William Tyndale

Scripture judges the church, and not the other way round. Against More's claim that the church holds truths it need not prove from Scripture, Tyndale answers that the word begets the church, so the gospel comes first; that Christ and the apostles, for all their miracles, did not ask to be believed without Scripture; and that councils are tested by it, as any new question will be. The book is a sustained argument on exactly the question this locus asks.

And therefore they that will be believed without scripture are false hypocrites, and not Christ's church.An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1850), p. 136

Nothing found. The three Parker Society volumes were searched for the Apocrypha by name, for Ecclesiasticus, and for the Maccabees (More's proof text for purgatory), and none of those searches found a statement on whether the deuterocanonical books are Scripture. That is not found in these volumes, not a finding that he never addressed it.

Creation makes it known that there is one God, and the failure to honour him is the corruption of nature, not a lack of evidence. That is the shape of the clear-suppressed stance, and it is the reading of Romans 1 he gives. It is a lean rather than an affirmation because it comes in a summary of the epistle's first chapter, not an argument of his own about natural knowledge, and because of the source: The prologue to Romans in his 1534 New Testament follows Luther's 1522 preface to Romans closely, expanded by Tyndale, so this sentence is Tyndale's English of a text that is largely Luther's. He published it as his own and as the key to the epistle, which is why it is quoted here, but it is weaker evidence of his own mind than a sentence from the Obedience or the Answer to More.

For though it be known, and daily understood by the creatures, that there is but one God, yet is nature of herself, without the Spirit and grace, so corrupt and so poisoned, that men neither can thank him, neither worship himPrologue to the Epistle to the Romans (1534), in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 495

He takes the Trinity as given and never argues it in what was read. The texts that touch it do so in passing: on 1 John he argues from "that which was from the beginning" that Christ is very God, and eternal life with the Father; he calls the Holy Ghost "no dumb God" in the Leviticus prologue; and he closes the Jonas prologue with praise to God the Father, through Christ, and to his holy Spirit. Those passages fit the Nicene stance and nothing in them strains it, but none states three persons in one substance, so the tier is established rather than researched.

One Christ, very God and very man, read off the opening of 1 John: "that which was from the beginning" testifies that he is God, and "which we heard, and saw with our eyes, and our hands handled" that he is man. His prologue to John names the two errors the evangelist wrote against, one denying Christ to be very God and the other very man, and later in the 1 John exposition he that the devil's whole study is to destroy trust in what Christ suffered "in his flesh."

And thus we have in plain and open words a manifest article of our faith, that our Saviour Christ is very God and very man.Exposition of the First Epistle of St John (1531), on 1 John 1:1, in Expositions and Notes (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1849), p. 145

Where Exodus 22 calls the judges "gods", he takes the word as an office: rulers are in God's room and execute his commandments, which is why resisting them is resisting God. That is the human-rulers reading. It is a lean because it is the only such text found, read for the argument about obedience, and he does not take up Psalm 82 or the gods of the nations.

Mark, the judges are called gods in the scriptures, because they are in God's room, and execute the commandments of God.The Obedience of a Christian Man (1528), on the obedience of subjects to rulers, in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 175

The will is free to do what it wants, and that is the bondage: it wants what is evil. Freedom comes only when God opens a man's wits to feel that his lusts are damnable and gives him power to resist them, "the freedom wherewith Christ maketh free." Behind it is an inherited corruption: in the Wicked Mammon "we are by inheritance heirs of damnation," before we are born.

Notwithstanding, to follow lusts is not freedom, but captivity and bondage.The Obedience of a Christian Man (1528), in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 183

Predestination is where believing itself comes from, and its comfort is that salvation is taken out of human hands, which would lose it. He fences it pastorally: the reader is to come to Romans 9 by way of the law, the gospel and the cross, and not begin by searching whether he is predestinate. The same order appears in the Answer to More, where God acts "of his exceeding love" toward us in Christ "before the world was made," and the church in its special sense is "the elect only; in whose hearts God hath written his law." The prologue to Romans in his 1534 New Testament follows Luther's 1522 preface to Romans closely, expanded by Tyndale, so this sentence is Tyndale's English of a text that is largely Luther's. He published it as his own and as the key to the epistle, which is why it is quoted here, but it is weaker evidence of his own mind than a sentence from the Obedience or the Answer to More.

By which predestination our justifying and salvation are clean taken out of our hands, and put in the hands of God onlyPrologue to the Epistle to the Romans (1534), on chapters 9 to 11, in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), pp. 504–505

Faith is trust in God's favour, so firmly set that a man would not doubt it though he died a thousand times, and it cannot be separated from good works any more than heat from fire. In the Answer to More he draws the same line in his own words: an "historical faith" rests on the honesty of whoever told you and is "but an opinion," while a "feeling faith" is like having put your finger in the fire. The prologue to Romans in his 1534 New Testament follows Luther's 1522 preface to Romans closely, expanded by Tyndale, so this sentence is Tyndale's English of a text that is largely Luther's. He published it as his own and as the key to the epistle, which is why it is quoted here, but it is weaker evidence of his own mind than a sentence from the Obedience or the Answer to More.

Faith is, then, a lively and a stedfast trust in the favour of God, wherewith we commit ourselves altogether unto GodPrologue to the Epistle to the Romans (1534), in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 493

Justification is forgiveness and God's favour, received by faith alone, and works justify only before people, as evidence that the faith is real. That is how he reconciles Paul and James in his prologue to James: "as faith only justifieth before God, so do deeds only justify before the world." He defines the word the same way in the Romans prologue: to be reconciled to God, restored to his favour, and have your sins forgiven.

By justifying, understand the forgiveness of sins and the favour of God.The Obedience of a Christian Man (1528), in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 192

Expounding "not for ours only, but also for all the world's" in 1 John 2:2, he reads "all men" as all who believe, in every age and nation, and reads 1 Timothy 2:4 the same way: "some of all nations and all degrees, and not the Jews only." Later in the exposition Christ made satisfaction "for all the sin of them that had believed or should believe in his name." That is the exegesis the definite stance rests on. It is a lean, not an affirmation, because he never poses the question of extent as such, and the same exposition also says Christ "made full satisfaction for all the sins of the world," to be received through repentance and faith.

but for all men's sins, both for their sins which went before and believed the promises to come, and for ours which have seen them fulfilled, and also for all them which shall afterward believe unto the world's endExposition of the First Epistle of St John (1531), on 1 John 2:2, in Expositions and Notes (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1849), p. 154

The elect fall, sometimes far and for a season, but they cannot fall finally, because God's mercy keeps waiting on them as a father waits on a son, and as soon as they wake they repent. God sometimes withdraws his hand to teach them that all their power to do good is his. On 1 John 3:9 he holds the same: those born of God cannot sin as the children of the devil do.

And though God's elect cannot so fall that they rise not again, because that the mercy of God ever waiteth upon themAn Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1850), p. 36

The Spirit comes with faith: "as soon as thou believest in Christ, the Holy Ghost cometh," he writes in the Obedience, and the Romans prologue says the Holy Ghost enters the heart "at once and together" with believing the gospel. But the same prologue immediately qualifies it: faith does not deserve the Spirit, "the Spirit is ever in us, and faith is the gift and working of the Spirit." He never orders regeneration, faith and indwelling, so the stance follows his wording and the state is a lean. The prologue to Romans in his 1534 New Testament follows Luther's 1522 preface to Romans closely, expanded by Tyndale, so this sentence is Tyndale's English of a text that is largely Luther's. He published it as his own and as the key to the epistle, which is why it is quoted here, but it is weaker evidence of his own mind than a sentence from the Obedience or the Answer to More.

as the Spirit cometh by faith only, even so faith cometh by hearing the word, or glad tidings, of GodPrologue to the Epistle to the Romans (1534), in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 488

Spirits are driven off by faith, not by the church's consecrated objects. He puts the objection in his reader's mouth, "Do not such things bring the Holy Ghost and put away sin and drive away spirits?", and answers that faith in Christ's promises brings the Holy Ghost, and faith is the rock hell's gates cannot prevail against. Elsewhere he tests the conjured holy water by its fruits and finds no one healed in body or soul. What he rejects is the sacramental exorcism of holy water, candles and blessings; he does not address commanding a spirit to leave in Christ's name, so the state is a lean.

I say that a stedfast faith, or belief in Christ and in the promises that God hath sworn to give us for his sake, bringeth the Holy GhostThe Obedience of a Christian Man (1528), in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 225

Infants are baptized, and baptism is the sign of repentance and faith, not their cause: the washing "without the word helpeth not." He argues from circumcision in the Brief Declaration that the covenant, not the rite, saved the infant, so the unbaptized infants of Christians who meant to baptize them "are in as good case as these that die baptized." In the Jonas prologue the baptism of young children is kept up as a standing reminder of the profession.

that sign of baptism, ever continued among us in baptizing our young children, doth ever keep us in mind, and call us back again unto our professionPrologue to the Prophet Jonas (1531), in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 466

The Brief Declaration sets out the opinions in dispute and sets out at length the reasoning of what it calls "the third part," which reads "this is my body" as the sign named with the name of the thing signified. He places himself with it: the defenders of bodily presence "rail on us as heretics." The sacrament is a memorial and a seal of the testament, and in the 1 John exposition a sign left "to strength our faith, and to certify our conscience." It is a lean rather than an affirmation because the key sentences are framed as what the third party says, and the seal language keeps it from being a bare sign.

Wherefore the sense must needs be, that it is the memorial and seal of the testament only.A Brief Declaration of the Sacraments, in Doctrinal Treatises (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1848), p. 379

Miracles confirmed the apostles' preaching until Scripture was received, and after that Scripture tests miracles rather than the reverse. Against More's appeal to miracles at saints' tombs he argues that true miracles had their season, that the false ones are proved false by Scripture, and that "we bring God's testament, confirmed with miracles" and owe no more. That leans cessationist, but the question he is answering is whether a miracle can authorise doctrine, not whether tongues, prophecy or healing continue, so the state is a lean.

as long as true miracles endured, and until the scripture was authentically received, [they] were done to confirm the preaching that such saints had preachedAn Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue (Parker Society, ed. Walter, 1850), p. 128

He speaks of "eternal damnation" and "everlasting damnation" throughout, and nothing read suggests annihilation or final restoration, but no passage found argues the duration or the nature of punishment, so the tier is established and the state a lean. What he did argue, against More, is a different question: whether the souls of the dead are already in heaven, hell or purgatory. He answers that putting them there destroys "the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection," and that "what God doth with them, that shall we know when we come to them." That concerns the state before the resurrection, not the final state, and should not be read as a view on this locus.

Nothing found. Searches of the three Parker Society volumes for the thousand years found the phrase only in other senses (purgatory's duration, the age of the church's ceremonies). His reading of the pope as antichrist is a separate question from Revelation 20 and does not settle it.