CHAPTER IX.

JOHN PENRY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM.

EIGHT months before the martyrdom of Barrowe and Greenwood (September, 1592), there came to London, from the north country, a young man of eminent gifts and eminent zeal, who, though he had been hunted out of England into Scotland for his efforts in behalf of reformation, had not yet become a Separatist. Being thrown into association with members of the little persecuted church, he was attracted to them by his sympathy with their afflictions, and soon adopted their distinctive principle of "reformation without tarrying for any." This was John Penry; and the story of his life illustrates the relation between the spirit of evangelism and the principle of voluntary church reformation.

John Penry, or ApHenry, was a Welshman, born in the year of Elizabeth's accession to the throne (1555). At the age of nineteen, he became a student in the University of Cambridge. There his strong religious sensibilities, which at first had been fascinated by the Roman ritualism, were roused and enlightened by the Puritan influences which lingered in that seat of learning. Embracing with his whole heart the Gospel of personal salvation from sin by personal faith in Christ the Redeemer, he seems to have been, from the beginning of his new life, much more intent on a religious reformation, and especially on the evangelization of his benighted countrymen in Wales, than on any questions about vestments and ceremonies or about Church polity. Could he have had the religious liberty which was yet to be achieved for all the subjects of the British crown by ages of conflict, he would have been such a reformer as Whitefield and the Wesleys were in their day—an evangelist flaming with the

love of souls and preaching with a tongue of fire. Little did he care for questions about prelacy and parity, in the clerical body still less for questions about clerical costumes and the other trumperies of the queen's ritual. His soul groaned over the ignorance and the sins of his Welsh countrymen, and his longing was that to the poor the Gospel might be preached. After taking his first degree in arts at Cambridge, he removed to St. Alban's Hall, in Oxford, where there happened to be, just then, more favor for men of Puritan sympathies; and there he proceeded, and became Master of Arts when twenty-five years of age (1586). He declined the offer of ordination "without a call to the ministry by some certain church," and contented himself with such a license to preach as the university could give.

His earliest publication was printed at Oxford in the course of the next year. It was, as he described it in his title-page, "A Treatise containing the Equity of an Humble Supplication, which is to be exhibited to her Gracious Majesty and the High Court of Parliament, in the behalf of the country of Wales, that some order may be taken for the preaching of the Gospel among those people: Wherein is also set down as much of the estate of our people as without offense could be made known, to the end (if it please God) we may be pitied by those who are not of this assembly, and so they may be drawn to labor in our behalf.”

In an introductory address "to all that mourn in Zion until they see Jerusalem in perfect beauty, and, namely, to my fathers and brethren of the Church of England," he expressed himself with unaffected humility, yet with the unconscious dignity of one who, bringing a message from God, thinks only of the message. "It hath been the just complaint, beloved in the Lord, of the godly in all ages, that God's eternal and blessed verity, unto whom the very heavens should stoop and give obeisance, hath been of that small reckoning and account in the eyes of the most part of our great men, as they valued it to be but a mere loss of time to yield any at

ST. ALBAN'S HALL OXFORD (PENRY'S COLLEGE).

tendance thereupon. Hence it cometh to pass that the truth being at any time to be countenanced, none, very often, are found in the train thereof but the most contemptible and refuse of men; and because these also, being guilty unto themselves of great infirmities (and foul sins many times), and not ignorant that affliction is the sequel of earnest and sincere profession, do pull their necks from the yoke, and their shoulders from the burden, the Lord is constrained very severely to deal with them before they can be gotten to go on his message. And (which is far more lamentable) inasmuch as the drowsy and careless security, the cold and frozen affections of the godly themselves, in most weighty affairs, is never wanting the Lord suffereth his own cause to contract some spot from their sinful hands. These considerations, beloved- but especially the latter-kept me back a great while from this action, which I have now, by the goodness of God, brought to this pass you see. It would be a grievous wound unto me, all my life long, if the dignity of a cause worthy to have the shoulders of all princes under the cope of heaven for its footstool, should be any whit diminished by my foul hands-which, notwithstanding, I profess to have washed, so far as their stains would permit."

With such feelings did Penry enter on his life-work, protesting that God had thrust him upon that work almost against his will, yet comforted by the thought that "the honor of Jesus Christ was involved in it. "My silence— though speech be to the danger of my life-shall not betray his honor. Is he not a God? Will he not be religiously worshiped? Will he not have their religion framed according to his own mind? Hath he not regard whether his true service be yielded him or not? If he have, woe be unto that conscience that knoweth this and keepeth it secret, or is slack in the promoting thereof."

The one aim of the "Treatise" is announced on its descriptive title-page. The author described the moral and religious condition of his countrymen in Wales, "whose