Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, M.A., Th.D.: Faith and Works--Cranmer and Hooker...

MASTER THOMAS BILNEY AND GEORGE JOYE: ENGLISH REFORMATION, BIBLE-MEN, ELECT, JUSTIFIED, AND WITNESSES--they speak anew and afresh today. C. Thomas Bilney, 15f. Master Thomas Bilney (1495-1531) of Cambridge experienced an evangelical conversion in 1519, the same year that Dr. Colet died. Dr. Thomas Cranmer is aged 30, is involved in academic theological studies, but largely (in terms of footprints) is off the radar. Not so for Thomas Bilney, Robert Barnes, or Hugh Latimer in the 1520s. The hunt is on for Lutherans and OXBRIDGE by Wolsey, Warham, Fisher and More. Bilney, a scholarly priest, writes to the Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tonstal: “At last I heard speak of Jesus, even then when the New Testament was first set forth by Erasmus; which then I understood to be eloquently done by him, being allured rather by the Latin than by the word of God (for at that time I knew not what it meant), I bought it even by the providence of God, as I do now well understand and perceive: and at the first reading (as I well remember) I chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul (O most sweet and comfortable sentence to my soul!) in 1 Tim. 1, ‘It is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be embraced, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief and principle.’ This one sentence, through God’s instruction and inward working, which I did not then perceive, did so exhilarate my heart, being before sounded with the guilt of my sin, and being almost in despair, that immediately, I felt a marvelous comfort and quietness insomuch ‘that my bruised bones leaped for joy.’ “After this,” Bilney continued,” …the Scripture began to be more pleasant unto me than the honey or the honeycomb; wherein I learn that all my travails, all my fasting and watching, all the redemption of masses and pardons, being done without trust in Christ, who only saveth his people from their sins; these, I say, I learned to be nothing else but even (as St. Augustine saith) a hasty and swift running out of the right way…neither could I be relieved or eased of the sharp stings and bitings of my sins before I was taught of God that lesson which Christ speaketh of in 1 John iii: ‘Even as Moses exalted the serpent in the desert, so shall the Son of Man be exalted, that all who believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Bilney went onwards, “…with all my power…that all men should first acknowledge their sins, and condemn them, and afterwards hunger and thirst for that righteousness whereof St. Paul speaketh: ‘The righteousness of God, but faith in Jesus Christ, is upon all them who believe in him; for there is no difference: for all have sinned and lack the glory of God, and are justified freely through his grace, by the redemption which is in Christ Jesus’” (15-16). John Foxe writes of Bilney that “…as he himself was greatly inflamed with the love of true religion and godliness, even so again was in his heart an incredible desire to allure many unto the same, desiring nothing more than that he might stir up and encourage any to the love of Christ and sincere religion…Nor, were his labour vain: for he converted many of his fellows unto the knowledge of the Gospel.” Bilney was a member of the White Horse Inn, a coterie of fellows meeting for Bible study. Hugh Latimer, John Lambert and Robert Barnes were scholar-priests. All four men would be put to the flames. George Joye, 17f. George Joye (1495-1553), fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge was a biblical translator and publicist of several theological treatises, including his Answer to Ashwell of 1531. He was an exile variously to avoid the Anglo-Catholic-Romanist roundup of Bible men, e.g., Master Bilney who interrogation and condemnation he witnessed. Better to flee to fight another day than die today. Joye averred that “the righteousness which is allowed before God that cometh of faith is sometimes in Scripture called hi mercy or favor towards us and in us, whereby he is moved for Christ’s blood’s sake to promise us forgiveness and sometimes it is taken for his truth and faithfulness in the performing of his promise, and of this he is called just, righteous, faithful and true” (17). Furthermore, “…Faith is an infallible and undoubted certainty in our heart, whereby we believe and trust in the invisible God…Faith is that same constant and fast persuasion in our hearts assured us by the Holy Ghost, certifying us of the goodness of God and of his promise toward us, by the which persuasion we believe verily his words and are assured in our hearts (the Holy Ghost testifying it in us) that he is our God, our Father, to us an almighty helper and deliverer, and that we are received into his favour by the death and merits of his Son Jesus Christ our Saviour, upon the which believe and assured persuasion we love him so earnestly again that we cease not (the occasion and time offered) to fulfil his pleasures in doing the works of love or charity to our neigbours” (18).