A Pathway Into the Holy Scripture

By William Tyndale (c. 1494 – 1536)

Hearken all ye peoples, and take heed

Contents:

Editor’s Preface
Introduction
The meanings of certain words
- The Old Testament
- The New Testament
- Evangelion (which we call the gospel)
- The law
- Promises
Those who are deceived in their faith
Adam and Christ contrasted
Diverse types of ‘righteousness’
Fuller discussion
- The condition and state of the natural man
- The redeeming work of Christ
- The law and the gospel
- The fruits reveal the tree
- Christ is to be credited for all good fruits
- The place and purposes of good works and spiritual gifts
- Things to keep in mind and memory
Conclusion

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Editor’s Preface

William Tyndale wrote in the early 1500’s, at which time the Roman Catholic Church was a very
powerful religious and political institution that hunted, imprisoned, tortured and executed those
who disagreed with its practice or teaching, classing them as heretics. The RCC proclaimed
‘bulls’ (papal decrees) and caused secular laws to be passed forbidding (among other things)
the rendering or reading of scripture in native languages, and requiring heretics to be cursed
and burned alive. The Church performed the cursing, and the secular authorities the executions.

If dissenters would not recant, RC Church leaders handed them over to secular authorities to be
killed, very much like the Jewish religious leaders handed Jesus over to be killed by secular
authorities. For it was Church policy that “the Church does not shed blood”. They got around
this by “relaxing” heretics to the secular arm for blood shedding. As the writer of Ecclesiastes
said, there is nothing new under the sun.
Mr. Tyndale was hunted down in Antwerp, imprisoned for 18 months, and then strangled and
burnt in 1536 when he was about 42 years old. His crimes of heresy included translating the
Scriptures into English. He was the first person in the world to translate the Scriptures into
English from Greek. His New Testament translation was in fact so good and so accurate that it
was largely adopted by the King James Bible committee; an estimated 83% of the KJV New
Testament is straight Tyndale.

One is hard pressed to find a writer fuller of love and godly meekness, together with biblical
insight, than Mr. Tyndale. But he did not hesitate to speak plainly when it came to clarifying and
explaining the problems with RCC doctrine, tradition and practice. He gave primacy of place to
the word of God and longed for it to be available to all who genuinely hungered for it.

The writings of Mr. Tyndale have been largely lost, even to the modern Protestant Church. They
can be found through secular publishing houses. His titles include The Obedience of a Christian
Man, The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, and The Practice of Prelates. To read them is to
read fresh expositions of scripture which convict in needful ways, and is also to gain insight into
the terrible times in which William Tyndale lived, worked and died for the word of God.
Unfortunately, the English is outdated and sometimes difficult. It would be good to have them
faithfully rendered into more modern English.

Following is his “Pathway Into the Scripture”, written about 1530, and minimally edited so
modern readers can draw from all its wisdom and sweetness. Tyndale wished the word of God
to be plainly available to all, and in that spirit we present this work.

R.M. Davis

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Introduction

I marvel greatly, dearly beloved in Christ, that any man would ever contend or speak
against having the scripture available in every language, for every man. For I would
have thought no one so blind as to ask why light [the light of the word of God] should be
shown to those who walk in darkness—darkness where they cannot but stumble, and
where to stumble is the danger of eternal damnation. Nor would I have thought any man
would be so malicious that he would begrudge another so necessary a thing, or so mad as
to assert that good is the natural cause of evil, and that darkness proceeds out of light,
and that lying is grounded in truth and verity. I would think he would assert the very
contrary: that light destroys darkness and truth reproves all manner of lying.

Nevertheless, seeing that it has pleased God to send to our English people (as many
as sincerely desire it) the scripture in their mother tongue, but also that there are false
teachers and blind leaders in every place, and in order that you not be deceived by any
man, I believed it very necessary to prepare this Pathway into the scripture for you. I do it
so that you might walk surely and always know the true from the false. And above all I
write to put you in remembrance of certain points, namely to well understand what
these words mean: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the law, the gospel, Moses,
Christ, nature, grace, working, believing, deeds and faith—lest we ascribe to the one that
which belongs to the other, and make Christ to be Moses, or the gospel to be the law, or

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despise grace and rob from faith, or fall from meek learning into idle disputes, brawling,
and scolding about words.

The meanings of certain words

The Old Testament is a book in which is written the law of God and the deeds of
those who fulfill it, and, also, of those who do not.

The New Testament is a book wherein are contained the promises of God and the
deeds of those who believe them, and of those who do not believe them.

Evangelion (which we call the gospel) is a Greek word that signifies good, merry,
glad and joyful tidings—tidings that make a man's heart glad and make him sing,
dance, and leap for joy. An example is when David had killed Goliath, the giant, and glad
tidings went to the Jews that their fearful and cruel enemy was slain and they were
delivered out of all danger. For the gladness of this they sang, danced, and were joyful.
In like manner the Evangelion of God (which we call the gospel, and the New Testament) is
joyful tidings and, as some say, a good message declared by the apostles throughout all
the world of Christ, the right David, who has fought with sin, with death, and the devil,
and has overcome them. By this all men who were in bondage to sin, wounded with
death and overcome of the devil are, without their own merit or deserving, loosed,
justified, restored to life and saved. They are brought to liberty, and reconciled to the
favor of God, and set at one with Him again. And those who believe these tidings laud,
praise and thank God, and are glad and sing and dance for joy.

This Evangelion or gospel (that is to say, such joyful tidings) is called the New
Testament because just like a man, when he dies, directs his goods to be dealt and
distributed after his death among his named heirs, so Christ before his death commanded
and appointed such Evangelion, gospel, or tidings to be declared throughout all the
world, to thereby give all his goods to those who repent and believe. His goods are his
life, by which he swallowed up and devoured death, his righteousness, by which he
banished sin, and his salvation by which he overcame eternal damnation. Now a
wretched man (who knows himself to be wrapped in sin and in danger of death and hell)
cannot hear anything more joyous than such glad and comforting tidings of Christ, so
that he cannot but be glad, and laugh from the very bottom of his heart if he believes
these tidings are true.

To strengthen such faith, God promised his Evangelion in the Old Testament, by the
prophets. As Paul says (Romans 1), he was chosen to preach God's Evangelion, which
God had promised beforehand by the prophets in the Scriptures that speak of his Son
who was born of the seed of David. In Genesis 3 God says to the serpent, I will put
hatred between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed; that same seed
will tread your head underfoot. Christ is this woman's seed: he it is who has trodden
underfoot the devil's head—that is to say sin, death, hell and all the devil’s power. For
without this seed [Christ] no man can avoid sin, death, hell and everlasting damnation.

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 Again (Genesis 22) God promised Abraham, saying, In your seed all the generations of
the earth shall be blessed. Christ is that seed of Abraham, says the Apostle Paul
(Galatians 3). He has blessed the entire world through the gospel. For where Christ is
not, the curse which fell on Adam as soon as he had sinned remains so that all men are
in bondage under damnation of sin, death and hell. Against this curse the gospel now
blesses all the world, inasmuch as it cries openly to all who acknowledge their sins and
repent, saying, Whosoever believes on the seed of Abraham shall be blessed—that is he
will be delivered from sin, death and hell and will from that time continue righteous and
saved forever. As Christ himself says in the eleventh chapter of John: He who believes on
me shall never die.

The law (says the gospel of John in the first chapter) was given by Moses. But grace
and truth were given by Jesus Christ.

The law, whose minister is Moses, was given to bring us into the knowledge of
ourselves—that we might thereby feel and perceive who we really are by nature. The law
condemns us and all our deeds, and is called by Paul (in 2 Corinthians 3) the
‘ministration of death’. For it kills our consciences and drives us to desperation,
inasmuch as it requires of us that which is impossible for our natures to do. It requires
of us the deeds of a whole man. It requires perfect love, from the very bottom and ground
of the heart, as much in everything we suffer as well as in the things we do. But, says
John in the same place, grace and truth is given to us in Christ so that when the law has
passed upon us and condemned us to death (which is its nature to do), then in Christ
we have grace—that is to say, favor and promises of life, mercy and pardon, freely by
the merits of Christ. And in Christ we have verity and truth in that God, for his sake,
fulfills all his promises to those who believe. Therefore the Gospel is the ministration of
life. Paul calls it, in the afore-mentioned place in 2 Corinthians, the ‘ministration of the
Spirit and of righteousness’.

In the gospel, when we believe the promises we receive the spirit of life and are
justified, in the blood of Christ, from all things in which the law condemned us. And we
receive love for the law, and power to fulfill it, and grow therein daily. Of Christ it is
written, in the afore-mentioned John 1, This is he of whose abundance, or fullness, we
have all received grace for grace or favor for favor—that is to say, for the favor that God
has to his Son Christ, he gives to us his favor and goodwill, and all gifts of his grace, like
a father to his sons. Paul affirms this, saying, He loved us in his beloved [that is, in
Christ] before the creation of the world. Thus Christ brings the love of God to us, and not
our own holy works.

Christ is made Lord over all and is called in scripture God's mercy-stool [or, mercy
seat]: therefore whoever flees to Christ can neither hear nor receive from God anything
other than mercy.

In the Old Testament are many promises, which are nothing other than the Evangelion,
or gospel, to save those who believed them from the vengeance of the law. And in the

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New Testament there is frequent mention of the law to condemn those who do not
believe the promises. Moreover, the law and the gospel may never be considered
as if they are separate the one from the other, because the gospel and promises
serve only for troubled consciences brought to desperation by the law—which
consciences feel the pains of hell and death under the law and are in captivity and
bondage to the law. In all my doings I must have the law before me to condemn my
imperfectness. For all I do (be I ever so perfect) is yet damnable sin when compared to
the law, which requires the ground and bottom of my heart. I must therefore always
have the law in my sight so I may be meek in the spirit and give God all the laud and
praise, ascribing to him all righteousness and to myself all unrighteousness and sin. I
must also have the promises before my eyes so I do not despair—in which promises I
see the mercy, favor and good-will of God upon me in the blood of his Son, Christ, who has
made satisfaction for my imperfectness and has fulfilled for me that which I could not do
myself.

Those who are deceived in their faith

Here you may perceive that two types of people are sorely deceived. First, those who
justify themselves with their outward deeds, by abstaining outwardly from that which the
law forbids and doing outwardly that which the law commands, are deceived. They
compare themselves to open sinners and, as against them, justify themselves and
condemn the open sinners. They set a veil on Moses' face and do not see how the law
requires love from the bottom of the heart, and only such love fulfills the law. If they did
see it, they would not condemn their neighbors. Love hides the multitude of sins, says
Peter in his first epistle. For whomever I love from the deep bottom and ground of my
heart I do not condemn, nor count his sins, but I suffer his weakness and infirmity like a
mother suffers the weakness of her son until he grows up into a perfect man.

Second, they are also deceived who, without any fear of God, give themselves over to
all manner of vices with full consent and full delectation, having no respect to the law of
God (under whose vengeance they are locked up in captivity) but saying that God is
merciful and Christ died for them—supposing that such dreaming and imagination
is the faith so greatly commended in holy scripture. Nay, that is not faith but, rather, a
foolish and blind opinion springing from their own corrupt nature. It is not given to them
by the Spirit of God but, rather, by the spirit of the devil—whose faith, now-a-days, popish
believers1 compare and make equal to the best trust, confidence and belief that a
repenting soul can have in the blood of our Savior Jesus. This is to their own confusion
and shame, and it declares what they are within. But true faith (as says the apostle Paul)
is the gift of God, and is given to sinners after the law has passed upon them and
brought their consciences to the edge of desperation and the sorrows of hell.

They that have a right faith consent to the law—that it is righteous and good—and
justify God who made the law. And they have delight in the law (notwithstanding that
they cannot fulfill it as they desire, because of their weakness). And they abhor
whatever the law forbids, although they cannot always avoid it. And their great sorrow
is because they cannot fulfill the will of God in the law, and the Spirit that is in them

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cries to God night and day for strength and help, with tears (as says Paul) that cannot be
expressed with the tongue. Of which things the belief of popish adherents, or of their
father [the Pope] whom they so magnify for his strong faith, has no experience at all.

The first type of deceived man—that is to say, he who justifies himself with his
outward deeds [“works”]—does not inwardly consent to the law, nor have delight in it;
yea, he would rather there be no such law. So he does not justify God but hates him as
a tyrant. Nor does he care for the promises but would rather, in his own strength, be
savior of himself. In no way does he glorify God, although he seems outwardly to do so.

The second—that is to say the sensual person—like a voluptuous swine neither fears
God in his law nor is thankful to him for the promises and mercy set forth in Christ to all
who believe.

The right Christian man consents to the law—that is, that it is righteous—and justifies
God in the law in that he affirms that God, who is the author of the law, is righteous and
just. He believes the promises of God and justifies God, judging him true, and believing
that he will fulfill his promises. With the law he condemns himself and all his deeds and
gives all the praise to God. He believes the promises and ascribes all truth to God.
Thus in every way he justifies God and praises God.

Adam and Christ contrasted

By nature, through the fall of Adam, we are the children of wrath and heirs of the
vengeance of God by birth—yea, and this from our conception. And we have our
fellowship with the damned devils, under the power of darkness and rule of Satan, while
we are yet in our mother's wombs. And although we do not show forth the fruits of sin as
soon as we are born, yet we are full of the natural poison from which all sinful deeds
spring. And we cannot help but sin outwardly (be we ever so young) as soon as we are
able to act, if occasion be given. For our nature is to do sin, as it is the nature of a
serpent to sting. And like a serpent while still young, or even not yet born, is full of poison
and later (when the time is come and occasion given) cannot help but bring forth the fruits
thereof; and like an adder, a toad or a snake is hated of man, not for the evil that it has
done but for the poison that is in it and hurt which it cannot help but do, so are we hated
by God for that natural poison which is conceived and born with us before we do any
outward evil. And like the evil of a venomous worm does not make it a serpent, but
because it is a venomous worm it produces evil and poisons; and as the fruit does not
make the tree evil, but because it is an evil tree it produces evil fruit when the season is
right; just so our evil deeds do not make us evil. Though ignorance and blindness make
us worse and worse, and evil working in us hardens us in evil, yet it is not by these but
by nature that we are evil. Therefore by nature we both think and do evil, and by
nature are under vengeance under the law, convicted to eternal damnation by the law.
And by nature we are contrary to the will of God in all our will, and in all things we
consent to the will of the fiend.

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 By grace (that is to say, by favor) we are plucked out of Adam, who is the ground of
all evil, and grafted into Christ, who is the root of all goodness. In Christ God loved us, his
elect and chosen, before the world began. And he reserved us for the knowledge of his
Son and of his holy gospel. And when the gospel is preached to us he opens our
hearts, and gives us grace to believe, and puts the Spirit of Christ in us. And we then
know him as our Father most merciful, and consent to the law and love it inwardly in our
heart and desire to fulfill it, and sorrow because we cannot—which desire (sin we of frailty
ever so much) is sufficient, until more strength be given us, for the blood of Christ has
made satisfaction for the rest. The blood of Christ has obtained for us all things that are
of God. Christ is our satisfaction, Redeemer, Deliverer and Savior from vengeance and
wrath. Observe and mark in Paul's, Peter's and John's epistles and in the gospel what
Christ is unto us.

By faith we are saved only in believing the promises. And though faith is never without
love and good works, yet our salvation is not imputed to love or good works, but to faith
only. For love and works are under the law, and the law requires perfection and the
ground and fountain of the heart, and damns any and all imperfectness. But faith is under
the promises, which do not damn us but give pardon, grace, mercy, favor and
whatsoever is contained in the promises.

Diverse types of ‘righteousness’

Blind reason imagines many types of righteousness. There is the righteousness of

works (as I said before), where the heart is absent and does not feel how the law is
spiritual and cannot be fulfilled except from the bottom of the heart. We see this in the just
administration of all manner of laws, and the observing of them, for a worldly purpose and for
our own profit, and not from love to our neighbor without all other consideration and moral
virtues, wherein philosophers put their felicity and blessedness, all which are nothing in the
sight of God in respect of the life to come. There is also the justifying of ceremonies, which
some dream up themselves and others copy, saying in their blind reason that since holy
persons did thus and thus, if I do so likewise, I will please God. But they have no word of
God that approves. The Jews seek righteousness in their ceremonies, which God gave to
them not to justify but to describe and paint [foreshadow] Christ to them—which Jews,
Paul says, have affection to God, but not after knowledge, for they go about to establish
their own justice and are not obedient to the justice or righteousness that comes from God
—which is the forgiveness of sin in Christ's blood to all who repent and believe. It is truly the
case that unless a man casts away his own imagination and reason, he cannot perceive
God nor understand the virtue and power of the blood of Christ.

There is a full righteousness, when the law is fulfilled from the ground of the heart.
This neither Peter nor Paul had perfectly in this life, but sighed after it. They were so far
forth blessed in Christ that they hungered and thirsted after it. Paul had this thirst; he
consented to the law of God and that it ought so to be, but he found another lust in his
members, one contrary to the desire of his mind, which hindered him. Therefore he cried
out, saying, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?—
thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!

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 The righteousness that is of value before God is to believe the promises of
God, after the law has confounded the conscience—as when the temporal law
condemns the thief or murderer and brings him to execution, so he sees nothing
before him but present death, and then come good tidings—such as a charter from
the king that delivers him. Likewise, when God's law has brought the sinner into
knowledge of himself and has confounded his conscience and opened to him the
wrath and vengeance of God, then come good tidings. The Evangelion shows to him
the promises of God in Christ, and how Christ has purchased pardon for him, has
satisfied the law for him and has appeased the wrath of God. And the poor sinner
believes, lauds and thanks God through Christ, and breaks out into exceeding inward
joy and gladness in that he has escaped so great a wrath, so heavy a vengeance,
and so fearful and so everlasting a death. And from then on he is hungry and thirsty for
more righteousness so he might fulfill the law. And he mourns continually,
commending his weakness unto God in the blood of our Savior, Christ Jesus.

Fuller discussion

Here shall you see, comprehensively and plainly set out, the order and practice of
everything said above.

The condition and state of the natural man

The fall of Adam has made us heirs of the vengeance and wrath of God, and heirs of
eternal damnation. And it has brought us into captivity and bondage under the devil,
and the devil is our lord and our ruler, our head, our governor, our prince—yea, and
our god. And our will is locked and knit faster unto the will of the devil than a hundred
thousand chains could bind a man to a post. We consent to the devil's will with all
our hearts, with all our minds, with all our might, power, strength, will and desires,
such that the law and will of the devil is written in our hearts as well as in our
members. And we run headlong after the devil with full zeal and the whole swing of
all the power we have, like a stone cast up into the air comes down naturally by itself
with all the violence and swing of its own weight.

With what poison and deadly and venomous hate does a man hate his enemy!
With how great a malice of mind do we inwardly slay and murder. With what
violence and rage—yea and with what fervent lust—do we commit adultery,
fornication and similar uncleanness. With what pleasure and delight, inwardly, does
a glutton serve his belly. With what diligence do we deceive. How busily we seek the
things of this world. Whatever we do, think, or imagine, is abominable in the sight of
God. For we can refer nothing unto the honor of God; nor are his law or will written in
our members or in our hearts; nor is there any more power in us to follow the will of God
than there is in a stone to ascend upward by itself. And besides that we are, as it were,
asleep in such deep blindness that we can nor see nor feel what misery, thralldom and
wretchedness we are in until Moses comes and awakens us and declares the law.

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 When we hear the law truly preached—how we ought, from the very bottom of our
hearts, to love and honor God with all our strength and might because he created us and
heaven and earth for our sakes, and made us lord thereof; and how we ought to love our
neighbors (yea, our enemies) as ourselves, inwardly, from the ground of the heart,
because God has made them after the likeness of his own image and they are his sons
as well as we, and Christ has bought them with his blood and made them heirs of
everlasting life as well as us; and how we ought to do whatsoever God bids and abstain
from whatsoever God forbids, with all love and meekness, with a fervent and a burning
lust from the center of the heart—then the conscience begins to rage against the law and
against God. No sea under ever so great a tempest is as unquiet! For it is not possible
for a natural man to consent to the law—that it is good, or that God is good, who made
the law—because it is contrary to his nature. It damns him and all that he can do, and
does not show him where to obtain help. Nor does the law preach any mercy, but only
sets man at variance with God (as Paul witnesses in Romans 4) and provokes him and
stirs him to rail on God and to call him a cruel tyrant. For it is not possible for a man, until
he is born again, to think God is righteous to make him of so poisonous a nature either
for his own pleasure or for the sin of another man, or to give him a law that is impossible
for him to perform or consent to, his mind, reason and will being so fast glued—yea,
nailed and chained—to the will of the devil. Nor can any creature loose these bonds, but
only the blood of Christ.

The redeeming work of Christ

This is the captivity and bondage from which Christ delivered us, redeemed us, and
loosed us. His blood, his death, his patience in suffering rebukes and wrongs, his
prayers and fasting, his meekness and fulfilling of the uttermost point of the law: all this
appeased the wrath of God. And it brought the favor of God to us again, and obtained for
us the love of God as the love of a Father—and a merciful Father at that, who will
consider our infirmities and weakness and give us his Spirit again (which was taken away
in the fall of Adam), and who will rule, govern and strengthen us and break the bonds of
Satan in which we were so straitly bound.

When Christ is preached in this way, and the promises rehearsed which are
contained in the psalms, prophets, and divers places in the five books of Moses—
which preaching is called the ‘gospel’ or glad tidings—then the hearts of those who are
elect and chosen begin to grow soft, and to melt at the bounteous mercy of God and
the kindness shown in Christ. For when the Evangelion is preached the Spirit of God
enters into those whom God has ordained and appointed to eternal life and opens
their inward eyes, and works belief in them. When the woeful consciences feel and
taste how sweet a thing the bitter death of Christ is and how merciful and loving God
is through Christ's purchasing and merits, they begin to love again and to agree that
the law of God is good and ought so to be, and that the God who made it is righteous.
And they desire to fulfill the law, even as a sick man desires to be whole, and hunger
and thirst after more righteousness and after more strength to fulfill the law more
perfectly. And in all that they do, or omit and leave undone, they seek God's honor and

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his will with meekness, always condemning the imperfection of their deeds as
measured against the law.

Now Christ stands us in double stead and serves us in two ways. First, he is our
Redeemer, Deliverer, Reconciler, Mediator, Intercessor, Advocate, Attorney, Solicitor,
our Hope, Comfort, Shield, Protection, Defender, Strength, Health, Satisfaction
and Salvation. His blood, his death, and all that he ever did, is ours. And Christ
himself, with all that he is or can do, is ours. His blood shedding, and all that he did,
does me as good service as if I myself had done it. And God (as great as he is), with
all that he has, is mine through Christ and his redeeming work, in the same way that a
husband belongs to his wife.

Secondarily, after we have been overcome with love and kindness and now seek to
do the will of God (which is a Christian man's nature), then we have Christ as an
example to copy, as Christ himself says in John: I have given you an example. And
in another gospel book he says: He that will be great among you shall be your servant
and minister, as the Son of man came to minister and not to be ministered unto. And
Paul says, Copy Christ! And Peter says, Christ died for you, and left you an example,
to follow in his steps. Therefore, whatever faith has received from God through
Christ's blood and deserving, the same must be given out in love—every whit—and
bestowed upon our neighbors for their profit—yea, even if they are our enemies. By faith
we receive of God, and by love we give out again. And this must we do freely after the
example of Christ, without any other consideration except our neighbor's welfare
alone. And we must not look for reward in earth or in heaven based on our merit, or
deserving for our deeds, as friars preach (although we know good deeds are
rewarded both in this life and in the life to come). But of pure love we must bestow
ourselves, all that we have, and all that we are able to do, even on our enemies, to bring
them to God—considering nothing but their welfare, as Christ did ours.

Christ did not do his deeds to obtain heaven thereby. That would be madness, for
heaven was his already. He was heir thereof and it was his by inheritance. But he did his
deeds freely for our sakes, considering nothing but our welfare and to bring the favor of
God to us again, and to bring us to God. No natural son who is his father's heir does his
father's will because he wants to be heir, for he is already so by birth; his father gave
him heirship when he was born, and is more loathe that the son should be without it
than he himself has mind to be. Rather, it is from pure love that the son does what he
does. Ask him why he does it and he answers, My father asked me to; it is my
father's will; it pleases my father. Bondservants work for hire, but children for love. For
their father, with all he has, is theirs already.

And so a Christian man freely does all that he does, considering only the will of God and
his neighbor’s well being. If I live chaste, it is not to obtain heaven thereby, for then I
would do wrong to the blood of Christ. Christ's blood has already obtained that for me:
Christ's merits have made me heir of heaven; he is both the door and the way to it. Nor
is it that I look for a higher room in heaven than they who live in wedlock will have, or
than a whore of the brothel district (if she repents)—for such would be the pride of

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Lucifer. But I do so freely to wait on the Evangelion, and to avoid the trouble of the
world and occasions that might pluck me from the gospel, and to serve my brother
with it as well, even as one hand helps another, or one member another, because one
feels another's grief and the pain of the one is the pain of the other.

Whatever is done to the least of us (whether it be good or bad) is done to Christ, and
whatever is done to my brother (if I be a Christian man) is done to me. Nor does my
brother's pain grieve me less than my own: nor do I rejoice less at his wealth than at my
own if I love him as well and as much as myself, as the law commands me. If it were not
so, how says Paul? Let him who rejoices, rejoice in the Lord—that is to say, in Christ who
is Lord over all creatures. If my merits obtained heaven for me, or a higher place there,
then I would have something in which to rejoice besides the Lord.

The law and the gospel

Here you see the nature of the law and the nature of the Evangelion: how
the law is the key that binds and damns all men, and the Evangelion is the key that
looses them again. The law goes before and the Evangelion follows. When a
preacher preaches the law he binds all consciences, and when he preaches the
gospel he looses them again. These two salves (I mean the law and the gospel) are
used by God and by his preacher to heal and cure sinners.

The law drives out the disease and makes it appear. It is a sharp salve and a
fretting corrosive, and kills the dead flesh. It looses and draws the sores out by the
roots with all corruption. It withdraws from a man the trust and confidence that he has
in himself and in his own works, merits, deservings and ceremonies, and robs him
of all his righteousness, and makes him poor. It kills him, sends him down to hell and
brings him to utter desperation, and prepares the way of the Lord, as it is written of
John the Baptist. For it is not possible that Christ should come to a man as long as he
trusts in himself or in any worldly thing or has any righteousness of his own, or riches
of holy works.

Then comes the Evangelion, a more gentle pastor, which supples and assuages
the wounds of the conscience and brings health. It brings the Spirit of God, which
looses the bonds of Satan and joins us to God and his will, through strong faith and
fervent love, with bonds too strong for the devil, the world or any creature to loose.
And the poor and wretched sinner feels such great mercy, love and kindness in God
that he is sure in himself that it is not possible that God would forsake him, or
withdraw his mercy and love from him. He boldly cries out with Paul, saying, Who
shall separate us from the love whereby God loves us? That is to say, What could
make me believe that God does not love me? Could tribulation? anguish?
persecution? Could hunger? nakedness? Could the sword? Nay, I am sure that not
death, nor life, nor angel, nor rule nor power, nor present things nor things to come,
nor high nor low, nor any creature, is able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In all such tribulations a Christian believer

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perceives that God is his Father and loves him or her even as he loved Christ when
he shed his blood on the cross.

The fruits reveal the tree

Finally, like when I was earlier bound to the devil and his will and wrought all manner of
evil and wickedness—not for hell's sake, which is the reward of sin, but I did evil
because I was heir of hell by birth and bondage to the devil (for I could not do otherwise:
to do sin was my nature)—even so now, since I am coupled to God by Christ's blood, I
do good—not for heaven's sake, although it is the reward of well doing, but freely
because I am heir of heaven by grace and Christ's purchasing and have the Spirit of
God (for so is my nature, as a good tree brings forth good fruit and an evil tree brings forth
evil fruit). By the fruits you will know what the tree is.

A man's deeds declare what he is within, but make him neither good nor bad (although,
after we are created anew by the Spirit and doctrine of Christ, we wax always more
perfect by working and doing according to the doctrine, and not with blind works of our
own imagining). We must first be evil before we do evil, like a serpent is first poisonous,
before it poisons. We must also be good before we do good, as the fire must be first hot
before it heats another thing. Take an example: As the blind and deaf people healed in the
gospel accounts could not see or hear until Christ had given them sight and hearing, and
those sick could not do the deeds of a whole man until Christ had given them health, so
no man can do good in his soul until Christ has loosed him out of the bonds of Satan
and given him what he needs to do good—yea, and has first poured into him that same
good thing which he later sheds forth upon another.

Christ is to be credited for all good fruits

Whatever is our own, is sin. Whatever is above is Christ's gift, purchase, doing and
working. He bought it dearly, with his blood, from his Father—yea, with his most bitter
death—and gave his life for it. Whatever good thing is in us has been given to us freely,
without our deserving or merits, for Christ's blood's sake. That we desire to follow the will
of God is the gift of Christ's blood. That we now hate the devil's will (unto which we were
locked so fast and which we could only love) is also the gift of Christ's blood: to him
belong the praise and honor of our good deeds, and not to us.

The place and purposes of good works and spiritual gifts

Our deeds serve us in three ways.

First they assure us that we are heirs of everlasting life and that the Spirit of God, which
is the deposit thereof, is in us—in that our hearts consent to the law of God and we
have power in our members to do it, though imperfectly. Secondarily, we tame the flesh
therewith and kill the sin that still remains in us; and thereby we grow daily more and
more perfect in the Spirit—ensuring lusts do not choke the word of God sown in us, nor
quench the gifts and working of the Spirit, and that we do not lose the Spirit again. And

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thirdly, we do our duty unto our neighbors therewith and help them in their need, unto
our own comfort also, and draw all men to honor and praise God.

Whoever excels in the gifts of grace should consider that they are given to him as much
to do his brother service as for himself, and as much for the love God has for the weak as
for him to whom God has given such gifts. And whoever withdraws anything he has
from his neighbor’s need robs his neighbor and is a thief. And he that is proud of the
gifts of God and by reason of them thinks himself better than his feeble neighbor and does
not rather (as the truth is) acknowledge himself to be, by reason of them, a servant to his
poor neighbor, has Lucifer's spirit in him and not Christ's.

Things to keep in mind and memory

These things are important to know:

 First, the law, and that it is natural righteousness and equity.

 That we have but one God to put our hope and trust in, and we are to love him with all
the heart, all the soul, and all our might and power.

 We are not to move heart nor hand but at his commandment, because he first
created us from nothing, and heaven and earth for our sakes. And afterwards, when we
had marred ourselves through sin, he forgave us and created us again in the blood of his
beloved Son.

 That we are to hold the name of our one God in fear and reverence, and that we
are not to dishonor his name in swearing by it about light trifles or vanities, or call it to
record for the confirming of wickedness or falsehood or anything that is to the dishonor
of God—which is the breaking of his laws or doing what tends to hurt our neighbor.

 And inasmuch as he is our Lord and God and we are his double possession, by
creation and redemption, and therefore we ought not (as I said) to move heart or hand
without his commandment, it is right to have needful holy days to come together. These
times are to learn his will—both the law which he will have us ruled by and also the
promises of mercy upon which he will have us place our trust; and to give thanks
together to God for his mercy; and to commit our infirmities to him through our Savior
Jesus; and to reconcile ourselves to him and to each other, if anything has come
between brother and brother that requires it. And only for such purposes, and such as
visiting the sick and needy and redressing peace and unity, were the holy days
ordained, and to this extent they are to be kept holy from all manner of work that may
be conveniently let go for the time, until these be done and no further; but then lawfully
to work.

 And that it is right to obey father and mother, master, lord, prince and king and all the
ordinances of the world, bodily and spiritual, by which God rules us and ministers freely
his benefits to us all; and that we love them [father, mother, master, etc.] for the benefits

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we receive by them, and fear them for the power they have over us to punish us if we
trespass against the law and good order. Yet the worldly powers or rulers are to be
obeyed only so far as their commandments do not contend against the commandment
of God, and no further. Therefore we must have God's commandments always in our
hearts. And by the higher law we must interpret the inferior, so that we obey nothing
against the belief of one God, or against the faith, hope and trust that is in him only, or
against the love of God whereby we do or leave undone all things for his sake; and
further so we do nothing under any man's commandment that is against the reverence
of the name of God, to make it despised or less feared and followed; and that we obey
nothing to the hindrance of the knowledge of the blessed doctrine of God, whose servant
the holy day is.

Notwithstanding, even though the rulers which God has set over us command us
against God or do us open wrong and oppress us with cruel tyranny, yet because they
are in God's room we may not avenge ourselves except by the process and order of
God's law and laws of man made by the authority of God's law—which are also God's
law, ever by an higher power—leaving vengeance to God and, in the meantime,
suffering until the hour has come.

 And on the other side, to know that a man ought to love his neighbor as equally and
fully as he loves himself, because his neighbor (be he ever so simple) is equally
created by God and as fully redeemed by the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ. Out of
this commandment of love spring these: kill not thy neighbor; defile not his wife; bear no
false witness against him; and finally, not only do not do these things in deed, but do
not covet in your heart his house, his wife, his man-servant, maid-servant, ox, ass, or
whatsoever is his; so that these laws pertaining unto our neighbor are not fulfilled in
the sight of God, except with love. He who does not love his neighbor does not keep the
commandment not to defile his neighbor 's wife even though he never touches her or
sees her or thinks about her; for the commandment is, even though your neighbor 's wife
be ever so beautiful, and you have an exceptional opportunity given to you, and she
consents or perhaps seduces you (as Potiphar's wife did Joseph), yet see that you love
your neighbor so well that for very love you cannot find in your heart to do such
wickedness.

 And even so, he who trusts in anything except God and his Son Jesus Christ keeps
no commandment at all in the sight of God. For he that has trust in any creature, whether
in heaven or in earth, except God and his Son Jesus, can see no reason to love God
with all his heart &c., nor to abstain from dishonoring his name, nor to keep the holy day
for the love of his doctrine, nor to obey lovingly the rulers of this world; nor any reason to
love his neighbor as himself or abstain from hurting him if and when he may get some
profit by him while keeping himself safe. And likewise, I may obey no worldly power
against the law to love my neighbor as myself, if to do anything at any man's
commandment would be to the hurt of my neighbor who has not deserved it, even if
he is a Turk [of a Muslim tribe, generally fierce and marauding].

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 And to know how contrary this law is to our nature, and understand that it is
damnation not to have this law written in our hearts even though we never commit the
forbidden deeds; and how there is no other way to be saved from this damnation than
through repentance toward the law and faith in Christ's blood, which are the very
inward baptism of our souls. Of these, the washing and the dipping of our bodies in the
water are the outward sign.

The outward plunging of the body under water signifies that we repent inwardly, and
that we profess to fight against sin and lusts and to kill them every day more and more
with the help of God and with our diligence in following the doctrine of Christ and the
leading of his Spirit. It also signifies that we believe ourselves to be washed from the
natural damnation in which we are born and from all the wrath of the law and from all
the infirmities and weaknesses that yet remain in us after we have consented to the law
and yielded ourselves to be students thereof. And we believe ourselves to be washed from
all the imperfectness of all our deeds done with cold love, and from all actual sins which
chance upon us while we try to do differently and fight against them, hoping to sin no
more.

Thus repentance and faith begin at our baptism and when we first profess the laws of
God. They continue unto our life’s end, and grow as we grow in the Spirit: for the more
perfect we are, the greater is our repentance and the stronger our faith. And thus, as
the Spirit and doctrine on God's part and repentance and faith on our part, beget us anew
in Christ, they also make us grow ever more perfect and save us unto the end; and never
leave us until all sin be put off and we are clean purified and full formed and
fashioned after the similitude and likeness of the perfection of our Savior Jesus,
whose gift all is.

 And finally, to know that whatsoever good thing is in us, it is the gift of grace and
therefore not a result of our deserving the same—although many things are given by God
which otherwise would not be, through our diligence in working his laws and chastising
our bodies, praying for them and believing his promises; still, our working does not mean
we deserve these gifts any more than the diligence of a merchant in seeking a good ship
brings the goods safely to land, although such diligence does now and then assist. But
when we believe in God and then do all we can in our strength, and do not tempt him, then
he is true to his promise to help us. And he will perform alone when our strength is past.

Conclusion

To know these things, I say, is to have all the scripture unlocked and opened before
you, so that if you will go in and read, you cannot but understand. And to be ignorant in
these things is to have all the scripture locked up, so that the more you read it, the
blinder you are and the more contrariety you find in it, and the more tangled you become
in it, to be unable to find the way through it. For if you have a gloss in one place, in
another place it will not serve. And therefore because we are never taught the
profession of our baptism we remain always unlearned—as much the spiritual leaders
for all their great clergy and high learning (so-called) as the lay people.

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 And now, because the lay and unlearned people are taught these first principles of our
profession, they read the scripture and understand and delight in it. And our great pillars
of the holy church, who have nailed a veil of false glosses on Moses’ face to corrupt the
true understanding of his law, cannot come in. And therefore they bark and say the
scripture makes heretics. And it is not possible for them to understand the scripture in
English because they do not understand it in Latin. And from pure malice, because they
cannot have their way, they slay their brethren for their faith in our Savior—and thereby
show forth their bloody wolfish tyranny and what they are within, and whose disciples
they are.

Herewith, reader, be committed unto the grace of our Savior Jesus, to whom, and to
God our Father through him, be praise forever and forever. Amen.

By William Tyndale

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1
The same teachings are widespread today. Many suppose that God is a God of love only, and never a God of wrath. They
are good enough, they say, and God would never require more of them than they are already giving, for that would be too
harsh. They see no serious problem with their lack of love for His commands (and consequent adulteries, fornications and
deceptions), or their lack of love for His word, or their irreverent friends whose company they prefer to that of the saints,
etc. They imagine faith in God’s love to be a righteous faith, without concern for God’s law. They decry those who seek to
be obedient as “legalists” who do not understand the mercy of God. How deceived they are. – Ed.