The Preface to the Book of Common Prayer begins:
'It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it.'

To this day, our church seeks to combine the two great strands of typically English thought; respect for authority and love of freedom.

Since before the time that three English bishops attended the Council of Arles, in France, in 314 AD, the Ecclesia Anglicana has kept the faith alive and passed it on. If we think back to the Middle Ages it may be said that the church had reached the summit of its power in the thirteenth century but that this power was on the wane by 1500. Chaucer and Wycliffe had criticised the various orders of friars who were hypocritically claiming for themselves a spiritual superiority to which they were not entitled.

The old scholasticism of the friars had become dry and sterile but at Oxford and Cambridge the more intelligent of them were becoming absorbed into the academic life and responded to the new thinking in union with their fellow students.

Abroad, the movement known as the 'Classical Renaissance' was taking Italy by storm and the glories of ancient Rome and the splendour of Greek literature were being re-discovered. In Germany, a new spirit was emerging. With the invention of the printing press, universities were springing up as literacy ceased to be confined to scholars and some were beginning to rebel against the old fears and superstitions.

France and England were no longer at war.

A Genoese, Christopher Columbus, faced a sceptical Portugese Court as he sought support for a voyage in search of wealth across the Western ocean.

In 1453 the Turks occupied Constantinople, a Christian stronghold for over a thousand years, and a wave of Greek scholars fled to the Christian West bringing with them a specialist knowledge of classical antiquity and a fresh intellectual outlook. Ancient writings could now be read in the original Greek.

It was a remarkable awakening. The rediscovery of the literature, art and civilisation of ancient Greece and Rome led to a cultural and intellectual movement of a secular character which was to come to be known as Humanism. Printing meant that secular and pagan thought was being disseminated as well as Christian thought and it was reaching a population increasingly literate. By 1500 Europe possessed an estimated nine million books. The invention had revolutionised intellectual life and society. Stirrings of independence led to the exchange of ideas and as criticism became sharper, society and the church were by no means exempt.

The sixteenth century was a period of fierce passions and constant strife. Just as so many of the notable figures of that time were highly complex personalities, so the paradoxes of that cruel and dangerous age are ironic to a degree. It was risky to entertain unorthodox ideas in spite of the new thought.

In about 1500 the leading Humanists in England were John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, scholar, preacher, reformer and benefactor; Desiderius Erasmus, born in Rotterdam, a peripatetic scholar who was sought for counsel by popes and reformers, kings and scholars all over Europe. Cautious and reserved he was convinced of the need for reform and questioned secular pursuits of the papacy, objecting to such practices as the worshipping of relics, the selling of indulgences, celibacy, the burning of heretics and prayers to the saints. Not a revolutionary at heart, he believed that education would change the world.

The third of the renowned trio was Sir Thomas More, born in London in 1478 with a scholar's mind and blessed at an early age with the company of brilliant men of letters who became close friends. His father, Sir John More, a Justice of the King's Bench was anxious that his son should follow him in the law and he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1496, called to the Bar in about 1502 and made a Bencher seven years later, by which time he had been a member of Parliament for five years. He continued to study hard as well as teach and lecture and was a noted classicist of his generation by his mid-twenties. To reach manhood at a time when a whole new world of thought and learning, of adventure and discovery, was opening up, must have been immensely heady and exciting.

Columbus had discovered the New World and maritime nations were vying with each other in foreign trade and conquest. As the material world became more definite, spiritual ideals seemed more confused and the faithful were conscious that, as society was changing, the doctrines of the church were being challenged. Thomas, who had once thought of becoming a monk, was aware of the perils of apostasy.

He was a competent theologian and a critic of both Church and State. He saw in the new learning the opportunity of bringing all that was best in the ancient thought to the service of the present but became bitterly opposed to the new ideas which the continental reformers were beginning to spread.

By now a distinguished scholar, lawyer, politician and churchman, he was appointed by the King to accompany Cuthbert Tunstall, then Bishop of London, on an embassy to Flanders where treaties governing the wool and cloth trade were to be re-negotiated. The year was 1515. Erasmus gave the ambassadors a letter of introduction to Peter Gilles, the town clerk of Antwerp. The work was slow and Thomas More used the time to write his 'Utopia', a dialogue between himself, Gilles and a fictitious traveller named Raphael Hythlodaye, a supposed companion of the navigator Amerigo Vespucci from whom the newly discovered continent of America took its name.

Into this dialogue More poured his thoughts, ideas and visions of how the distant commonwealth of Utopia or Nowhere could be ordered, administered and controlled to the benefit of its people. Acclaimed as a classic in the use of language, More's Utopia started a new type of inspired and imaginative literature, springing from the four cardinal virtues of Plato: wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice and from Augustine's City of God, for the Utopians were God-fearing people, concerned to live by the truth of the Christian religion and to proclaim it, rather than do battle with those whose religious opinions differ from their own.

On the Continent the subject of indulgences was causing concern and a movement towards reform was developing. This did not at first touch Martin Luther who was pre-occupied with his own personal struggle which was resolved when his studies led to deeper insight into the meaning of 'the just shall live by faith'. The righteousness of God, he saw, was not based on condemnation, but on mercy. His agony had been that he considered himself undeserving of salvation. Now he was convinced that God gave; he did not buy and sell and therefore grace was not to be purchased. He laboured to convey his ideas to others and summarised his feelings on the subject of indulgences in the form of a list of theses for debate which he posted on the door of a Wittenberg church. It was a turbulent time. Luther was outlawed but while in hiding undertook the huge task of translating the New Testament into the vernacular German.

In England, also, there was a resurgence of biblical translation by scholars using ancient texts. William Tyndale, born in about 1494 and educated at Oxford before going on to Cambridge for post-graduate studies, came into contact there with the new learning. As tutor in a Cotswold family, he continued his studies and translated a work of Erasmus from the Latin and a speech from the Greek. Provoked by the ignorance of the clergy whom he met at his employers table and angered by accusations of heresy, he resolved that 'ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the scriptures than thou dost.' His translation of the New Testament into English was completed abroad in the face of cloak and dagger hostility and it was my privilege, earlier, to handle a rare pocket-size leather-bound volume of Tyndale's work dated 1526. I read from Matthew chapter 5: 'And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth, and taught them ...'

A rare volume because all that could be found were burned. Burned because, driven out of this country where he was no longer safe, he had visited Luther at Wittenberg and was branded a heretic. Many well- known biblical phrases are Tyndale's: 'Let there be light'. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' 'A man after his own heart'. 'The apple of his eye'. 'The Lord is my shepherd'. 'The fat of the land'. 'The powers that be'. 'Fight the good fight'. 'Signs of the times'. 'In him we live and move and have our being'.

The exhibition commemorating the 500th anniversary of the birth of William Tyndale was shown at the British Library from September last year until February this year and was as superbly mounted as it was massively attended, far exceeding the expectations of the initiators. It has been reckoned that some 90 per cent of Tyndale's second edition of the New Testament stands unaltered in our Authorised Version.

He was familiar with eight languages including his own.

William Tyndale was the hero and martyr of the English Bible as we have it. He has reached more people than Shakespeare. His gift to us is the Scriptures in a language which still speaks directly to the heart.

Although in peril of his life, Tyndale persevered with the revisions and in the end this remarkable scholar among the Reformation leaders was seized by treachery, imprisoned in Vilvorde Castle in the Netherlands and, a year later in 1536, was burnt at the stake 'crying out with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice: 'Lord, open the King of England's eyes'.' (Foxe).

St. John in his Gospel records what he had heard at first hand: 'When he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth'.

Struggling to understand the violence in the period of the Renaissance and Reformation, there is obvious difficulty in believing that the Spirit can have been guiding both sides. Therefore it would seem that human passions were taking over and that tolerance giving the right of others to maintain strongly held views was being faced by intolerance which led to both becoming locked in intractable controversy.

By now Thomas More had been knighted, appointed Under-Treasurer to the King and elected Speaker of the House of Commons. Honours were heaped upon him and he had also received grants of land in Oxfordshire and Kent. He had married Jane Colt, daughter of a wealthy Essex landowner and in four years she bore him four children but sadly died in her early twenties shortly after giving birth to her fourth child.

Within the month, Thomas married Alice Middleton, widow of a prosperous merchant, whose daughter, together with his own adopted daughter and two infant wards substantially increased the size of the household. It was increased still further when, in 1521, his brilliant and beloved daughter Margaret married William Roper, son of a family friend and a student at Lincoln's Inn. A year or two later the whole household moved from the City to Chelsea; to a 34-acre farm upon which More built a commodious house described by Hans Holbein the artist, in 1526, as 'dignified without being magnificent'.

It must have been a beautiful place with a separate building for himself containing a chapel and library - and an orchard and garden stretching down to a landing stage on a wide stretch of the river, two miles or so on the Hampton Court side of Westminster Abbey.

Now that More was Royal Secretary to the King, trusted both by Henry VIII and Wolsey, it was certainly more convenient as a home and I always like to feel, too, that in his choice Thomas was attracted by the little village church dating from the twelfth century where he worshipped whenever his royal duties permitted.

He succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor in 1529, the year after he completed his 'Dialogue', directed mainly against Tyndale's writing, and though he was unrivalled in the rapidity with which he despatched chancery business, he vexed the King by his opposition to the relaxation of the heresy laws. He resigned the Chancellorship in 1532. His polemic against Tyndale continued. Tragically neither understood the other's point of view. They were both scholars who welcomed the new learning and who agreed on the pressing need for reform of abuses in the medieval church.

Both agreed on the need for a bible in English and this was Tyndale's determined objective. But when the translations began to appear, with their glosses and notes, More turned against them because he feared that the doctrines of the reformers, like Tyndale, would undermine the authority and unity of the Church and as a lawyer he was concerned about the contemporary constitutional situation of religion.

News reaching him from the Continent of strong public support for Luther made him all the more determined to support the position of the Pope.

Erasmus applauded Luther's courage and tried to persuade other scholars and theologians to treat him fairly. A papal nuncio sent from Rome to attend Luther's trial wrote back: 'Nine-tenths of the people are shouting 'Luther' and the other tenth shouts 'Down with Rome'.'

This news made More all the more implacable yet both he and Tyndale were convinced that they were right according to their lights.

The Reformation was under way and neither prelates nor statesmen could halt it.

In 1528 More remodelled the South chapel of his village church and Holbein designed the capitals of the arch, symbolising More's affairs of Church and State. To those who know it, the More Chapel is a haven of peace and tranquillity. It has a special atmosphere, an ambience which communicates serenity and happiness.

Times without number I have wondered what Thomas More was like. He wrote of his Utopians that they set up statues of famous people to be an example for posterity. When he received Hans Holbein into his household he was ready to sit for him and we are enriched by the artist's drawings of More and especially by the magnificent portrait in oils which now graces the Frick collection in New York.

The subject is shown half-length, looking towards the right, in full robes with the cherished gold chain of SS over the shoulders and the portentous portcullis clasps and the pendant Tudor rose on the chest. It is the face beneath the black cap with the earflaps up that is especially striking. The white of the eyes emphasises the penetrating look as the sitter concentrates on some object to his right, as a judge might look when sitting in court.

Thomas was in his 50th year when the portrait was painted. A few faint wrinkles between nose and brow lead to pronounced nostrils above a high upper lip and a wide mouth. The expression is intent. Might it break into merry laughter creasing the crows-feet or might the mouth tighten as the eyes became more piercing? Sometimes one and sometimes the other, one suspects.

Visitors to this Church are able to see what Thomas saw and knew so well - the arch with the carved capitals and the tomb that he built for his first wife in 1532 flaming the large inscription relating to himself.

Looking at the incised lettering on the tomb people often draw attention to the fact that the phrase 'only feared by thieves, murderers and heretics' was altered by the deletion of the words 'and heretics' and that his alteration (leaving a space where the excised words had been) had allegedly been at the behest of his friend Erasmus - of the kind heart and gentle ways, who could not believe More capable of such a thing.

But it was More who wrote the words and his composition helps to answer the question: what was he like?

In writing the account of his worldly achievements and, if the lettering was to be engraved on black marble, he would intend that this, as well as his portrait, should be known to posterity.

It is unusual for a man to write his own epitaph on what he expects to be his own tomb as well as that of his first and second wife and it is reasonable to suppose that the things Thomas More decided to stress as he looked back on his life, were the offices, appointments and commissions that he considered the most notable and he gives fulsome praise to the king who was to sign his death warrant, or was it adulation tinged with sarcasm?

Another thing that emerges from his Latin composition is the tribute to the virtues of Tunstall whom Thomas accompanied on the embassy to Cambrai - the same Tunstall who gave short shrift to Tyndale and who actively prevented the distribution of Tyndale's first finished translation as soon as it appeared. Tunstall and More were the closest of friends and when it became dangerous to examine those arrested on a charge of heresy in the City of London, because of the clamour of the people, the two, with others, continued their exhaustive interrogations at his Chelsea home where the accused were sometimes held prisoner.

Did the painful duty of ridding the Church of those accused of heresy become an obsession? Was not what was done out of zeal by pious men who received the sacrament daily a negation of the teaching of Christ? In the wording on the tomb there is then a noticeable change of feeling. He refers with deep respect and tenderness to his father's 'courteous, gentle, blameless, merciful, just and upright character'....(who) 'having his life prolonged to see his son Chancellor of England ... willingly departed to heaven'.

The inscription tells us what Thomas was feeling about himself. He bared his soul for posterity. He missed his aged father dreadfully, and realised that he was now head of the family; there was no-one above him. Suddenly this made him feel old - he was 54 at that time - and it is likely that his awareness of time, judgment and eternity was sharpened. in melancholy words he hoped 'in his latter days to be at liberty, withdrawing himself by degrees from the cares and business of this life, to meditate on immortality'.

He cannot have been sorry to give up the Chancellorship, but in so doing he lost most of his income. He suffered and his family suffered. Inexorably the process of law ground on. He appeared before the King's Commissioners and the rest is history.

For long, people have been intrigued by More's complex and manysided personality: felicitous and ferocious, witty and withering, rational yet ruthless.

What then are we to make of him in his fight against Tyndale? We are all entitled to our opinions, but are cautioned in the Sermon on the Mount against making judgments.

You and I live in a time of transition. Many people feel disorientated by the speed of change and the loss of roots. Perhaps we may best find our re-orientation, our true sense of becoming, through a positive re- evaluation of our past, insofar as it affects our future.

A sense of perspective is well worth cultivating. Historical perspective is interesting and instructive, yet there is no perspective more uplifting than that of divine revelation such as that through the prophet Isaiah: -

'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, saith the Lord. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void but it shall accomplish that which I please' (Isaiah ch.55)

In 1535 Thomas More laid his head upon the block on Tower Hill.
In 1536 William Tyndale was strangled and burnt at the stake.
In 1539 The Great Bible was published for the people of England.

With hindsight, was not God working his purpose out in Tyndale as well as in More, in Fisher as well as in Luther. This does not lessen the tragedy of human passions leading to martyrdom and there were many who were to become martyrs for the unity of the Western Church, like More, as well as for the reform of a corrupt church.

If Thomas More may have lost himself for a space, his serene prayers made while a prisoner in the Tower of London indicated, by the depth of his repentance, dependence, faith and love for our Saviour Christ, that he had found his spiritual wholeness.

'The things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me the grace to labour for'.

Were not all the men just mentioned recipients of divine grace and who dare claim that any one part of the Church of Christ has a monopoly of God's grace?

Today, it is by that same gift of grace that the Spirit of truth will guide us into all truth.

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