carmelites, Dominicans, and Sophists, invoked heaven and conjured hell. What need was there of Scripture? Had they not the apostolical succession of the clergy? No hostile landing in England could, in their eyes, be more fatal than that of the New Testament. The whole nation must rise to repel this impudent invasion. There is, perhaps, no country in Europe, where the Reformation was received by so unexpected a storm.
[295] Ut nusquam non blaterent in Erasmum, in compotationibus, in foris, in conciliabulis, in pharmacopoliis, in curribus, in tonstrinis, in fornicibus......Ibid. p. 746.
Effects of the New Testament in the Universities--Conversations--A Cambridge Fellow--Bilney buys the New Testament--The first Passage--His Conversion--Protestantism, the Fruit of the Gospel--The Vale of the Severn--William Tyndale--Evangelization at Oxford--Bilney teaches at Cambridge--Fryth--Is Conversion Possible?--True Consecration--The Reformation has begun.
[Sidenote: THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE UNIVERSITIES.]
While this rude blast was rushing over England, and roaring in the long galleries of its convents, the still small voice of the Word was making its way into the peaceful homes of praying men and the ancient halls of Oxford and Cambridge. In private chambers, in the lecture-rooms and refectories, students, and even masters of arts, were to be seen reading the Greek and Latin Testament. Animated groups were discussing the principles of the Reformation. When Christ came on earth (said some) He gave the word, and when He ascended up into heaven He gave the Holy Spirit. These are the two forces which created the church--and these are the forces that must regenerate it.--No (replied the partizans of Rome), it was the teaching of the apostles at first, and it is the teaching of the priests now.--The apostles (rejoined the friends of the Testament of Erasmus)--yes, it is true--the apostles were during their ministry a living Scripture; but their oral teaching would infallibly have been altered by passing from mouth to mouth. God willed, therefore, that these precious lessons should be preserved to us in their writings, and thus become the ever-undefiled source of truth and salvation. To set the Scriptures in the foremost place, as your pretended reformers are doing (replied the schoolmen of Oxford and Cambridge); is to propagate heresy! And what are the reformers doing (asked their apologists) except what Christ did before them? The sayings of the prophets existed in the time of Jesus only as _Scripture_, and it was to this written Word that our Lord appealed when he founded his kingdom.[296] And now in like manner the teaching of the apostles exists only as Scripture, and it is to this written word that we appeal in order to re-establish the kingdom of our Lord in its primitive condition. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; all is in motion--in the lofty halls of our colleges, in the mansions of the rich and noble, and in the lowly dwellings of the poor. If we want to scatter the darkness, must we light the shrivelled wick of some old lamp? Ought we not rather to open the doors and shutters and admit freely into the house the great light which God has placed in the heavens?