“And thus the pope, the father of all hypocrites, hath with falsehood and guile perverted the order of the world, and turned the roots of the trees upward, and hath put down the kingdom of Christ, and set up the kingdom of the devil, whose vicar he is; and hath put down the ministers of Christ, and hath set up the ministers of Satan, disguised, yet in names, and garments, like unto the angels of light and ministers of righteousness. For Christ’s kingdom is not of the world; and the pope’s kingdom is all the world.” But Tyndale was not only active in his attack upon error; he was not less indefatigable in promulgating truth. For on the 17th of January in the same year, 1530, he issued from the press his translation of the Pentateuch. The notes in the margin in this translation are even more vigorous than those in the New Testament. Thus Tyndale says: “To bless a man’s neighbour is to pray for him and to wish him good, and not to wag two fingers over him.” “If we answer not our prelates, when they be angry even as they would have it, we must to the fire without redemption or forswear God.” Upon Exodus xxxiv. 20, “None shall appear before Me empty,” Tyndale says, “That is a good text for the pope.” To Balaam’s question, “How shall I curse when God hath not cursed?” Tyndale notes, “The pope can tell how.” Such words are not to be considered without due reflection as to the circumstances under which they were written. Tyndale had been long an exile, and he knew that plots had been again and again laid to entrap him. Although for a time he might hope to elude his persecutors, he well knew that eventually he must fall a victim to their cruelty, as many others had done before him. And he believed himself to be called of God for the purpose of combating the gigantic form of error that, like Apollyon, “straddled right across” the King’s highway and withstood the pilgrims in the way to the Celestial City. Yet, although some may not approve of the notes, the counsel that is given in the prologue to Genesis will be read by all spiritual Christians with unqualified approval:-- “Though a man had a precious jewel and rich, yet if he wist not the value thereof, nor wherefore it served, he were neither the better nor richer of a straw. Even so, though we read the Scripture, and babble of it never so much, yet if we know not the use of it, and wherefore it was given, and what is therein to be sought, it profiteth us nothing at all. It is not enough, therefore, to read and talk of it only, but we must also desire God, day and night instantly, to open our eyes, and to make us understand and feel wherefore the Scripture was given, that we may apply the medicine of Scripture, every man to his own sores; unless that we intend to be idle disputers and brawlers about vain words, _ever gnawing upon the bitter bark without, and never attaining to the sweet pith within_.” CHAPTER VII. _NOT SECOND TO A GLADIATOR; OR, STRONG FOR THE TRUTH._