[357] Tyndale, Parable of the Wicked Mammon. Ibid. 126.
[358] Though thou hadst a thousand holy candles about thee. Ibid. p. 48.
[Sidenote: TYNDALE THWARTED BY THE PRIESTS.]
The priests, irritated at such observations, determined to ruin Tyndale, and some of them invited Sir John and his lady to an entertainment, at which he was not present. During dinner, they so abused the young doctor and his New Testament, that his patrons retired greatly annoyed that their tutor should have made so many enemies. They told him all they had heard, and Tyndale successfully refuted his adversaries' arguments. "What!" exclaimed Lady Walsh, "there are some of these doctors worth one hundred, some two hundred, and some three hundred pounds[359] ... and were it reason, think you, Master William, that we should believe you before them?" Tyndale, opening the New Testament, replied: "No! it is not me you should believe. That is what the priests have told you; but look here, St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Lord himself say quite the contrary."[360] The Word of God was there, positive and supreme: the sword of the spirit cut the difficulty.
[359] Well, there was such a doctor who may dispend a hundred pounds. Foxe. Acts, v. p. 115.
[360] Answering by the Scriptures maintained the truth. Ibid.
Before long the manor-house and St. Adeline's church became too narrow for Tyndale's zeal. He preached every Sunday, sometimes in a village, sometimes in a town. The inhabitants of Bristol assembled to hear him in a large meadow, called St. Austin's Green.[361] But no sooner had he preached in any place than the priests hastened thither, tore up what he had planted,[362] called him a heretic, and threatened to expel from the church every one who dared listen to him. When Tyndale returned he found the field laid waste by the enemy; and looking sadly upon it, as the husbandman who sees his corn beaten down by the hail, and his rich furrows turned into a barren waste, he exclaimed: "What is to be done? While I am sowing in one place, the enemy ravages the field I have just left. I cannot be everywhere. Oh! if Christians possessed the Holy Scriptures in their own tongue, they could of themselves withstand these sophists. Without the Bible it is impossible to establish the laity in the truth."[363]