Few Bible-readers are aware how much of persecution, of 'pain, anguish, and tribulation,' they endured, who were the original translators of the Scriptures into English, and the early defenders of the doctrines they teach. The popish clergy charged Tyndale with altering the sacred records, and forbade the circulation of his Testament, under the severest penalties. The priest-ridden King of England joined in the crusade, and by a 'constytucyon pronyneyall,' prohibited the issue of any book of Scripture, in the English tongue; 'as though,' says Tyndale, 'it weren heresye for a Crysten man to rede Crystes gospell.' In reply to the charge of altering the New Testament, the martyr says, in a letter to a contemporary: 'I call God to recorde agaynst the daye we shal appeare before our Lorde Jesu Crist, to give rekonynge of oure doinges, that I neuer alterd one syllable of Goddes worde agaynst my conscyence, nor wolde do thys daye, yf all that is in earthe, whether it be honoure, pleasure, or ryches, niyght be giuen me.' And in the preface to his first edition, he also observes: 'I haue here translated (brethren and susters, moost dere and tenderly beloved in Crist,) the Newe Testamente for youre spirituall edyfyinge, consolacion, and solas: the causes that moved me to translate, y thought better that other shulde ymagion, than that y shulde rehearce them. Moreover, y supposed yt superfluous, for who ys so blynde to axe why lyght shulde be shewed to them that walke in dercknes, where they cannot but stomble, and where to stomble ys the daunger of eternall damnacion.'
All attempts to stop the circulation of the Scriptures were of no avail. Though they were not distributed 'withouten grete auenture and parell,' yet they ran and were glorified. The Roman Catholic bishop complains, that though often collected and burned, 'stil these pestylent bokes are throwen in the strete, and lefte at mennys dores by nyghte,' and that where they 'durste not offer theyr poyson to sel, they wolde of theyr cheryte poyson men for noughte.' In vain does the King issue orders, urging his subjects to 'kepe pure and clene of all contagyon of wronge opynion in Cristes relygion,' and warn them not to 'suffer suche euil sede, contaygyous and dampnable, to be sowen and take roote, ouergrowinge the corne of the Catholick fayth.' 'He that compyled the booke,' says Tyndale, notwithstanding these warnings and edicts, 'purposyth, with Goddes help, to mayntayne vnto the deathe, yf neede be. In brunninge the Newe-Testamente, tha did none other thinge than I loked for; no more shal tha doe, if tha brunne _me_ allso, if it be God his will it shal be so.' In this spirit, did he continue, by the aid of equally zealous cöoperators whom he raised up, to multiply editions of the New-Testament, and to defend its doctrines, until he fell, by shameful strategy, into the hands of his popish enemies, and was put to a cruel death.