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 HAVE NOW IN THE COURSE OF REPUBLICATION, 
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 THE LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
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.TYl 
 

 ID 
 
 
Harper's Stereotype Edition. 
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 CHARLES WEBB LE BAS, M.A. 
 
 PROFESSOR IN THE 
 
 OF 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. & J. HARPER, 
 
 NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET, 
 
 AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT 
 THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 1832. 
 
LH 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE object of the following work is to pro- 
 duce, within a reasonable compass, the sub- 
 stance of the information which has been 
 preserved to us, relative to a very extraor- 
 dinary man ; a man whose strength of char- 
 acter, doubtless, made an impression, on the 
 mind of his country, which has never been 
 effaced. The notice of him by Fox has been 
 compared to a piece of quaint and fantastic 
 Mosaic. Like the other writings of the mar- 
 tyrologist, it affects us in something of the 
 same manner, as the portraitures and groups 
 on the " storied window" of one of our cathe- 
 drals. We retire from the contemplation of it 
 with certain feelings of veneration and delight, 
 which a more finished and artificial master- 
 piece might, possibly, fail to inspire. In this 
 instance, however, his work is far too indis- 
 tinct and imperfect to satisfy the taste, or the 
 
XVi PREFACE. 
 
 understanding, of an inquiring 1 age. It is, be- 
 sides, remarkable for one glaring omission. It 
 leaves wholly unnoticed the great and immortal 
 achievement of Wiclif his translation of the 
 Bible into English. 
 
 The life of our Reformer by Mr. Lewis did 
 much towards the supply of former deficiencies. 
 It is a laborious, and, upon the whole, a faith- 
 ful compilation; but it possesses but feeble 
 attractions for the general reader. The very 
 circumstance which renders it valuable as a 
 repertory, will, probably, make it somewhat 
 repulsive to those, who prefer a fabric carefully 
 wrought up, to a collection of raw materials. 
 It is loaded with copious extracts from the 
 writings of Wiclif; which, though they un- 
 doubtedly strengthen its authority, have, never- 
 theless, the effect of interrupting the narrative, 
 and of burdening the memory and the atten- 
 tion of the reader. 
 
 The most recent of Wiclif 's biographers i3 
 Mr. Vaughan: and to the labours of this 
 gentleman I have great obligations to acknow- 
 ledge. He appears to have prepared himself 
 for his task by a more complete and scrupulous 
 
PREFACE. XVii 
 
 examination of all the extant writings of Wic- 
 lif, than has, probably, ever been undertaken 
 before. The apology for Wiclif, compiled by 
 Dr. James, upwards of two centuries ago, was, 
 principally, the result of a careful search into 
 such of the Wiclif manuscripts as could be 
 found in the Bodleian library. Even Mr. 
 Lewis regrets that he was without opportu- 
 nities or facilities for acquiring a perfect ac- 
 quaintance with the works of the Reformer. 
 But there seems to be no repository of ancient 
 literature in the empire, which has escaped the 
 industry of Mr. Yaughan. In some respects, I 
 have, accordingly, found his work a most in- 
 valuable guide ; for his diligence has enabled 
 him to ascertain the date of many of Wiclif s 
 performances, with an approach to precision 
 which had never before been attained ; and, 
 thus, to trace out, with greater success than 
 any former writer, the progress and develope- 
 ment of the Reformer's convictions. 
 
 I have further to declare myself deeply in- 
 debted to the liberality of Mr. Yaughan and his 
 publishers, for their kind and ready permission 
 to print, from his work, the catalogue of Wic- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 lif s writings, which forms the concluding 
 chapter of this volume. It is, unquestionably, 
 the most complete account of his works which 
 has ever yet been laid before the public. 
 
 It has been thought advisable to prefix to 
 this volume two introductory chapters, exhibit^ 
 ing a brief view of Christianity, in Europe, 
 generally, and in this country more particu- 
 larly, up to the middle of the fourteenth cenr 
 tury ; the period at which the name of Wicr 
 lif began to be celebrated. Two supplement 
 tary chapters are, also, added at the end, con- 
 taining a succinct notice of the exertions of 
 his followers, and the fate of his doctrines, in 
 the interval between his death, and the Re-r 
 formation in the sixteenth century. 
 
 The public will be gratified to learn, that 
 the University of Oxford is about to publish 
 Wiclif 's Version of the Old Testament ; and 
 that the Rev. J. Forshall, and F. Madden, 
 Esq., both Librarians of the British Museum, 
 are preparing the same for the Clarendon Press. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 General View of the gradual corruption of Christianity, to the 
 middle of the fourteenth century 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ^iew of Christianity in England, to the middle of the fourteenth 
 .century 63 
 
 CHAPTER IH. 
 
 13241367. 
 
 Birth of Wiclif Wiclif admitted at Queen's College, Oxford Re- 
 moves to Merton College Acquires the title of Evangelic Doctor 
 His mastery in the scholastic learning His tract on the Last 
 Age of the Church, occasioned by the Plague of 1348 He com- 
 mences his attacks on the Mendicant Orders Notice of the first 
 institution of the Mendicants Their efficacy on their first Estab- 
 lishment Their enormous increase Their rapacity and turbu- 
 lence Their introduction into England in 1221 Its bad effects 
 Richard Fitzralph's opposition to them, followed up by Wiclif- 
 The sum of Wiclif 's objection to them contained in a tract of his. 
 published twenty years later Letters of Fraternity Oxford 
 Statute in restraint of the Mendicants Interference of Parliament 
 Wiclif presented to the Rectory of Fillingham, which he ex- 
 changes afterwards for that of Lutgershall Promoted to the 
 Wardenship of Baliol College, which he resigns for the Headship 
 of Canterbury Hall, founded by Archbishop felep His appoint- 
 ment pronounced void by Archbishop Langham Wiclif appeals 
 to the Pope, who ultimately ratifies Langham's decree The 
 Pope's decision confirmed by the Crown Wiclif vindicated 
 against the suspicion of being impelled by resentment to hostilities 
 against the Papacy The Pope revives his claim of homage and 
 tribute from England Edward III. lays the demand before Par- 
 liament, who resolve that it ought to be resisted Wiclif chal- 
 lenged to defend the Resolution of Parliament His reply to the 
 challenge 99 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 13671377. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Petition of Parliament that Ecclesiastics should not hold Offices of 
 State Answer of the King Probable effect ofWiclifs writings 
 and opinions respecting this question His sentiments on the em- 
 ployment of the Clergy in secular offices He becomes a Doctor 
 of Divinity, and is raised to the Divinity Chair at Oxford His 
 Exposition of the Decalogue Notice of his "Pore Caitiff" 
 Notice of the struggles of this Country against Papal exaction 
 Papal Provisions Statute of Provisory and 01 Premunire 
 Wiclif sent as Ambassador to the Pope Presented to the Prebend 
 of Aust and the Rectory of Lutter worth Remonstrance of the 
 " Good Parliament" against the Extortions of the Pope Wiclif 
 summoned to appear before the Convocation at St. Paul's He is 
 protected by Jonn of Gaunt His appearance at St. Paul's The 
 tumultuous scene which followed Death of Edward III., and ac- 
 cession of Richard II. Further complaints of the Parliament 
 against the Pope Question, '-wlu'tlu-r the treasure of the king- 
 dom misrht not be detained, although required by the Pope," re- 
 ferred to Wiclif His answer 133 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 13771379. 
 
 Bulls issued by the Pone against Wiclif Coldly received at Oxford 
 Wiclif appears at Lambeth before the Papal delegates Violence 
 of the Londoners Message from the Queen Dowager Wiclif s 
 written answers to the charges He is dismissed with injunctions 
 to abstain from spreading his doctrines His conduct on this occa- 
 sion considered His reply to the mixtus theologus His views 
 with regard to Church Property In what sense he considered the 
 possessions of the Church as Alms His dangerous sickness He 
 is visited by several of the Mendicants, who exhort him to re- 
 pentance His answer 165 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 13791381. 
 
 Origin of the Papal Schism Wiclif s " Schisma Papae" His Trea- 
 tise on the truth and meaning of Scripture His Postils Wiclif 
 as a Parish Priest Picture of the Clergy of that age from his 
 tract, " How the Office of Curate is ordained of God" Wiclif s 
 translation of the Scriptures Notice of previous versions of parts 
 of the Bible Caedmon Alfred .Elfric The Ormulum Sowle- 
 hele Rolle, the hermit of Hampole Elucidarium Bibliorum, 
 or Prologue, &c. not the \york of Wiclif No complete version 
 before Wiclif s Question of appeal to private judgment Wiclif s 
 defence of the translation of the Scriptures His version proscribed 
 by the Church, but, nevertheless, widely circulated Insurrection 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 of the Peasantry Causes assigned for it by Papal writers its real 
 cause, probably, the wretchedness and degradation of the pea- 
 santry Possibly aggravated by the growing impatience of Eccle- 
 siastical power Injustice of ascribing it to the religious opinions 
 ,of Wiclif and his Mowers 186 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 13811382. 
 
 Wiclif hitherto employed in exposing the corruptions of the Papacy 
 He now engages in the Sacramental Controversy Notice of the 
 history of this question Pascasius Radbert Bertram and Johan- 
 nes Scotus Berengarius Transubstantiation established by Inno- 
 cent III. Metaphysical explanation of it by the Mendicants This 
 doctrine unknown to the Anglo-Saxon Church Probably intro- 
 duced into England at the Conquest Wiclif attacks the doctrine 
 from the chair of theology His positions denounced, on pain of 
 excommunication He appeals to the King He is desired by John 
 of Gaunt to abstain from the subject He composes his Osiiolum 
 or Wicket Courtney succeeds to the Primacy Synod held by 
 him at the Preaching Friars' in London The Assembly disturbed 
 by an Earthquake Address and self-possession of Courtney 
 Twenty-four Conclusions, ascribed to Wiclif, condemned Mea- 
 sures taken for the suppression of his Doctrines Petition of the 
 Spiritual Lords against the Lollards Royal Ordinance, empower- 
 ing Sheriffs to arrest and imprison the Preachers of false doctrine 
 It is introduced into the Parliament Roll without the consent of 
 Lords or Commons Further proceedings of the Primate Wiclif 
 himself not yet summoned before the Archbishop Possibly still 
 protected by the Duke of Lancaster Wiclif a complaint to the 
 King and Parliament Petition of the Commons against the Ordi- 
 nance for the suppression of erroneous doctrine Wiclif sum- 
 moned to answer before the Convention at Oxford He is aban- 
 doned by the Duke of Lancaster He maintains his opinions He 
 delivers in two Confessions, one in English, the other in Latin 
 His English Confession His Latin Confession He is banished 
 from Oxford He retires to Lutterworth He is summoned by the 
 Pope to appear before him His answer 227 
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 13821384. 
 
 Continued labours of Wiclif in his retirement Crusade for Urban 
 VI. under the command of Spencer, Bishop of Norwich Its 
 failure Wiclif 's " Objections to the Freres" He condemns the 
 Crusade His opinions respecting the lawfulness of wars He con- 
 ceives his life to be in danger from his enemies His death His 
 character Traditions respecting him at. Lutterworth His prefer- 
 ments not inconsistent with his notions respecting clerical posses- 
 sions Wiclif not a political churchman Admirable for his per- 
 sonal piety, as well as for his opposition to Komish abuse His 
 
XXU CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 unwearied energy-Probable effect of the scholastic discipline on his 
 mind Alleged coarseness of his invectives Comparison of Wic- 
 lif with Luther Prevalence of Wiclif 's doctrines at Oxford after 
 his death The testimonial of the University, in honour of his 
 memory, in 1406 Question of its authenticity considered Perse- 
 cution of Wiclif's memory by the Papal writers Prevalence of 
 his opinions in Bohemia His remains disinterred by a decree of 
 the Council of Constance ...... . ......... 257 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WICLIF'S 
 
 Wiclif's Views of Justification by Faith Wiclif charged by some 
 with Pelagjanism, by others, more justly, with the doctrine of 
 Predestination His Predestinarian notions chiefly confined to his 
 Scholastic Writings Pilgrimage and Image- worship Purgatory 
 Auricular Confession and Papal Indulgences Excommunica- 
 tion and Papal interdicts Papal power and supremacy Episco- 
 pacy The Church Church visible and invisible The Sacra- 
 ments Baptism Confirmation Penance Ordination Matri- 
 mony The Eucharist Extreme unction Celibacy of the Clergy 
 Fasting Ceremonies Church Music Judicial Astrology No- 
 tions imputed to Wiclif that God must obey the Devil, and that 
 every creature is God Dominion founded on Grace, how under- 
 stood and explained by Wiclif Scriptural principles of civil obe- 
 dience faithfully enforced by him Wiclif's opinions as to the 
 power of the State over Church Property Wiclif considers Church 
 Endowments as inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity Tithes 
 represented by him as Alms Value of Wiclif's services, as pre- 
 paratory to the Reformation Notion of the Reformation, as it 
 would probably have been effected by him The belief prevalent 
 in his time that Satan was loosed Its probable influence on his 
 views and opinions ................. 287 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Wiclif's Poor Priests Wiclif 's tract, "Why Poor Priests have no 
 Benefices," viz. 1. Their dread of Simony 2. Their fear of mis- 
 spend ing the goods of poor men 3. That Priests are obliged to 
 preach, whether beneficed or not John Astnn John Purney 
 William Swinderby William Thorpe Nicolas Hereford Philip 
 Repinsdon Richard Fleming Knighton's representation of Wic- 
 lif 's followers The fanatic John Balli, not a Disciple of Wiclif 
 The Insurrection of the Peasantry falsely ascribed to Wiclif and 
 his followers Attributed by the Commons to the oppression of the 
 Peasantry Encouragement afforded to Wiclif by the great Ed- 
 ward III. Johanna, Queen Dowager John of Gaunt Anne, 
 Queen of Richard II. Richard II. Various Noblemen and 
 Knights Lord Cobhani ............... 323 
 
CONTENTS. XX1H 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Proceedings against the Wiclifites Petition to Parliament on the 
 part of the Lollards Turbulence of the Lollards King Richard II. 
 requested to return from Ireland to the Succour of the Church 
 He returns accordingly, and menaces the patrons of Lollardism 
 Letter of Pope Boniface IX. Certain positions of Wiclif con- 
 demned at Oxford Statute de Heretico Comburendo William 
 Sautr, the first victim of this law Proceedings of Archbishop 
 Arundel Continued violence of the Lollards Law, compelling 
 all persons in Civil office to take an oath against Lollardism In- 
 quisitorial Constitution of Archbishop Chicheley Effect of these 
 severities Bishop Pecock writes against the Lollards He defends 
 the Bishops His " Represser" His " Treatise of Faith" He cen- 
 sures the preaching of the Mendicants He maintains the suffi- 
 ciency of the Scriptures, and questions the prudence of relying on 
 the infallibility of the Church For these opinions he is forbidden 
 the King's presence, and expelled from the House of Lords He is 
 convened before the Archbishop for heresy Abjures Is impri- 
 soned for life in Thorney Abbey Persecution of the Lollards re- 
 newed under Henry VII. Martyrdom of Joanna Baughton Mar- 
 tyrdom of Tylsworth Bishop Nix Inhumanity towards those 
 who abjured These cruelties eventually fatal to the Papacy in 
 England 359 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 The Writings of Wiclif. 382 
 
 APPENDIX 393 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 General View of the gradual corruption of Christianity, to the 
 middle of the fourteenth century. 
 
 IT has been remarked that Christianity is a jewel of 
 inestimable and unchangeable value ; but mat it is 
 grotesquely or beautifully set, according to the con- 
 dition of the public taste, or feeling, or knowledge, 
 at different periods of the world, and in different 
 states of society. It is one melancholy office of ec- 
 clesiastical history, to exhibit the fantastic varieties 
 displayed by human passion, and human interest, in 
 the enchasing and the use of this glorious gem : and 
 nothing can well be more mournful than the specta- 
 cle which it frequently presents to the view of those, 
 who can be content to look upon the mere surface of 
 things, and who gladly spare themselves the pain of 
 a laborious search into the ways of Providence, or 
 the hidden working of the human heart. Persons of 
 this description will, probably, be tempted to moralize 
 upon the scenes which pass in review before them, in 
 the following strain : A pearl of ineffable price, they 
 will say, has been delivered into the custody of man 
 by the Eternal Son of God himself; given them, 
 not only to be their chiefest pride and joy, but to 
 be as the very talisman of their peace and safety ; 
 their symbol of life and victory. And how did they 
 dispose of the unspeakable gift, thus solemnly and 
 3 
 
26 LITE OF WICLIF. 
 
 awfully committed to their keeping ? They encircled 
 it with worldly vanities and sublunary toys ! In the 
 first place, the wisdom of the wise was speedily at 
 work upon it: and its celestial brightness was 
 straightway surrounded with the feeble and unsteady 
 glitter of earth-born philosophy. So that the light 
 which first blazed from the breast-plate of our great 
 High Priest, was, in time, dispersed and broken amid 
 the glare of unhallowed fires. And then came the 
 lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the 
 pride of life, and dared to lay a sacrilegious hand on 
 this elect and costly stone, and to lift it to the brow of 
 secular voluptuousness and frivolity ; there to waste 
 its heavenly splendours, in the midst of the gauds 
 and braveries, wherewith our degenerate nature is 
 fain to disguise its miserable poverty. At last, as it 
 were, to crown the audacious abuse, Ambition seized 
 upon it, and fixed it in her diadem. From that front, 
 where righteousness unto the Lord should alone have 
 been written, an ominous and angry splendour was, 
 for ages, seen to issue, more like a consuming fire 
 than the flame of celestial truth. The inestimable 
 diamond had been set in earthly gold. It shone in 
 the midst of gems which had been dug up by the 
 spirit of Mammon ; and thus it gave to the attributes 
 of wordly pomp and power, an aspect of unearthly 
 mystery and terror, which overpowered the flesh and 
 heart of all who looked upon it. 
 
 Such are the thoughts which may naturally be ex- 
 pected to rush into the mind of one, who should ex- 
 pect of the Christian revelation, that it would be like 
 the word of God, when he said, Let there be light, and 
 there was light, and that, when the command went 
 forth, the light should, at once, be divided from the 
 darkness. It is, indeed, but a shallow philosophy, 
 which could tempt any man to imagine, that the ope- 
 rations of the Deity upon the moral chaos of this 
 world, must needs resemble those of the Spirit, which 
 once brooded over the confusion of its material ele- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 ments. The notion, however, is one which may, 
 perhaps, be pardonably enough suggested by a high 
 and reverent estimate of God's omnipotence, and by 
 a feeling of pious impatience for the speedy consum- 
 mation of his gracious designs : and, for the persons 
 who speculate upon the matter in this temper, the 
 proper treatment is, by no means to disguise the 
 most discouraging phenomena which the case pre- 
 sents to us ; but, after a candid and courageous state- 
 ment of them, to recall their thoughts to other con- 
 siderations, to lay before them circumstances which 
 may satisfy them, that God is not slack concerning 
 his promises, as men count slackness, to remind the,m 
 that when we are meditating on the history of his 
 Church, we are meditating on the dealings of One 
 with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. 
 Conformably with this view, let us, first, briefly sur- 
 vey the progress of that corruption which saddens 
 the hearts of those, whose eyes are failing with de- 
 sire for the coming of the Redeemer's kingdom. 
 
 The first danger which beset the Gospel was, of 
 course, from the spirit of Paganism. Both the schools 
 of philosophy, and the haunts of vulgar superstition, 
 were pervaded by elements, at mortal variance with 
 the simple essence of Christianity. From the wis- 
 dom of the heathen world the new religion had, ac- 
 cordingly, to encounter either the peril of fierce op- 
 position,* or the still more dangerous offer of coali- 
 
 * The oracles of that wisdom which arrayed itself against the Gospel, 
 were frequently as obscure, as its hostility was vehement and rancorous. 
 The following words (for they are only words) of Porphyry, the bitter- 
 est enemy to Christianity, may fitly enough be recommended to those who 
 complain of the mysterious difficulties of revelation. " God, intellect, 
 a/id soul, are each of them every where, because no where. But God is 
 every where, and, at the same time, in no place of any being posterior 
 to his nature : but he is only such as he is, and such as he willed himself 
 to be. But intellect is, indeed, in the Deity, yet every where, and in no 
 place of his subordinate essences. And soul is in intellect, and in the 
 Deity, every where, and no where, with respect to body. But body ex- 
 ists in soul, and in intellect, and in God. And though all beings and non^ 
 entities proceed from, and exist in the Deity, yet he is neither entities, or 
 lion-entities, nor has any subsistence in them, For if he was alone 
 
28 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 tion and alliance. If the philosophy of the age were 
 unequal to a conflict with the truth of God, she 
 might, at least, endeavour to hold divided empire 
 with the truth ; and, with this view, would naturally 
 be induced to stretch forth to her the right hand of 
 fellowship. The result of this was, that the faith of 
 Christ was gradually transformed into the likeness 
 of a human science, wherein the intellect of man 
 might boldly and freely take its pastime. And if, in 
 those days, the state of the world had been shadowed 
 forth, in mysterious vision, to the eye of seer or pro- 
 phet, we may easily imagine the spectacle that would 
 have been revealed unto him. He would have seen 
 the form of Divine mercy pouring out upon the earth 
 a sovereign and precious balm for the healing of the 
 nations; and the instant, that it fell, he would behold 
 the chaos of rebellious ingredients below, falling at 
 once into wild insurrection: and from that fer- 
 menting commotion, there would seem to rise up a 
 swarm of fantastic and artificial shapes, darkening 
 the air by their multitude, as with an Egyptian 
 plague. The endless and multiform brood of here- 
 sies, engendered in the earlier centuries of the 
 Church, were, in truth, no other than the monstrous 
 produce of all the philosophical and religious systems 
 in the world, thrown into prodigious combinations, 
 by the infusion of one new ingredient more power- 
 ful than them all. And, even when the turbulence 
 of that conflict had, in some degree, subsided, peace 
 still appeared to be as remote as ever from the Chris- 
 tian world. The spirit of discord had been let loose, 
 and it entered into Christian theology, which, under 
 that unhallowed possession, frequently exhibited the 
 
 every where, he would, indeed, be all things, and in all. But because he 
 is, likewise, no where, all things are produced by him : so that they sub- 
 sist in him because he is every where, but are different from him, because 
 he is no where. Thus, also, intellect being every where and no where, 
 is the cause of souls, &c. <fcc. <fcc." This passage is translated from 
 
 Porphyry, by the Platouist, Mr. Taylor, and is cited by Turner, Hist. 
 Eng. p. iv. c. 1. p. 328. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 agitation and contortion of an energumen and, in 
 its paroxysms, it gave utterance to great swelling 
 words of vanity, concerning the deep and inscrutable 
 things of God. The Trinity and the Incarnation, 
 themes the most awful and stupendous that can en- 
 gage the mind of man, were tossed from mouth to 
 mouth, and from pen to pen, as if they had heen 
 flung from heaven to earth, merely to exercise the 
 wit of mortals, and to inflate their arrogance, and to 
 kindle their passions instead of bringing down their 
 high thoughts into captivity to the obedience of 
 Christ. 
 
 But, if the philosophy and vain deceit of Paganism 
 were injurious to the simplicity which is in Christ, 
 still more fatally infectious were the seductions of its 
 gay ritual and imaginative mythology. With these 
 elements of corruption Christianity was every where 
 surrounded. It was in perpetual contact with things 
 that savoured of a licentious world. The genius of 
 Heathenism was incessantly at work to convert the 
 religion of the Saviour to its own likeness : and we 
 all know how calamitous was its ultimate success. 
 If an Apostle had revisited the earth at the end of 
 four or five centuries from the period of his ministry, 
 and had looked at nothing but the outward and visi- 
 ble form of the Christian Church, he mi^ht have been 
 tempted to fear, that the truth for which he had la- 
 boured and bled, had been wholly transformed into a 
 gorgeous spectacle, a sort of mystic pageantry, its 
 painful and laborious Evangelists into pompous ac- 
 tors its places of worship into splendid theatres. 
 The change which actually had taken place, may be 
 vividly imagined to our thoughts by the remark, that, 
 in primitive and apostolic times, the chalices were of 
 wood, and the ministers of gold : but that in the days 
 of the Church's degeneracy, she was content with 
 golden chalices and wooden priests ! This, probably, 
 is one of those complaints, in which truth has been 
 partially sacrificed to the point and vigour of the 
 
30 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 saying. But, after all reasonable allowance for ex- 
 aggeration, it will still remain unquestionable," that 
 the clergy had grievously declined from their first 
 works, and had begun to emulate, at least in their ex- 
 ternal appearance, the superb and costly follies of the 
 world around them. That the public service of God 
 should be honoured by all sober and decent solemni- 
 ty, is never questioned but by the vulgarest spirit of 
 fanaticism; and we may well believe that it was a 
 fervid zeal for the glory of His name, which origin- 
 ally sought to render the Christian worship honoura- 
 ble in the sight of the heathen. At last, however, 
 the clergy, in the splendour of their apparel, may be 
 said to have well nigh beggared the pomp of " Aaron's 
 wardrobe, and the Flamen's vestry." Their official 
 raiment blazed with gold and purple, and needlework 
 of divers colours. Almost every object in the crea- 
 tion was pourtrayed upon their garments. The more 
 devout among mem, indeed, carried scriptural his- 
 tories emblazoned on their backs ; but, even so, their 
 appearance has been compared to that of painted 
 walls. All this outward magnificence was thought 
 to correspond to the sacredness, it may almost be 
 said to the divinity, which now began to gather round 
 the sacerdotal character; and yet he, whose " lips of 
 gold " proclaimed most lavishly the exalted dignity 
 of the priesthood, himself declares that, in his days, 
 the life and soul of piety had fled from the scenes of 
 their holy ministrations. " How awful," he exclaims, 
 " is the picture of the primitive Church exhibited by 
 the Apostle ! The Church then was heaven upon 
 earth. The Spirit then ruled in all things. He 
 moved the hearts of those who presided, and filled 
 them with the Divinity ; but now we have nothing 
 left but the shadow of these glorious things. The 
 Church now resembles a decayed matron, who has 
 nothing to exhibit but the symbols and indications of 
 her former wealth ; the cabinets and the caskets that 
 contained her jewels, and her gold, and her precious 
 
INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 things. Not only have the miraculous gifts been 
 withdrawn from ner, but virtue and devotion have 
 fled from the sanctuary. In former days every house 
 was a church ; but now the church is no better than 
 a house : nay, many a private house exhibits a scene 
 of order and peace which is a sore rebuke to our 
 places of solemn assembly. The house of God is 
 now a scene of tumult and confusion, which inces- 
 santly reminds us of the place of traffic and exchange. 
 The laughter and uproar is such as we hear at the 
 public baths and open market-places, We seem to 
 forget that the church is not a place for idle concourse 
 or worthless recreation, not for worldly business or 
 employment ; but that it is the haunt of angels, the 
 realm of the Almighty himself, another heaven. 
 
 The temple is now more like a theatre than a 
 
 place of religious service and devotion. It shows 
 quite as prodigal a display of the vanities and seductive 
 artifices of dress and decoration. It is chosen as the 
 most commodious spot for licentious intrigues. More 
 bargains are made there, than at the tables of the 
 money-changers. More business is transacted there, 
 than at the usual resorts of trade and commerce. If 
 you wish for the best opportunity of hearing or cir- 
 culating slander, seek it not in the usual places of 
 concourse but in the church. If you are curious 
 about private concerns, or political intelligence, go 
 not to the camp, or to the courts of justice, or to the 
 saloons of the physicians : the church is the place in 
 which the retailers of such matters are always to be 
 found. In short, the spot on which we are now as- 
 sembled is any thing but a church. Are these abuses 
 and abominations to be endured ?" And yet, at the 
 very time when the spiritual degeneracy called forth 
 these complaints and denunciations, the ecclesiastical 
 rites and offices were supposed to possess an almost 
 supernatural solemnity and power. " Look," says 
 the golden preacher again, " look at that awful table. 
 Recollect why it is placed there. The very sight of 
 
32 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 a king's throne causes us to rise and do it reverence. 
 Tremble then at the spectacle before you. Lift up 
 your heart to heaven before the moment arrives 
 which shall draw aside the veil that covers those 
 venerable mysteries, and disclose a band of angels 
 advancing before the presence of their King. The 
 very catechumens, who have not received initiation, 
 can yet understand that, when a prophet or minister 
 of God addresses them, they are in the presence of 
 Jehovah himself, and that their souls should therefore 
 be lifted up from earth. What ! shall the vile antics, 
 and the worthless jest of players, and mimics, and 
 harlots, be honoured with breathless and unbidden 
 silence ; and shall the message of the Lord of heaven 
 be received with scorn ? When he speaks to us of 
 things so stupendous, shall we put on a hardy im- 
 pudence, which would almost disgrace the brutes ?"* 
 In our perusal of passages of this stamp, abundant 
 allowance must, of course, be made for the fervency 
 and indignation of the preacher. His object evi- 
 dently is, to awaken the slumbering conscience of 
 his hearers by the terrors of his rebuke, and to shame 
 them into a life more worthy of their high and blessed 
 vocation. Now this is an office, in the discharge of 
 which, the voice of an imaginative and zealous man 
 may sometimes be expected to sound like the thunder; 
 and there would be neither charity nor wisdom in 
 making his language the measure, by which the 
 Christian stature of a whole generation is to be ascer- 
 tained. Nevertheless, it is quite impossible that 
 words, like those which have been cited, should have 
 found utterance in any period, but one of serious de- 
 cline from the purity of ancient days ; and they are 
 amply confirmed by the censures of other writers, 
 and by the canons of the Church. All this testimony 
 combines to show that, by this time, the priesthood 
 
 ' ChrysosL Horn, xxxvi. in 1 Cor. xiv. 33. vol. x. p. 339341. Ed 
 Bened. What I have given above is the substance of the preacher's in. 
 dignant declamation. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 was gradually contracting the semblance of a world- 
 ly profession, at least in those parts of the empire 
 where grandeur, and wealth, and luxury, were pre- 
 dominant; that the genius of Paganism, despairing 
 of an open conflict against the Imperial faith, was 
 spreading its own fantastic embroidery over the sim- 
 ple and seamless vesture of Christianity; and, not 
 only so, but was beginning to mix up its palatable 
 venom with her sacred and living waters. 
 
 As nothing can be more deeply interesting, than 
 to watch Christianity in its state of transition from 
 simplicity to corruption, and as it manifestly was in 
 that state in the days of the great Christian orator, 
 whom we have just heard, it will scarcely be consi- 
 dered as an impertinent digression, if I venture to 
 solicit the attention of the reader to another burst of 
 his impassioned eloquence, evidently prompted by 
 feelings of the same kindred with those, which, in 
 after ages, rilled the world with reliques, and wearied 
 it with pilgrimages. In his thirty-second Homily on 
 the Epistle to the Romans, there is a highly-wrought 
 encomium on the character of St. Paul.* The fol- 
 lowing is the substance of the most striking portion 
 of it. " The voice of St. Paul was like the cherubim 
 of the mercy-seat. Jehovah rested on the tongue of 
 the Apostle, as he did on the forms of those celestial 
 Virtues. Its utterance soared to seraphic heights; 
 for what could the voice of a seraph pronounce more 
 sublime than the exclamation. * lam persuaded that 
 neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
 present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
 any- other created thing, shall be able to separate us from 
 the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ. ,' . . . Would 
 I could behold the dust that formed that mouth, by which 
 Christ spoke of such unutterable things, and by 
 which the Spirit delivered his wondrous oracles to 
 the world. For who shall tell the marvels which 
 
 Ed. Bened. vol. ix. p. 758, 759, 
 
34 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 that mouth accomplished ? It expelled daemons 
 absolved sins silenced monarchs sealed up the 
 tongues of philosophers brought over the world to 
 God won barbarians to the study of wisdom 
 changed the whole frame and proportion of things on 
 earth and ordered at will the things which are in 
 heaven, according to the mighty power that wrought 
 within him. Would that I could behold the dust of that 
 heart, which might truly be called the heart of the 
 whole world the fountain of blessings without num- 
 ber the elemental principle of our very life, (for the 
 spirit of life was thence dealt forth to all, and was 
 divided to all the members of Christ ;) that vast and 
 mighty heart, which embraced whole cities and na- 
 tions; which was exalted above the heavens, and 
 was larger than the earth ; which was brighter than 
 the sun, and firmer than adamant ; that heart which 
 was the tablet of the Spirit, and the book of hea- 
 venly grace. Would I could behold the dust of those 
 hands which were galled with fetters, those hands by 
 the imposition of which the Spirit was dispensed, 
 and from which the viper fell into the flame ; would 
 I could see the dust that formed those eyes which were 
 so illustriously blinded, and which, for the salvation 
 of the world, were soon restored to light ; those eyes 
 which looked on earthly things, but saw them not, 
 and which beheld the things that are invisible. Would 
 I could gaze upon the dust of those feet, which made 
 the circuit of the earth, yet knew no weariness. 
 Would that I could see the sepulchre, where those arms 
 of righteousness and light are now laid up ; those 
 limbs which are now alive, but which, while he sur- 
 vived, were dead ; those limbs which were crucified 
 to the world, and in which Christ alone could be said 
 to live. Would that I could look upon the ruins of that 
 frame which was the temple of the Spirit ; of that 
 body, which, to this hour, girds the great city that 
 contains it, with a defence more indestructible than 
 the strength of wall or bulwark. And would that 
 
INTRODUCTION. 35 
 
 we might not think upon him merely with veneration 
 and astonishment, but fervently imitate his holiness, 
 that we might be worthy hereafter to behold him, 
 and to be made partakers of his unutterable glory." 
 Surely the man who could write this, would willing- 
 ly have gone a pilgrimage to the ends of the earth, 
 to look upon the remains, which his imagination 
 and his heart did all but worship. In passages such 
 as this, we may behold, in its highest and purest re- 
 gion, the action of that principle which, when it de- 
 scended among lower natures, engendered little but 
 absurdity and corruption. 
 
 It is evident then, that even at this period, a pro- 
 cess had commenced, which being unhappily con- 
 tinued through a long course of ages, ended, for the 
 most part, by " drawing down all divine intercourse 
 between God and the human soul into an exterior and 
 bodily form," till at last, as it is expressed by Milton,* 
 " nearly all the inward parts of worship, which issue 
 from the native strength of the soul, ran lavishly to 
 the upper skin, and there hardened into a crust of 
 formality." But why should our souls be cast down 
 by the vicissitudes of that stupendous conflict, which 
 has been carried on, for ages, between the depravity 
 of man and the glorious grace of God ? Let us look 
 up from the depth of our dejection, and our eyes shall 
 be saluted by many a blessed beam of hope and joy, 
 bursting forth from the thickest gloom that shrouds 
 the dispensations of the Almighty. We, in our 
 weakness and impatience may, at times, be tempted 
 to exclaim, O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that 
 thouwouldest come down, that the mountains might flow 
 down at thy presence. And the sceptics and the scoff- 
 ers may say now, as they said of old, let the Lord 
 make speed, and hasten his work that we may see it, and 
 let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh that 
 we may know it. But the eye of Faith, though the 
 
 * On Reformation in England. 
 
6b LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 vision tarry, will patiently wait for it ; for the chariot 
 wheels of God's providence attend not on the haste 
 and eagerness of man. He hath eternity to work in ; 
 and his dealings refuse all such measurement and 
 reckoning, as can he applied to them by the creatures 
 of a day. Besides, can it be, that any human eye 
 can look upon the work which had been wrought 
 upon the earth in the earlier ages of the Church, and 
 yet fail to discern the goings forth of the Spirit of 
 God ? Can the adversary himself deny that the Gos- 
 pel had gone abroad, " in the unresistible might of 
 weakness," conquering and to conquer ? Within a 
 moderate space from me day of Christ's ascension, it 
 had been preached to three continents, and began to 
 fill with believers the forum and the camp of the Pa- 
 gan world. Three centuries had scarcely elapsed, 
 when it had been heard to the very ends of the civil- 
 ized globe : and, in little more than four, the ancient 
 superstitions had well nigh crumbled into dust before 
 it. And then, what shall we say to its moral tri- 
 umphs over the passions and the fears which hold 
 mankind in bondage ? What shall we say to the 
 miracles of constancy and devotion which illustrate 
 the primitive annals of the Church ? Can the changes 
 which it wrought, and the victories which it achieved, 
 be paralleled in the history of man ? The scorner 
 may point to the lordly prelates of imperial capitals ; 
 to Paul of Samosata, to Damasus of Rome, to 
 George of Cappadocia. We will turn our eyes to 
 the spiritual fathers of obscure and remote provinces, 
 whose sanctity and whose simplicity were as a burn- 
 ing and a shining light to their people. The infidel and 
 the Sadducee may direct the finger of contempt to 
 the iniquitous or dissolute lives of those, who named 
 the name of Christ in the midst of luxury, and splen- 
 dour, and worldliness. We seek for the glories of 
 the Christian faith in scenes of domestic purity and 
 quiet. The despisers will tell us of the schisms and 
 the heresies which tore all Christendom to pieces, and 
 
INTRODUCTION. J7 
 
 verified at least one prophecy of our Lord, that he 
 came not to send peace on earth, but that he came to 
 send a sword. Our consolation is to be found in 
 the belief, that God had almost innumerable faithful 
 ones, who dwelt in serenity and peace below those re- 
 gions of turbulence. The warfare of theology might 
 be raging, as it were, round the mountain heights, 
 and the people of the valleys might frequently hear 
 the sound thereof, and yet be unable to tell whence 
 it came or Avhither it went : and we are accordingly 
 told that, amid the wildest tumults of controversy, 
 the ears of the populace were often more innocent 
 and holy than the hearts of their teachers.* A more 
 unrighteous perversion can scarcely be imagined, than 
 to estimate the influences of Christianity by the 
 phases which it wears, when examined through the 
 turbid atmosphere of national and political history. 
 No other institution under heaven could endure so 
 iniquitous a test. The annals of the world, we are 
 perpetually told, exhibit little else than a register of 
 lolly and of crime ; and, to our sight, the tragedy 
 often deepens as civilization advances, as human in- 
 terests become more complicated, as human arts ad- 
 vance towards maturity, and as governments expand 
 into activity and power. In proportion as the race 
 of man improves, in the same proportion, frequently, 
 are his passions brought out into bolder relief. The 
 tale of his absurdities and his atrocities becomes more 
 fearfully and more distinctly legible. As the social 
 fabric rises into grandeur and strength, the conflict 
 of principalities and powers becomes more tremen- 
 dous, and the story of our species more full of ter- 
 rific interest. And yet, what should we say to one, 
 who persisted in affirming that governments are mere- 
 ly agents of destruction, and that the advancement 
 of science or of art is nothing more than the deve- 
 lopement of principles, which tend to national decay 
 
 * Sanctj'ores sunt aures plebis quam forda eacerdotwn, are Uw 
 
 VFords of Vincentius Lirinensis. 
 
38 LIFE OF WICL1F. 
 
 and dissolution ? In spite of all this collision of ele- 
 ments, man continues to derive transcendent benefits 
 from the expansion of his social energies, and the 
 growth of his civil institutions; although history 
 may present to our view little else than the boiling 
 foam which is thrown up by the fermentation. And 
 why should a different test be applied to that potent 
 leaven which has been mercifully cast into the mass 
 of our degenerate nature ? Let us look beneath the 
 surface ; let us not weary ourselves by watching the 
 fierce agitation of the process ; but, rather let us 
 gratefully fix our thoughts on the purity and the re- 
 finement which, in God's good time, will assuredly 
 be the result. 4 
 
 In adverting, however, to the astonishing strug- 
 gles of the preservative power of Christianity, against 
 the corruptions of human nature, it is, of course, need- 
 less to disguise the danger she incurred in the con- 
 flict. So great was that danger, that some have 
 doubted whether the Church retained within herself 
 sufficient strength and virtue to purge off the " baser 
 fires" which were beginning to pollute and to con- 
 sume her; and whether a tempestuous convulsion 
 were not absolutely needed, to preserve within her 
 the principle of health. The question is one which 
 no human wisdom can venture confidently to decide. 
 It seems indeed, far from improbable that the salt 
 might, in time, have utterly lost its savour, if some 
 violent agitation had not occurred to prevent it from 
 gradually sinking into the surrounding mass of im- 
 purity. At all events, it may easily be imagined, 
 that the discord and corruption which then disfigured 
 the Church, may have made it needful, that the storms 
 and billows of a tremendous chastisement should pass 
 over her. But, however this may be, at the period 
 we are contemplating^ all the mounds and barriers 
 
 * The reader who may be desirous of seeing the force of Christianity, 
 as a progressive scheme, powerfully exhibited, should consukMr. Rost'g 
 publication on that subject, as Christian Advocate, lor the year 1829. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 39 
 
 of ancient power were actually giving way, and, at 
 last, the deluge burst from the regions of the east and 
 north. The fountains of the great deep of human 
 population appeared to be broken up ; and for a long 
 period, the waters prevailed with such exceeding 
 fury, that, at length, the whole fabric of the empire 
 was carried before them, like a heap of sand, and 
 little was left of it but a shapeless pile of fragments. 
 It was well that Christianity, in those days, had long 
 pervaded and possessed nearly the whole mass of 
 civilized society. Had these tremendous convul- 
 sions occurred before its strength had been consoli- 
 dated, they must, as it would appear to all human 
 judgment, have swept it from the face of the earth. 
 As it was, nothing short of general extermination 
 could destroy it. It survived the havoc of those 
 dreadful visitations : but strange and wonderful were 
 the appearances with which it emerged out of the 
 chaos. From the very midst of the ruins, a porten- 
 tous form was seen to arise, such as the world had 
 never looked upon ; an apparition habited in the 
 robes of priesthood, and surrounded by attributes of 
 majesty; holding in one hand the rod of worldly 
 power, and in the other the flaming sword, which 
 turned every way to guard the citadel of spiritual 
 dominion. For ages together did this stupendous 
 phantom continue to spread out before the astonished 
 gaze of mankind, till its feet seemed to rest upon 
 the earth, while its head was towering among the 
 stars. 
 
 And where, it may be asked, was the power that 
 called up this mysterious shape of sovereignty ? In 
 truth, the mighty enchanters which summoned it 
 into the realms of light, were no other than the cor- 
 rupt passions, and the clamorous necessities of man. 
 The passions of man called aloud for indulgence, his 
 calamities for succour and protection ; and both 
 these purposes could be answered by nothing but an 
 empire, which should combine the spiritual with the 
 
40 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 secular dominion, and bring the powers of the world 
 into league with the allurements and the terrors of 
 superstition. The Papacy is not to be contemplated 
 as a mighty scheme of imposture and despotism, con- 
 structed conformably to a fixed and regular design, 
 and gradually completed according to a system, con- 
 veyed from one generation of deceivers to another. 
 The passions and the wants of a licentious and semi- 
 barbarous world, invited the master-builders to raise 
 up the fabric of spiritual supremacy ; while the con- 
 fusion and anarchy of the West, deprived of the pro- 
 tection of the Imperial presence, demanded the estab- 
 lishment of the temporal dominion. And thus it 
 was, that the chambers of seduction, and the battle- 
 ments of strength and pride, rose up together, and 
 formed between them, a structure more strange, 
 more fantastic, and, at the same time, more vast and 
 menacing, than could ever have been projected, in 
 the wildest mood of ambition, by the invention or 
 the sagacity of man. 
 
 Never, perhaps, since the world began, was there 
 a power, which seemed to unite within itself so 
 many elements of weakness, as the Papacy. The 
 sovereigns were usually aged men, when they as- 
 cended the chair of St. Peter, and consequently their 
 reigns were brief. Every pontiff was an insulated 
 individual, united by no ties of kindred to those who 
 went before, or to those who followed after. The 
 elective conclave was a scene of eternal rivalry, in- 
 trigue, and conflict. And yet did this rope of sand, 
 as it must have appeared to ordinary eyes, coalesce 
 into such a union of strength and flexibility, that it 
 was able to twine itself round the mightiest of man- 
 kind, to bind kings, as it were, with chains, and 
 nobles with fetters of iron. The rod of the arch- 
 magician became a serpent, and the serpent grew 
 into a voluminous monster, which entangled and 
 crushed the monarchs of the forest in its folds. It 
 is impossible, according to any scheme of merely 
 
INTRODUCTION, 41 
 
 human philosophy, to account for this example of 
 strength made perfect in weakness, otherwise than, 
 by supposing, that the secret of the papal force lay- 
 in the public mind and will of Christian Europe. It 
 is altogether incredible, that so much feebleness 
 should have put forth such 'prodigies of might, if it 
 had not derived its main resources from the exigen- 
 cies and the defects of the whole social system, dur- 
 ing the period of its predominance. The pontifical 
 power and supremacy formed, in fact, a sort of uni- 
 versal sanctuary against the savage turbulence and 
 coarse despotism, of the middle ages. It was, if 
 possible, a still more alluring refuge against the 
 furies and the scorpions of an accusing conscience. 
 It enslaved the judgment, but it gave a license to the 
 passions : and what tyranny is there to which man will 
 not submit, if it does but offer him protection against 
 external violence and internal remorse ? if it guards 
 him against lawless and brutal force from without, 
 and relieves him from the horrors of a spiritual con- 
 flict within ? 
 
 That the papal system frequently conferred the 
 blessings of protection on the helpless and the lowly, 
 in times of frightful anarchy and turbulence, it would 
 be most ungracious and absurd to question. It was 
 itself a most gigantic abuse; but then it had the 
 merit of frequently controlling other abuses and enor- 
 mities, which might, between them, have torn the 
 whole structure of society in pieces, It was in some 
 sort, like the rod of Aaron, which swallowed up the 
 rods of the enchanters. Who has not heard of the 
 truce of God, which afforded to the inoffensive and 
 the feeble, four nights out of the seven in which they 
 might sleep in peace ? Who does not now perceive, 
 that the chair of St. Peter formed an august tribunal, 
 which often rebuked and curbed the brutal rapine, 
 and merciless oppression, of barons and of princes ? 
 It may, indeed, be no pleasing spectacle to see the 
 potentates of the earth at the bridle or the stirrup 
 
42 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 of a churchman; or to behold emperors waiting 
 barefoot at the gates of his palace. But, although 
 our indignation may, even now, be kindled by the 
 very recollection of those days, when " the kings of 
 the earth were of one mind, to give their power and 
 their strength unto the beast," our emotions may 
 well be mitigated by the thought, that, in those 
 wretched times, the people were eaten up, as it were 
 bread, by them that called themselves me excellent 
 and the illustrious of the earth: and that humanly 
 speaking, nothing less powerful than the authority 
 of the vicegerent of God, may have been sufficient 
 to save the world from the horrors and oppressions 
 of perpetual barbarism. Again, it is an astounding 
 thing to behold all Europe precipitating herself into 
 the East, and draining out her life-blood and her 
 treasure, at the call of an imperious hierarchy, on 
 the preaching of a fanatical monk. But then, it 
 should be remembered, that, according to all human 
 calculation, nothing but this upheaving of the re- 
 sources and energies of Christendom, could have 
 rolled back the flood, which the fury of Mohammed 
 had let loose upon the Eastern world ; and which, 
 if not arrested, might have swept religion and hu- 
 manity from the regions of the West. 
 
 All these are considerations, which may reasona- 
 bly satisfy us, that the thoughts of God towards the 
 children of men, were not wholly thoughts of evil, 
 when he permitted the mystery of iniquity to grow 
 up into such colossal grandeur. We cannot, without 
 violence to our judgment, or our faith, shut out from 
 our minds the notion of some especial providential 
 agency and interference, shaping and regulating the 
 growth and the formation of this gigantic spiritual 
 empire. There, surely, is something grand and aw- 
 ful in the spectacle of a mental supremacy, control- 
 ling the. mutinous elements of society, during the 
 wildest periods of barbarism, and often potently in- 
 terfering to prevent their rushing into ruinous and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 43 
 
 exterminating conflict. And then, too, it should 
 never be forgotten, that the same power was, in effect, 
 the sole guardian of intelligence, the sole protector 
 and preserver of literature, in those days of Egyptian 
 darkness. The man is not to be envied, who can 
 reflect, without some emotions of gratitude on those 
 various and noble foundations which, although they 
 may have at last degenerated into haunts and hiding- 
 places of profligacy, formed, nevertheless, the only 
 retreats of learning, civilization, and charity, during 
 a dreary interval of general ignorance and brutality. 
 It would be scarcely too much to affirm that the 
 papal Church, corrupt as it became, was no less than 
 the Ark, which preserved the moral and spiritual life 
 of Christendom from perishing in the flood, that so 
 long overspread the face of the earth. Nay, the most 
 indignant Protestantism will never scruple to con- 
 fess thus much, that foul as the Romish Church has 
 been and is, it has preserved the true Catholic doc- 
 trine, though under the deepest incrustations of error, 
 and has been over-ruled by God to the purpose of 
 continuing the true Church, and the true faith, so 
 that the gates of hell have not wholly prevailed 
 against them. 
 
 This, then, is the praise of the Papal system, that 
 it has done for the Christian world, what, according 
 to human conjecture, and under the actual vicissi- 
 tudes which have befallen the world, scarcely any 
 other system could have done. The miserable igno- 
 rance, corruption, and decrepitude of the Greek and 
 Asiatic Churches, at this day, are examples of what 
 might have been the fate of Christian Europe, if she 
 had been left without a centre of ecclesiastical union 
 and power. The darker side of the picture is well 
 known to all. Among the wants of mankind may 
 be reckoned an appetite for deception ; a desire, inhe- 
 rent in our depraved nature, to bring to an agreement 
 the claims of the Deity, with the indulgence of our 
 frailties ; a wild impatience for the conveniences and 
 
44 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 splendours of a religious structure, in which the 
 luxury of delusion may be enjoyed to the full. And 
 most prodigally did the Romish Church minister to 
 this corrupt demand. Ample and complete indeed, 
 was the apparatus which she provided for the accom- 
 modation of all the various passions and propensities 
 of man. When the structure which she raised had 
 reached its perfection, it " had a chamber for every 
 natural faculty of the soul, and an occupation for 
 every energy of the natural spirit. She there per- 
 mitted every extreme of abstemiousness and indul- 
 gence, fast and revelry ; melancholy abstraction and 
 burning zeal ; subtle acuteness and popular discourse ; 
 world-renunciation and worldly ambition ; embracing 
 the arts and the sciences and the stores of ancient 
 learning ; adding antiquity, and misrepresentation of 
 all monuments of better times; and covering care- 
 fully, with a venerable veil, that only monument of 
 better times, which was able to expose the false 
 ministry of the infinite superstition !"* 
 
 It is needless here to " uncover the cup of those 
 deadly and ugly abominations, wherewith this Jero- 
 boam, of whom we speak, hath made the earth so 
 drunk, that it reeled under our feet."f It becomes 
 us, however, with deep humiliation always to remem- 
 ber, that the sorcery which thus drugged the world, 
 was, from the first, most prodigally patronized by the 
 vices and the wants of human nature. We are, fur- 
 ther, bound to acknowledge, with gratitude and reve- 
 rence, the providential care which hath preserved the 
 original ingredients of the chalice, in potency and 
 virtue, sufficient to correct the poison, and, eventu- 
 ally, we trust, to overpower it. She, who hath 
 earned the title of " Mystery, Babylon the Great, the 
 mother of harlots and abominations of the earth," 
 was, nevertheless, compelled, by the wisdom which 
 ordereth all things, and which slumbereth not, to 
 
 * Irving, Babylon, *c. foredoomed, p. 238. t Hooker. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 45 
 
 guard the life of Christianity ; although her dark en- 
 chantment transformed it to the semblance of idola- 
 try and corruption. On the other hand, Europe 
 never can forget the remorseless and sanguinary 
 abuse of her almost superhuman powers. In the 
 annals of Christendom, it is indelibly written, that of 
 all the empires which the world has ever seen or 
 trembled at, the Papacy was the most merciless in 
 the exercise of its predominance, whenever it was 
 left by events to the uncontrolled manifestation of 
 its spirit. Its maxims of government had a uni- 
 formity and an inflexibility, like that which distin- 
 guished the career and the domination both of its 
 republican and imperial predecessor. The very life 
 and soul of its policy, was to spare the submissive, 
 and trample down the rebellious. If this relentless 
 principle was ever suspended, it never, for a moment, 
 was forgotten or abandoned. It yielded to the pres- 
 sure and obstruction of circumstances, just as the 
 inundation yields to the impediments and the resist- 
 ance, offered by the face of the country which it is 
 laying waste. It wound round the base of the moun- 
 tain and the promontory, which its strength was una- 
 ble to undermine or to overthrow ; and it held on its 
 stealthy course to the provinces beyond, till the whole 
 land was overwhelmed, and the summits of the hills 
 disappeared beneath the flood. In this very faculty 
 of yielding, lay the secret of its resistless and uncon- 
 querable might. And all history bears witness to the 
 desolation which marked the course of its victorious 
 fury. The thirteenth century is disastrously memora- 
 ble for the murderous crusade against the Albigenses. 
 In the fifteenth, the annals of the Hussites, the Lol- 
 lards, and the Moriscoes, were written in characters 
 of flame and blood. The horrid tragedy is still con- 
 tinued through the two following centuries, in the 
 martyrology of the Reformers and the Huguenots. 
 To name the Inquisition, is to summon up before the 
 memory such prodigies of infernal atrocity, as oppress 
 
46 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 and distract the heart, and almost cause it to despair 
 of human nature. In the eighteenth century, indeed, 
 the demon of persecution shrunk and cowered, like a 
 guilty thing, before the advancing light of civiliza- 
 tion and intelligence. But to this hour, though the 
 fiend is bound in chains, it is ready, at any moment, 
 to emerge from the pit, should it be able to burst its 
 fetters. Infallibility is the name which it still wears 
 written upon its vesture and on its thigh. In this, it 
 still hopes to conquer. In virtue of this it is, that 
 the spirit of Loyola hath once more descended upon 
 earth, to breathe the breath of life into remains, 
 which, in the eyes of the unwise, seemed to be consigned 
 for ever to the dust. This is the voice which, in the 
 hearing of the present generation, has denounced all 
 religious toleration by the name of impiety, and has 
 prohibited the circulation of the Scriptures, as it 
 would prohibit blasphemy.* 
 
 The foregoing contemplations will dictate to us 
 the only wise and prudent answer to that taunting 
 question, wherewith the mistress of all Churches hath 
 been wont to assail those who abandoned her com- 
 munion; "Where did your Church lurk, in what 
 cave of the earth slept she, for so many hundreds of 
 years together, before the birth of Martin Luther ?" 
 The reply is, that she lurked beneath the folds of that 
 garment of many colours, which the hand of super- 
 stition had woven and embellished for her, and 
 wherewith she was fantastically encumbered and 
 disguised. She slept in that cavern of enchantment, 
 where costly odours and intoxicating fumes were 
 floating around, to overpower her sense, and to sus- 
 pend her faculties ; till, at last, a voice was heard to 
 cry, Sleep no more. And then she started up, like a 
 
 * Every one must remember the protest of the Belgian clergy, in 1815, 
 against religious toleration in the Netherlands; and the decree which 
 some years since issued from the Vatican, declaring the dissemination 
 of the Bible to be a pernicious and profane design. Every one, txx), 
 must be aware of the revival of the Jesuits, and of the zeal and activiijr 
 of that order since its resurrection. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 47 
 
 strong man refreshed, and shook herself from the 
 dust of ages. Then did she cast aside the gorgeous 
 "leadings," which oppressed her, and stood before 
 the world, a sacred form of brightness and of purity. 
 
 It is a pernicious, though shallow artifice, to speak, 
 of Luther as the architect of a fabric which had any 
 other foundation than that which was laid by the 
 Almighty Master-builder. Other foundation can no 
 man lay. " The Church of Christ, which was from 
 the beginning, is, and continueth unto the end. " The 
 severe majesty of the structure had been disfigured 
 and obscured by toyish and capricious outworks ; and 
 it had been girt about by turrets and battlements, 
 which unhallowed ambition had made strong for 
 itself, and which frowned upon the most precious 
 liberties of man. These had, for ages past, been 
 assailed by a vigorous though desultory warfare, and 
 the attack had sometimes been powerful enough to 
 warrant the hope, that their strength was not im- 
 pregnable. But it was left for Martin Luther to go 
 forth, in the strength of God, and to shake the greater 
 part of them to ruins. When this was done, the 
 Sanctuary was seen, in its grandeur and simplicity, 
 resting on the imperishable rock; and men, once 
 more, went up to the house of the Lord, to worship 
 Him in spirit and in truth. 
 
 The corruptions which had deformed and depraved 
 the Christian faith, were of course, the gradual work 
 of centuries. The foul accretion had stolen, imper- 
 ceptibly, over its " smooth and wholesome body," till 
 it seemed as if T from the sole of the foot, even unto the 
 head, there was no soundness in it. As might, however, 
 have been expected, in those retired and simple 
 communities, which were furthest removed from the 
 influences of the imperial hierarchy, the original 
 form and brightness of Christianity were best guarded 
 from the general pollution. There seems, for in- 
 stance, to be a very strong presumption in favour of 
 the belief, that the people 01 the valleys of Piedmont, 
 
48 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 known by the name of the Vaudois or Waldenses, 
 had preserved, from a very early period, a far purer 
 faith than that which was professed by the great 
 body of Christendom. The history of this sub-alpine 
 protestantism, if we so may designate it, is, indeed, 
 enveloped in such deep obscurity, that any attempt 
 to investigate it would far exceed the limits or the 
 design of the present work. We cannot, however, 
 reflect without delight and wonder, upon one precious 
 document, of unquestioned authenticity, which may 
 be regarded as a confession of the faith of these peo- 
 ple in the twelfth century. The relic in question is an 
 ancient poem, called La Nobla Leycon, containing a 
 metrical abridgment of the history and doctrine of 
 the Old and New Testament, in the original lan- 
 guage of the country, and evidently compiled for the 
 purpose of perpetuating among the people the princi- 
 ples of sound belief. The exact date of this very 
 curious and valuable monument, can scarcely be 
 ascertained with any satisfactory precision. It has 
 been concluded from the opening lines of it, that it 
 was composed in the year 1100. The expressions, 
 however, are of sufficient laxity to suit various pe- 
 riods within the twelfth century. 4 But, however 
 this question may be determined, it is still beyond all 
 doubt that the essential doctrines and principles of 
 our Reformation will be found in this religious for- 
 mulary, which concludes with an exposure of the 
 gross " errors of the Papacy, the simony of the priest- 
 hood, masses and prayers for the dead, the impostures 
 of absolution, and the abuses of the power of the 
 keys."f From that time to the present, the same 
 
 * " Brethren, give ear to a noble lesson. 
 
 One thousand and one hundred years are fully accomplished 
 Since it was written, ' we are in the last times.' " 
 It would, therefore, appear, that the terminus, from which the 1100 
 years are to be reckoned, may be fixed either at the biith of Christ, 
 which is often alluded to in the New Testament, as the commencement 
 of " the last times," or final dispensation ; or, at the date of any one of the 
 various passages in the New Testament, in which the phrase tfie last 
 timesis found to occur. t Leger, Hist des Eglises Vaudoisca. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 49 
 
 opinions have been inflexibly maintained by these 
 simple mountaineers ; who have borne a perpetual 
 and heroic testimony to the faith of their fathers, in 
 the midst of the most merciless and appalling per- 
 secutions. 
 
 Whether the antiquity of the creed recorded in this 
 composition, can be traced up to primitive or apos- 
 tolic times, or whether it was the produce of the 
 twelfth century, is a question attended with more 
 perplexity than will easily be unravelled. It has 
 been usual to refer its origin to Peter Waldo, or 
 Waldensis, as he is sometimes denominated, an opu- 
 lent merchant of Lyons, who is said to have been 
 driven to separation from the Romish Church by the 
 perusal of the Gospels and other books of Scripture, 
 which he had employed a certain priest to translate 
 into French. It may, however, be a point of reason- 
 able controversy, whether this person was the teacher 
 or the disciple of the Piedmontese Christians: 
 whether he did not rather derive from them the title 
 of Waldensis, instead of marking them with his own 
 appellation, as their original founder. In support of 
 the former opinion it may fairly be alleged, that se- 
 veral Catholic writers, virulently hostile to these peo- 
 ple, have spoken of heresy as of an indigenous 
 growth among these Alpine wildernesses. The extent 
 and the antiquity of the Waldensian perversion, is a 
 subject of perpetual complaint with the papal au- 
 thorities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And 
 if, to these considerations, we add the traditions uni- 
 formly prevalent among these uncorrupted shepherds ; 
 their own confident claims of immemorial purity, in 
 faith and doctrine ; their obscure and solitary abodes ; 
 and their remoteness from the scene of pontifical 
 splendour and despotism; we shall find but little 
 difficulty in the surmise, that the valleys of Pied- 
 mont may, from primitive, perhaps from apostolic 
 times, have witnessed a more undefiled profession 
 and practice of the Gospel, than can easily be found 
 5 
 
60 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 among the more degenerate communities of Christ- 
 ian Europe. To myself, I confess, the probability 
 appears to be, not that the Vaudois shook off the 
 superstitions of the Romish Church, but rather that 
 they had never put them on:* and that when the 
 hand of power was stretched forth to force the spot- 
 ted garment upon them, they revolted at the oppres- 
 sion; and, at length, recorded their protest against 
 it, in the form of that immortal lesson, which to this 
 day may be regarded as their spiritual petition of 
 right ! 
 
 At the same time, I would wish to be understood 
 as offering this view of the matter, not on the ground 
 of positive proof, but only of strong presumption ; a 
 presumption which, perhaps, may be much less satis- 
 factory to others than it is to myself. Neither is it 
 to be disguised that (even if the Vaudois are to be 
 regarded as protesting, from the earliest times, by 
 their practice and their faith, against the dominion 
 and perversion of the Romish Church,) there still 
 may be a doubt whether their protest carries with it 
 the full weight and authority which belongs to a 
 legitimate branch of the Church, invested with the 
 sanctity of apostolical succession. Their noble les- 
 son itself, we must rem-ember, contains no- mention 
 either of the forms of ordination, or of the gradations 
 of sacerdotal rank and office. An ancient manu- 
 script, indeed, they have, relating to ecclesiastical 
 discipline, claiming, among the privileges which God 
 has given to his people,, the right to choose their 
 governors, and their priests, in their several offices, 
 " according to the diversity of the work, in the unity 
 of Christ, and conformably to the apostolic example, 
 For this cause left I thee in Crete, that tkou shouldest 
 
 * I cannot but agree with Mr. Gilly, that " it is much more likely that 
 a race of mountaineers, secluded from the world, should have preserved 
 the purity and simplicity of the primitive Church, than that they should 
 suddenly become Scripture readers and reformers in the twelfth century, 
 after having been overwhelmed in the darkness that prevailed in the 
 ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries." Waldensian Researches, p. 113. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 51 
 
 set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain 
 elders in every city, as I had appointed :" and accord- 
 ing to the same document, the ministers " having 
 good testimonials, and being well approved of, are 
 received ,with imposition of hands. "* There is a 
 vagueness and laxity about these expressions, which 
 leaves a shade of doubt still hanging over the succes- 
 sion and perpetuation of the sacred order among 
 them, and renders somewhat questionable their claim 
 to the character of an Episcopal Church. f Still, it 
 must be allowed, on all hands, that the existence of 
 a retired community, living, from the earliest times, 
 in the profession of opinions essentially Protestant, 
 is a phenomenon in the highest degree interesting 
 and important. If its existence could be fully esta- 
 blished by proof, such a society might fairly be re- 
 garded as an image of what Christianity was, at least 
 in principle and doctrine, before it was disfigured by 
 the corruptions which crept over it, in other regions 
 more exposed to the infection. And, in that case, 
 the Vaudois might be regarded as ancient and most 
 Venerable witnesses of the truth, even though it might 
 be too much to acknowledge them as decisive and 
 overpowering authorities for it. It must, at all events, 
 be most gratifying to find a community of Christians, 
 
 * Gilly's Waldensian Researches, p. 143. 
 
 t That the Vaudois were supposed to have preserved the apostolical 
 succession in the fifteenth century, appears, from the testimony of the 
 venerable John Amos Comenius, the leader of the emigration of the per- 
 secuted Bohemian and Moravian Protestants from their own country 
 into Poland, early in the seventeenth century, and afterwards, in 1632, 
 consecrated bishop of the dispersed brethren. In his history of the Bo- 
 hemian Church, he relates that, in 1450, the Bohemian separatists, in 
 their anxiety to have their pastors ordained in regular succession from 
 the apostles, sent three of their preachers to "a certain Stephen, bishop 
 of the Vaudois ; and this Stephen, with others officiating, conferred the 
 vocation and ordination upon the three pastors, by the imposition of 
 hands." That there were bishops in the Waldensian Church a century 
 later, seems evident from their confession of faith presented to Francis 
 the First, in 1544, in which there is the following article : "Nous tenons 
 cecy pour resolu, parmi nous, que les Evgques et les pasteurs doivent 
 gtre irreprehensibles dans leur doctrine et leurs mceurs, &c. &c." Sea 
 Gilly's Mountains of Piedmont, p. 75. (1824.) 
 
52 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 approximating more closely to our modern Protest- 
 antism, in proportion as they were removed from the 
 influence and contact of the Romish hierarchy. 
 
 But, whatever may be their claims to immemorial 
 antiquity, or unbroken apostolical succession, or per- 
 fect purity of doctrine, there is one particular in 
 which they stand unimpeached, even on the showing 
 of their adversaries. The innocence of their lives is 
 placed beyond all doubt, by the testimony of those 
 very monkish writers, who execrate their rebellion 
 against the power of the Church, and charge them 
 with the presumption of preaching without a regular 
 mission. The picture of their morals, given by 
 Rayner, (himself originally an " heresiarch," by his 
 own avowal, but afterwards one of the bitterest 
 persecutors of dissent) may of itself be regarded as 
 absolutely conclusive. " They are steady and modest 
 in their manners; they have no ostentation in their 
 dress ; they use neither rich nor splendid apparel ; 
 they decline commerce from their aversion to lies, 
 oatns, and fraud, but live by the labour of their hands ; 
 they do not amass wealth, but are contented with 
 necessaries; they are chaste and temperate, espe- 
 cially those of Lyons ; they do not frequent taverns, 
 nor dances, nor other vanities ; they refrain from 
 anger; they are always working, learning, or teach- 
 ing." It is true that this testimony may be taken as 
 embracing, generally, all those sectaries who were 
 charged with a revolt from the dominant Church: 
 but it is also true, that it has a more emphatic refer- 
 ence to the men of Lyons, and by that term this wri- 
 ter is usually understood to designate the Waldenses, 
 considered by him as disciples of Peter Waldo, the 
 celebrated reformer of that city. 
 
 What the " men of the valleys" were in Piedmont, 
 the Albigenses may possibly have been in Langue- 
 doc, and the south of France ; although it must be 
 confessed that the name of these latter religionists has 
 not been handed down to us with the same unsullied 
 
INTRODUCTION. 53 
 
 honours, as that of their Alpine brethren. It has 
 been confidently affirmed, that the creed of these 
 people was tainted with the monstrous errors of the 
 Manichaean heresy: and the charge has been sup- 
 ported by a large body of contemporary evidence ; 
 and, more particularly, by the recorded acts of the 
 inquisition of Thoulouse. That the extravagant 
 principles of this strange theory were partially dis- 
 persed among the multitude of sects, which at this 
 time were beginning to disturb the slumbers of 
 Romish orthodoxy, appears almost beyond dispute. 
 But it seems, likewise, irresistibly clear, that, amidst 
 the variety of error which is said to have chequered 
 the motley surface of their belief, one peculiarity was 
 common to them all; for without exception, they 
 protested against the exorbitant wealth and intolera- 
 ble despotism of the Papal hierarchy. It will easily 
 be perceived how grievously the mixture of Gnostic 
 r Manicha3an error, in the multiform creeds of these 
 people, would disqualify them for an effectual con- 
 flict against the abuses they presumed to denounce. 
 Their doctrinal perversions would enable the defend- 
 ers of the Catholic faith to proclaim, with sufficient 
 plausibility, that the gainsayers of the Papal su- 
 premacy were likewise open adversaries to the primi- 
 tive truth ; that the traitors to the Pontiff were, also, 
 little better than rebels against God ; that they, who 
 set up their own private judgment against the au- 
 thority of St. Peter's chair, scrupled not to affirm a 
 divided empire between the power of evil, and the 
 Father of all goodness. To what precise extent these 
 notions could justly be ascribed to the Albigenses, or 
 the Cathari, or other reputed heretics of the twelfth 
 or .thirteenth centuries, it would, at this day, be ex- 
 tremely difficult to decide ; but it can scarcely be 
 doubted, that they retained a sufficient amount of 
 erroneous doctrine, to furnish their enemies with 
 very formidable arms against them. In another, 
 and much more creditable respect, however, they 
 
54 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 undoubtedly bore a very near resemblance to their 
 Asiatic predecessors. The greater part of the ori- 
 ginal Manichaeans are represented to us, with all 
 their extravagances, as a class of harmless mystics, 
 or austere enthusiasts ; and such undoubtedly were 
 a very large portion among their European succes- 
 sors, in subsequent ages, by whatever multitude of 
 names they may have been consigned to public exe- 
 cration by their persecutors. 
 
 A.D. But, let the innocency of their lives be what 
 1208. ft might, what would it be, but a corslet of 
 gossamer, against the blade and the firebrand of the 
 military adventurer, even when going forth under the 
 banners of a religious crusade ? Had the piety and 
 devotion of the misbelievers been such as almost to 
 purify the age in which they lived, so long as the 
 taint of a rebellious heresy was upon them, they 
 would, in that period, have scarcely been deemed 
 worthy to exist. It was at the beginning of the 
 twelftn century that the hounds of persecution were 
 let loose against them ; and before the end of the 
 same century, the very name of the Albigenses had 
 well nigh perished from the face of the earth. Inno- 
 cent the Third was the Holy Father whose voice 
 summoned his faithful children to the work of exter- 
 mination ; and Simon de Montfort was named the 
 leader of the host ; " a man like Cromwell, whose 
 intrepidity, hypocrisy, and ambition, marked him for 
 the hero of a holy war."* And then the deluge of 
 havoc burst forth upon the plains of Languedoc. 
 The warriors of the Cross achieved unheard-of mira- 
 cles of courage and of butchery. " The land before 
 them was as the garden of Eden ; behind them it 
 was a desolate wilderness." The flame and the steel 
 swept away the inhabitants and their dwellings, 
 "from the lower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 19 
 Nay, even the faithful Catholics themselves were 
 
 Hallam's Middle Ages, C.L 
 
INTRODUCTION. 55 
 
 not safe from the blind fury of the tempest ; for, in 
 the midst of the work of ruin, a voice was once 
 heard to cry out, " Let all be slain the Lord will know 
 his own /"* The tide of desolation held on its course, 
 till the ancient and heroic house of Thoulouse fell 
 before it, so that its place knew it no more. And thus 
 were the direst furies of man's corrupt heart sent 
 forth for the chastisement and extirpation of impiety ! 
 Thus was the earth shaken and trampled by the hoof 
 of demoniac frenzy, and all in wild pursuit of a phan- 
 tom of spiritual rebellion, which at the worst, was 
 guiltless of blood, and which never inflicted a wound 
 on the rights of humanity, or on the peace of the 
 world ! 
 
 It has been stated above, that the persecution of 
 these unhappy sectaries was inflamed by the cry, 
 which charged them with the abominations of theMa- 
 nichaean heresy. It will, therefore, be proper briefly 
 to advert to the introduction of this ingredient into 
 the Christianity of Europe. In the middle of the 
 seventh century, we are told, there arose in the 
 neighbourhood of Samosata, a sect of Christians, 
 known, for whatever cause, by the name of Pauli- 
 tjians. Their origin is usually ascribed to the follow- 
 ing circumstance. A Christian deacon, on his return 
 from captivity in Syria, then in possession of the 
 Mussulmans, was hospitably received by one Constan- 
 tine, an obscure member of the Greek Church. He 
 received from the gratitude of his guest a copy of 
 the Greek Testament, which had then been sealed up 
 by the Eastern Church from popular inspection. The 
 perusal of this sacred volume converted Constantine 
 into a zealous and indefatigable Reformer. His la- 
 bours were rewarded by the fidelity of a numerous 
 body of followers, collected partly from the Catholics, 
 and partly, it is said, from the remnants of the Gnos- 
 
 * This was, actually, the cry of a Cistercian monk, at the storming of 
 Bezieres. where heretics were slaughtered by thousands, and Catholics 
 among them! 
 
66 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 tics and Manichaean sects. The creed of the Pauli- 
 cians, (for such was the title by which they soon were 
 designated,) rejected many of the superstitions which 
 then deformed the Catholic belief and worship ; but 
 this merit, if we are to believe their adversaries, was 
 overpowered by their adoption of opinions, which 
 violated the first principles of natural and revealed 
 religion. They attempted to combine the doctrines 
 of Zoroaster with those of Christ. They admitted 
 the existence of two adverse powers, the conflicting 
 authors of good and evil. The New Testament they 
 ascribed to the Father of Mercies, while they de- 
 spised and abhorred the Old, as a collection of absurd 
 and impious fables ; and attributed them to the folly 
 of men, or to the malice of demons. Their detestation 
 of images, at last, exposed them to the fury of the 
 Empress Theodora. Her reign was rendered illustri- 
 ous by the sacrifice of the Paulicians ; of whom one 
 hundred thousand are said to have perished " by the 
 sword, the gibbet, and the flames." Oppression, in 
 time, converted the inflexible heretics into desperate 
 rebels. After the usual vicissitudes of heroic suffer- 
 ing and sanguinary vengeance, the course of events 
 transplanted multitudes of them from Armenia to 
 Thrace, from Thrace to Italy and France ; and with 
 them, the habit of perpetual reference to the Law 
 and the Testimony. Whatever may have been their 
 doctrinal aberrations, they still acknowledged Scrip- 
 ture as the sole foundation of belief; and they who 
 deny that any remains of spiritual independence were 
 then to be found in Europe, ascribe to these perse- 
 cuted exiles, the accidental merit of scattering over 
 the West, together with the tares of the Oriental 
 heresy, the good seed of evangelical reformation. 
 
 Neither creeds, nor confessions, nor apologies, now 
 remain, which might enable us to judge of the de- 
 gree, in which the Paulicians were infected with the 
 Manichsean perversion. The most express testimony 
 on the subject is that of Petrus Siculus, who lived 
 
INTRODUCTION. 57 
 
 towards the end of the ninth century, and who had 
 resided, for some time, as ambassador among the 
 heretics. And yet, in spite of his opportunities of 
 informing himself, the account he gives of their be- 
 lief is such, as the most liberal exercise of ingenuity 
 and candour can scarcely reduce to any semblance of 
 consistency : for he tells us, on the one hand, that 
 they most readily and earnestly anathematized the 
 heresiarch Manes, and on the other, that they still 
 retained several of his most revolting absurdities. 
 They affirmed, for instance, the existence of a bene- 
 volent, and a malignant Deity; they rejected the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; and they denied 
 altogether the authority of the Old Testament. 
 These prodigies of misbelief, if we are to give im- 
 plicit credence to the statements of monkish annalists 
 and inquisitors, they imported with them into Europe; 
 where they and their disciples became conspicuously 
 detestable under the various titles of Catharists, 
 Picards, Paterins, and, more especially, of Albigenses. 
 Even if these hostile representations were to be 
 admitted, they would bring before us nothing but 
 what the usual course of persecution might easily 
 account for. The spirit of intolerance had been on 
 the wing for ages. It had been sweeping all dissent 
 and resistance from the earth. And, while the tem- 
 pest was abroad, it was probable enough that the 
 various forms of belief, whether sound or visionary, 
 which were at all opposed to the established system 
 of ecclesiastical power, would be driven to the same 
 hiding-places for shelter against its fury. And, in 
 that case, whenever the scriptural verity ventured 
 forth again into the world, it could not be very sur- 
 prising, if, together with it, there should emerge the 
 apparitions of the Arian or Manichsean heresies. 
 But, however this maybe, I cannot, without extreme 
 difficulty, reconcile myself to the hypothesis, which 
 ascribes wholly to this influx of Asiatic separatists, 
 the revival of a spirit of inquiry in Europe. My 
 
58 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 doubts respecting this question, are not suggested by 
 a disdainful reluctance to acknowledge, that an im- 
 pulse so glorious might, perchance, be communicated 
 by a sect, originating in some obscure corner of the 
 East; for the hand of Providence can, at all times, 
 impart an irresistible momemtum to the lightest 
 grains and atoms. Neither should we be deterred 
 from the reception of this hypothesis, by the fear of 
 that scornful rebuke, wherewith it may be supposed to 
 arm the Papacy against us. " The rebellion," she 
 may say, " which shook to pieces the unity of the 
 Church, and murdered the quiet of mankind, was 
 first kindled by the strange fire of an accursed heresy. 
 The flame which has gone before you, on your way 
 to revolution, never descended from heaven. It came 
 up from the place below ; and, as might be expected, 
 ruin and havoc were in its path." For a fit reply to 
 such revilings, none can be at a loss, who recollect 
 that there is One, who can over-rule even the mighti- 
 est resources of evil, and compel them to work to- 
 gether for the accomplishment of his purposes. The 
 grand objection to this solution is, in my humble 
 judgment, derived from its extreme improbability, 
 t is surely very difficult to persuade ourselves, that 
 the sparks of opposition were then so entirely trodden 
 out, throughout all Christendom, but that, in many 
 an obscure retreat, they must still have remained in 
 readiness to fly up in me face of the power that was 
 trampling on them. It is impossible to look into 
 the annals of the Church, without perceiving that, 
 although the vices, and the fears, and the necessities 
 of the world, were gradually enlisted under the ban- 
 ner of superstition, yet, on the other hand, the 
 natural pride and independence of mankind, even 
 where holier motives might be wanting, were per- 
 petually opposing a resolute front against the usurpa- 
 tion. After the struggle of a thousand years, the work 
 of conquest seemed to be well nigh complete ; and 
 the West was sleeping, to all appearance, the deep 
 
 i 
 
INTRODUCTION. 59 
 
 sleep of obedience and conformity. But, still, it is 
 scarcely credible, that the elements of resistance 
 should have been utterly suppressed, or that Europe 
 contained within herself no principle of deliverance 
 or renovation. This principle, indeed, may very 
 possibly have been awakened into earlier activity, 
 by the infusion of a fervid element from another 
 region. The Paulicians, recent from the smart, or 
 the recollection, of inhuman persecution, may have 
 spread throughout the provinces, to which they mi- 
 grated, a fiercer impatience of all spiritual control. 
 It may be highly probable that they threw into more 
 turbulent combination the ingredients which they 
 found still existing in their adopted country. But to 
 allow this, is very different from confessing ourselves 
 debtors to them for our own emancipation, or invest- 
 ing them with the chief honours due to apostles of 
 religious purity.* 
 
 It would be useless to load these pages with the 
 uncouth names of that boundless variety of sects, 
 which began to swarm throughout Christendom at the 
 period of these commotions, and which give some- 
 what of a grotesque appearance to the ecclesiastical 
 history of the darker ages ; a list to which Popery is 
 eternally pointing, as a record of the evils which 
 spring from a violation of her sacred unity, and hea- 
 ven-descended power. To enumerate them would, 
 probably, be to reckon up, not so much the essential 
 varieties of religious sentiment, as the varieties of 
 iidividual temperament, and the peculiarities of in- 
 
 * On the perplexed and difficult questions, relating to the Vaudois, 
 the Albigenses, and the Paulicians, the reader may consult the following 
 works: Leger, Histoire des Eglises Vaudoises; Allix, Remarks on the 
 Ecclesiastical History of the Churches of Piedmont ; Turner's History of 
 England, part iv. c. ii. ; Hallam's Middle Ages, part ii. c. ix. ; Gilly's 
 Excursion to the Mountains of Piedmont, (1824,) and Waldensian Re- 
 searches (1831 ;) Peyran's Historical Defence of the Waldenses. (1829;) 
 Gibbon's fifty-fourth chapter, on the Paulicians ; M'Crie on the Reforma- 
 tion in Italy, and in Spam. In these he will either find the necessary 
 information ; or. at least, directions to the authorities in which the truth 
 may be sought for. 
 
60 LIFE OF WICLIT. 
 
 dividual character. These heresies, if heresies we 
 are to call them, are, for the most part, distinguisha- 
 ble from each other only upon paper. Their differ- 
 ences (so far as we can discern) are not even such as 
 exist between various races of mankind. They may 
 rather be compared to those varieties, which are 
 observable between the figures and the countenances 
 of men of the same race. In one particular, how- 
 ever, as we have already observed, the resemblance 
 between them all is singularly striking, namely, in 
 their aspect of hatred and defiance towards the papal 
 domination. This it was that, in the eyes of Rome, 
 gave to their physiognomy that expression of sur- 
 passing ugliness, in which all other deformities were 
 lost. Ridicule and sarcasm she could patiently en- 
 dure, just as statesmen are indifferent about lam- 
 poons and caricatures, so long as they feel their power 
 to be substantial and secure. Her knowledge of 
 human nature was sufficient to assure her, that the 
 indignation is harmless, which can freely discharge 
 itself in explosions of ingenuity and humour. With 
 still more profound composure did she regard the 
 sublimest aspirations of unearthly or mystic piety, 
 which occasionally were ascending to heaven from, 
 her sacred solitudes. The spirit which breathed in 
 these retirements was often, indeed, essentially at 
 variance with the worldly and ambitious temper 
 that presided in her councils, and directed the execu- 
 tion of her designs ; but then, it was embodied in 
 works sealed up against the general view, and open 
 only to the eye of self-denying and contemplative 
 men: it therefore offered no public rebuke to her 
 schemes of secular aggrandizement and dominion. 
 The shafts of derision were, to her, like the efforts 
 of archery against battlements of granite : the purest 
 meditations of scriptural devotion harmed her no 
 more than clouds of incense, rising in the midst of 
 those earthly odours, which were constantly steaming 
 from her altars. Nay, more than this, she could 
 
INTRODUCTION. 61 
 
 Letcd unmoved to the keenest words of remonstrance 
 and reproof from the mouth of her own sons, pro- 
 vided that they challenged not her pre-eminence and 
 majesty.* But when once the voice of revolt was 
 lifted up, strengthened, as it was, by an incessant 
 appeal to the Word of God, she began to tremble for 
 the stability of her rule. She saw that a power was 
 abroad, which, if not mercilessly crushed, might 
 batter to pieces, or undermine, the fabric of her do- 
 minion : and she straightway addressed herself to 
 the work of vengeance with all the remorseless fero- 
 city of terror and of pride. Some speculators on her 
 nistory there are, who, in the contemplation of her 
 enormities, have partially consoled themselves with 
 the reflection, that execrable as they were, they had, 
 at least, the effect of suppressing a premature erup- 
 tion of the spirit of liberty, which might have thrown 
 the social system into desperate confusion, and re- 
 tarded the improvement of the human race. And it 
 can scarcely be questioned, that much danger was to 
 be apprehended to the best interests of man, from 
 the extravagant and ignorant fanaticism which some- 
 times mixed itself with the movements of those 
 gloomy times. It requires, however, an unusual 
 hardihood of mind to commit one's self to such deep 
 speculation on .the eventual usefulness of crime. I 
 can scarcely venture to plunge into the crater of such 
 awful and mysterious thoughts. "We should rather 
 
 * Witness the sermon delivered by Nicolas Orem, before the pope 
 Urban, in 1364, in which the preacher loudly and intrepidly denounces 
 the vices and abuses of the Papacy, and calls for their correction, in 
 order that God's mercy may return to the Church, and that her rebellious 
 adversaries may be disarmed. " I think verily," he says, "that these 
 many years there have not been so many and so despiteful hearts, and 
 evil-willers, stout, and of such a rebellious heart against the Church of 
 God, as be now-a-days. Neither be they lacking, that would do all they 
 can against it, and lovers of new-fangleness ; whose hearts the Lord hapiy 
 will turn, that they shall not hate his people, and work deceit against his 
 servants ; I mean against priests, whom they have now in little or no repu- 
 tation at all, albeit many yet there be, through God's grace, good and 
 godly. But as yet, the fury of the Lord is not turned away, but still his 
 hand is stretched out. And, unless ye be converted, he hath bent hia 
 bow and prepared it ready." Fdx, p. 477. 
 6 
 
62 LIFE OF W1CLIF. 
 
 be disposed to content ourselves with a general, but 
 yet a confident persuasion, that all these frightful 
 outbreakings of passion have wrought together, after 
 some inscrutable manner, for the welfare of man. 
 and for the glory and prosperity of the Church 01 
 God. 
 
 To turn from speculations to facts. It appears 
 beyond all doubt, that the noise of many waters be- 
 gun, in those ages, to be heard in Catholic Christen- 
 dom. The streams were then bursting forth from 
 the subterraneous course, to which they had long been 
 forcibly confined, and the whole face of society was, 
 in various directions, intersected by their channels* 
 They continued gradually to combine their might ; 
 till, at last, they united into one headlong torrent, 
 which rolled onward, and bore down before it the 
 bulwarks, whose strength and solidity had been the 
 work of centuries. It remains for us to observe the 
 tributary force, wherewith the intellect and the heart 
 of England swelled this salutary inundation. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 63 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 View of Christianity in England, to the middle of the fourteenth 
 century. 
 
 IN surveying the annals of Christianity in this coun- 
 try, it will, for all substantial purposes, he sufficient 
 to begin with the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon 
 Church. By whom the light of the Gospel was ori- 
 ginally kindled in our land, it is now impossible to 
 ascertain. That it shone in our dark and cruel places 
 at a very early period, we learn from the voice of 
 tradition; and Glastonbury would seem to be the 
 spot which is best entitled to the honour of raising up 
 this beacon flame, for the guidance of our barbarous 
 ancestors. Its intensity, however, was by no means 
 sufficient to overpower and extinguish the hideous 
 aboriginal superstitions of the country, or the more 
 civilized paganism of its Roman conquerors. The 
 classic mythology, indeed, gradually waned away, in 
 Britain, together with the influence of her imperial 
 protectors. But there is reason to believe that, as 
 the Roman power decayed, the Druidical heathenism 
 began to resume its strength, and to disfigure Chris- 
 tianity, where it could not actually destroy it. Of 
 these vicissitudes, however, no authentic history is 
 now to be found. Of legendary and portentous 
 hagiology, there is, indeed, abundance. But beyond 
 this, we have no other records of the early British 
 Church. 
 
 The Saxon invasion brought with it the Tartaric 
 idolatry of the North. The grim superstition of the 
 
<j4 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 Druids, the obsolete paganism of Rome, and the vene- 
 rable forms of Christianity, all were swept away 
 before it. They retired, together with the Genius 
 of British independence, to impenetrable retreats and 
 mountain solitudes, and left the land as an heritage 
 to the spirit of Odin : so that, for considerably up- 
 wards of a century, the Gospel was lost to the king- 
 doms of the heptarchy. The blessing was restored 
 by the zeal of Gregory the Great. The well-known 
 accident which impelled him to the pious enterprise, 
 is illustrative, at once, of the benignity of his heart, 
 and the quaintness of his understanding. Before his 
 elevation to the pontificate, he had seen a number of 
 comely Saxon youths in the slave-market at Rome. 
 Being struck with their appearance, and hearing that 
 they were called Angles, Angels, he exclaimed, 
 they truly are, and ought to be joined to the angelic 
 company. On being told that they came from the 
 province of DeVra Aye, de irA, indeed, said he ; from 
 the wrath of God they must be plucked, and brought 
 unto the grace of Christ. But his passion for quib- 
 bling was still unsatisfied. When he learned that 
 ^Ella was the name of their king, Alleluiah ! he in- 
 stantly cried out ; Alleluiahs must be chanted by them 
 in the dominions of their sovereign. The design, 
 which was expressed by all this solemn trifling, never 
 dropped from his mind; and when he was advanced 
 to the throne of St. Peter, he dispatched forty monks 
 to England, for the vigorous execution of it. Augus- 
 tine was the leader of this venerable mission ; and, 
 most auspiciously for the enterprise, the Queen of 
 Ethelbert, then King of Kent, was a Prankish prin- 
 cess, and passionately devoted to the Christian faith. 
 Her influence accelerated the conversion of her semi- 
 barbarian husband ; and, eventually conferred upon 
 her adopted country the blessings of a pure and hu- 
 manizing religion. 
 
 Nothing can well be more interesting or impres- 
 sive than the picture which has been left us of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 65 
 
 Opening of this missionary labour. It was in the 
 year 600 that Ethelbert was apprized of the arrival 
 in his dominions of certain strangers, habited in a 
 foreign garb, and practising several unusual and 
 mysterious ceremonies. Their object, as they stated, 
 was to be admitted to the presence of the king, in 
 order that they might communicate to him, and to 
 his people, tidings of measureless importance to their 
 everlasting welfare. The sacred embassy was re- 
 ceived by him in the Isle of Thanet. He was sur- 
 rounded by his nobles, and seated in the open air. 
 He imagined, it would seem, conformably to an an- 
 cient superstitious notion, that the enchantments 
 which he, at first, apprehended from these awful per- 
 sons, would be less formidable under the canopy of 
 heaven, than within the walls of a building made 
 with hands. The ministers of peace and sanctity 
 approached in procession, bearing a silver crucifix, 
 and a figure of the Saviour painted upon a banner, 
 and chanting the solemn Litany of the Church. They 
 then stated to him the object of their mission : and, 
 having received from him a prudent, but favourable 
 reply, were permitted to fix their residence at Canter- 
 bury, and to commence at once the labours of conver- 
 sion. And thus, at the opening of the seventh cen- 
 tury, were laid tire foundations of the Anglo-Saxon 
 Church. 
 
 Under the protection of this powerful prince, the 
 new religion advanced with a prosperous and rapid 
 course. The rude heathenism of the Saxons gave 
 way, in all directions, before it. Even the idolatrous 
 priesthood in many instances, set the example of 
 conversion ; and it is related, that on the first preach- 
 ing of the Gospel in Northumberland, the Saxon 
 pontiff himself mounted a horse which, to one of 
 his order, was a dire abomination and burst into 
 the consecrated precinct, where with his own hand, 
 he hewed in pieces the idol, to whose service bis 
 former life had been devoted. 
 6* 
 
66 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 It would be foreign to the design of this work to 
 trace minutely the progress of Christianity among 
 our unlettered and half-savage ancestors. It may 
 be sufficient to observe, that the chief obstructions it 
 had to encounter, were rather from the coarse and 
 licentious habits of the people, than from the stub- 
 bornness of the ancient superstitions. Surrounded 
 by the ruins of Roman magnificence, they dwelt in 
 hovels of plastered wicker-work, intent on nothing 
 but the excitements of the chase, or the toils of mili- 
 tary exercise. Their whole system of life, in short, 
 at the period of their call to the profession of the 
 Gospel, appears to have been not many degrees 
 removed from a state of abject barbarism. That the 
 religion of the Cross was embraced by them with 
 fervid zeal and true simplicity of spirit, may be rea- 
 sonably concluded from the change which gradually 
 stole over the rugged features of society, when once 
 it was exposed to these new and blessed influences. 
 It is true that the contest between passion and prin- 
 ciple among them, continued, for a long time, obsti- 
 nate and violent. As might be expected, in that twi- 
 light of civility, their history often exemplifies, in a 
 remarkable degree, the wild precipitation with which 
 untutored minds can rush from one extremity to its 
 furtherest opposite. The lives of the same individu- 
 als frequently exhibited the darkest atrocities, followed 
 by the almost frantic self-infliction ; prodigies of 
 rapine succeeded by an utter renunciation of the 
 world ; licentious and brutal violence ending in vows 
 of perpetual chastity. There was no vice so mon- 
 strous as to startle them in their career of self-indul- 
 gence; no expiation severe enough to deter them, 
 when once the season of repentance had arrived. 
 By degrees, however, the violence of the conflict was 
 moderated, under the gentle arbitration of Chris- 
 tianity. A milder spirit gradually insinuated itself 
 into the social mass; till, at last, the monastic sys- 
 tem, with many of its evils, but with all its benefits, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 67 
 
 obtained a surprising predominance throughout the 
 realm, and powerfully advanced the work of civili- 
 zation. England, in fact, became, by degrees, almost 
 a land of monasteries ; and kings were not ashamed 
 to descend from the seat of dominion to the retire- 
 ments of religious-contemplation. The effect of- this 
 system was, to soften the asperities of savage life, to 
 tame the passionate devotion to war and bloodshed, 
 and to prepare the way for the formation of petty 
 monarchies into one powerful and solid empire. 
 
 The spirit and energy of the Saxon Church was 
 long kept up by its continued intercourse with Rome. 
 The meager literature of the country was invigorated 
 and enriched by the learning and the talent of a long 
 series of foreign prelates, among whom, the name of 
 Theodorus, the seventh Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 stands nobly conspicuous. By birth he was a Greek ; 
 and by him the knowledge of his own magnificent 
 language was introduced into this country. The 
 northern provinces, indeed, although they maintained 
 their intercourse with Italy, derived moral and intel- 
 lectual improvement from sources peculiar to them- 
 selves. The names of lona and of Lindisfarn will 
 be illustrious, to the end of time, as sanctuaries of 
 learning and of piety. The one was a solitary and bar- 
 ren rock in the Western Ocean ; the other an obscure 
 island at the mouth of Tees. And yet, from these 
 insignificant spots it was, that the lights of literature 
 and religion were seen to issue forth into the thick 
 darkness which enveloped the northern regioas of our 
 empire. Such was the ardour of study, and such the 
 holy rigour of discipline, which distinguished the 
 monks of lona, that their habitation was honoured as 
 an island of saints, and their episcopal jurisdiction 
 acknowledged over all the northern parts of Britain 
 and of Ireland. Of Lindisfarn, what more need be 
 said, than that it fostered the virtues and the industry 
 of the venerable Bede, and was the scene of his vast 
 and immortal labours? It was, indeed, unfortunate 
 
68 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 that " the infancy of English learning was supported 
 by the dotage of the Roman;"* but still, the esta- 
 blishment of an institution such as Lindisfarn, and 
 the appearance of a teacher such as Bede, in a coun- 
 try which, half a century before, was without an 
 alphabet, are circumstances which can scarcely be 
 paralled in the history of man. 
 
 But at the time when England was struggling, 
 with all the energy of heart and hope, to emerge 
 from the Serbonian bog of ignorance and barbarism, 
 she was thrust back again into its depths by the hand 
 of a ferocious adversary. In the hour of her repose 
 the Philistines were upon her. A deluge of sanguin- 
 ary heathenism burst over her from the North: and 
 she began to sink once more into the abyss of degra- 
 dation and of misery. Her deliverance was the 
 work of one man. On the name of Alfred history 
 has lavished all her resources of praise. Like the 
 fabled Hercules of old, in him have centered the col- 
 lective honours of institutions and achievements, the 
 glory of which a more perfect knowledge of the times 
 might, possibly, enable us to distribute with greater 
 equity and credibility. But, after every reservation, 
 enough would, doubtless, be left, to stamp him as a 
 miracle of wisdom, energy, and patriotism ; a bene- 
 factor such as Providence, in its mercy, sometimes 
 raises up to rescue nations from despair. The Danes 
 had torn his kingdom to fragments. He left it, at 
 his death, in a state of integrity. In the eye of an 
 historian of the Church, his name is eternally memo- 
 rable, for the faithfulness with which he discharged 
 the first of all those paternal duties, for which the 
 powers that be are ordained of God. He laboured, both 
 in his own person, and by munificence of encourage- 
 ment and patronage, to restore and to protect the fall- 
 en religion of his country. Religion seems, in truth 
 to have been the pillar of flame which incessantly 
 
 Burke, 
 
INTRODUCTION, 69 
 
 directed and cheered him, throughout the greatness of 
 his way. He commanded personally in fifty-four 
 pitched battles he was the creator of the navy of 
 Britain he was the protector of her commerce he 
 was, himself, the life and soul of her public justice 
 "he has been thought, by some, to merit the title of 
 Founder of her constitution he was the good genius 
 of her literature and arts and, lastly, he most emi- 
 nently deserves the name of Nursing Father of her 
 Church. A third portion of his time was given up 
 to the toils of study, and the exercises of piety. He 
 translated works of devotion he commenced a ver- 
 sion of the Psalms and his whole life appears to 
 have been an example of the power of Christianity 
 to take captive the highest faculties and noblest affec- 
 tions of man. And the whole of these wonders is 
 rendered more overpowering by the circumstance, 
 that they were achieved under the almost incessant 
 pressure of severe bodily anguish. His life was one 
 perpetual disease, and was terminated at the age of 
 fifty-two after having crowded within its limits such 
 prodigies of useful exertion, as would seem to have 
 demanded the days of an ancient patriarch, and the 
 iron vigour of a Charlemagne. 
 
 Sorely would it have grieved the heart of this illus- 
 trious man, to look upon the tempest which soon 
 began to lower over the country he had saved, and 
 which burst forth, in the following century, with 
 desolating fury. The evil angel, which first let loose 
 the storm, was one, whom the Romish calendar 
 reckons among its holy ones. The name of Dunstan 
 is popularly known among us by that extremely gro- 
 tesque conflict, in which he is supposed to have 
 xtorted howls of anguish from the enemy of man- 
 kind. Alas ! well would it have been for England 
 if he had been contented with the honours of this 
 triumph. But he was a foul and hideous incarnation 
 of the same spirit, which in an age somewhat less 
 barbarous, animated another renowned saint, the 
 
70 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 celebrated Thomas of Canterbury. In order to com- 
 prehend and estimate the distractions he inflicted 
 upon this kingdom, it will be necessary to pause for 
 a moment, and to consider the condition of the Saxon 
 Church at the decease of Alfred, and in the succeed- 
 ing age. 
 
 The ecclesiastical discipline, which had been esta- 
 blished by Augustine, was, of course, Episcopal, and 
 the dioceses were, respectively, coextensive with the 
 kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Cathedrals and monas- 
 teries were built and endowed by the pious munifi- 
 cence of kings and nobles; but parochial divisions 
 were as yet unknown. Among the earliest sources 
 of maintenance for the Church, may be numbered 
 the institution of tythes. This may be stated simply 
 as a fact, without drawing us into controversy as to 
 the precise nature and force of the obligation to their 
 payment. The distribution of this fund was left to 
 the bishop, and his brother presbyters ; and was des- 
 tined to the fourfold purpose of supporting the clergy, 
 repairing the church, relieving the poor, and 
 providing hospitable entertainment for the pilgrim or 
 the traveller. 
 
 At first, the religious instruction of every vicinity 
 was administered by the perpetual missionary labours 
 of the clergy attached to the cathedrals, under the 
 direction and control of the bishop. To remedy the 
 precarious nature of this supply, chapels and orato- 
 ries were erected in every diocese; and, in time, the 
 necessity of field worship was still more extensively 
 superseded, by the foundation of parochial churches. 
 This important change was not the effect of any sud- 
 den revolution: it was the gradual work of time; 
 and was either dictated by the piety, or suggested by 
 the convenience, of the landed proprietors, who were 
 naturally desirous of the constant residence of a 
 minister, to instruct their vassals in a religion which 
 taught them the duties of industry and contentment, 
 One consequence of it was, that, by an agreement 
 
INTRODUCTION* 71 
 
 with the bishops and their clergy, the endowment of 
 tythe's was transferred to the fixed place of worship, 
 and vested solely in the local minister ; while the 
 patronage of each church remained with the founder, 
 and his representatives. It was a condition invaria- 
 bly attached to this arrangement, that a house should 
 be provided for the incumbent, together with a suita- 
 ble allotment of glebe land : and, in order that the 
 duties of hospitality might be more effectually per- 
 formed, the residence of the minister was usually 
 fixed either by the way-side, or near the limits of 
 some extensive common. 
 
 The whole scheme of our ecclesiastical polity, in 
 those ages, was framed and consolidated by the energy 
 and the intelligence of Archbishop Theodore ; who 
 established a uniformity of discipline and govern- 
 ment throughout all the churches, under the primacy 
 of Canterbury. The exertions of this eminent and 
 enlightened prelate, in behalf of literature, have al- 
 ready been honourably mentioned. His spirit seemed, 
 for a time, to animate the clerical order. Their in- 
 tellectual attainments were, for the age, respectable, 
 and their attention to their sacred duties almost 
 exemplary. But their first works were, unhappily, 
 succeeded by a period of deplorable degeneracy ; and 
 the decline of piety and learning was frightfully 
 hastened by the ruinous ferocity of the Danes. The 
 monastic establishments were destroyed by these 
 ignorant and brutal savages ; and a headlong relapse 
 towards barbarism was the natural effect of their 
 fury. All that could be accomplished by man, was 
 done by Alfred for the restoration of letters and reli- 
 gion. But the hopelessness of the task may be esti- 
 mated by the fact that, at his accession to the throne, 
 a single priest was not to be found south of the 
 Thames with Latin enough to understand the daily 
 services which he muttered, and that the religious 
 establishments throughout the land were wholly 
 broken up. Arid when the monastic system began 
 
72 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 to revive, many years after his death, its resurrection 
 was attended with convulsions that rent the kingdom 
 to pieces, and helped to make it once more an easy 
 prey to its ever watchful and sanguinary assailants. 
 
 The spirit that presided over these commotions, was 
 Dun stan ; a man who has done more than, perhaps, 
 any other individual that can be mentioned, to inflict 
 upon mankind the curse of a suspicion, that priest- 
 craft and religion are one. The history of supersti- 
 tion can scarcely present another name so infamous 
 for barefaced abuse of vulgar credulity, and for a 
 prodigal application of the grossest machinery of 
 imposture. His progress from his cell at Glaston- 
 bury to the primacy of England is one perpetual 
 series of atrocity and fraud. His grand object was 
 to erect the Benedictine order on the ruins of the 
 national Church and to consign to monks the whole 
 spiritual government of the realm. His command- 
 ing genius was well suited to this pernicious enter- 
 prise ; and the success of his machinations was 
 calamitous and astounding. It forms altogether a 
 monument of unscrupulous ambition, such as might 
 have appeared extravagant and monstrous, even in 
 the visions of romance. That its proportions, how- 
 ever, have not been exaggerated, we may collect 
 from the circumstance, that his biography has been 
 delivered to us, not by calumnious adversaries, but 
 by admiring, and partly by contemporary, chroniclers; 
 and the gratitude of Rome has preserved his name 
 to this day on her register of canonized saints. 
 
 But the works even of this architect of evil were 
 not destined to last. Unhappily, however, the Danes 
 were the instruments employed for their destruction. 
 When they renewed their incursions, the religious 
 establishments as usual, fell before their stupid fero- 
 city, and the plague of ignorance and depravity once 
 more settled upon the land. The barbarians, indeed, 
 conformed to the religion which they found; but 
 their very conformity was marked with insolence 
 
INTRODUCTION. 73 
 
 and profaneness. The clergy, whom Duns tan would 
 have made the autocrats of the country, were con- 
 verted almost into its menial slaves. They were 
 doomed to drain off the cup of humiliation, even to 
 its bitterest dregs : for the savages, who ruled them, 
 frequently compelled them to celebrate the services 
 of the altar, not only in their private houses, but in the 
 very chambers where their wives, or their concubines, 
 were reposing by their sides ! In short, the wild 
 deluge of barbarism, wickedness and tyranny, was 
 rising so rapidly, that, according to all human judg- 
 ment, nothing but some mighty revolution could have 
 arrested the progress of the flood; and the Norman 
 Conquest may reasonably be regarded as a monument 
 at once of the goodness and the severity of God. 
 
 Bowed down, however, as they were by the tyranny 
 of their late masters, the clergy still retained suffi- 
 cient spirit to embarrass and provoke the Conqueror 
 by their inflexible opposition to his government. 
 The only effect of their resistance was the expulsion 
 of the native ecclesiastics from their dignities, and 
 the introduction of foreigners in their place. Of 
 these the most illustrious was Lanfranc, who reluc- 
 tantly accepted the primacy of England. By birth he 
 was an Italian, and he brought with him to his office 
 the most eminent attainments which Italy could 
 supply. He combined in his own person all the best 
 qualities, and some few of the worst, which could 
 distinguish a churchman of the eleventh century. 
 He was the restorer and the patron of letters, and 
 was altogether admirable for his charity and munifi- 
 cence, and for the high-minded integrity of his ad- 
 ministration. On the other hand, he was ardently 
 devoted to the supremacy of Rome; he laboured 
 urgently to inflict celibacy upon the clergy; he was 
 a vehement advocate for the doctrine of the corporeal 
 presence in the sacrament, a dogma scarcely heard 
 of in the Anglo-Saxon Church: and lastly, he was 
 by no means scrupulous in the use of that machinery 
 7 
 
74 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 by which superstition loves to maintain its ascen- 
 dency. His mind, however, lofty as it was, was not 
 powerful enough to "rebuke the genius" of his 
 master. The resolute and arbitrary temper of the 
 Conqueror enabled him to stand erect even before the 
 mighty spirit of Hildebrand himself, and to encounter, 
 with a peremptory refusal, the demand of the Pon- 
 tiff, that the monarch of England should do fealty 
 for his kingdom to the see of Rome. It will, there- 
 fore, scarcely be surprising, if Lanfranc found him- 
 self no match for the imperious disposition of his 
 sovereign. Such was his weariness and dejection, 
 under the difficulties which perpetually assailed him, 
 that at last, he complained of his office as a burden 
 too heavy for him to bear, and actually besought the 
 Pope to relieve him from its oppression. 
 
 The gigantic scheme of Gregory VII. for erecting 
 the chair of St. Peter into the throne of Christendom, 
 and making Rome once more the mistress of the 
 world, is sufficiently recorded in the annals of Europe. 
 The march of usurpation was, for a time, diverted 
 from this country, by the inflexible sternness and 
 vigour of the Conqueror, the reckless obstinacy of 
 Rufus,* and the intelligent firmness of Henry Beau- 
 
 We may form some judgment of the stubbornness and hardihood 
 of Rufus, from the following gravamina of Archbishop Anselm, ad- 
 dressed By him to the Pope : " I see in England many evils whose cor- 
 rection belongeth to me, and which I could neither amend, nor suffer 
 without my own fault The King desireth of me that I should consent 
 to his pleasures, which were against the law and will of God. For he 
 would not have the Pope received nor appealed to in England, without his 
 commandment : neither that I should send a letter unto him, or receive 
 any from him, or that I should obey his decrees. He suffered not a 
 council to be kept in his realm now these thirteen years, since he was 
 king. In all these things, and such like, if I asked any counsel, all my 
 suffragan bishops of his realm denied to give me any counsel, but ac- 
 cording to the king's pleasure. After that I saw these and such other 
 things, that are done against the will and law of God, I asked a license 
 of him to go to Rome, unto the see apostolical, that I might there take 
 counsel for my soul, and for the office committed unto me. The king 
 said that I offended against him for the only asking of license ; and pro- 
 pounded to me, that I should either make amends to him for the same. 
 as a tresspass, (assuring him never to ask his license any more to appeal 
 to the Pope at any time hereafter,) or else that I should quickly depart 
 out of his land. Wherefore, choosing rather to go out of the land than 
 
INTRODUCTION. i^^ V5 
 
 elerc. In the mean time, humanity and literature, 
 which had been revived by the influence of Lanfranc, 
 and of Anselm his successor in the primacy, were 
 prosperously expanding themselves beyond the walls 
 of monasteries, and gradually smoothing down the 
 shaggy barbarism of the age. But then came that 
 tornado of desolation, the reign of Stephen, which 
 severely damaged the mounds and bulwarks raised 
 by his predecessors against the tide of encroachment, 
 and left the first of the Plantagenets perilously ex- 
 posed to its assault. The spirit of that active, but 
 restless and irritable prince, was ill-fitted for a con- 
 flict with the self-possessed and inflexible genius of 
 Becket: The subject of controversy between them, 
 was, the total immunity of ecclesiastics from secular 
 jurisdiction ; a portentous privilege, with which the 
 course of events, and the necessities of the times, 
 had gradually invested them. The dispute, however, 
 at last, virtually resolved itself into the question, 
 whether or not the power of the sceptre should bow 
 down before that of the crozier, and the authority of 
 the State be absorbed in that of the Church. The 
 conflict was one which demanded, on the part of the 
 sovereign, an adamantine solidity of character, like 
 that of the first William, instead of the fitful impa- 
 tience, and gusty passion, which unhappily distin- 
 guished his descendant. None but a mind of extra- 
 ordinary strength and grandeur could form a fit an- 
 tagonist for the saint of Canterbury. The struggle 
 
 agree to so wicked a thing, I came to Rome, as you know, and declared 
 the whole matter to the Lord Pope. The king, by and by, (as soon as 
 I went out of England,) invaded the whole archbishopric, and turned it 
 to his own use; taxing the monks only with bare meat, drink, and 
 cloth. The king, being warned and desired of the Lord Pope to amend 
 this, contemned the same, and yet continueth in his purpose still. And 
 now is the third year, since I came thus out of England, and more. 
 Some men, not understanding, demand why I did not excommunicate 
 the kins. But the wiser sort, and such as have understanding, counsel 
 me that I do not this thing, because it belongeth not unto me, "both to com- 
 plain and punish. To conclude I was forewarned by my friends that are 
 under the king, that mine excommunication (if it should be done) would 
 be laughed to scorn and despised." Fox. p. 211. 
 
76 LIFE OF WICLIF, 
 
 would have tasked, to the utmost, the energies of the 
 Conqueror himself; and even, with him, its issue 
 might have been doubtful. The termination of it, 
 in the case of Henry is well known. It brought him, 
 an abject and naked ^penitent, to the tomb of the in* 
 trepid martyr, and it left the public mind in slavish 
 prostration before the throne of the vicegerent of God, 
 
 From this time the grasp of the Papal power be- 
 came continually closer ; and the next century beheld 
 a king of England laying his crown at the feet of the 
 pontifical minister, and binding his realm to the 
 payment of an ignominious tribute. The distractions 
 which followed, contributed, on the whole, to aug- 
 ment the strength, and to swell the arrogance, of the 
 Papal despotism ; for, at each vicissitude of the con- 
 flict, the appeal was addressed to his tribunal, and, 
 of course, helped to confirm the belief, that the chair 
 of St. Peter was the supreme seat of justice and 
 authority on earth. 
 
 The reign of John, and that of Henry the Third, 
 are marked by the indelible infamy of the crusade 
 against the Albigenses, commanded, as we have seen, 
 by our countryman Simon de Montfort. Bigotry and 
 rapine were the furies which prompted this accursed 
 enterprise : and " it differed in nothing, but in name, 
 from the ferocious expeditions of the Northman 
 votaries of Thor and Odin."* By the almost total 
 extirpation of the heretics, the fabric of the Papal 
 dominion was to all appearance immovably consoli- 
 dated. But though their destruction seemed to be 
 complete, many a bleeding remnant of them was 
 dispersed over Europe, to spread in all directions, 
 perhaps the light of a purer faith, but, certainly, a 
 sentiment of unconquerable hatred against the power 
 of Rome ; so that it might almost be said of this 
 prodigy of wickedness, that it was the day-star of 
 the Reformation, although it rose out of the deep 
 
 * Turner, Hist. England. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 77 
 
 with an aspect of blood. There seems to be no doubt 
 that the sympathy excited by the sufferings of these 
 people had extended to this country. Most certain 
 it is, that a spirit of indignant resistance to the Ca- 
 tholic hierarchy began to manifest itself in England 
 about the period of these hateful massacres. From 
 that time the voice of Parliament began to be fre- 
 quently heard, in loud remonstrance against the rapa- 
 city and insolence of the Pontiff; and the cry was 
 sometimes deepened by murmurs of discontent from 
 the English Clergy themselves, who began to feel 
 impatient under the exactions of their master. There 
 was a heaving and a swell upon the surface of things, 
 portending commotions at which Rome might have 
 trembled, had she not glorified herself, in her infatua- 
 tion, and said in her heart, I sit as a Queen, and shall see 
 no sorrow. Even the genius of the scholastic philo- 
 sophy had secretly helped to inflame the spirit of in- 
 surrection. For though it was wretchedly adapted 
 to the purpose of aiding the mind in the discovery of 
 truth, its tendency, unquestionably was, at least, to 
 give activity and independence to the intellect, and 
 to engage it in speculations exceedingly incommodi- 
 ous to irresponsible power and infallible authority. 
 The agitations produced by these various causes will 
 be occasionally adverted to in the folio wing narrative. 
 In the meantime, it would be unpardonable in a 
 biographer of Wiclif to abstain from reminding the 
 present age, of one in whom the spirit of religious 
 freedom and integrity manifested itself with an ener- 
 gy, which was the glory of his age, and which fully 
 entitles him to be regarded as the predecessor of 
 our Reformer. The person I allude to, is Grostete, 
 the ever memorable Bishop of Lincoln. 
 
 It appears that this eminent man was master of 
 all the learning and science which was then to be 
 had, confused and inaccurate as it was. His attain- 
 ments were such as to confer upon him, for a time, 
 the dangerous renown of a magician, and, ultimately, 
 7* 
 
78 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 to elevate him to the see of Lincoln. He was ad- 
 vanced to this dignity in 1235, when he was about 
 fifty years of age ; and even at that mature period of 
 his life he seems to have been an ardent admirer of 
 the mendicant preachers. His esteem for them had 
 been contracted at the University of Oxford probably 
 before they had manifested any symptoms of their 
 subsequent degeneracy. When he was raised to his 
 bishopric, the ignorance and dissoluteness of many of 
 his clergy still impelled him to encourage the labours 
 X)f these fraternities, to the grievous disparagement 
 and discontent of the parochial incumbents. In this, 
 as in every thing he undertook, he was somewhat 
 fervid and impetuous ; but he lived long enough to 
 repent of his generous confidence in the sanctity and 
 ,disinterestedness of these Papal auxiliaries. In 1247 
 an incident occurred, which must have awakened his 
 suspicions, (if they were still sleeping) respecting 
 the spiritual usefulness and efficacy of the new orders. 
 Two Franciscans were dispatched to England, armed 
 with a formidable apparatus of credentials, for the 
 extortion of money on behalf of the Pontiff. Six 
 thousand marks (probably full 50,OOOZ. of our pre- 
 sent money) was the moderate sum demanded from 
 die clergy of the diocese of Lincoln ! The enormity 
 .of the impost, and the pompous insolence of the exacj- 
 tors, filled the honest prelate with indignation and 
 amazement. He told the friars, to their faces, that 
 it was dishonourable and impracticable ; and posi- 
 tively refused to entertain it for an instant, until the 
 sense of the nation should be taken upon its lawful?- 
 ness. Notwithstanding this intrepid repulse of the 
 mendicants, he succeeded, the next year, in obtaining 
 from Innocent IV. authority to reform the religious 
 .orders in his diocese. The letters which conferred 
 this power on him, like all other instruments from 
 Rome, were inordinately costly ; and the event shows 
 that their price was the chief motive which recon- 
 ciled .the Pontiff to s,uch an appearance of concession. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 79 
 
 111 pursuance of this commission, the bishop deter- 
 mined to take into his own custody the rents of the 
 religious houses, in order that he might appropriate 
 to the services of piety, the wealth which had hi- 
 therto been wasted in luxury and pomp. This pro- 
 ceeding immediately produced an equally profitable 
 appeal to the Holy See ; and the result was, that 
 G rostete, though an aged man, was compelled to an- 
 swer it in person, and, for that purpose, to undergo 
 the toil and the expense of a journey to Lyons, then 
 the residence of the Pope. The decision, as might 
 be expected, was adverse to the reforming bishop. 
 It, however, overwhelmed his unsuspecting nature 
 with consternation ; and he openly remonstrated 
 with the Pontiff on his duplicity. His astonishment 
 must have been deepened by the reply of Innocent to 
 his expostulations. " What concern is this of yours ?" 
 said he. " You have delivered your own soul; and 
 / have done my pleasure, in showing favour to the 
 monks. Is your eye evil because I am good ?" On this 
 eruption of shameless and almost profane effrontery, 
 Grostete was overheard to mutter " money, mo- 
 ney, how vast is thy power every where how irre- 
 sistible at Rome !" The words reached the ears of 
 the Pope ; but they only produced a burst of invec- 
 tive, in which he charged the English with a merci- 
 less propensity to grind and impoverish each other, 
 and accused the Bishop himself of a tyrannical and 
 rapacious design upon the property of pious and hos- 
 pitable men ! This language, from the most noto- 
 rious plunderer in Europe, nearly reduced the bishop 
 to despair. He was, nevertheless, resolved to leave 
 .behind him his testimony against these iniquities; 
 which he accordingly did, by delivering to the Pope, 
 jand two of his Cardinals, copies of a long protest 
 against the flagitious practices of the Pontifical court. 
 The issue of this disastrous adventure almost drove 
 him to the resignation of his crozier ; and he was 
 withheld from the execution of his purpose only by 
 
80 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the recollection, that, to vacate his see, might only be 
 to expose it to a speedier inroad of rapine and abuse. 
 From this time, he accordingly devoted himself 
 more zealously than ever to his episcopal duties ; ia 
 the discharge of which, he was, no doubt, perpetually 
 invigorated by the indignant recollection of his visit 
 to the Pope. In 1253 the Pontiff put his courage to 
 the proof; by a scandalous exercise of the Papal pre- 
 rogative of provision. He addressed a mandate to 
 the bishop, enjoining him to collate an Italian youth, 
 the nephew of Innocent, to the first vacant canonry 
 in the Cathedral of Lincoln : and he accompanied his 
 injunction with a menace, that excommunication 
 should be the penalty of disobedience. At the same 
 time, he wrote to nis Italian agents in England, 
 charging them to ensure the execution of his orders, 
 under the capacious protection of the non obstante 
 clause, which bowed down all existing usages and 
 canons beneath the feet of the existing Pope. The 
 answer of Grostete, of which the following is the sub- 
 stance, would alone be sufficient to immortalize him. 
 He begins by declaring his entire readiness to obey 
 all Apostolical commands with reverent and filial de- 
 votion : but adds, that, out of pure zeal for the pater- 
 nal honours of his Holiness, he was, likewise, pre- 
 pared to resist every thing which might be in opposi- 
 tion to the Apostolical precepts. Now, of all the 
 detestable violations of those precepts, none could 
 possibly be worse, than to deprive the souls of Chris- 
 tian men of the blessings of pastoral ministration : 
 and it was manifestly impossible that the Apostolic 
 See (to whom all power was given, not for destruc- 
 tion, but for edification) should command or attempt 
 any thing which might have a tendency so execrable, 
 so abominable, and so pernicious to the human race. 
 For this reason it was, that he found himself under 
 the necessity of most filially and obediently disobeying 
 and resisting the requisitions, contained in the letters 
 which had recently been addressed to him : and, ia 
 
INTRODUCTION. 81 
 
 so doing, he conceived himself to he very far from 
 the guilt of rebellion. On the contrary, in this very 
 act of resistance, he was hut rendering precisely that 
 measure of filial reverence and honour, which was 
 righteously due from him to the Apostolic father.* 
 The letter of Grostete, however, did by no means 
 reconcile Innocent to this sort of dutiful disobedience. 
 He burst out into violent fury, and swore by Peter 
 and by Paul, that he was well-nigh resolved to make 
 this delirious old man an example and an astonish- 
 ment to the world. Is not the king of England he 
 exclaimed my vassal, or rather, my bond-slave? 
 and could I not, by a single word to him, consign this 
 doting priest in a moment to imprisonment and 
 infamy ? And from this paroxysm the Pontiff was 
 scarcely recalled by the remonstrances of his Cardi- 
 nals, who were sensible of the danger of proceeding 
 to extremities against a man of G-rosteie's reputation 
 for piety and learning. 
 
 The wrath of the Pontiff, however, was fiercer 
 than the words of his wise men. The sentence of 
 excommunication went forth against the rebellious 
 prelate : and the result was fearfully ominous to the 
 majesty of Rome. The thunderbolt fell harmless at 
 the feet of the recusant; and Grostete continued, to 
 the end of his days, in quiet possession of his dignity. 
 Those days, indeed, were then numbered. At the 
 end of the same year, he was seized with the disorder 
 which terminated all his conflicts and perturbations : 
 and, next to the prospects of a better world, his chief 
 consolation was, to pour out his sorrows into the 
 hearts of his confidential chaplains. His last con- 
 versations show that his spiritual vision was enlight- 
 ened to perceive, that the whole scheme of the Papal 
 government was enmity with God. His eyes were, 
 then at least, widely open to the frightful mischief of 
 the Mendicant institution ; and he bitterly deplored 
 
 * The whole of the letter is in Matthew Paris, Anno 1253, p. 749, 750, 
 
82 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 that the devotees of poverty should be converted into 
 the publicans and extortioners of the Pope, and that 
 the vilest secular passions should lurk beneath the 
 garb of humility and indigence. But the burden of 
 his lamentations was, the positively Anti- Christian 
 character of the Romish hierarchy; for, by what 
 other name, he asked, but that of Anti-Christ, are we 
 to designate a power that labours to destroy the souls 
 which Christ came to save and to redeem ? At last 
 the spirit of prophecy seemed to burst upon him, and 
 he exclaimed, that nothing but the edge of the sword 
 could deliver the Church from this Egyptian Oct. 9. 
 bondage. In the midst of his lamentations 1353. 
 his voice failed him; and, soon after he expired. His 
 best encomium is the exultation of Innocent, who, 
 on hearing of his death, exclaimed, "I rejoice, and 
 let every true son of the Church rejoice with me, that 
 my great enemy is removed." 
 
 The position taken up by this illustrious Christian 
 against the Papal perversions was not, it -will be 
 observed, upon purely doctrinal grounds. His vene- 
 ration for the Apostolic chair was deep and fervent, 
 more especially in the earlier period of his life. His 
 complaint was, that the seat of unity and of truth 
 should be usurped by a spirit, which was, practically, 
 adverse to the truth, and which converted Christian 
 unity into a uniformity of servitude. His extant 
 writings, however, are sufficient to satisfy us that the 
 seeds of genuine protestantism were in his heart. 
 Thus much appears to be confessed by a recent his- 
 torian of the Church ; who yet is unwilling to allow 
 that he was in possession of the only secret which 
 can invest a Christian with the peace that passeth 
 understanding. I profess myself unable, distinctly, 
 to comprehend the views of this writer respecting the 
 faith of Grostete. He tells us that, "like many of 
 the best divines of those days, this Bishop knew not 
 the just nature of the Christian article of justification 
 by Jesus Christ the righteous :" and yet, within a 
 
INTRODUCTION. 83 
 
 few lines, he adds, that " dependence on God, as a 
 reconciled Father in Christ Jesus, was his grand prac- 
 tical principle."* But without stopping to reconcile 
 these statements, we may, at the very least, confi- 
 dently regard this extraordinary man as a noble 
 representative of all the intelligence and piety which, 
 in those days, began to array themselves against the 
 abuses of spiritual power. His praise is written in 
 the pages of an honest monk, who, though supersti- 
 tious in his devotion to the Romish supremacy, has 
 not scrupled to describe the holy Bishop of Lincoln 
 as " the open rebuker of the King and the Pope, the 
 reprover of prelates, the corrector of monks, the 
 director of presbyters, the instructor of the clergy, 
 the supporter of scholars, the preacher to the people, 
 the prosecutor of the dissolute, the diligent searcher 
 of the Scriptures,! and the hammer of the Romanists, 
 who were objects of his contempt." And, in another 
 place, he observes that the harshest measures of the 
 Bishop against the religious houses were, probably, 
 dictated by a regard to the welfare of the souls com- 
 mitted to his charge. It further appears that his 
 religion, though profound, was far from repulsive and 
 morose. " His hospitable board was graced by libe- 
 rality and abundance, by cheerfulness and affability. 
 His spiritual table was 'furnished forth' with the 
 stores of fervent devotion, and contrition even to tears. 
 In his exercise of the episcopal office he was venera- 
 ble, laborious, and unAvearied."| 
 
 It is truly remarkable that the obsequies of Grostete 
 were respectfully attended, not only by the secular, 
 but even by the regular clergy of his diocese. It is 
 still more remarkable, that after the manner of those 
 times, his memory has been honoured by legendary 
 
 * Milner's Church History, vol. iv. p. 60, 61. 
 
 t " Scripturarum diver sarum, " are the words of Matthew Paris, p. 
 754, intimating, most probably, that the Bishop had examined the whole 
 range ot'tlie Scriptures ; a rare commendation in those days. 
 
 j Matthew Palis, p. 754. 
 
84 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 prodigies, such as are usually produced to attest the 
 sanctity of the faithful champions of the Church. It 
 is gravely related by Matthew Paris, that the Bishop 
 of London, then in the neighbourhood of the episco- 
 pal palace of Buckden, was suddenly surprised by a 
 strain of ravishing melody, which however, was un- 
 heard by his attendants ; and that the time at which 
 this celestial music saluted him, turned out, on in- 
 quiry, to be the precise hour of the decease of his 
 brother of Lincoln. He also informs us, that about 
 the same hour, certain Minorite friars, who were 
 wandering in the neighbourhood, and had lost their 
 way, were astonished by the solemn chime of bells, 
 so clear and distinct, that, when the morning came, 
 they eagerly inquired the occasion of it. Nothing 
 of the kind had been heard in the neighbourhood; 
 but, on their arrival at Buckden, it appeared that, at 
 that very time, the Bishop was breathing his last.* 
 
 But it would have required an army of men like 
 Grostete to retard the accumulation of Papal abuse, 
 during a long and feeble reign like that of Henry III. 
 The vigour of Henry's successor, Edward I., was dis- 
 played in harassing and insulting his clergy, by the 
 most arbitrary exactions; which he carried into ef- 
 fect, in defiance of the bull of Boniface VIII., forbid- 
 ding any contribution of the Church to the necessi- 
 ties of the State without his express permission. His 
 measures, therefore, would naturally produce any 
 
 * In addition to these wonders, a great posthumous exploit has been 
 ascribed to Grostete. It is said that Innocent IV. was meditating an order 
 to the king of England for disinterring the accursed remains of his inve- 
 terate adversary : but that the Bishop appeared to him by night, in his 
 full episcopal habit, and with a terrific countenance and menacing voice, 
 rebuked the Pontiff for his vindictive and most unchristian design. And 
 not content with this, he inflicted with his staff so heavy a blow upon his 
 side, that his Holiness roared with anguish, and never recovered from 
 the effects of the chastisement. These stories are, of course, about as 
 valuable as other coin of the same mintage. They are, however, not 
 altogether worthless for our purpose. They prove, at least, that, in that 
 age, an intrepid resistance to Romish profligacy was not sufficient to forfeit 
 the veneration even of monks : and the last of them, perhaps, may show 
 the terrors which integrity and courage could inflict upon the conscience 
 of an unprincipled tyrant. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 85 
 
 effect, rather than that of encouraging, among eccle- 
 siastics, a spirit of disaffection to the Roman see. 
 And it is worthy of observation, that, distinguished 
 as he was for energy and wisdom, he never could 
 summon fortitude enough to discontinue the shame- 
 ful tribute, which had been imposed by John, and 
 which, during the whole time of Henry III., had been 
 remitted to Rome with infamous punctuality. The 
 miserable reign of Edward II. is almost a nullity in 
 the history of the Church ; and it was not until the 
 days of Edward III., that this badge of vassalage was 
 shaken off, and legislative provision made against the 
 systematic encroachments of the Papacy. We are 
 now approaching to the days of Wiclif ; but before his 
 introduction, it will be necessary to detain the read- 
 er, for a moment, in order to present to his attention 
 the two illustrious names of Bradwardine and Fitz- 
 ralph; the latter of whom was an object of the deep- 
 est veneration with our Reformer. 
 
 Bradwardine was one of those humble and con- 
 templative spirits, whose lives exhibit to a corrupt 
 World an image of almost celestial serenity and 
 peace. It is true that he acted as confessor and con- 
 fidential chaplain to Edward, in his warlike expedi- 
 tions. But it is also true that, in this office, he 
 laboured, faithfully and nobly, to mitigate, by the 
 precepts of the Gospel, the atrocities of 
 
 Contumelious, beastly, mad-brained war : 
 
 and the most glorious testimony to his services is to 
 be found in the professed belief of some writers of the 
 period in question, that the signal victories of the 
 chivalrous king are to be ascribed, rather to the vir- 
 tue and sanctity of his chaplain, than to the gallantry 
 or genius either of the monarch or his captains. It 
 is further most honourable to his memory, that he 
 had the courage to oppose the mild genius of the Gos- 
 pel to the martial impetuosity of his royal master, 
 and to remind him, in the flush of victory, that 
 
86 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 " cursed is he who maketh flesh his aim, and whose 
 heart departeth from the Lord." Equally honoura- 
 ble it was to the monarch himself, that his venera- 
 tion and attachment were only strengthened by the 
 holy freedom and faithfulness of his chaplain. When 
 the primacy became vacant, the monks of Canter- 
 bury chose Bradwardine as archbishop : but Edward 
 was unable to part with his spiritual counsellor; 
 and, for this reason only, refused to confirm their 
 election. On a second vacancy, their choice again 
 fell upon him, and then the king acquiesced. Brad- 
 wardine, accordingly, travelled to Avignon, for the 
 purpose of obtaining the Papal consecration to his 
 office ; and there, the extreme simplicity of his ap- 
 pearance and deportment exposed him to the derision 
 of that frivolous and worldly court, and provoked an 
 act of unmannerly and heartless insultr One Car- 
 dinal Hugh, a nephew of the Pontiff, imagined that 
 he should amuse and gratify the servile crowd, by 
 introducing into the hall a person, habited like a 
 peasant, and seated on an ass, with a petition to the 
 Pope that he would be pleased to appoint him to the 
 see of Canterbury. But, on this occasion, it is pleas- 
 ing to observe, that sanctity and innocence, were 
 triumphant in the very haunts of profligacy and folly. 
 It was felt, even there, that a man like Bradwardine, 
 was immeasurably beyond the reach of vulgar inso- 
 lence and levity. The Pope and his Cardinals, to 
 their credit be it spoken, resented the indignity offered 
 to this eminent churchman; and the miserable jest 
 brought confusion only on the head of its contriver. 
 Bradwardine was consecrated at Lambeth, in 1349 : 
 but yet he can scarcely be numbered on the catalogue 
 of our prelates ; for no sooner was he seated in his 
 dignity, than he was removed, as we may humbly 
 presume, to that blessedness, of which his walk on 
 earth was, to all appearance, one continued antepast, 
 He expired only seven days after his consecration ; 
 and he is now known to us, not as the primate of 
 
INTRODUCTION. 87 
 
 England, but as the champion of " the cause of God 
 against Pelagius." The error of that heresiarch, was 
 undoubtedly, most perilous : for it denied that there 
 is in our nature, " an original taint, an innate and 
 congenital disease, to the existence of which, the 
 heart of every one, who dares look into his own, 
 bears an unwilling, but unerring, testimony." His 
 dread of this perversion, may have impelled Brad- 
 wardine to too close an agreement with the great 
 adversary of Pelagius. But, notwithstanding this, it 
 still is undeniable that he was one of those, who, in 
 times of gross spiritual ignorance, walked and re- 
 joiced in a light, which the surrounding darkness 
 was unable to comprehend. 
 
 From the accounts which have been preserved to 
 us of this extraordinary man, it would appear, that 
 his genius naturally prompted him to the pursuit of 
 severe and exact science. His proficiency in the 
 scholastic learning, procured him the title of the 
 Profound Doctor ; but in addition to this, his mathe- 
 matical attainments were of the highest order, for 
 the age in which he lived. His works on geometry 
 and arithmetic are in print ; and he compiled astro- 
 nomical tables, which have never been published, but 
 which were possessed, in manuscript, by his biogra- 
 pher Sir Henry Saville. The discipline which his 
 intellect underwent in the prosecution of these stu- 
 dies, strongly manifests itself in his theological 
 writings. His great work against Pelagianism, is 
 described to us " one regular connected series of 
 reasoning, from principles or conclusions demon- 
 strated before ;" and if ever he fails in the process 
 of strict demonstration, the defect is rather to be as- 
 cribed to the nature of the subject, than to the remiss- 
 ness or incapacity of the author. But the most ad- 
 mirable peculiarity of his mind is this, that his 
 habitual rigour of inquiry, never appears to have 
 impaired the humility of his temper, or the warmth 
 of his affections. His heart seems to have been, 
 
88 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 throughout, quite as vividly at work, as his under- 
 standing. Thoroughly furnished, as he was, with 
 all the mental accomplishments of his age, every 
 thought of his was evidently brought into captivity to 
 the wisdom and righteousness of God. It is matter 
 of unspeakable refreshment and edification to hear 
 the profound geometer and schoolman of the four- 
 teenth century, expressing his grateful devotion to 
 the Father of mercies, in such words as these: 
 " How intense and how unbounded is Thy love to 
 me, O Lord! Whereas, my love, how feeble and 
 remiss ! my gratitude, how cold and how inconstant ! 
 Far be it from Thee that Thy love should resemble 
 mine ! O Thou, who fillest heaven and earth, why 
 
 fillest Thou not this narrow heart ? Most 
 
 gracious Lord, by Thy love Thou has prevented me, 
 wretch that I am, who had no love for Thee, but 
 was at enmity with my Maker and Redeemer. I 
 see, Lord, that it is easy to say and write these things, 
 but very difficult to execute them. Do Thou, there- 
 fore, to whom nothing is difficult, grant that I may 
 more easily practise these things with my heart, 
 
 than utter them with my lips Thou, who 
 
 preventest Thy servants with Thy gracious love, 
 whom dost Thou not elevate with the hope of finding 
 Thee ? And what canst Thou deny to him who 
 loves Thee, who is in need, and who supplicates 
 Thine aid ? Suffer me, I pray, to reason with Thy 
 majestic goodness, that my hope may be enlarged. 
 It is not the manner, even of human friendship, to 
 r elect a needy friend, especially when the ability to 
 relieve is abundant." 
 
 It has already been intimated that his theology, in 
 a great measure, derived its complexion from the 
 spirit of Augustine, the mighty antagonist of Pela- 
 gius. But well would it have been for the Christian 
 world, if all the followers of Augustine had imbibed 
 from his writings a temper as meek and humble as 
 that of Bradwardine ! A predestinarian, in theory, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 89 
 
 he undoubtedly was. But what was the practical 
 efficacy of this ingredient in his divinity ? We may 
 read the answer to this question in the following 
 words : " Why do we fear to preach the doctrine of 
 predestination of saints, and of the genuine grace 
 of God ? Is there any cause to dread, lest man 
 should be induced to despair of his condition, when 
 his hope is demonstrated to be founded on God alone? 
 Is there not much stronger reason for him to despair, 
 if, in pride and unbelief, he founds his hope of salva- 
 tion on himself?" Whatever may be the merits of 
 the predestinarian doctrine, as tried by the princi- 
 ples of sound philosophy, or by the language of 
 Scripture, one thing, at least, is certain, that the 
 Church might regard it with comparative tranquillity, 
 if its fruits had always been as mildly flavoured, as 
 those which it produced in the good and honest heart 
 of this holy man ! Uncharitable austerity, and spi- 
 ritual arrogance, are the plants which are apt to 
 thrive in the soil of what is now called Calvinism. 
 But this was a growth which could not live in the 
 soul of such a being as Bradwardine. 
 
 As an adversary of Pelagius, he denounced the 
 freedom of the human will ; but it is obvious, after 
 aP, that his warfare, in reality, is not against the 
 perfect free agency, but against the self-sufficiency, 
 of man. It was much the fashion of that age to 
 question the necessity of a preventive grace. The 
 spiritual influences of God, it was imagined, were to 
 be earned by works positively meritorious, or by tem- 
 pers and dispositions, which might duly render the 
 man an object of Divine favour ; so that our nature 
 might, either be invested, as it were, with a strict 
 legal title to the benefit ;' or, if not, at least, with a 
 sort of equitable claim to it, which the bountiful 
 goodness of the Deity would by no means resist. 
 Ibondignity was the term invented by the schools to 
 indicate the higher of these two moral conditions ; 
 the lower was denoted by the word congruity. In the 
 
90 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 one case, the man is actually worthy of the grace of 
 God ; in the other, he is fitly prepared for its reception. 
 These fancies were, both of them, repudiated and 
 condemned by Bradwardine ; as they are, at this day, 
 by our own Church. According to our theology, the 
 fittest preparation for the influences of the Spirit of 
 holiness, is a contrite acknowledgment of our own 
 umvorthincss. " The meritorious dignity of doing 
 well, we utterly renounce ;"* for it invests man with 
 the right to bargain with his Maker. The notion of 
 congruity we, as decidedly, reject ; for, as Bradwar- 
 dine observes, it represents the Holy One as disposing 
 of his favours for a cheap and vile consideration. 
 And the practical result is, that, on the one hand, we 
 are to labour for the grace of God as urgently as if 
 our own deeds could purchase or procure it : and, on 
 the other, to acknowledge that our enjoyment of the 
 gift, yea, and our power to labour for it, are solely to 
 be ascribed to his gratuitous mercy. 
 
 Bradwardine, like many other pious and admirable 
 Catholics, is an illustrious instance, to show that ge 
 nuine scriptural religion might grow up, unmolested, 
 in the bosom of the Romish Church, even in the sea- 
 son of its deepest corruption. Devout and thought- 
 ful scholars, like him, were not the men whorn, 
 the Papal Church either feared or hated. The genius 
 of ardent inquiry gave no uneasiness to her, so long 
 as it was confined in the imprisonment of ponderous 
 tomes. But if ever the mystic vessel that contained 
 it was unsealed, so that the captive spirit could go 
 forth, and freely embody itself before the eyes of 
 the whole world, alarm and displeasure were instantly 
 spread throughout her ranks ; and the most direful 
 spells were instantly employed to conjure back the 
 restless power to its confinement. The terrors or 
 the glories of martyrdom were reserved for men who 
 stepped out of their cloistered retirement, to " the 
 
 Hooker. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 91 
 
 dust and heat " of an open conflict against the adver- 
 sary of man's improvement ; and of this stamp, un- 
 doubtedly, was Richard Fitzralph. This eminent 
 -confessor was bred at Oxford, and was promoted by 
 Edward III. to the archbishopric of Armagh. His 
 residence in the University had given him abundant 
 opportunities of observing the mischief and confusion 
 occasioned by the predominance of the Mendicant 
 orders. These fraternities had been called into ex- 
 istence more than a century before. It had been 
 perceived by the court of Rome that both the monk- 
 ish and secular clergy had, in a great measure, lost 
 ithe confidence of the people, and that a new institu- 
 tion would be needful for the preservation of her own 
 influence and dominion. We shall have occasion to 
 advert hereafter, somewhat more particularly, to the 
 /ise, the progress, and the degeneracy of the Mendi- 
 ^ants. At present, it may be sufficient to observe, 
 tfhat the indignation of Richard Fitzralph was deeply 
 rmoyed by the calamitous effects of their influence 
 on the University of Oxford. Not content with a 
 pertinacious intrusion into academic offices, their 
 restless and usurping spirit invaded the peace of 
 private families. They spared no pains to seduce 
 into their own ranks the most promising students ; 
 and such was their success, that parents at last be- 
 came fearful of sending their sons to the Universities, 
 lest they should, eventually, be consigned to a life of 
 wandering beggary. The consequence of this alarm 
 was, that within the recollection of Fitzralph him- 
 self, the number of students had been reduced from 
 30,000 to 6,000. He was, accordingly, prepared for 
 any opportunity of helping to suppress this enormous 
 evil : and being accidentally in London at a time when 
 the encroachments of these orders had roused the 
 opposition of the clergy of that city, he engaged in the 
 conflict against them with so much cordiality and 
 vigour, that he was summoned by them to answer 
 their appeal at Avignon. On this occasion his for- 
 
92 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 titude did not desert him. To the very face of Inno- 
 cent VI. and his assembled Cardinals, he maintained 
 boldly, and at great length, his conclusions against 
 the friars : and, among other things, he charged them 
 with hearing the confessions of professed nuns, 
 without the license of their superiors, and of mar- 
 ried women without the knowledge of their husbands. 
 From this period, the remainder of his life appears 
 to have been a constant scene of hardship and dan- 
 ger ; and, if we are to give implicit credit to old Fox, 
 Providence was incessantly, and often miraculously, 
 at work for his deliverance. His persecutors repeat- 
 edly met him in the open streets, in broad day-light, 
 and yet they had no eyes to see him, or no hands to 
 apprehend him. He tell frequently among thieves, 
 but the money he lost was always restored to him 
 again, by portions, in time of his necessity and famine. 
 The sea-ports were often filled with officers who were 
 instructed to lie in wait for him ; and yet their acti- 
 vity and watchfulness were in vain. But by far the 
 most important of his deliverances was that, by which 
 he had been extricated from " the profound vanities of 
 Aristotle's subtilty, and brought to the study of the 
 Scriptures of God." The above account is given us 
 by the martyrologist, as derived from a certain manu- 
 script prayer or confession of Fitzralph's, in which 
 the whole history of his life is described. The true 
 version of it evidently is, that his latter days were 
 grievously imbittered by persecution, but that if his 
 enemies sought his life, their malice was defeated. 
 After passing seven or eight years in painful and 
 dangerous exile, he expired at Avignon; and was 
 honoured, in his death, by the acknowledgment of a 
 certain Cardinal, that, on that day, a mighty pillar of 
 Christ's Church was fallen. 
 
 This is the substance of what is known respecting 
 Archbishop Fitzralph. Of the general complexion of 
 his religious feelings and opinions we may safely 
 judge from the opening words of the prayer or con- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 93 
 
 fession above alluded to, and which have been pre- 
 served to us by Fox, in the original Latin : " To 
 Thee be praise, glory, and thanksgiving, Jesus 
 most holy, most powerful, most precious ; Thou who 
 hast said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. A way 
 without error, truth without a cloud, and life without 
 end. For Thou Thyself hast shown me the way 
 Thou Thyself hast taught me the truth and Thou 
 Thyself hast promised me the life. Thou wast my 
 way in exile my truth in counsel and Thou wilt 
 be my life in reward."* Years of anxiety and ban- 
 ishment, as we have seen were the earthly recom- 
 pense of this holy prelate : but we may reasonably 
 presume that, to the last, he persevered inflexibly in 
 the way, with unshaken constancy defended the truth, 
 and with pious hope looked onward to the life ! 
 
 Enough has been said to show that the genuine 
 spirit of Christianity was by no means extinct in our 
 land, even in those seasons when the signs of anima- 
 tion were the most languid. The breath and the 
 pulse of life were still to be discerned. Though the 
 whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint, the 
 vitals were not fatally invaded. There was clearly 
 hope for those who would devote themselves, in the 
 spirit of love and faith, to the office of rekindling the 
 spark, and causing the heart to beat once more with 
 a vigorous and healthy movement. It must, how- 
 ever, be confessed, that the task was one which re- 
 quired an almost superhuman combination of activity 
 and skill. For the misfortune was, that the truth 
 had, for the most part, retired to the strong holds of 
 religious and contemplative retirement : and its action 
 there was scarcely powerful enough to keep up the 
 moral circulation throughout the social mass, and to 
 preserve its extremities from all the symptoms of a 
 mortal decay. There is little reason to believe that 
 the lower classes, or even the middling orders, (if 
 
 Fox, 464-472. 
 
94 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 any such orders could then be said to exist,) had the 
 means of coming even to a partial knowledge of the 
 truth as it is in Jesus. One dubious pre-eminence 
 our country, indeed, seems to have enjoyed for several 
 centuries. She was singularly exempt from the sus- 
 picion of heresy, and is occasionally complimented 
 by the Pontiffs for the distinguished purity of her 
 faith. In the reign of Henry the Second, it is true, 
 a small band of foreigners, not more than thirty in 
 number, had settled in England, and had brought 
 with them various strange and extravagant opinions, 
 such as the rejection of the sacraments, and of the 
 ordinance of matrimony. They are supposed to have 
 belonged to the sect, known by the name of Cathari, 
 which was then numerous and active in the north of 
 Italy, and in Germany. Their leader was one Ge- 
 rard; and if their object was to disseminate their 
 doctrines, their success assuredly was such, as to 
 justify the commendations bestowed by the Popes on 
 the inaptitude of our country for the entertainment 
 of heretical notions. The only fruit of their mission- 
 ary labours was one solitary female, who abjured her 
 new profession as soon as it became dangerous. The 
 demeanour of these people was inoffensive, and their 
 personal habits blameless. But their opinions soon 
 became notorious, and exposed them to the severity 
 of ecclesiastical discipline. By the authority of the 
 king they were summoned before a synod of bishops. 
 To arguments they replied, that their duty was to be- 
 lieve and not to dispute ; to menaces, that our Lord 
 had said, " Blessed are they which are persecuted for 
 righteousness' sake." The judges, wearied out, as 
 Br. Lingard informs us, by their obstinacy* consigned 
 them over to the secular arm, by which they were 
 branded on the forehead, stripped to the waist, and 
 whipped through the city of Oxford, where the synod 
 was held. According to one account they were 
 
 * Ling. ii. 42tt 
 
INTRODUCTION. 95 
 
 turned out to perish miserably, in utter destitution of 
 raiment, shelter, or sustenance ! These, we are told, 
 were the first heretics ever seen in England, since the 
 Saxon invasion. The second, and, so far as we are 
 informed, the last adventure of the same kind, occur- 
 red in the reign of John, when certain sectaries, by 
 the name of Albigenses, arrived in this country, some 
 of whom, as Knighton* concisely informs us, were 
 burned alive. 
 
 Either by these merciless severities, or by other 
 causes the realm of England seems to have been 
 nearly separated from all communion with that 
 restless spirit of innovation, which had long been 
 wandering over the European continent. But the 
 absence of fanaticism was but a poor compensation 
 for the want of every thing like sound religious in- 
 struction. Many bright examples may, doubtless, be 
 found in our ecclesiastical annals, of sincere devotion, 
 extensive learning, and fervid zeal, among the pre- 
 lates and clergy of th'at age. But, had all our pri- 
 mates and bishops, during the period in question,, 
 combined the vigour and activity of Grostete with 
 the enlightened piety of Bradwardine, it is doubtful 
 whether they could have sent forth an influence 
 powerful enough to reach the general mass of the 
 population. A dreary gulf was fixed between the 
 lordly barons, and their degraded vassals. Hopeless 
 degradation appears to have been the inheritance of 
 the peasantry; and nothing but the charity which 
 is strong as death, could be sufficient to encounter the 
 resistance of their obdurate ignorance, and almost 
 desperate wretchedness. It was even questioned, in 
 those times, whether a villain could be admitted into 
 heaven ; and nothing, most certainly, could be better 
 adapted to render him unfit for such admission, than 
 the prevalence of so brutalizing a suspicion. That 
 
 * Knighton, 2418. No mention of this fact is to be found in Matthew 
 Paris, who, nevertheless, gives a hideous picture of the impiety of the 
 Albigenses. Anno, 1213. 
 
96 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the generality of the priesthood, whether monastic or 
 secular, were utterly unfit for the office of preparing 
 their people for the hour of death, or the day of judg- 
 ment, is beyond all question. Towards the end of 
 the thirteenth century, Archbishop Peckham vehe- 
 mently denounces the " ignorance, folly, and gross- 
 ness" of the clergy. He complains, that those places 
 which most urgently needed instruction, were never 
 so much as visited ; so that the words of the prophet 
 were calamitously verified the children asked for 
 bread, and there was none to break it unto them: the 
 poor and destitute cried for water p , and their tongue was 
 parched up. In order to remedy this crying scandal, 
 ne commanded that each parochial clergyman should 
 preach to his people, either by himself or a substitute,, 
 once, at least, in every quarter of a year ; and should 
 expound to them in a popular manner, " without any; 
 fantastic texture of subtility," the fourteen articles 01 
 faith, the ten commandments, the twofold precept of 
 love to God and our neighbour, the seven works of 
 charity, the seven capital sins with their progeny? 
 the seven principal virtues, and the seven sacraments 
 of grace. And lest the clergy should convert their 
 own ignorance into a dispensation from this order,, 
 he adds a variety of instructions for the proper dis- 
 charge of the duty enjoined, which convey, of them^ 
 selves, a bitter rebuke to the incompetency of the 
 spiritual guides.* All this while, the people were left 
 not only without the Scriptures, but almost without 
 devotional helps of any kind, in any degree adapted 
 to their wants. What benefit could they derive from 
 the volumes of Anselm, or of Grostete ? How were 
 
 * Constitutions Johannis Peckham Archiep. Cantuar. Wilk. Cone. vol. 
 ii. p. 54 56. There is something curious in the Archbishop's instruc- 
 tions relative to extreme unction. He recommends that this sacrament 
 should be administered even to those who may be labouring under 
 phrensy, or any sort of mental alienation, provided that the party had, 
 before his seizure, expressed any concern for his salvation; having, as 
 he tells us, found from experience, that the receiving of this rile would 
 either procure the sufferer a lucid interval) or at least be, in some way, 
 instrumental to his spiritual benefit. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 97 
 
 their spiritual thirst and famine to be relieved by- 
 Archbishop Edmund's Speculum Ecclesia, or Brad- 
 wardine's assault upon the heresy of Pelagius ? The 
 earlier part of the fourteenth century, indeed, was me- 
 morable for the spirit with which the English lan- 
 guage began to be cultivated. Such of the clergy as had 
 leisure or taste for the occupation, frequently addicted 
 themselves to poetry, and occasionally infused into 
 their compositions much of a serious and devotional 
 character. Among these, Rolle, the hermit of Ham- 
 pole, has earned for himself an honourable name; 
 and he still more amply merited the gratitude of his 
 countrymen by translating the psalms and hymns of 
 the Church into English prose, and by adding a com- 
 mentary to each verse. Various other portions of 
 the Scriptures appear to have been, from time to 
 time, translated by intelligent and pious clergymen, 
 for the use of their respective congregations : but, on 
 the whole, it is quite indisputable, that in the four- 
 teenth century, nothing had been done of sufficient 
 efficacy to make any considerable impression on the 
 gross spiritual ignorance of the British population. 
 
 The case, therefore, as regards the religious condi- 
 tion of the people of England, at the time of Wiclif 's 
 appearance, seems to have been simply this. The 
 license of opinion, which had spread itself over many 
 parts of Christendom, had scarcely approached them. 
 They were, almost wholly, untainted with any doc- 
 trinal heresy,* and little in the habit of opposing the 
 
 * This statement is, of course, not to be taken in its utmost latitude. 
 Heretical opinions would, doubtless, be occasionally creeping in. For 
 instance, we find that a synod was held at London by Archbishop Peck- 
 ham, in 1286, for the purpose of condemning certain articles, which had 
 recently been maintained in the province of Canterbury, relative to the 
 sacramental mystery. The positions in question, however, were not of 
 a nature which was very likely to recommend them much to the public 
 attention. They involved several questions of great scholastic nicety ; 
 and they who contended for them are described as persons actuated 
 solely by a vain-glorious passion for novelties. They did not assail the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation, though they represented it in a manner 
 somewhat different from the orthodox verity. The most formidable of 
 these articles was the seventh, which .affirmed that, in this question, men 
 
98 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 spiritual supremacy of Rome. Throughout all ranks, 
 however, it had been more or less deeply felt, that 
 her power had frequently been exercised in a spirit 
 of intolerable arrogance and rapacity; and it was 
 likewise known that the sword of temporal and spirit- 
 ual dominion had been often wielded with atrocious 
 severity, by the successor of St. Peter, against those 
 who questioned or resisted his authority. The exac- 
 tions and usurpations of the Pontifical court could 
 be readily estimated by those, who were profoundly 
 indifferent to her aberrations from the primitive purity 
 of faith ; and the exterminating fury with which she 
 had smitten her adversaries, must have begun to 
 raise up certain misgivings, as to the legitimacy of 
 that power, which could be maintained only by fire 
 and sword. And hence it was that England, although 
 a citadel of orthodoxy in matters of mere belief, was, 
 in those times, by no means the seat of contented 
 allegiance to the Apostolic See. She might, perhaps, 
 have been satisfied to slumber for centuries longer, 
 under the sedative influence of the Romish supersti- 
 tion, if the burden of Romish dominion had been less 
 galling and oppressive. As it was, she had an ear to 
 hear the lessons of any teacher, endowed with ad- 
 dress, and energy enough to expose the corruptions 
 which had so long insulted her patience, and ex- 
 hausted her resources. 
 
 It is hoped that the foregoing survey, imperfect 
 as it is, may furnish the reader with some conception 
 of the progress of feeling and opinion, in this country, 
 relative to 'ecclesiastical affairs ; and may enable him 
 to discern something of the process by which the 
 public mind was, at least partially, ripened for the 
 labours and services of Wiclif . 
 
 were not bound by the authority of the Pope, or of the ancient Fathers, 
 but solely by that of the Bible, and " necessary reason." The eighth and 
 last of these articles maintained, that "there is in man only one form, 
 namely, the rational soul, and no other substantial form,'* from which 
 opinion, all the forenamed heresies are said to issue. Wilk. Cone. vol. 
 ii. p. 123. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 99 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 13241367. 
 
 Birth of Wiclif Wiclif admitted at Queen's College, Oxford-- 
 Removes to Merton College Acquires the title of Evangelic Doc- 
 tor His mastery in the scholastic learning His Tract on the 
 Last Age of the Church, occasioned by the Plague of 1348 He 
 commences his attacks on the Mendicant Orders Notice of the 
 first institution of the Mendicants Their efficacy on their first 
 Establishment Their enormous increase Their rapacity and 
 turbulence Their introduction into England in 1221 Its bad 
 effects Richard Fitzralph's opposition to them., followed up by 
 WidifThe sum of Wiclif } s objection to them contained in a 
 Tract of his, published twenty years later Letters of Fraternity 
 Oxford Statute in restraint of the Mendicants Interference of 
 Parliament Wiclif presented to the Rectory of Fillingham, 
 which he exchanges afterwards for that of Lutgershall Pro- 
 
 moted to the Wardenship of Baliol College, which he resigns for 
 the Headship of Canterbury Hall, founded by Archbishop Islep 
 His appointment pronounced void by Arcjfibishop Langham 
 Wiclif appeals to the Pope, who ultimately ratifies Langham's 
 decree 7 he Pope's decision confirmed by the Crown Wiclif 
 vindicated against the suspicion of being impeUed by resentment 
 to hostilities against the Papacy The Pope revives his claim of 
 homage and tribute from England Edward III. lays the de- 
 mand before Parliament, wfio resolve that it ought to be resisted 
 W\c\if .challenged to defend the Resolution of Parliament His 
 reply to the challenge. 
 
 ABOUT six miles from the town of Richmond, in 
 Yorkshire, is the small village of Wiclif, which, from 
 the Conquest to the end of th e sixteenth century, 
 was the residence of a family of the same name, who 
 were lords of the manor, and patrons of the rectory. 
 In this village, or its immediate vicinity, 1,324, 
 there is good reason to believe that John Birtil - f Wiclit 
 Wiclif* was born, about the year 1324. It is, fur- 
 
 * The orthography of the name, in different writers, is so perplexing by 
 its variety, that I have thought it expedient to adopt that which has the 
 smallest number of letters. With Lewis, therefore, I shall write the 
 Reformer WICLIF. 
 
100 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 ther, probable, that he was a member of the family 
 who were possessors of the property. Some doubt 
 may, indeed, be raised respecting this point from the 
 facts that the name of John Wiclif, is not to be found 
 in the extant records of the household ;* and that 
 no reference to his parentage has yet been discovered 
 in his writings. His own silence, however, and that 
 of his relatives may, reasonably enough, be ascribed 
 to the alienation which would be unavoidably occa- 
 sioned by his defection from the religious principles 
 of the age. The Wiclifs, if they were faithful to 
 their creed, would, not unnaturally, be slow to claim 
 any connexion with the reputed heretic: and the 
 persecuted teacher, on the other hand, would find but 
 little delight in adverting to his kindred, if he per- 
 ceived that his opinions were such as made them 
 willing to forget him. It has been surmised by his 
 latest biographer,! that something of this feeling is 
 betrayed in his Treatise on Wedded Men and Wives, 
 in which he says, that " if a child yield himself to 
 meekness and poverty, and flee covetousness and 
 
 pride, from a dread of sin, and to please God 
 
 by so doing he getteth many enemies to his elders ; 
 and they say that he slandereth all their noble kindred, 
 who were ever held true men and worshipful.^ 
 
 At the distance of five centuries, and in the absence 
 of positive documents, it would be vain to hope for 
 absolute certainty in a question of this description. 
 It is, however, satisfactory to think that we live in 
 times, when the most distinguished families would 
 be as proud to claim consanguinity with Wiclif, as 
 the obscurest in his own days may have been anxious 
 to disclaim it. We are now living in the enjoyment 
 of blessings, in the acquisition of which he may justly 
 be reckoned among the foremost and most illustrious 
 adventurers. It is, therefore, nothing more than jus- 
 
 * Vaughan, vol. i. p. 234. t Ibid. p. 235. 
 
 t M.S. C. C. C. Cambridge : " On Wedded Men and their Wives, and 
 their Children also." 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 101 
 
 fice, that the widest possible diffusion should be given 
 to the history of his services and benefactions to the 
 cause of scriptural truth amongst us* If any thing 
 can rally our fainting energies in times which savour 
 so rankly of" things that be of men," it is the con- 
 templation of noble and elevated .examples of hero- 
 ism and self-devotion, displayed in support of " the 
 things that be of God." 
 
 Of the childhood of Wiclif nothing whatever is 
 known. Oxford was the scene of his maturer stu- 
 dies, and of his future glory. His name occurs in the 
 list of students first admitted at Queen's Wiclif admitted 
 College, a seminary then of very recent at Queen's Coi- 
 foundation. It was established in the lege ' Oxford ; 
 year 1340, chiefly by the munificence of Philip* 
 pa, Queen of Edward the Third, influenced and di- 
 rected by the zeal of Robert Eglesfield, her chap- 
 lain. For reasons now unknown, he speedily re 
 moved from Queen's to Merton College, Removes to 
 a society illustrious for many of the Merton College, 
 most celebrated names in learning and divinity. 
 In the course of that century it supplied the English 
 Church with three metropolitans, Thomas Brad- 
 wardine "the Profound Doctor," Simon Mepham, and 
 Simon Islep. Within its precincts, Walter Burley 
 collected the solid erudition which acquired for him 
 the title of the ** Perspicuous Doctor" and which ele- 
 vated him to the office of preceptor to Edward IV. 
 The renowned William Occham was another of the 
 sons of Merton, known as the Singular Doctor and 
 Venerable Inceptor ; and, according to some accounts, 
 that prodigy of intuitive genius, the immortal Duns 
 Scotus himself, is to be numbered among the lumi- 
 naries of this distinguished fraternity. 
 
 In these seats of learning and piety it was the lot 
 of Wiclif to acquire a title more truly Acquires the 
 honourable than any of those above enu- title f Evan - 
 jnerated, that of the Evangelic or Gospel g( 
 Doctor. Like all .other students of his day who aspired 
 9* 
 
102 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 to eminence, he, of course, devoted himself, with 
 intense application, to the scholastic philosophy. 
 Such was his diligence, that he is said to have com- 
 mitted to memory many of the more intricate por- 
 tions of Aristotle;* and such was his success, that 
 the bitterest enemy of his namef has described him 
 as " second to none in philosophy, and in scholastic 
 His mastery in discipline altogether incomparable." 
 the scholastic With the study of the schoolmen he asso- 
 ciated those of the civil and the canon 
 law; accomplishments, in that age, indispensable to 
 the reputation of a consummate scholar and divine. 
 His industry, further, embraced the municipal laws 
 and customs of his own country, a pursuit not, 
 perhaps, so fashionable at that period, but quite as 
 worthy of the attention of an Englishman as the 
 laws of the empire, or the compilations of Gratian. 
 His theological principles were formed by a diligent 
 perusal of the primitive Christian writers ; and, 
 chiefly, of four of the most distinguished fathers of 
 the Church, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Basil, 
 and St. Gregory. Of more modern divines, the two 
 that stood highest in his estimation appear to have 
 been the illustrious Robert Grostete, Bishop of Lin- 
 coln in the early part of the preceding century, and 
 Richard Fitzralph, formerly Chancellor of Oxford 
 and Professor of Divinity there, and promoted to the 
 see of Armagh about the year 1347. But the studies 
 of Wiclif were most nobly distinguished from those 
 of his contemporaries by his ardent devotion to the 
 sacred Volume itself, which eventually won for him 
 the illustrious appellation above alluded to, of the 
 
 * Lewis, p. 2. 
 
 t Knightonde Eventibus Angliae, Col. 2644. This writer was a canon 
 of Leycester, contemporary with Wiclif, and a cordial hater of him, 
 his doctrines, and his followers. His language is as follows: "Doctor 
 in theologia eminentissimus in diebus illis. In philosophia nulli repu- 
 tabatur secundus : in scholastic-is disciplinis incomparabilis. Hie max- 
 ime nitebatur aliorum ingenia subtilitate scientiae et profunditate ingenii 
 sui transcendere, et ab opinionibus eorum variare." 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 103 
 
 Evangelic or Gospel Doctor, and which, above all 
 his other accomplishments, qualified him to impress 
 an image of himself on future generations. 
 
 It is, fortunately, somewhat difficult for us, in these 
 times, worthily to represent to ourselves the vigour, 
 the courage, the independence of soul, the strength 
 of purpose, implied in the resolution of a teacher of 
 theology, in the fourteenth century, to take his stand 
 in the citadel of revealed truth, and to regard all hu- 
 man commentaries as mere subordinate outworks 
 and defences. On the one hand, such an instructor 
 had to encounter the frown of Papal Infallibility, 
 which forbade all appeal to the Scriptures, from the 
 authority of the Church. On the other hand, there 
 awaited him the contemptuous scowl of the scholastic 
 Philosophy, which disdained any guide but Aristotle 
 through the labyrinth of theology, and looked with 
 utter scorn on those shallow spirits, who resorted 
 directly to the sacred text for the pure and heavenly 
 science of salvation. In this and the two preceding 
 centuries the compilations of Peter Lombard* were 
 in much higher and more universal estimation than 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ. " The graduate," says 
 Roger Bacon,f " who reads (or lectures on) the text 
 of Scripture, is compelled to give way to the reader 
 of the Sentences, who every where enjoys honour 
 and precedence. He who reads the Sentences has 
 the choice of his hour, and ample entertainment 
 among the religious orders. He who reads the Bible 
 is destitute of these advantages, and sues, like a 
 mendicant, to the reader of the Sentences, for the use 
 of such hour as it may please him to grant. He who 
 
 * Peter Lombard was Bishop of Paris in the twelfth century. His 
 book ofSente?ices was principally a compilation from the fathers, made, 
 probably, with the best intentions ; and designed to fortfy religious faith 
 with the aid of the scholastic metaphysics. It was intended to form a 
 complete body of divinity, and was the theological wonder of the Middle 
 
 Ages. 
 t S 
 
 iii. p. ., rom oge p. 
 
 by Sam. Jebb, from the original MSS. 
 
 ges. 
 
 t See the original, quoted in note (7,) to Mosheim's Eccl. History, voL 
 iii. p. 93., from Roger Bacon's Op. Maj. published in 1733, at London, 
 
104 UF OF WICLIJ. 
 
 reads the Sums of Divinity, is every where allowed 
 to hold disputations, and is'venerated as master ; he 
 who only reads the text is not permitted to dispute at 
 all ; which is absurd /" Such is the language of the illus- 
 trious Friar Bacon, in the thirteenth century. That 
 of John of Salisbury, in the twelfth century, was 
 still stronger. He tells us that, in his time, the more 
 scriptural teachers were " not only rejected as philo- 
 sophers, but unwillingly endured as clergymen nay, 
 were scarcely acknowledged to be men. They be- 
 came objects of derision, and were termed the bullocks 
 of Abraham, or the asses of Balaam."* If, as some 
 have conjectured, the Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testament were the two Apocalyptic Witnesses, well 
 may they be said to have prophesied in sackcloth, in 
 those dark times. They bore, indeed, a perpetual 
 testimony to the truth of the living God ; but, all 
 this while, they stood before men as it were in the 
 garb and guise of culprits and of penitents. The 
 record which they bare was heard with irreverence 
 and suspicion. They were received as if they were 
 little better than impostors and deceivers of the peor 
 pie. Like penitents they were scarcely allowed to 
 show themselves in the assemblies of the faithful ; 
 or, at all events, were suffered to appear there only 
 in the unworthy and humiliating disguise of a foreign 
 tongue : and few there were who ventured to appeal 
 unto their testimony. In the age of Wiclif, indeed, 
 the sentiment of reverence for the Papacy had, from 
 various causes, been somewhat rudely shaken, in this 
 country : but, still, there were but faint symptoms of 
 any serious defection from the majesty of Romish 
 tradition, and little promise of the reinstatement of 
 the heavenly witnesses in their original dignity and 
 honour. The biblical method of instruction was still 
 
 * " ncc modo phllosophos negant, imo nee clericos patiuntur, vix 
 
 homines sinunt esse ; sed boves Abrahse, vel asinos Bajaarnitas duntaxat 
 nominant, imo derident." Metalog. p. 746. quoted jn Turner's Hist, 
 fStgL vol. i. p. 503, note (66.) ' 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 105 
 
 trampled under foot by the fastidious pride of the 
 scholastic discipline, and by the overbearing authority 
 of irrefragable and seraphic doctors. And yet, in this 
 state of the public mind it was, that Wiclif had the 
 fortitude and the independence to associate the study 
 of the Scriptures with the keenest pursuit of the scho- 
 lastic metaphysics ; and not only so, but to assign to 
 them the full supremacy which belongs to them, as 
 disclosing to us the way, the truth, and the life. 
 
 And well was it for the cause of pure and scriptu- 
 ral Christianity, that Wiclif went forth to his achieve- 
 ments, covered over with the panoply of the intel- 
 lectual knight-errantry of his day: that he was master 
 of " the nice fence, and the active practice" of the 
 schools, as well as potent to wield the two-edged 
 sword of the Spirit. This happy combination of ac- 
 complishments served, at least, to win him the res- 
 pect of all parties. It secured him the reverence of 
 his followers, who must have seen with pride, that 
 their teacher was foremost among the sages and doc- 
 tors of his time. It silenced the voice of disdain 
 among his adversaries, and effectually disabled them 
 from attempting to cast discredit on his cause, by 
 pointing to tjae ignorance and incapacity of the ad- 
 vocate. The first open trial of his powers against the 
 corruptions of the time, was in the year 1356 
 1356, when he put forth a small tract, Wiciif's tract 
 entitled " the Last Age of the Church."* L" th e f L t ^ 
 The train of thought, which led to this Church;" occa- 
 production, would appear to have been si ed by * 
 occasioned by certain recent calamities, p 
 more tremendous than any which had lighted on the 
 earth since the great plague which made the reign 
 
 * Lewis's account of this Tract is very imperfect. For more satisfac- 
 tory information respecting it, we are indebted to the industry of Mr. 
 Vaughan. It has never been printed, and exists in MS. only in the library 
 of Trinity College, Dublin, Class c. tab. 3. No. 12., where it was ex- 
 amined by Mr. Vaughan ; who conjectures, from the obscurity of several 
 parts, that it must have been transcribed from some very illegible or im- 
 perfect copy. Vaughan'e Life of Wiclif, vol. i. p. 254, note (30.) 
 
106 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 of Justinian so disastrously memorable. The pesti* 
 lence which broke out in Tartary in the year 1346, 
 after desolating Asia, and part of Africa, extended its 
 ravages to the West, and is supposed to have swept 
 away full one third of the population of Europe. In 
 addition to this calamity, nearly the whole of the 
 European continent had been shaken by earthquakes; 
 and though these convulsions did not extend to Eng- 
 land, the country was deluged by incessant rains for 
 many months together, and, at last was smitten by 
 the scourge which had been ravaging the rest of 
 the earth. The destructive malady made its appear- 
 ance at Dorchester, in August 1348 ; by November it 
 had reached the metropolis, and thence continued its 
 progress of desolation towards the North. Of the 
 numbers which perished in London no exact account 
 has been preserved. It is certain, however, that for 
 many weeks the daily average of mortality amounted 
 to two hundred ; and the lowest computation must 
 fix the whole loss at fifty thousand souls. At this 
 period, Wiclif was about twenty-five years of age ; a 
 time of life sufficiently advan6ed to make a man, like 
 him, an intelligent and reflecting witness of these 
 horrors. So dreadful was the havoc, th#t, by many, 
 ij was regarded as the almost immediate forerunner 
 of the final doom. The Angel of Destruction was 
 supposed to have gone forth upon this commission of 
 vengeance, in order that men might be prepared for 
 the last advent of Jesus Christ. The meditations of 
 Wiclif on this dreadful scourge, appear to have been 
 exalted by the study of certain ancient predictions, 
 ascribed to the celebrated Joachim,* a Calabrian 
 
 * Respecting this Joachim, consult Mosheim, vol. iii. p. 209 211. 238. 
 289. 293. ; and compare Fleury, vol. xv. p. 595 599. The Papal histo- 
 rian dwells, .with evident satisfaction, on the rigid and austere sanctity of 
 the monk, on his threadbare apparel, with its singed and ragged skirts, 
 and on the almost miraculous increase of his alacrity and vigour, which 
 seemed to be more abundant, in proportion to the scantiness of his diet. 
 Of the prophetic gifts of the saint, however, he speaks with prudent 
 reserve, (" il passoit pour avour le don de prophetie.") And, in truth, it 
 is scarcely to be imagined that any faithful Catholic could dwell, with 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 107 
 
 Abbot, who lived towards the end of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, and who foretold the destruction of the Church 
 of Rome, and the approach of a purer era, under the 
 appellation of the age of the Holy Ghost. These, 
 and similar researches, seem to have brought Wiclif 
 to a persuasion, that the plagues with which the na- 
 tions had recently been scourged, were indications 
 that the great designs of God were hastening to a 
 close; and that, with the fourteenth century, the 
 world would come to an end. In support of the notion, 
 that between the first and second advent of Christ, 
 four periods of heavy tribulation were to intervene, 
 he relies on the authority of the venerable Bede and 
 St. Bernard. Of these tribulations, the first was the 
 furious and repeated onset of persecution ; the second, 
 the pestilent infection of heresy; the third of these 
 calamitous trials was to originate in what Wiclif 
 terms " the secret heresy of the Simonists ;" the last 
 was to include the final triumphs of Anti-Christ;. 
 " the period of whose approach," he adds, " God only 
 knoweth."* The whole, however, of these two final 
 visitations, was to be crowded into the space of the 
 fourteenth century ; which is accordingly designed 
 by Wiclif as " the Last Age of the World," and so 
 gives its title to the treatise under consideration. 
 
 As a prophetic work, this tract of Wiclif is, of 
 course-, entirely worthless ; but it is extremely valua- 
 ble as a manifestation of the vigour with which he 
 was girding himself up for a conflict with the powers 
 and Principalities of the Papal empire. The de- 
 struction which, of late years, had been hurled upon 
 the earth, had awakened thoughtful men to medita- 
 
 much complacency, on predictions which represented the Church of 
 Rome as the fleshly synagogue of Satan, and spoke of it as doomed to 
 certain demolition. Whether these prophecies are rightly ascribed to 
 Joachim, seems rather doubtful. In his name, however, they became, 
 unquestionably, current. The reputed prophecies of Hildegardis, (a 
 nun who lived in the middle of the twellth century,) are much in the 
 same strain, arid were gravely appealed to by John Hus. 
 Martyrs, vol. i. p. 525. 
 * Vaughan, vol. i. p. 257. 
 
108 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 tion on the dealings of Him to whom vengeance be- 
 longeth, and had prompted them to search into the 
 causes of those tremendous chastisements, which 
 they imagined to have recently descended upon the 
 nations. As usual, they looked for those causes on 
 the surface of society ; and there they found, among 
 the most conspicuous classes, the customary effect of 
 fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness namely, 
 a dedication of themselves to toyish and frivolous 
 vanities, an insanely capricious prodigality of ap- 
 parel* (one sure mark of a semi-barbarous age,) and 
 a general propensity to voluptuous indulgence ; and 
 these were the things, it was concluded, which had 
 brought down upon the kingdom the wrath of the 
 Almighty. Wiclif, it seems, was not content to deal 
 thus superficially with the evil, or to heal the hurt of 
 the people slightly. He plunged his knife, directly, 
 into what he conceived to be the depths of the im- 
 posthume. He loudly and keenly arraigned the vices 
 of the clergy, and declared that, among them was 
 the seat of the national malady. Like Jeremiah of 
 old, he proclaimed that from the prophet to the priest 
 every man dealt falsely ; that by their rapacity they 
 ate up the people as it were bread ; that their sensuality 
 was such as sent up a savour that infected the earth, 
 and " smelt to heaven." The whole community, he 
 maintained, was corrupted with the fermentation of 
 their pernicious leaven ; and against their worldliness 
 was to be directed the public execration, for spreading 
 
 * Contemporary writers furnish a curious account of these extrava- 
 gances. They mention, with deep abomination, the silken hoods, and 
 the party-coloured coats, and the deep sleeves, and the narrow waists, and 
 the bushy beards, and the long tails, and, above all, the sinful prolonga- 
 tion of the pointed shoes, which distinguished the exquisites and the 
 coxcombs of those times. The female sex did not escape the denuncia- 
 tion. The enormous height of their head-dress, with its streaming rib- 
 bons, their tunics, half of one colour and halt of another, their costly 
 girdles, profusely decorated with embroidery and gold, their exchange 
 of the ambling palfrey for the prancing charger, the unbecoming bold- 
 ness or levity of their demeanour, all these were dwelt upon with horror 
 and indignation, as signs of an age ripe for destruction. See Lingard, 
 TO! iv. p. 90. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 109 
 
 that degeneracy, which had provoked the Lord to 
 send his judgments upon the land, and which would 
 provoke him to send judgments yet more intolerable * 
 He speaks of " the pestilent smiting together of people, 
 and hurling together of realms, because the honours of 
 Holy Church are given to unworthy men ; a mischief 
 so heavy, that well will it be for that man who shall 
 not then be alive." " Both vengeance of sword," 
 he affirms, " and mischiefs unknown before, by which 
 men in those days shall be punished, shall befal 
 them, because of the sins of priests. Hence men 
 shall fall upon them, and cast them out of their fat 
 benefices ; and shall say, He came into his benefice 
 by his kindred, and this, by a covenant made before : 
 he, for his worldly service, came into the Church, 
 and this for money. Then, every such priest shall 
 cry, alas ! alas ! that no good spirit dwelt with me, 
 at my coming into the Church of God !" In those 
 days, " men of Holy Church shall be despised as car- 
 rion ; as dogs shall they be cast out in open places." 
 In order, however, to comfort and support the righteous 
 under the apprehension of such gloomy dispensations, 
 he adds, in language which well became the Evan- 
 gelic Doctor, " Jesus Christ entered into holy things, 
 that is into Holy Church, by holy living and holy 
 teaching; and with his blood he delivered man's 
 nature ; as Zechariah writeth in his ninth chapter,* 
 Thou, verily, with the blood of thy witness, (or of thy 
 testament,) hast let out from the pit them that were 
 bound. So, when we were sinful, and the children 
 of wrath, God's Son came out of heaven, and, pray- 
 ing his Father for his enemies, he died for us. Then, 
 much rather shall we be saved, now that we are 
 made righteous hy his blood. St. Paul writeth to 
 the Romans,! that Jesus should pray for us, and that 
 he went into heaven to appear in the presence of 
 God for us. The same also, he writeth to the He* 
 
 Zech. ix. 11. t Rom. viii. 34, 
 
 10 
 
110 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 brews ; the which presence may He grant us to be- 
 hold, who liveth and reigneth without end. Amen."* 
 This attack upon ecclesiastical corruptions was 
 but prelusive to more stubborn conflicts. Nothing 
 seems to be better ascertained, in the history of Wic- 
 1360. li tnan tne f act tnat g bout the year 
 Wiclif com- 1360 he was notorious for standing tore- 
 I 5 ? 068 s tK l " most in that warfare which had for some 
 
 lacks on me . , . . . 
 
 Mendicant Or- time been vigorously carried on against 
 dera the Mendicant Orders ; and that his ac- 
 
 tivity in the conflict first elevated him to that com- 
 manding rank, in the public estimation, which he 
 never afterwards lost. The modern Roman Catholic 
 historian has been pleased to describe this as a ridi- 
 culous controversy ;f a somewhat strange epithet for 
 one of the most momentous contests in the history 
 of the Church ! Ridiculous enough it unquestiona- 
 bly was, if considered purely with reference to the 
 impudence, the hypocrisy, and the imposture, which 
 it exposed ; but nothing could well be more grave 
 and serious, if estimated by the shock which it in- 
 flicted on the fabric of the Papal power. The order 
 First institution f begging friars, it will be remembered, 
 of the Mendi- was established early in the preceding 
 cants century, at a time when the opulence of 
 
 the monastic establishments had converted most of 
 them into huge " castles of indolence," into gigantic 
 monuments of pride and sensuality, to which the 
 enemies of superstition were perpetually pointing, 
 when they were desirous of awakening the world to 
 the duty of demolishing the abuses of the Church. 
 The Papacy, thus environed by adversaries, and pre- 
 senting to their assault such a multitude of vulnerable 
 points, accepted with gladness the services of an Or- 
 der, which promised to exhibit to the world an image 
 
 Vaughan, vol. i. p. 258, 259. 
 
 t "It was about the year 1360 that the name of Wiclif is first men- 
 tioned in history. He was then engaged in afierce but ridiculous conr 
 troversy with the various Orders of fnara" Ling. vol. iv. p. 213. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. Ill 
 
 of primitive simplicity and self-denial, and to emu- 
 late in austerity of demeanour, and contempt of 
 wealth, the greatest champions of ecclesiastical re- 
 form. It was, further, perceived, that nothing could 
 be more valuable to the Pontificate, than a body of 
 auxiliaries, who would be armed by their vows of 
 poverty, as with triple brass, against the power and 
 the menaces of all secular potentates. The holy 
 Church would thus be provided with a hardy and 
 devoted militia, thoroughly prepared for all the vari- 
 ous exigencies of her warfare. On the one hand, 
 she would be effectually guarded against the hostility 
 of princes, and, on the other, against the still more 
 formidable encroachments of heresy. The most 
 ample and honourable privileges were, accordingly, 
 lavished on those fraternities which made a voluntary 
 abjuration of property; and whose members were 
 ready to disperse themselves throughout Christen- 
 dom, relying for their support on the alms of the 
 faithful, and, for their influence, on the example of 
 an austere, laborious, and holy life. 
 
 For a considerable time, the new insti- The efficacy of 
 tution did its office to admiration. The the Mendicant 
 effect was like the transfusion of fresh r( J e f s f. l t ^ eir 
 
 ,.,,,. . ._,. first institution. 
 
 liie-blood into a decaying system. Ine 
 veins and arteries of the languishing monster seemed 
 to swell with renovated life ; and its energies went 
 forth, once more, with a speed and impulse, which 
 gave it a sort of omnipresence throughout Europe. 
 The genius of the system penetrated, quickly, into 
 every department of ecclesiastical enterprise and 
 occupation, whether high or low, whether obscure or 
 ejninent.. It intruded itself into the region of paro- 
 chial duty; it seated itself in the confessional; it 
 seized on the chair of the University ; it grasped the 
 erozier of episcopacy ; it held the seals of civil office, 
 and the portfolio of diplomatic intrigue ; till, at last, 
 it appeared probable that the confidence and venera- 
 tion of nearly the whole Catholic world would be 
 
112 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 transferred from their established guides, to these 
 professors of primitive sanctity and perfection. 
 
 It was not to he expected that the secular clergy, 
 or the ancient religious orders, would regard, without 
 the bitterest jealousy, the reputation and the pros- 
 perity of their rivals : and, as might have been rea- 
 sonably anticipated, symptoms of degeneracy began 
 speedily to develope themselves among the new socie- 
 ties, and to animate both priest and monk with the 
 hopes of a successful resistance to their power. In 
 the first place, the distinguished honours heaped on 
 Enormous in- tne Mendicant system had enormously 
 crease of the multiplied its numbers : and such was 
 Mendicants. t j ie ra pidi t y of this accumulation, that 
 it threatened almost to overwhelm the power which 
 had called it into existence. Accordingly, in 1272, 
 Gregory X. found it necessary to repress these "ex- 
 travagant swarms" of holy beggars, and to confine 
 the institution to the four denominations of Domi- 
 nicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Hermits of St. 
 Augustine. But the immoderate increase of their 
 numbers was not the only circumstance which tended 
 to impair the respect of the world for their itinerant 
 Their rapacity instructors. In the course of time these 
 and turbulence, professors of poverty were often found 
 transformed into prodigies of opulence. Men beheld 
 with astonishment,* that the barefooted brethren, to 
 whom property was an accursed thing, which they 
 were to touch not, and handle not, became gradually, 
 by some strange legerdemain, the lords of stately 
 
 * Matthew Paris, speaking of their turbulent and intrusive establish- 
 ment of themselves at St. Edmund's Bury, in 1258, says" hoc audientes 
 universi, non poterant satis admirari quod tarn sancti viri, qui sponta- 
 neam paupertatem elegerunt, contemptp Dei timore, et tarn reverendi 
 martyris et hominum oblocutione, et privilegiorum et conservatorum 
 tuitione, violenter illius nobilis Ecclesiae statum perturbarunt." And 
 again, in reference to a similar irruption at Dunstable, in 1259, he ob- 
 serves, "domicilia aded sumptuosa construxerant, ut in oculis intuen- 
 tium, tot sumptus subito effusi a pauperibusfratribus, paupertatem. 
 toluntariam professis, admirationem suscitarent." Matth. Par. p. 
 830, and 845. Ed. 16S4. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 113 
 
 edifices, and ample revenues ; and appeared in a fair 
 way to rival the hierarchy in wealth, as effectually 
 as they had rivalled them in authority and influence. 
 And this manifest and shameless abandonment of the 
 original spirit of their system, naturally provided 
 their adversaries with another formidable ground for 
 complaint and opposition. 
 
 It was in the year 1221 that these 1221 - 
 reformers first made their appearance JheMendicV^ 
 in England, under the conduct of Gilbert into England. 
 de Fresney, who, with twelve Dominican brethren, 
 obtained an establishment in Oxford. On their first 
 arrival they enjoyed the patronage of, perhaps, the 
 greatest ecclesiastical name of that age, the illustrious 
 Bishop Grostete ; who, however, lived to repent the 
 encouragement he had lavished upon them, and to 
 denounce them as the heaviest curse that could be 
 inflicted on the cause of Christianity.* 
 The system produced here, in full mea- It! 
 sure, the same effects which raised against it the 
 voice of the rest of Europe. The monkish chroni- 
 cles are filled with complaints of the rapacity, ambi- 
 tion, and turbulence, of the Mendicant Orders ; and 
 the furious animosities which broke out between 
 these intruders and the ancient clergy, both secular 
 and monastic, began to rouse the Christian world 
 from their long and vexatious dream of spiritual in- 
 fatuation. " It is a matter of melancholy presage," 
 says Matthew Paris, " that, within the four and twenty 
 years of their establishment in England, these friars 
 have piled up their mansions to a royal altitude. Im- 
 pudently transgressing the bounds of poverty, the 
 very basis of their profession, they fulfil, to the letter, 
 the ancient prophecies of Hildegard, and exhibit in- 
 estimable treasures within their spacious edifices, and 
 
 * "God says that evil teachers heen the cause of destruction of the peo- 
 ple, and Grostete declares it well, and friars been the principal evil 
 teachers; they been principal cause of destroying this world." Wiclif, 
 against the Order of Friars, cap. 26. 
 
 10* 
 
114 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 lofty walls. They beset the dying bed of the noble 
 and the wealthy, in order to extort secret bequests 
 from the fears of guilt or superstition. No one now 
 has any hope of salvation but through the ministry 
 of the preachers or the Minorites. They are found at 
 the court, in the character of counsellors, and cham- 
 berlains, and treasurers, and negociators of marriage. 
 As the agents of Papal extortion, they are incessantly 
 applying the arts oj flattery, the stings of rebuke, or 
 the terrors of confession. They pour contempt on the 
 sound Orders of Benedict and Augustine ; and, accord- 
 ing to their estimate, the black-cowled brethren are 
 as much superior to the monks, as the disciples of 
 Epicurus would be to so many simpletons and boors."* 
 " With overbearing insolence, they frequently in- 
 quired of the devout, by whom they had been con- 
 fessed ? And if the answer was, by my own priest, 
 they replied, and who is that ignoramus ? He never 
 heard lectures in theology; he never gave his nights 
 to the study of the decrees ; he never learned to un- 
 ravel knotty questions. They are all blind, and 
 leaders of the blind. Come to us, who know how to 
 distinguish leper from leper." The consequence of 
 all this was, not only that the parochial clergy fell 
 into contempt, but that their parishioners, no longer 
 compelled to blush in the presence of their local 
 ministers, f broke out into unbridled licentiousness. 
 For thus (the chronicler informs us,) did they whisper 
 to each other, "Let us follow our own pleasure, 
 Some one of the preaching brothers will soon travel 
 this way, one whom we never saw before, and never 
 shall see again ; so that, when we have had our will, 
 we can confess without trouble or annoyance." Such 
 was the influence they derived from the patronage of 
 the Pope, and the confidence of the people, that they 
 were enabled to bid defiance to the power of the con 
 
 * Matth. Paris, p. 541. Ed. 1684. 
 
 t " Cum rubor et confusio in confessione pars sit maxima et 
 
 potissima in pcenitentia." Matth. Par. p. 608. Ed. 1684. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 115 
 
 venual clergy, and sometimes to usurp their privi- 
 leges, and even to appropriate their revenues : to the 
 utter amazement of all thinking persons, who could 
 not but wonder at such excesses of rapacity and inso- 
 lence, exemplified by the poor brethren, the holy 
 professors of voluntary indigence.* To fill up the 
 measure of evil, it appears, that the country was, at 
 last, so over-run by swarms of friars, and so dis- 
 turbed by their disorders, that our ancient records are 
 filled with warrants for the arrest of the sanctimoni- 
 ous vagrants. t 
 
 These abuses had become so intolera- 
 
 , , . , . -,-, j j TTT ,1 . Kichard ritz- 
 
 ble, in the reign of Edward III., that, ra i p h> s opposi- 
 (as we have already seen,) in the year tion to the Men- 
 1357, Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of d 
 Armagh,| fearlessly arraigned the Mendicants before 
 
 * Of this several instances are recorded by Matth. Paris, 608, 830. 845. 
 Ed. 1674. Ed. 1684. 
 
 t See Turner's History of England, vol. ii, p. 413, note (63.) which 
 contains various references to such orders in the reigns of Henry III. Ed- 
 ward I. and Edward II. Among them is one general order to arrest them 
 all over the kingdom: "De religiosis vagabundis arrestandis per 
 totum regnum." 
 
 + Some account has been given, in the preceding chapter, of this dis- 
 tinguished prelate, usually known by the title of Armachanus. The 
 following is a portion of his Sermon against the Mendicants, which may 
 serve as a specimen of the English spoken in those times: 
 
 " Hereof cometh grete damage both to the peple, and to the clergie, 
 also to the peple, for many men, for what they loveth best in this world, 
 that is her own children. Also, hit is grete damage to the clergie, for 
 now in the Universitees of the rewme of Englond. For children Beth so 
 y stole from her fadres and modres, lewed men (laymen) in every place 
 withholdeth her children, and sendeth hem nought to the University. 
 For hem is lever (more willing)make hem erthe tilyers, and have them, 
 than sende hem to the Universitd, and lese hem. So that ghet, in my 
 tymes in the Universite of Oxenford were thritty thousand scholers 
 ; at ones ; and nowe beth unnethe six thousand. And me trowith, that 
 the grittest occasioun why scholers beth so withdraw, hit is for children 
 beth so begiled & ystole. And I see none gretter damage to all the clergie 
 than this damage. 
 
 " And there is more great damage that undoth and distroyeth the secu- 
 Jers of all manner facultg, for those orders of beggers, for endeless wyn- 
 nynges that thei getteth by beggyng of the forseide privy leges of schriftes 
 and sepultures, and othere. Thei beth now so multiplyed in coventes 
 and in persons, that many men tellith that in general studies unnethe 
 is yfounde to sillying a profitable book of the faculte of art, of dy vynyte, of 
 law canoun, of phisik, ether of law civile, but all bookes beth ybought of 
 freres. So that in every covent is a noble librarie and a grete ; so that 
 
116 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the Pope, at Avignon, and represented, among other 
 causes of complaint, that their attempts to allure into 
 their Order the youth at our Universities, had occa- 
 sioned the most violent alarm, and had reduced the 
 number of students at Oxford from 30,000 to 6,000. 
 There can be no doubt that the exertions of Fitzralph 
 were vigorously followed up by Wiclif. It may not, 
 perhaps, be possible for us, at .the present day, confi- 
 dently to affix to any of his extant writings against 
 them, a date so early as the year 1360. But then it 
 should be remarked, once for all, that the works of the 
 Reformer are extremely voluminous, and very much 
 dispersed. It is but an inconsiderable portion of them 
 that has ever appeared in print. The remainder are 
 still in manuscript, and are scattered throughout the 
 public libraries of the empire. We are by no means 
 quite certain that the whole of them have been dis- 
 covered ; and it would be a task of extreme, perhaps, 
 of hopeless difficulty, to ascertain the exact period of 
 their composition or publication. It is, nevertheless, 
 important and satisfactory to know, that the com- 
 mencement of his labours in this cause has, with 
 almost unanimous consent, been referred to this pe- 
 riod by all the writers, whether friendly or adverse, 
 who have mentioned his name. The pith and mar- 
 row of his controversy with these religionists, may 
 be found in a small treatise " against the Orders of 
 Friars," which was published by him full twenty 
 years later, and in which his charges and objections 
 are arranged under fifty distinct heads or chapters.* 
 
 everich frere, that hath state in scole, such as thei beth now, hath an 
 huge librarye. And also I sent of my sugettes to scole thre or foure per- 
 sons ; and hit is seide me that somme of hem beth come home agen, for 
 thei myght nought fynde to sell oon gude bible, nother other covenable 
 bookes. Hit semeth that herof schuld come siche an end, that no clergie 
 should leve in holy chirche, but oonlich in freres, and so, the faith of holy 
 chirche were loste, but oonlich in freres." See Turner's Hist. EngL 
 part vi. c. ii. p. 583, note 28. 
 
 * This tract, together with his petition to the King and Parliament, 
 was printed in a small volume at Oxford, in 1608, with the title, " Two 
 short treatises against the Orders of Begging Friars, compiled by that 
 famous Doctour of the Church, and preacher of God's word, John Wie- 
 
LIFE OF WICL1F. 117 
 
 The remainder of his life, however, from the period 
 of his first appearance against them, may, without 
 much inaccuracy, be described as one continued pro- 
 test against the iniquity of these Orders. He never 
 seems to have lost sight of the subject. His indig- 
 nant reprobation of their practices is prodigally scat- 
 tered over his writings. To his latest breath, he 
 never ceased to denounce them as the pests of socie- 
 ty, as the bitter enemies of all pure religion, as 
 monsters of arrogance, hypocrisy, and covetousness, 
 in short, as no other than the tail of the apocalyp- 
 tic dragon, which was to sweep away a third part of 
 the stars from the firmament of the Church.* 
 
 The limits of this narrative forbid the introduction 
 of a copious abstract of his treatise against the Friars. 
 There is one of their practices, however, too remark- 
 able to pass unnoticed here. The fifteenth of his ob- 
 jections charges them with deceiving and pillaging 
 the people by their Letters of Fraternity, Letters of fra- 
 which he describes as " powdred with ternity. 
 hypocrisie, covetise, simonie, blasphemie, and other 
 leasings." These precious documents, it seems, were 
 written on fine vellum, splendidly illuminated, under 
 the seal of the fraternity, and covered with sarsnet : 
 and they conveyed to the faithful and wealthy pur- 
 chaser an assurance of his participation in the masses, 
 
 lif, sometime fellow of Merton, and Master of Balliol College, Oxford, and 
 afterwards Parson of Lutterworth in Lecestershire, faithfully printed 
 according to two ancient copies, extant, the one in Benet College in Cam- 
 bridge, the other remaining in the public library at Oxford." At the end 
 of the same volume is an" Apology for John Wiclif, "shewing his con- 
 formitye with the now Church of England, with answer to such slaun- 
 derous objections as have been urged against him by Father Parsons, 
 the Apologists, and others. Collected chiefly out of divers of works of 
 his, in written hand, by God's especial providence remaining in the pub- 
 lic library at Oxford. By Thomas James, keeper of the same, 1608." 
 The heads of the fifty heresies or errors laid to the charge of the Men- 
 dicants by Wiclif, are given by Lewis, p. 2230 : and the Reformer 
 says, in conclusion of his treatise, that there be " many moe, if men wole 
 seek them well out;" and that the "Friars been cause, beginning and 
 maintaining of perturbation in Christiandome, and of all evils of this 
 worlde : and these errors shallen never be amended, til Friars be brought 
 to Freedom of the Gospel, and clean religion of Jesu Christ." 
 * Rev. xii. 4. 
 
118 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 vigils, and other religious exercises of the holy bro- 
 therhood, both during his life, and after his death. 
 So that they provided the sinner, who was able to 
 purchase them, with a sort of running dispensation, 
 which always kept pace with the utmost speed of his 
 transgressions. It should, however, be observed that 
 this imposture does not appear to have been peculiar 
 to the Mendicants. They practised it in common 
 with other religious societies,* though possibly with 
 more shameless enormity ; as Wiclif, indeed, very 
 plainly intimates : for he says of them, that " they 
 passen bishoppes, popes, and eke God himself. For 
 they grant no pardon, but if [except] men be contrite 
 and shriven, and of merite of Christ's passion, and 
 other saints; but friars maken no mention, nether of 
 contrition, ne shrift, ne merite of Christ's passion, 
 but only of ther own good deeds." 
 
 It will easily be believed that by his exertions 
 against the Mendicants, Wiclif was piling up for him- 
 self a formidable accumulation of wrath. It is not to 
 be supposed that these Orders would passively endure 
 any attack upon their privileges ; especially as they 
 were quite notoriously impatient of contradiction. 
 For a time, their activity and perseverance seem to 
 have only been augmented by opposition. To arrest 
 the ruin with which their intrigues threatened the 
 Oxford statute, University of Oxford, a statute had been 
 in restraint of made, providing that none should be 
 the Mendicants. rece i ve( j i nto the Mendicant fraternities, 
 until they should attain the age of eighteen years. 
 But this enactment furnished but a weak defence 
 against the pertinacity of the Friars. Their influ- 
 ence and their wealth were prodigally employed to 
 defeat that salutary regulation: and dispensations 
 were perpetually issuing from Rome, which almost 
 reduced its provisions to a dead letter. The quar- 
 
 * See Lewis, p. 24, note (r.) also p. 301, where a copy is given of one of 
 these letters, granted by the convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, 10 
 the mother of the famous Dean Colet. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIP. 119 
 
 rel, accordingly, continued to rage with unabated 
 violence; till, at length, in 1366, it was found expe- 
 dient to submit it to the decision of the Interference of 
 
 high Court of Parliament. The result Parliament. 
 of this application was, a grave and salutary recom- 
 mendation, that the adverse parties should use each 
 other with all becoming courtesy ; and an injunction, 
 that none of the Orders should receive among them 
 any scholar under the age of eighteen years ; that the 
 Friars should take no advantage, nor procure any 
 bull, or any other process from Rome, against the 
 Universities ; that all controversies between them 
 should be referred to the Crown ; and that all offend- 
 ers should be punished at the pleasure of the King in 
 Council. Even this measure, however, was insuffi- 
 cient to stop the tide of encroachment ; as an instance 
 of which, it may be mentioned, that nine years 
 afterwards, a bull was actually procured by the Con- 
 vent of Christ Church, Canterbury, to dispense, in 
 their favour, with a statute of the University, requir- 
 ing persons to be regents in arts before they proceeded 
 doctors in divinity.* 
 
 The energy of Wiclif, as the adversary of the 
 Friars and the champion of the ancient institutions, 
 probably recommended him to the So- 
 ciety of Baliol College, by whom he was wiciif present- 
 presented, in 1361, with the church of ed to the rectory 
 Fillingham, a living of considerable va- of 
 lue, in the diocese of Lincoln, and in the archdea- 
 conry of Stow ; which he afterwards whicn he after . 
 exchanged, in 1368, for Lutgershall, in wards exchang- 
 the archdeaconry of Bucks, a living of haiMn^s&s 6 * 3 " 
 less value, but of more convenient situa- 
 tion, as being nearer to Oxford. In the same year 
 (1361) he was promoted to the warden- 1361. 
 ship of Baliol ; which dignity he resigned ^SJj 10 *? 
 some four years afterwards, for the head- Baliol College. 
 
 * Lewis, p. 5, 6. Cotton's Abridgement, p. 102, 103. Collier, i. 560. 
 
120 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 ship of Canterbury Hall, a society founded 
 WWlfappoh*, & bout that time by Simon Islep, then 
 ed to the head- Archbishop of Canterbury. This prelate 
 sinp of Ca 2J- was renowned for his generous attach- 
 founded by ment to learning, and for the salutary 
 Archbishop is- vigilance, and even rigour, of his ecclesi- 
 astical administration. The selection of 
 Wiclif, by such a man, for the presidentship of his 
 new foundation, must have been a signal and very 
 gratifying honour ; which, however, he might possi- 
 bly have been almost tempted to decline, had he 
 foreseen the turmoil and conflict in which his pro- 
 motion would involve him. The foundation of Can- 
 terbury Hall, it should be observed, was designed for 
 a warden and eleven scholars, eight of whom were to 
 be secular clergymen, the remaining four members, 
 including the warden, were to be monks of Christ 
 Church, Canterbury. The office of warden was first 
 conferred on one Wodehall, a turbulent and intracta- 
 ble monk, who had already molested and disquieted 
 the university, by the disorderly violence of his tem- 
 per.* In 1365, for reasons wnich are not distinctly 
 known, but probably in consequence of the dissen- 
 sions occasioned by a mixture of secular and mo- 
 nastic scholars in the same institution, the founder 
 removed Wodehall and his three monks, and substi- 
 tuted in their place John Wiclif as warden, and three 
 secular clerks, William Selby, William Middle- 
 worth, and Richard Benger, to be scholars : and this 
 change he is said to have effected by virtue of a clause 
 in the instrument of foundation, reserving to himself 
 and his successors, the power of removing the warden 
 at pleasure, in a summary manner, without process 
 or form of law.f In 1366, Islep died, and was suc- 
 
 * See Lewis, p. 11, 12. 
 
 t " Absque judicial! strepitu." These are the words quoted by Lewis, 
 but he does not give the context in which they occur. Neither can I find 
 this provision in the appendix to the first volume of Vaughan, in which 
 he professes to give all the documents which relate to this case. Dr, 
 Lingard does not hesitate to affirm that we are not acquainted with the 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 121 
 
 ceeded by Simon Langham, who was originally a 
 private monk, and afterwards abbot of Westminster ; 
 from which office he was promoted to the bishopric 
 of Ely, and thence, by papal provision, to the primacy. 
 It is not very surprising that one whose discipline 
 and life had been among the religious Orders, should 
 be found ready to entertain an appeal against a secu- 
 lar warden of Canterbury Hall. The appointment 
 of Wiclif to that office, by Simon Islep, had been 
 made in language which bore most honourable testi- 
 mony to his fitness for the post. It was, neverthe- 
 less, suggested that this appointment had taken place 
 when Islep was disabled, by infirmity, for the trans- 
 action of business ; and that it was, moreover, con- 
 trary to the charter of foundation. On this ground, 
 the appointment of Wiclif was pro- 
 nounced void by Langham, and one John s nt *$}* 
 de Radyngate substituted in his place, ced void by 
 The new president, however, held his L^ham P 
 situation but a very short time ; for, the 
 Tery next month, Wodehall was restored to the war- 
 denship; and on Wiclif 's refusal to render obedience 
 to this order, the Archbishop sequestered the revenues 
 of the Hall. Against this sentence of his wiclif appeals 
 metropolitan, Wiclif appealed to the to the Pope, 
 Pope ; a proceeding from which it may be collected 
 that he had not in his mind, at that time, any settled 
 scheme of opposition to the Papal supremacy over 
 the ecclesiastical affairs of Europe. A tedious pro- 
 cess of between three and four years followed. The 
 Papal decree at last came forth, and not who ratl fieg 
 only ratified the proceedings of Langham, Langham's de- 
 but" in defiance and contempt of the pro- cree - 
 visions of the original foundation, pronounced that none 
 bat monks, had any right " to remain perpetually" in 
 Canterbury Hall ; that all the secular scholars should 
 
 means by which Wodehall was superseded by Wiclif: but he does not 
 question that he and his monks were removed with the approbation of 
 the founder. Lingard, vol. iv. p. 214, 215. 
 
122 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 be removed; that Henry Wodehall, and the other 
 deprived monks, should be restored ; and that perpe- 
 tual silence should be imposed on Wiclif, and the 
 ejected secular clerks. 
 
 The decision Notwithstanding this decision, the re- 
 ri.iifirniMii by gulars seem to have felt their title and 
 possession insecure, until it had been 
 fortified by the royal approbation ; and this was not 
 obtained until the year 1372. In this remarkable in- 
 strument,* it is distinctly recited, that the royal 
 license was originally granted for an establishment, 
 the members of which were to be partly secular and 
 vartly religious ; that this license was first violated 
 Dy Islep's substitution of seculars exclusively ; and 
 that it was again violated by the Papal decree, which 
 transferred the institution exclusively to monks. On 
 this it became a question, whether the Hall itself, 
 together with its whole endowment, were not forfeit- 
 ed to the king, of whom the advowson of Pageham, 
 the chief source of its revenue, was held in capite. 
 To remedy this doubt, it was thought absolutely 
 necessary to have recourse to the royal confirmation 
 of the Pope's sentence ; and the instrument,, accord- 
 ingly proceeds to state, that " in consideration of 
 200 marks paid by the Prior and Convent of Christ 
 Church, Canterbury," (from which the monkish mem- 
 bers were always to be elected) " all transgressions 
 and forfeitures were pardoned, and the Papal de- 
 cree ratified and confirmed." On the face of this 
 document, therefore, it appears, that even if the 
 charter of foundation was first violated by Islep,f it 
 was equally violated afterwards by the court of 
 
 * It is printed at length in Lewis, p. 297301, from the MS. at Lam- 
 beth. No. 104. 
 
 t So far as the removal of the warden, and the substitution of Wic- 
 lif are concerned, it is doubtful whether the royal license had been vio- 
 lated by Archbishop Islep. There certainly was no such violation of it, 
 if, as Lewis asserts, it reserved to the founder the right of removing the 
 warden at pleasure, in a summary way, absque judiciali strepitu. See 
 Lewis, p. 19. note. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 123 
 
 Rome ; but that the latter breach of the royal license 
 was cured by a substantial bribe to the Crown, 
 amounting in value to between 2000 and 3000 pounds 
 of our present money. 
 
 That Wiclif should be indignant at the iniquity of 
 a transaction, so disgraceful both to the court of 
 Rome and to the court of London, may very readily be 
 imagined : and to his disappointment at the decision, 
 some have not scrupled to attribute (perhaps rashly, 
 according to the confession of a recent historian*) 
 his subsequent opposition to the Papal authority. 
 From a consideration of the following circumstances, 
 it may reasonably be collected that something far 
 more discreditable than rashness may be ascribed to 
 those, who have attributed the conduct of Wiclif to 
 any such unworthy feelings. In the first place, not 
 the slightest allusion to the subject has yet been 
 found in any portion of his writings. So far as they 
 have yet been examined, they furnish not a fragment 
 of evidence to prove that the matter dwelt upon his 
 mind, or raised a spark of worldly or factious resent- 
 ment. It may be true, (as it is most needlessly, and 
 not very charitably, remarked by a Protestant histo- 
 rian of the Church,) that " there was not much of the 
 cross in this disappointment."! But it should be re- 
 membered, that Wiclif never set up for a martyr upon 
 the strength of that disappointment, and never was 
 known to raise an outcry against the sentence. It 
 is allowed by the same writer, that he suffered in a 
 righteous cause ; and this is, probably, all that Wic- 
 lif would have claimed for himself; and is, assured- 
 ly, all that has been claimed for him by his most 
 favourable historians. In the next place it must be 
 recollected, that his deep sense of ecclesiastical 
 abuse and corruption had, long before, found utter- 
 ance in his tract on the Last Age of the Church, pub- 
 lished in 1356. There is, furthermore, the strongest 
 
 * Lingarrt, vol. iv. p. 215 
 
 t Milner's Church History, voL iv. p. 110. 
 
124 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 reason for believing that he had openly committed 
 himself to decided hostilities against the Romish 
 militia, the Mendicant Orders, previously to the 
 commencement of the dispute relative to the warden- 
 ship of Canterbury Hall, (although there may be no 
 extant writing of his on this subject, to wnich so 
 early a date can, with absolute certainty, be assign- 
 ed ;) and that these hostilities were continued,, with 
 unabated vigour, even while the appeal to Rome was 
 pending. But the most triumphant defence of Wic- 
 lif from the charge either of vindictive selfishness, 
 or of a worldly and calculating spirit, is to be found 
 in his conduct relative to the Papal claim of sove- 
 reignty over the realm of England, about that time 
 revived by Pope Urban the Fifth. 
 
 It will, of course, be recollected, that the founda- 
 tion for this claim was the surrender of the British 
 crown by King John to Pope Innocent the Third. 
 Nothing, perhaps, could have occurred to scatter more 
 widely, among the people of England, the seeds of 
 disaffection towards the Papal tyranny, than this 
 most ignominious transaction. That the submission 
 rendered to it both by the monarch and the people 
 was, in all succeeding times, bitterly reluctant, may 
 be concluded from the fact, that the humiliating for- 
 mality of homage was constantly evaded, and that, 
 since the days of Henry III. the odious tribute of 
 1,000 marks was often interrupted. In 1365, no less 
 1365 than thirty-three years had elapsed since 
 The Pope re- the last payment had been made ; and 
 
 vjyes his claim tnen in eyil hour wnen tne spirit Q f tne 
 OJ homage and . * i \ > T* 
 
 tribute from nation was at its highest, the Pope he- 
 England, thought him of demanding the arrears, 
 and, with them, the due performance of feudal hom- 
 age. On failure to comply, King Edward the Third, 
 the conqueror of France, the hero of the age, the 
 mirror of chivalry was apprised that he would be 
 cited by process to appear at the Papal court, there 
 to answer for the default to his civil and spiritual 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 125 
 
 sovereign. The conduct of that monarch on this 
 occasion was precisely such as became a Edward m 
 King of England. He laid the insolent lays the de- 
 exactions of the Pontiff before his Par- p"f ame ^ fore 
 liament the next year, (1366,) and de- who'^'Soive 
 sired their advice on the emergency, that it ought to 
 The answer of the lords spiritual and 
 temporal, and of the Commons of England to this 
 demand of their sovereign, is such as, even at this 
 distance of time, we can hardly read without feeling 
 our hearts burn within us. " Forasmuch as neither 
 king John, nor any other king, could bring this realm 
 and kingdom in such thraldom and subjection, but 
 by common consent of Parliament, the which was 
 not done ; therefore, that which he did was against 
 his oath at his coronation. If, therefore, the Pope 
 should attempt any thing against the king by pro- 
 cess, or other matters in deed, the king, with all his 
 subjects, should, with all their force and power, re- 
 sist the same." 
 
 This solemn legislative renunciation of servitude 
 and vassalage, must have smitten with sore amaze- 
 ment the faithful adherents of Pontifical supremacy. 
 Their displeasure was speedily expressed by the pen 
 of an anonymous monk, who immediately on the pro- 
 mulgation of the above resolutions, published a vin- 
 dication of the Papal claims, in which he Widif chal 
 challenged Wiclif, byname, to confute lenged to defend 
 his arguments in support of those preten- the resolution of 
 sions, and to maintain the recent decision Parliament - 
 of the Parliament. What then is the irresistible infe- 
 rence from the bare fact of such a challenge, but 
 that Wiclif was, at that time, publicly known as 
 the avowed and determined adversary of Papal en- 
 croachment, as the champion, whom of all others, 
 an advocate of the Romish power would be most 
 anxious to overthrow ? The case, therefore, stands, 
 simply, thus. In 1365, Wiclif appeals to Rome 
 against his ejection from the wardenship of Can- 
 11* 
 
126 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 terbury Hall : in 1367, while his suit is pending, he is 
 publicly challenged to defend the independence of 
 his country against Popish usurpation, a challenge 
 which he promptly answers; and in 1370, the Pope 
 decides against him, by a final sentence of depriva- 
 tion. Where, then, shall we -find language to de- 
 scribe tne rashness of the surmise, that he was driven 
 to extremities against the Papal authority, by his 
 exasperation at the judgment which finally thrust 
 him from his preferment? 
 
 The performance of his monkish an- ^57 
 tagonist has not been preserved; his wiciifs reply 
 reply to it is, however, extant,* in the to 
 form of a theological " determination" in Latin ; and 
 we may collect from it that the first object of his 
 adversary was to render Wiclif personally odious at 
 Rpme, and thus to prejudice the suit then pending, 
 and to ruin his future professional fortunes; the se- 
 cond to secure for himself and his Order the patron*- 
 age of the Papal court ; and the last, to establish the 
 Papal power in more unlimited license, and conse- 
 quently, to effect a more shameless accumulation of 
 secular domains upon the religious houses. t Un 
 deterred by any regard for his own personal interests, 
 Wiclif addresses himself to the demolition of the 
 main strength of his antagonist, which he finds to be 
 collected in the following notable syllogism. "All 
 dominion, granted under a condition, is, by the vio- 
 lation of the condition dissolved. But the Lord Pope 
 granted to our king the realm of England, under the 
 condition that England should annually pay 700 
 marks,:}: which condition has from time to time been 
 
 * It is printed by Lewis, p. 349 360, by the title of " Determinatio quae- 
 4am Magistri Johannis Wycliff, de Dominio ; contra unum Monachum." 
 
 t "Tres causae dictae sunt mihi, cur homo facit. Primo, ut persona 
 mea, sic ad Romanam Curiam diffamata, et aggravatis censuris, ab eccle- 
 siasticis beneficiis sit privata. Secundo, ut ex hinc sibi et suis benevolen- 
 tia Romanae Curiae sit reportata. Et tertio, ut, dominante Domino Papa> 
 rc-sno Angliae, liberius, copiosius, et voluptuosius, sine freno correptionis 
 fraternae, sint Abbathiis civilia dominia cumulata." Lewis, p. 351. 
 
 ; 700 for England, 300 for Ireland. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF, 127 
 
 disregarded. Therefore, the king of England has 
 long since fallen from the sovereignty of England." 
 It required no great logical sagacity to discover that 
 this argument began by virtually assuming the prin- 
 cipal matter in debate; namely, that the condition 
 was such as one of the high contracting parties had 
 power lawfully to impose, or the other to accept. 
 All, therefore, that remained for \V"iclif to do, was to 
 show that the condition in question was utterly in- 
 tolerable. To this object he addresses himself with a 
 somewhat ironical gravity. He professes, for his 
 part, to be a humble and obedient son of the Romish 
 ^Church, and protests that he is unwilling to make 
 any assertion which may sound injuriously to her 
 honour, or infliet reasonable oifence on pious ears. 
 He, therefore, conceives it to be more becoming in 
 'jtim to j-efer the Reverend Doctor, his antagonist, to 
 *he solution of the question which he had heard to 
 iave been given in a certain assembly of secular 
 'lords : and he, accordingly, proceeds to detail the 
 sentiments there expressed by these illustrious coun- 
 sellors. The first of them, he tells us, declared that 
 tribute could be due only by right of conquest, and 
 Chat it should be altogether refused unless the Pope 
 could .extort .it by strength of hand ; which if his Ho- 
 liness should attempt he (the speaker) would resist in 
 defence of our right By the next of these senators 
 it was observed, that tta Pope ought to be foremost 
 in the following of Christ, who had not where to lay 
 his head : that by the nature of his office, he was 
 absolutely incapacitated for receiving any such im- 
 post as he now demanded : that it was their duty to 
 confine the Pope to the observance of his spiritual 
 function, and, consequently, to resist the exaction of 
 civil homage or tribute. If, said the third debater, 
 the Pope be the servant of the servants of God, no?- 
 thing but the performance of service can entitle him 
 to any payment. Service, however, whether temporal 
 or spiritual, we have received none, at the hand of 
 
128 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 his Holiness. His demand of payment must conse- 
 quently fall, at once, to the ground. A third part, or 
 more, of the land of this kingdom, said the fourth 
 nobleman, is held in mortmain by the Church ; that 
 is, by the Pope, who claims to be Lord of all the pos- 
 sessions of the Church. It follows, then, that he must 
 hold these lands either as tenant and vassal of the 
 king, or else as his liege lord and superior. That the 
 king can have any territorial superior * within this 
 realm is contrary to the spirit of all feudal institu- 
 tions; since, even when lands are granted in mort- 
 main, the rights of the original lord are invariably 
 reserved. The Pope, therefore, must be the king's 
 vassal ; and, having continually failed to render hom- 
 age and service, has unquestionably incurred the 
 forfeiture appropriate to such default. On what 
 ground was it, demands the fifth speaker, that this 
 impost was granted by King John ? Was it for the 
 benefit of personal absolution granted to himself, or 
 for the removal of the interdict laid upon his kingdom, 
 or for any forfeiture incurred by the monarch ? If for 
 either of the two former reasons, the transaction was 
 basely simoniacal and iniquitous. It was simonia- 
 cal, for it savoureth not of the religion of Christ to 
 say, I will absolve thee on condition that you pay me 
 so much monies annually and for ever. It was grossly 
 iniquitous, for what could be more shameful than 
 to burden the unoffending people with a penalty due 
 only to the sins of the monarch ? But if this mark 
 of servitude were imposed for the last of the above 
 reasons, it must follow that the Pope would, in the 
 most formidable of all senses, be the liege lord of our 
 king. He might, for any pretended forfeiture, and at 
 any time, pluck the crown from the head of our sove- 
 reign, and place it on the brow of a creature of his 
 own ! And who, adds the speaker, is to resist the 
 beginnings of such encroachments, if we do not? 
 The goods of the Church, said another, cannot be 
 lawfully alienated without an adequate and reason- 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 129 
 
 able consideration. It is, therefore, quite monstrous 
 that the Pope should pretend to dispose of a realm so 
 broad and rich for a paltry rent of 700 marks a year. 
 Besides, if there is to be any sovereign lord of this 
 land, above the king, that lord must be no other than 
 Christ himself. The Pope it cannot be ; for the Pope 
 is liable to sin : and, according to the doctors of 
 theology, by actually incurring mortal sin, would 
 forfeit all title to dominion. Enough, therefore, it is 
 for us to keep ourselves from mortal sin, and virtu- 
 ously to share our possessions with the poor, in token 
 of our holding them immediately of Christ, the only 
 sure and all-sufficient liege Lord, instead of ac- 
 knowledging ourselves dependent on one whose own 
 title must be constantly open to failure and defeat. 
 It was very forcibly urged by the last of these speak- 
 ers, that an improvident stipulation of the king, the 
 result of his own judicial infatuation, and affecting 
 the rights and interests of a whole people, could 
 never be held perpetually binding, unless confirmed 
 by the formal and solemn acquiescence of all orders 
 and estates of the realm. Such plenitude of au- 
 thority and consent was, in this instance, wanting; 
 the whole transaction, therefore, must be utterly 
 illegitimate and void. From these considerations, 
 thus solemnly urged by the secular counsellors of the 
 nation, Wiclif conceives himself entitled to conclude, 
 that the condition imposed by the Pope, and accepted 
 by king John, was altogether " a vain thing;" and 
 he commends to his reverend adversary the task of 
 proving it to be otherwise. " But if I mistake not," 
 he adds in conclusion; " the day will first arrive in 
 which every exaction shall cease, before the doctor 
 will be able to establish that a stipulation, such as 
 this, can ever be consistent either with honesty or 
 with reason." 
 
 It is not, perhaps, very easy to decide, whether 
 Wiclif is here to be considered as reporting the sub- 
 stance of a debate which had actually taken place in 
 
130 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the House of Peers, relative to the demands of the 
 Pope,* or whether he is merely putting into the 
 mouths of fictitious and imaginary speakers, such 
 arguments, as would naturally suggest themselves to 
 intelligent, high-spirited, and patriotic men. But, 
 however this may be, it has been the pleasure of a 
 living historianf to pronounce, that this " Determina- 
 tion" of the Reformer, " does more honour to his 
 loyalty as a subject, than to his abilities as a scholar 
 or a divine." His abilities, it may frankly be con- 
 ceded, are not displayed to much advantage in this 
 piece, considered as a specimen of artificial rhetoric, 
 or finished composition. The style, it must be al- 
 lowed, is sufficiently barbarous and rugged, and the 
 Latinity such as to inflict severe penance on Cicero- 
 nian ears, a circumstance not very surprising, when 
 it is remembered, that, in those days, the graces of a 
 classic style were little cultivated, and, indeed, scarce- 
 ly known. If,- however, the performance is to be 
 estimated by its fitness to produce the desired impres- 
 sion on the public mind, it will assuredly be found 
 not more honourable to his loyalty, than to his capa- 
 city and address. With a view to the purposes con- 
 templated by him, we can scarcely imagine a happier 
 form than that into which he has thrown the multi- 
 plied objections to these intolerable claims. It must 
 have elated the very soul of any loyal Englishman to 
 hear the reasonings by which the first men in the king- 
 dom hurled back in the teeth of the Pontiff his pre- 
 tensions to sovereignty over their native land. Every 
 individual, with a grain of common sense in his 
 head, or a spark of patriotism and religion in his 
 heart, must have felt his blood warmed by these 
 noble pledges of resistance to foreign arrogance and 
 
 * It is clear that he does not pretend to have been present at the dis- 
 cussion. His words are, " transmitto Doctorem meum reverendum ad 
 solutionem hujus argumenti, quam audivi in quodam Concilio a Domi- 
 nis Secularibus esse datam. Primus autem Dominus, in armis plus 
 BirermuSjfertur taliter respondisse, &c. &c." Lewis, p. 351. 
 
 4 Lingard, vol. iv. p. 215, note 194. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 131 
 
 usurpation. On such an occasion, and for such ob- 
 jects, what could the scholar and the divine, the 
 peculiar clerk and chaplain to the king,* do better, 
 than throw aside for a time, the person of a mere 
 professional disputant, and appeal to the understand- 
 ing of his readers in the language of senators and of 
 statesmen ? 
 
 It is further asserted by the same writer, that this 
 paper " is chiefly remarkable for containing the germ 
 of those doctrines, which afterwards involved Wiclif 
 in so much trouble, namely, that dominion is founded 
 in grace, and that the clergy ought not to hold tem- 
 poral possessions."! With regard to the absurd and 
 pernicious doctrine, that dominion is founded on 
 grace, there is but one allusion to it in the whole 
 document. It occurs in the argument of the sixth 
 speaker ; and there it appears in the form of an ap- 
 peal to principles, which were admitted by the theo- 
 logical doctors of the age 4 That the temporal 
 endowments of the Church were destitute of all sanc- 
 tion, either from primitive example, or from the spirit 
 and design of Christ's religion, is, it must be ac- 
 knowledged, a doctrine distinctly and uniformly 
 maintained by Wiclif. But a candid perusal of his 
 " Determination" must show, that this was not the 
 only, and certainly not the strongest ground, on 
 which he resisted the claim of any Ecclesiastic, how- 
 ever exalted, to extort tribute from a foreign country. 
 As these points will occasionally meet us again in 
 the course of this narrative, it may be proper to seize 
 the opportunity of remarking, that the opinions of 
 Wiclif, relative to ecclesiastical property, appear to 
 have been carried to a point, which lay very far be- 
 
 * So he describes himself in his Determination : " Ego cum sim 
 peculiaris Regis . Clericus, talis qualis, volo libenter induere habitum 
 responsalis, defendendo et suadendo quod Rex potest justfc dominari 
 regno Angliae, negando tributum Romano Pontifici." 
 
 t Lingard, vol. iv. p. 215, note 194. 
 
 t Papa, dum fuerit in peccato mortali, secundum theolog08 y caret 
 dominio. Lewis, p. 354. 
 
132 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 yond the limits of moderation. It is fit that the 
 reader should be prepared for this : and it is likewise 
 fit that his attention should be fixed on the causes 
 which often drove the Reformer to a dangerous au- 
 dacity of statement, in his discussions of this subject. 
 It should never be forgotten, that he lived in days 
 when the possessions of the Papal hierarchy had 
 reached a most portentous magnitude, and had con- 
 verted the Romish priesthood, for the most part, inta 
 a corrupt and indolent aristocracy. It has beer* 
 computed, that more than half * the landed property 
 of this kingdom was then in their hands ; and no- 
 thing but the Statute of Mortmain had prevented a 
 still further absorption of it. Now it is one of the 
 curses inflicted on mankind by flagrant and invete- 
 rate abuse, that the momentum required for its over^ 
 throw is such as frequently to carry the assailant 
 forward, beyond the boundaries of wisdom and of safe- 
 ty. If, therefore, the principles or the reasonings of 
 the Reformer, respecting the worldly affluence of the 
 clergy, should be thought to savour of rashness or 
 extravagance, a substantial apology may be found 
 in the ruinous enormity of those evils, which called 
 him forth to & life of incessant, perilous, and spirit- 
 stirring conflict. 
 
 ft is stated that there were in England 53,215/eoda militum; of 
 which the religious had 28,000, more than half! &e Turner's History 
 of England, vol. ii. p. 413, note 64. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIFr 133 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 13671377. 
 
 Petition of Parliament that Ecclesiastics should not hold offices of 
 State Answer of the King Probable effect of Wiclif >s writings 
 and opinions respecting this question Ifis sentiments on the em- 
 ployment of the Clergy in secular offices He becomes a Doctor of 
 Divinity, and is raised to the Divinity Chair at Oxford Ins 
 Exposition of the Decalogue Notice of his "Pore Caitiff" Notice 
 of the struggles of this Country against Papal exaction Papal 
 Provisions Statute of Provisors, and of Premunire Wiclif sent 
 as Ambassador to the Pope Presented to the Prebend of Aust 
 and the Rectory of Lutterworth Remonstrance of the " Good 
 Parliament" agait-.^t the Extortions of the Pope Wiclif sum- 
 moned to appear btfoi <'-, he, Convocation at St. Paul's He is pro- 
 tected by John of Gaunt His appearance at St. Paul's The 
 tumultuous scene which followed Death of Edward III., and 
 accession of Richard II. Further complaints of the Parliament 
 against the Pope Question, "whether the treasure of the king- 
 dom might not be detained, although required by the Pope," refer' 
 red to Wiclif His answer. 
 
 NOTHING is clearly or positively known respecting 
 the life, the studies, and the pursuits of Wiclif, during 
 the interval which elapsed between his intrepid vin- 
 dication of the independence of his country, and the 
 year 1371, which was memorable for another assault 
 upon the honours and privileges of Churchmen. In 
 that year, a petition was presented by 1371 
 the Parliament to the King, requesting Petition of Par- 
 the exclusion of ecclesiastical persons cSXSte?* 6 * 
 from offices of State, which, at that time, should not hold 
 were almost entirely engrossed by the offices of state. 
 clergy, conformably to a practice wnich had generally 
 prevailed in Europe, ever since the conversion of the 
 western nations to the Christian faith. Every one, 
 who has the slightest acquaintance with the state of 
 society in the darker ages of Europe, is in full posses- 
 sion of the apology which may reasonably be offered 
 
134 LIFE OF WICLIF, 
 
 for a usage which, in theory, it might, perhaps, be 
 difficult to defend. In those times, learning and in- 
 telligence were, in a great measure, confined to eccle- 
 siastics. Throughout many a generation, it would 
 have been vain to seek among the laity for persons 
 qualified for the execution of functions requiring the 
 most elementary of those accomplishments, which 
 are now diffused almost throughout every class of the 
 community. The coarse and ignorant heroes of the 
 feudal ages positively gloried in their utter destitution 
 of all " clerk-like" qualifications. To write and read 
 were regarded by them as despicable vanities, which 
 dishonoured a warrior, and degraded him to the level 
 of a monk.* With the capricious inconsistency which 
 often marks the semibarbarian, they cherished a feel- 
 ing of disdain for arts, the want of which kept them 
 in a state of humiliation, and placed them at the mercy 
 of a profession alternately the object of their derision 
 and their fears. So long as this habit of thought or 
 feeling prevailed, the highest secular responsibilities 
 would, naturally and unavoidably, devolve upon the 
 sacerdotal orders. In the fourteenth century, however, 
 these days of ignorance and weakness were evidently 
 passing away. The monstrous anomaly of consign- 
 ing the offices of judicature, and the cares of State, to 
 a class of persons, whose function pledged them to 
 the guardianship of man's spiritual and eternal inte- 
 rests, was beginning to undergo a severe and unsparing 
 scrutiny. The world were no longer content to see 
 both Church and State placed under the control of 
 the mitre and the cowl. It was no longer thought an 
 ordinance of Nature or of Providence, that the seals 
 
 * Every reader will at once call to mind the words of the Douglas id 
 Marmion : 
 
 by heaven it liked me ill 
 
 When tire king praised his clerkly skill 
 Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine, 
 Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line, 
 So said I, and so say I still, 
 Let my boy Bishop fret his fill 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 135 
 
 of judicial or political office should be borne by spi- 
 ritual dignitaries. People began to think it strange 
 that the Chancery and the Exchequer should be occu- 
 pied by functionaries who were ordained to a minis- 
 try abhorrent from secular chicanery and litigation. 
 Still less could they comprehend the profane abuse 
 which consigned the care of royal wardrobes, or 
 buildings, to ecclesiastical surveyors, or placed the 
 kitchen and the larder under the control of a ghostly 
 clerk! 
 
 These usages, however, like a multitude of others 
 which had been almost consecrated by superstitious 
 habit, retreated but very slowly before the advancing 
 intelligence of the age. In the present instance, the 
 answer of the King was, that he would Answer of the 
 deal with the petition of Parliament con- Kin - 
 formably to the advice of his council. His advisers, 
 it would seem, did not venture to recommend an en- 
 tire disregard of this popular feeling ; for, in the course 
 of a few weeks, the celebrated William of Wykeham 
 resigned the great seal, and the Bishop of Exeter re- 
 tired from the office of treasurer. This success, how- 
 ever, was but partial and temporary. Little perma- 
 nent impression was made by it on the obnoxious 
 practice,* which continued, with slight interruption, 
 till nearly the middle of the 'seventeenth century. 
 Of the ecclesiastics who sat in the Court of Chancery, 
 Bishop Williams was the last. Of clerical statesmen 
 and prime ministers no instance occurs subsequently 
 to that of Laud, who, probably, owed his ruin, in a 
 
 * The same tendency in the Clergy to desecrate themselves by every 
 species of secular occupation is denounced, more than a century and a 
 half later, by old Latimer, with his usual bluntness. " It is to be lamented 
 that the prelates, and other spiritual persons, will not attend upon their 
 offices. They will not be among their flocks, but will, rather, run hither 
 and thither, here and there, where they are not called, and, in the mean 
 
 ici UIH^GO \jyuu iuc.3 uiai wiiiuu uiej' nave ttlicctujr. i>ui, rviiu 
 
 what conscience these same do so, I cannot tell!" Sermons, p. 171, 
 quoted in Vaughan, vol. i. p. 317, note 22. 
 
136 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 considerable measure, to the jealousy and disgust 
 occasioned by his supposed intrusion into the political 
 councils of his sovereign. So inveterate, however, 
 was this practice, that, when he retired from the 
 management of the treasury, he seemed still to be 
 utterly unconscious that the fiscal office was unfit for 
 a churchman, and accordingly laboured to procure it 
 for Bishop Juxon; and he expressed the highest 
 satisfaction when he succeeded in transferring it to 
 such able and upright administration. Since that 
 time, no high political function has, in this kingdom, 
 been entrusted to an ecclesiastic. On the continent, 
 the usage survived considerably longer. 
 
 If it be asked how we are to connect this petition 
 of the Commons, with the history of Wiclif, it may, 
 perhaps, be difficult to furnish a perfectly conclusive 
 answer. The want of certainty as to me dates of 
 his multifarious writings, may render it 
 of wSSpswri- nexl to impossible, at the present day, to 
 tings and opin- estimate correctly the influence of his 
 IffiJiSS 1 "* labours on that public feeling which ex- 
 
 UllS ijuoiioii. _. i i ff mi 
 
 pressed itself in this proceeding. Thus 
 much, however, is clear ; that the language and tenor 
 of that petition, were in full accordance with the 
 sentiments to which he has given utterance in a va- 
 riety of his extant compositions. It is, moreover, 
 quite indisputable, that, at this period, he was no ob- 
 scure and cloistered speculator. So long ago as the 
 year 1356, as we have already seen, he committed 
 himself to an open assault on the worldliness and 
 ambition of the Romish hierarchy ; about the year 
 1360, he was renowned for his prominent share in the 
 controversy with the Mendicants; and in 1367, or 
 1368, he had further pledged himself to the conflict 
 against Papal usurpation, by vindicating the resist- 
 ance of the Parliament to the claims of tribute. These 
 considerations, combined with the notorious spirit 
 and tenor of all his publications, may reasonably 
 warrant the conclusion, that his opinions were power- 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 137 
 
 fully instrumental in giving strength to the impulse, 
 which in 1371, was carrying the public mind forward 
 in the direction of improvement. This inference 
 derives much confirmation, from the circumstance 
 that Fox, the Martyrologist, does not appear to en- 
 tertain the slightest doubt, that Wiclif is alluded to* 
 by one of our ancient chroniclers, who ascribes to 
 heretical counsels, the measures adopted, about this 
 time, to the disadvantage of the clergy; and who 
 very gravely denounces those proceedings as the sins 
 which called down upon the king the troubles and 
 reverses of his latter days ! That the measure now 
 under consideration, was in strict harmony with the 
 convictions of Wiclif, will sufficiently appear from 
 the following extracts from his writings. The trea- 
 tise termed " the Regimen of the Church," (which, 
 if not Wiclif 's own composition, is most probably a 
 compilation from his writings) almost echoes the 
 language of the Parliament. " Neither 
 Prelates," he contends, " nor Doctors, wuSif e on the 
 nor Deacons, should hold secular offices, employment of 
 that is, those of Chancery, Treasury, secuiar^omceT 
 Privy Seal, and other such secular offices 
 in the Exchequer ; neither be Land-stewards nor 
 Stewards of Hall, nor Clerks of Kitchen, nor Clerks 
 of Accounts ; neither be occupied in any secular 
 office in Lords' Courts ; more especially while secu- 
 
 * " It appeareth," says Fox, " by such as have observed the order and 
 course of times, that this Wiclif flourished about the year of our Lord 
 1371, Edward the Third reigning in England. For thus we do find in 
 the Chronicles of Caxton : ' In the year of our Lord 1371,' saith he, 
 ' Edward the third, King of England, in his Parliament, was against the 
 Pope's Clergy. He willingly harkened and gave ear to the voices and 
 tales ofheretikes, with certain of his Counsell, conceiving and following 
 sinister opinions against the Clergie. Wherefore, afterward, he tasted 
 and suffered much adversity and trouble. And not long after, in the year 
 of our Lord,' saith he, ' 1372, he wrote unto the Bishop of Rome, that he 
 should not, by any means, intermeddle any more within his kingdom, as 
 touching the reservation, or distribution of benefices ; and that all such 
 Bishops as were under his dominion, should enjoy their former and an- 
 -cient libertie, and be confirmed of their metropolitanes, as hath been aG- 
 .customed in times past.' Thus much writeth Caxton." Fox's Acts and 
 Monuments, in Wordsworth's Ecclee. Biography, vol. i. p. 5, 6. 
 
 
138 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 lar men are able to do such offices."* The incon- 
 sistency of such occupations with the spiritual 
 function, is exposed by reference to the authority 
 of St. Gregory, St. Chrysostom, and St. Jerome, 
 and of the apostolic decrees. He further appeals 
 to the language of St. Paul to the Corinthian 
 Church, and to the admonition of pur Lord, addressed 
 to his disciples. In another of his compositions, he 
 complains that " prelates, and great religious pro- 
 fessioners are so occupied in heart about worldly 
 lordships, and with pleas of business, that no habit 
 of devotion, of praying, of thoughtfulness on hea- 
 venly things, on the sins of their own heart, or those 
 of other men, may be preserved ; neither may they 
 be found studying and preaching of the Gospel, nor 
 visiting and comforting of poor men." And the mi- 
 serable effect of this desertion of their sacred minis- 
 try, he describes to be, that the churchmen, who are 
 suffered to become " rich clerks of Chancery, of the 
 Common Bench, and King's Bench, and the Exche- 
 quer, and Justices, and Sheriffs, and Stewards, and 
 Bailiffs,"! contract, at last, such habits of worldli- 
 ness, as must utterly disqualify them for rebuking, 
 with authority, the worldliness of other people. And, 
 accordingly, in the complaint preferred by him, seve- 
 ral years later, to the King and Parliament, he says, 
 " our Priests ben so busy about worldly occupations, 
 that they see men better bailiffs, or reves, than 
 ghostly Priests of Jesu Christ." Such was the pre- 
 valence of this admixture of sacred and profane em- 
 ployments, that it would seem to have had not only 
 the sanction of the Crown, but the approbation and 
 
 * For this and the following extract, I am indebted to the diligence of 
 Mr. Vaughan. See vol. i. p. 314. The passaff? quoted above is from 
 the Ecclesice, Regimen. Cotton MSS. Titus, D. L There is a second 
 copy of this Treatise among the MSS. of Trinity College, Dublin; 
 which, however, was mislaid when Mr. Vaushan wished to examine it. 
 
 t This passage is taken from a MS. in C. C. C. Cambridge, beginning 
 with the words, " For three skills [reasons] lords should constrain Clerka 
 to live in meekness, poverty, and ghostly travail." Vaughan, roL I 
 p.315. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 139 
 
 encouragement of the lay patrons ; who are repre- 
 sented by the Reformer as diverting clerks from their 
 holy calling, by appointing them to hold " vain offices 
 in their courts," and thus deterring the more con- 
 scientious among them from accepting spiritual bene- 
 fices. 4 It would be needless to ransack his writings 
 for further extracts, in condemnation of such degrad- 
 ing usages. Sentiments similar to those which have 
 been here produced, are, doubtless, scattered in pro- 
 fusion over his works: and although we may be 
 unable to assign the exact time at which he began 
 publicly to reprobate these particular abuses, it would 
 be absurd to hesitate in reckoning his influence as 
 among the most powerful agencies, which were then 
 at work to purify the Church from this species of 
 desecration. 
 
 The year 1372 was memorable for 1372 
 Wiclif 's promotion to the degree of doc- Wiclif becomes 
 tor of divinity, and for his elevation to d ctorofdivini- 
 
 T i i c r\ c j A i ty> an d is raised 
 
 the theological chair of Oxford. At the to the divinity 
 time of his advancement to this com- chair at Oxford. 
 manding position, he was in the maturity and autumn 
 of his life, having then numbered about eight-and- 
 forty years. It is probable that many of his scholas- 
 tic exercitations, of which a considerable number is 
 still extant, were delivered in the regular course of 
 his professional duty : and, if no other monument of 
 his powers had been preserved to us, there would, 
 perhaps, be little, which should tempt posterity to 
 disturb the dust which ages might heap upon his 
 volumes, little which would make good his peculiar 
 claim to the title of Evangelic Doctor. His whole 
 life, however, showed that he brought with him to 
 his new station a much loftier ambition, than that of 
 merely enlarging or fortifying the barren domain of 
 metaphysical abstraction. The fashion of the age, 
 indeed, and the very nature of his office, must fre- 
 
 * In his tract on the question, " Why poor Priests have no benefices." 
 
140 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 quentlyhave demanded such exhibitions of his learn- 
 ing and acuteness. At this day, they will, perhaps, 
 be regarded as little better than a mere waste of his 
 abilities ; but it should never be forgotten, that they 
 did substantial, though indirect, service to the cause 
 of scriptural truth, since they advanced his reputa- 
 tion, and greatly augmented trie weight and authority 
 of his opinions. That his thoughts, however, were 
 not diverted by his elevation from the weightier mat- 
 Wiciifs Expo- ters f Christian theology, will appear 
 eitionof the De- from his copious Exposition of the Deca- 
 caiogue. logue, a treatise which may, with con- 
 
 siderable probability, be referred to this period of his 
 life. A plain scriptural statement of the laws of the 
 two tables, in the English tongue, may seem to us no 
 mighty achievement for so renowned a doctor. In 
 those times, however, there can be no doubt, such a 
 work was a phenomenon of great rarity and vast 
 importance. He himself tells us in his preface, that 
 it was, then, no uncommon thing for men " to call 
 God Master, forty, three-score, or four-score years ; 
 and yet to remain ignorant of his Ten Command- 
 ments." And when the Commandments were known, 
 the priestcraft of the age was, generally, at hand, to 
 point out some refuge of lies, in which the trans- 
 gressor might be safe from the penalty. To lay 
 the Divine law before the world in all its purity, and 
 all its sovereignty was, in such an age, one of the 
 noblest services which a teacher could render to the 
 Church. The world must have been startled, as at 
 the clang of the trumpet, to hear, as it were, from 
 the chair of divinity, such words as these : ' Covet 
 not thy neighbour's goods, despise him not, slander 
 him not, deceive him not, scorn him not, belie him 
 not, backbite him not ; the which is a common cus- 
 tom now-a-days : and so, in all other things, do no 
 otherwise than thou wouldst reasonably that he did 
 to thee. But many think if they give a penny to a 
 pardoner, they shall be forgiven the breaking of alj 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 141 
 
 the commandments of God, and therefore they take 
 no heed how they keep them. But I say to thee for 
 certain, though thou have priests and friars to sing for 
 thee, and though thou each day hear many masses, and 
 found chauntries and colleges, and go on pilgrimages 
 all thy life, and give all thy goods to pardoners : all 
 this shall not bring lay soul to heaven. While, if 
 the commandments of God are revered to the end, 
 though neither penny nor half-penny be possessed, 
 there shall be everlasting pardon and bliss of heaven." 
 From the following extract it will appear, that at this 
 period, he had not dismissed from his system the belief 
 of purgatory . But then, it is likewise evident, from the 
 language of this passage, especially when combined 
 with that of the foregoing, that he considered purga- 
 tory as a place of intermediate suffering, beyond the 
 reach of all human control or dispensation. " God," 
 he desires us to remember, " is all-just ; why ? be- 
 cause he rewardeth all good deeds, and punisheth all 
 trespasses in due time, and in due measure, both secret 
 and open ; neither may any creature resist his punish- 
 ing, whether in earth, or in purgatory, or in hell."* 
 That in his representation of our condition, as moral 
 beings, he had perpetual and faithful reference to the 
 One Great Sacrifice, is obvious from these words : 
 " Have a remembrance of the goodness of God, how 
 he made thee in his own likeness ; and how Jesus 
 Christ, both God and man, died so painful a death 
 upon the cross, to buy man's soul out of hell, even with 
 his own heart's blood, and to bring it to the bliss of 
 heaven."f And again, after dwelling on the bitter 
 agonies endured by the Saviour, he adds, " thou 
 shouldst think, constantly, how, when he had made 
 thee out of nought, thou hadst forsaken him and all 
 his kindness through sin; and hadst taken thee to 
 Satan and his service world without end, had not 
 Christ, God and man, suffered this hard death to save 
 
 Vaughan, vol. i. o. 326. t Ibid. p. 322. 
 
142 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 us. And then, see the great kindness, and all other 
 goodness which Christ hath shown thee : and thereby 
 learn thy own great unkindness ; and then thou shalt 
 see that man is the most fallen of creatures, and the 
 unkindest of all the creatures that ever God made. 
 It should be full sweet and delightful to us to think 
 thus on this great kindness, and this great love of 
 Jesus Christ."* Among the most crying enormities 
 of those times, may be reckoned the habitual pro- 
 faneness which infected the language of the laity, 
 and which, to say the least, received no effectual 
 discountenance from the higher dignitaries of the 
 Church. Wiclif himself, in his treatise of prelates,t 
 describes the abbot, or prior, riding " with four-score 
 horse, with harness or silver and gold, and many 
 ragged and fittred squires, and other men, swearing 
 heart, and nails, and bones, and other members of 
 Christ." And we learn from Chaucer,t that men often 
 seemed to glory " in swering, and held it a gentery, 
 and a manly deed, to swere great oaths, all be the 
 
 * Vaughan, vol. i. p. 327. 
 t Cited in Lewis, p. 39, 40. 
 
 J Parson's Tale, p. 183. Ed. 1687. And again, he gives us the fol- 
 lowing scene : 
 
 Our host on his stirrops stoode anon ; 
 
 Sir Parish Priest (quod he)/or God's bones, 
 
 Tell us a tale. 
 
 I see well that ye learned men in lore 
 
 Can muckle good, by Goddis dignitie. 
 The Parson him answered, Benedicite, 
 
 What eileth the man, so sinfully to swear? 
 
 Our host answered, O Jenkin, be ye there? 
 
 Now, good men (quod our host) harkneth to me ; 
 
 / smell a Loller in the wind, (quod he.) 
 
 Abideth for God's digne passion, 
 
 For we shall have a predication. 
 
 This Loller here will preachen us somewhat 
 
 SQ.IURE'S PROLOGUE, p. 47. Ed 1687. 
 
 So general was the practice, that Knyghton also mentions the abstinence 
 from such blasphemies as one sure symptom of Lollardy. De Event. 
 Angl. p. 2706. And it does, unquestionably, appear that the Lollards 
 carried their scruples to a ridiculous excess. They held it unlawful to 
 swear, on any occasion, by a creature ; and, therefore, they refused to 
 swear by a book ! See W. Thorpe's Examination. Wordsw. EccL Biogr. 
 vol. i. p. 186. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 143 
 
 cause not worth a straw." Against this odious 
 abomination, Wiclif protests most vehemently in his 
 Exposition. " For the love of Christ," he exclaims, 
 " who for you shed his blood, beware, henceforth, 
 night and day, of your oathes' swearing." It was 
 sometimes suggested, that a frequent, even though 
 somewhat irreverent, use of God's holy name, is a 
 proof that we hold him constantly in our remem- 
 brance. This worthless apology he exposes to scorn, 
 by showing that a man might just as reasonably 
 pretend to honour his prince, by the frequent repe- 
 tition of his name, even " though it might be to be- 
 tray him, or teach others to despise him." To appeal 
 to inveterate custom as a vindication, he affirmed 
 to be precisely as if a thief should plead his long 
 habits of plunder, in palliation of a detected robbery. 
 To infer from the mprcy of G-od, that " he will not 
 damn men for a light oath," is, in effect, to forget, 
 that only for eating an apple " against the forbidding 
 of God, Adam, and all mankind, were justly con- 
 demned, until Christ bought them again, with his 
 precious blood, and hard death upon the cross."* 
 
 To these extracts I cannot forbear to ^otice of Wic- 
 add a noble passage from Wiclif 's other ijf's ToreCai- 
 Treatise on the Commandments, which tlff -' 
 appears in a work of his, entitled " The Pore Caitiff,"! 
 a collection of small tracts, written in English, as 
 the author declares, for the purpose of " teaching 
 simple men and women the way to heaven;" and 
 which, as Mr. Baber remarks, may, with propriety, 
 be termed the Poor Man's Library. In his exposition 
 of the first and second commandment, he says, " Let 
 each man look into his own conscience, upon what 
 he most sets his liking and thought, and what he is 
 
 * For the above extracts from the Exposition of the Decalogue, 1 am 
 indebted to Mr. Vaughan, who has examined the MS. in the British Mu- 
 seum. 
 
 t The word caitiff is no other than the Italian word cattivo, a captive: 
 and is used to signify any one in an abject or wretched condition. 
 
144 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 most busy about to please, and that thing he lovetft 
 most, whatsoever it be: and what thing a man 
 loveth most, that thing he maketh his god. Thus, 
 each man wilfully using deadly sin, makes himself a 
 false god, by turning away his love from God to the 
 lust of the sin which he useth. And thus, when 
 man or woman forsakes meekness, the meekness 
 which Christ Jesus commandeth, and gives himself 
 to highness and pride, he makes the fiend his god, 
 for he is king over all proud folk, as we read in the 
 book of Job. And so the envious man or woman, 
 have hatred and vengeance for their sod. And the 
 idle man hath sloth and slumber for his god. The 
 covetous man and woman make worldly goods their 
 god; for covetousness is the root of all evils, and 
 serveth to idols, as to false gods, as St. Paul saith. 
 Gluttonous and drunkpn folk make their belly their 
 god, for the love and care they have for it, as St. 
 Paul witnesseth. And so, lecherous folk make them 
 a false god, for the foul delight and lust that reigneth 
 in them. Thus every man and woman, using deadly 
 sin, breaks this first commandment, worshipping 
 false gods. Therefore, saith the great clerk, Grost- 
 head, that each man who doeth deadly sin, runneth 
 from or forsaketh the true God, and worshippeth a 
 false god. All such are false gods to rest upon, and 
 cannot deliver themselves, nor their worshippers 
 from the vengeance of the Almighty God, at the 
 dreadful doom, as God himself declareth by his 
 prophets. "* 
 
 At the time that this language was uttered, we 
 should recollect, the subtilties of the schoolmen had 
 combined with the grosser corruptions of the Papacy, 
 in weaving snares, and digging pitfalls, for the feet 
 of the unwary and the ignorant. And therefore it 
 
 * " The Pore Caitiff," with other portions of Wiclif 'a writings, hitherto 
 in manuscript, have been recently printed by the Religious Tract Society, 
 in a volume, entitled, "The Writings of the Rev. and learned John Wic- 
 lif." The above extract will be found in p. 63 of that compilation. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 145 
 
 is, that the Reformer, in his prologue to the com- 
 mandments, exhorts his readers to look at the divine 
 testimonies with a constant view to the amendment 
 of their lives, and to cast away from them the perilous 
 sophistries, by which the precursors of Loyola had, 
 even then, been labouring to make the law of God of 
 none effect. " Let every man and woman," he says, 
 " who desires to come speedily to the life that lasts 
 for ever, do his business, with all strength of body 
 and soul, to keep these commandments ; and scorn 
 all arguments of false flatterers and heretics, who, 
 both in work and word, despise these command- 
 ments, saying that it is not lawful to be busy in the 
 keeping of them ; yea, and saying that it is needful 
 sometimes to break them." And then he goes on to 
 compare this unhallowed rivalry between the craft of 
 man and the wisdom of God, to the accursed sor- 
 ceries with which the sages of Pharaoh presumed to 
 emulate the works, and to resist the power, of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 I am induced to pause yet a moment longer upon 
 Wiclif 's Tract, of " the Pore Caitiff," as affording 
 additional evidence of the steadiness with which 
 he fixed the eye of faith and love upon our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, whom he calls, " the BULL of our everlasting 
 pardon, written with all the might and virtue of 
 God." It is impossible to rise from a perusal of 
 those sections of this treatise, which relate to " the 
 charter of our heavenly heritage," and to the love of 
 Christ, without the profoundest conviction that his 
 hope was firmly staid on the only name whereby men 
 can be saved, and that there is something approach- 
 ing to pedantry in the question of Melanchthon, 
 whether he had a distinct. understanding of the righ- 
 teousness of faith. That he does not state it with the 
 technical and scientific precision which was intro- 
 duced by later controversies on the subject, is unde- 
 niable. But if all the blessed power of this doctrine 
 Was not in the heart and soul of Wiclif, I know not 
 13 
 
146 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 where we are to look for any other Christian man 
 who can be said to have been in possession of the 
 secret ! 
 
 The "Pore Caitiff" is further interesting as an 
 eminent specimen of Wiclif's talents for popular ex- 
 position and illustration. This faculty is most sig- 
 nally displayed by him in his section on " the Armour 
 of Heaven, or o'f Ghostly Battle." "Man's body," 
 he there observes, " is as a horse that bears his rider 
 through many perils. But it were great folly for any 
 man to fight upon an unbridled horse : and if the 
 horse be wild and ill-broken, the bridle must be 
 heavy and the bit sharp, to hold him in. This bridle 
 is abstinence, with which his master shall restrain 
 him to be meek, and bow to his will. The bridle, 
 however, must be managed by wisdom ; for else the 
 horse will fail at the greatest need, and harm his 
 master, and make him lose his victory. Further, 
 this bridle must have two reins, both strong, and 
 even, so that neither pass the other in length. The 
 one rein is too loose when thou lettest thy flesh have 
 his will too much. The other is held too straight, 
 when thou art too stern against thine own flesh ; for 
 then thou destroyest his strength and might, so that, 
 to help thee as it should^, it may not. Therefore, 
 sustain thy horse that he faint not, neither fail thee 
 at thy need; and withdraw from him that which 
 might turn thee to folly. 
 
 " That thy seat may be both steadfast and seemly, 
 thy horse needs to have a saddle : and this saddle is 
 no other than mansuetude, or meekness of spirit, 
 whereby thou mayst encounter all the roughness and 
 peril of the way with the semblance of ease and mild- 
 ness. This virtue of mildness of heart and appear- 
 ance makes man gracious to God, and seemly to 
 man's sight, as a well fitted saddle maketh a horse 
 seemly and praisable. 
 
 " Two spurs it is needful that thou have, and that 
 they be sharp, to prick thy horse if needful, that he 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 147 
 
 loiter not by the way ; and these two spurs are love 
 and dread. The right spur is the love that God's 
 dear children have for the weal that shall never end. 
 The left spur is the dread of the pains of purgatory 
 and of hell, which are without number, and never 
 may be told out. And if the right spur of love be not 
 sharp enough to make him go forward in his journey, 
 prick him with the left spur of dread, to rouse him," 
 It will readily be allowed that this sort of homely 
 and familiar imagery, followed up, as it is in this 
 tract, with all the urgency of solemn exhortation, is 
 admiraby adapted both to win, and to fix, the atten- 
 tion of plain unlettered men. And that " the Pore 
 Caitiff" was highly prized as a work of popular use- 
 fulness, appears from the care that was taken to pre- 
 serve and circulate it.* One blemish, indeed, the 
 reader will have noticed in this otherwise admirable 
 composition ; it furnishes another proof that the doc- 
 trine of purgatory was not yet ejected from his mind. 
 A subsequent part of the tract contains a description 
 of the intermediate sufferings to be incurred by sins 
 which are not of mortal enormity; accompanied, 
 however, with much salutary caution against all 
 abuse of the distinction between deadly and venial 
 transgression. Purgatory, indeed, forms a depart- 
 ment of theology respecting which the mind of Wic- 
 lif was imperfectly settled, even to the latest period 
 of his life. It should, nevertheless, be remembered 
 
 * The following note, which is written at the end of one of the manu- 
 scripts of the "Pore Caitiff," in the British Museum, (MS. Harl. 2335.) 
 show? the value attached to it in the period preceding the Reformation, % 
 and the methods resorted to for its circulation : 
 
 "This book was made of the goods of John Gamalin, for a common 
 profit, that the person that has this book committed to him of the person 
 that had power to commit it, have the use thereof for the time of his life, 
 praying for the soul of the same John : and that he that hath this afore- 
 said use of the commission, when he occupieth it not, leave he it, for a 
 time, to some other person. Also, that the person to whom it was com- 
 mitted for the term of life, under the foresaid conditions, deliver it to 
 another for the term of his life. And so he it delivered and committed 
 from person to person, man or woman, so long as the book endureth." 
 Writings of Wiclif, ut Supra, p. 122. 
 
148 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 that he always carefully divested it of those perver- 
 sions which, in the hands of the Romish Church, 
 actually thrust the Son of man from his judgment- 
 seat. And if he failed to cast into the sea every 
 fragment of "mountainous error," which ages of 
 superstition had been piling over the truth, we are 
 still bound to recollect, with admiration, the gigantic 
 strength displayed in his actual efforts for her de^ 
 Jiverance. The above specimens may alone be suffi- 
 cient to show us that the spirit which guided his 
 meditations was at mortal variance with the spirit 
 which presided, as well in the schools of theology, 
 as in the high places of the Church. A voice was 
 crying in the wilderness, in the language of accusa- 
 tion and defiance, against the mystery of iniquity, 
 which was then working, and had been working for 
 centuries, and had been forging shameful fetters for 
 the immortal souls of men. A hand was toiling to 
 plant that standard which was afterwards to be 
 widely unfurled by Luther, as the rallying point to 
 the nations of Christendom as a signal for the resur* 
 rection of the mind of Europe. There breathes in 
 the passages above recited, as well as in all his popu- 
 lar writings, a brave simplicity, an utter contempt of 
 the " old drudging trade of outward conformity." It 
 must even then have been felt that a minister was 
 descending to trouble the stagnant waters of the an- 
 cient superstition, and to teach the impotent to seek 
 for strength in the elements which that agitation 
 would cast up. It is, therefore, far from wonderful 
 that the ruling powers went even as at other times, to 
 seek for enchantments against this formidable spirit: 
 and that they earnestly charged their diviners and 
 their seers to curse him, whom God had not cursed, and 
 to defy him, whom the Lord had not defied. For a little 
 while their devices were permitted to prevail ; but in 
 (rod's good time the season of healing and refresh- 
 ment came forth from his presence, and Zion re- 
 newed her strength, and shook herself from the dust. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 149 
 
 The testimony which Wiclif was in- Notice of the 
 cessantly lifting up against the Romish struggles of this 
 oppressions and corruptions, was, at this p^ai'exSaiL 
 time, in full harmony with the tone of 
 public feeling throughout the nation. From the days 
 of the Conqueror to that hour, a struggle had been 
 carried on between the sovereignty of England, and 
 the supremacy of Rome. The conflict might have 
 been marked by less disgraceful vicissitudes, had all 
 our monarchs brought to it a hardihood, and dignity 
 of soul, like that of the Norman. He never would 
 suffer the bishop elected at Rome to be even named 
 as Pope, in his dominions, without his express sanc- 
 tion. No Papal bull, or mandate, or instrument, 
 would he allow to be circulated in his kingdom, until 
 it had been first inspected by himself. When the 
 Legate of Gregory VII. demanded, that he should do 
 homage to the Roman See, his answer was, " I have 
 been unwilling to do fealty to you hitherto, and I 
 will not do it now ; because I have never promised 
 it, nor do I find that any of my predecessors perform- 
 ed it to yours." It is melancholy to pass on from 
 his noble example to that of his degenerate de- 
 scendant, the infatuated John, who laid his kingdom 
 at the feet of an Italian priest. From that time the 
 deluge of encroachment was continually rising. 
 Some feeble embankments were, occasionally, raised 
 against it. But, nevertheless, the waters rose, till 
 they threatened to overtop the summits of all tempo- 
 ral authority. The harpies of avarice kept pace with 
 the demon of ambition. England, according to the 
 saying of one of the Pontiffs, was, as it were, the 
 Pope's garden of delight ; and well did he and his 
 successors show the sincerity of their reliance on her 
 inexhaustible fruitfulness ! The spirit of her nobles, 
 and even of her churchmen, would often manifest 
 itself by loud and indignant outcries, when the hand 
 of the plunderer was upon them. But the work of 
 pillage, nevertheless, went on ; till, at last, the im- 
 
150 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 poverishment and ignominy which it inflicted became 
 too great for human endurance. 
 
 One process by which the life-blood of the country 
 Papal provi- was drained out, was the practice of Pa- 
 aions. pal provision ; a prerogative, by virtue 
 
 of which the Pontiff, at his pleasure, could declare the 
 next vacancy of any ecclesiastical benefice or dig- 
 nity in the kingdom, to be at his own disposal. The 
 effect of this custom was to waste an enormous por- 
 tion of the revenues of the Church upon foreigners, 
 often the worthless creatures of the Pope ; men, and 
 frequently boys, who neither knew the language, 
 nor touched me soil, of the realm upon whose re* 
 sources they were thriving, Another consequence 
 was, the frequency of appeals to Rome, by which 
 the jurisdiction of the royal courts was contemptu- 
 ously, and most perniciously, invaded. The year 
 1350 was rendered memorable by the establishment 
 of two noble bulwarks against these usurpations, 
 statutes of Pro- The celebrated Statute of Provisors, de 
 visors, and of clared void any collation to dignity, or 
 Premunire. benefice which should be at variance 
 with the rights of the king, the chapters, or any other 
 patron. The Statute of Premunire forbade, under 
 the severest penalties, the introduction or circula* 
 tion of bulls or mandates, prejudicial to the king or 
 people ; and all appeals to the Papal Court, in ques* 
 tions of property, from the judgment of the English 
 tribunals. 
 
 The subsequent complaints of Parliament, never* 
 
 theless, show that, hitherto, the enactments of tempo-? 
 
 ral legislatures were, to the giant strength of Rome, 
 
 but as q, thread of tow when it toucheth the fire. In. 
 
 ie73 1373 the declining and feeble monarch 
 
 was again assailed by the clamours of 
 
 his subjects ; and the result was, an almost abortive 
 
 embassy to Avignon, (where Gregory XI. then re-? 
 
 sided,) to obtain redress of those grievances and in-* 
 
 suits, which, in defiance of the two laws above men* 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 
 
 tioned, were still heaped upon the Church and State of 
 England. In the following year an in- 1374 
 quiry was instituted into the number and 
 value of English benefices, then occupied by French- 
 men, Italians, and .other aliens ; and the result exhi- 
 bited an outrageous extent of abuse, which demanded 
 one more vigorous effort. Another embassy was 
 accordingly resolved on, in order to renew negotia- 
 tions with the court of Rome. The name of Wiclif 
 appears second on the commission ap- wichf sent as 
 pointed for that purpose ; a circumstance an Ambassador 
 which manifests, beyond all question, to 
 the importance and notoriety of his previous labours, 
 and the confidence, both of the Crown and the Parlia- 
 ment, in his intrepidity and wisdom. The seat of 
 these conferences was fixed at Bruges, a city of 
 great extent, and high commercial grandeur ; and, 
 moreover, at a very convenient distance from the 
 Papal Court ; for the spiritual governors of the world 
 seem, in those days, to have been most wisely re- 
 luctant to expose the manners and habits of them- 
 selves or their dependents to the close inspection of 
 enlightened or virtuous strangers. The usual chica- 
 nery of the Romish policy, together with the increas- 
 ing infirmities and ruined influence of Edward III., 
 protracted these negotiations for a period of two 
 years ; and, after all, deprived them of any effectual 
 result. Their first fruits were a series of bulls, issued 
 in September, 1375, containing a very partial remedy 
 of the alleged enormities ; and their final issue was 
 an agreement that, in future, the Pope should desist 
 from reservations ; and that the King should desist 
 from conferring benefices by his writ of Quare Impe* 
 dit. Respecting the independence of the Chapters 
 on Papal Confirmation, in the exercise of their right 
 of election, not a syllable is to be found in the treaty. 
 And that something like treachery had crept into the 
 proceedings would appear from the fact, that John, 
 Bishop of Bangor, who was at the head of the com- 
 
152 LIFE OF WICL1F. 
 
 mission, was translated, by the Pope's bull, to Here- 
 ford, in 1375, and thence to St. David's, by the same 
 authority, in 1389.* By this attempt, therefore, the 
 hide of the monster was, after all, but slightly punc- 
 tured, and the " poor malice" of its adversaries re- 
 mained still in danger of its fangs. One beneficial 
 consequence, however, most probably must have re- 
 sulted from the proceeding. It must have opened to 
 Wiclif, in more distinct revelation, the serpentine 
 mysteries of Pontifical diplomacy. It must have 
 brought his eye somewhat closer to the deformity of 
 the Queen and Mother of all the Churches ; and must 
 have moved his spirit to a sterner conflict with her 
 abominations. That he enjoyed the unabated respect 
 and confidence of his sovereign, during these services, 
 may be concluded from the circumstance, that, in 
 November, he was presented by the Crown to the 
 Prebend of Aust, in the Collegiate Church of West- 
 bury within the diocese of Worcester ; and, some 
 
 1375 time afterwards to the Rectory of Lutter- 
 Wiciif present- worth, in Leicestershire, an appointment 
 hjjnd JJ e ^ r * which, for that turn, devolved on the 
 andthejiecun-y Crown, in consequence of the minority 
 of Lutterworth. O f tne patron, Lord Henry de Ferrars. 
 
 1376 The next assault on the Pontifical 
 Remonstrance pretensions was made by the " Good 
 of the -Good parliament," which met in the year 1376. 
 
 1 an lament, a- T i j i i p i* i r 
 
 gainst the ex- It would be deviating from the object of 
 tortions of the t n i s narrative to plunge into the labyrinth 
 of those politics, which engaged that 
 assembly in measures of determined opposition to 
 the administration of the Duke of Lancaster, John 
 of Gaunt , or to enlarge on the growing importance 
 of the Commons, which made them formidable in- 
 struments of hostility against an unpopular govern- 
 ment,, It is more to our purpose to notice the energy 
 with which they addressed themselves to the duty of 
 
 Lewis, p. 34, note (a.) 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 153 
 
 exposing and denouncing the ecclesiastical oppres- 
 sions which had long infested the country ; and which 
 had caused it, like a nation of patient and servicea- 
 ble asses, (to use the contemptuous language of the 
 Italians*) to " crouch beneath two burdens" impo- 
 verishment and disgrace. In the remonstrance which 
 they presented to the Crown, they distinctly ascribed 
 the misery, exhaustion, and depopulation of the realm, 
 to the tyranny and extortion of the Romish hierar- 
 chy,! and they concluded by demanding that, in 
 
 Fox, p. 482. Ed. 1684. 
 
 tThis formidable indictment is somewhat too long for insertion in 
 the text. It is, however, far too important to be altogether suppressed. 
 It is, therefore, here given in the form of a note, and is eminently worthy 
 of the reader's attention, as a full and authentic record of the evils inflicted 
 by this organ! zed scheme of plunder. Some little exaggeration may, pos- 
 sibly, here and there, have crept into their statements: but there can be 
 no reasonable doubt of the correctness of the representation, in all its sub- 
 stantial particulars. 
 
 It was remonstrated by them, " that the tax paid to the Pope of Rome 
 for ecclesiastical dignities doth amount to five-fold as much as the tax of 
 all the profits, as appertain to the King, by the year, of this whole realm: 
 and for some one bishopric, or other dignity, the Pope, by way of transla? 
 tion and death, hath three, four, or five several taxes : that the brokers of 
 that sinful city, for money, promote many caitiffs, being altogether un- 
 karned and unworthy, to a thousand marcs living yearly ; whereas the 
 learned and worthy can hardly obtain twenty marcs ; whereby learning 
 
 . jvice, and convey a . 
 Jews or Saracens. It is therefore, say they, to be considered, that the lavi 
 of the Church would have such livings bestowed for charity only, without 
 praying or paying : that reason would that livings given of devotion 
 should be bestowed in hospitality : that God hath given his sheep to 
 the Pope to be pastured, and not shorn or shaven : that lay-patrons per- 
 ceiving this simony and covetuousness of the Pope, do thereby learn to 
 sell their benefices to beasts, no otherwise than Christ was sold to the 
 Jews : that there is none so rich a prince in Christendom, who hath the 
 fourth part of so much treasure as the Pope hath out of this realm, for 
 churches, most sinfully. They further remonstrated, that the Pope's col- 
 lector, and other strangers, the King's enemies, and only leiger spies for 
 English dignities, and disclosing the secrets of the realm, ought to be dis- 
 charged : that the same collector being also receiver of the Pope's pence, 
 keepeth an house in London, with clerks and officers thereunto belonging, 
 as if it were one of the King's solemn courts, transporting yearly to the 
 Pope twenty thousand marcs, and most commonly more : that Cardinals 
 ana other aliens remaining at the Court of Rome, whereof one Cardinal 
 is a Dean of York, another of Salisbury, another of Lincoln, another Arch- 
 deacon of Canterbury, another Archdeacon of Durham, another Arch- 
 deacon of Suffolk, and another Archdeacon of York ; another Prebendary 
 
154 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 order to save the country from utter barbarism and 
 desolation, the law against Papal provisions should 
 be rigorously enforced; that no Papal " Collector or 
 Proctor should remain in England, on pain of life and 
 limb; and that no Englishman, on the like pain, 
 should become such collector, or remain at Rome." 
 
 of Thane and Nassington; another Prebendary of York, in the diocese 
 of York, have divers other the best dignities in England, and have sent 
 over yearly unto them twenty thousand nvirrs, over and above that which 
 English brokers lying here have: that the Pope, to. ransom Frenchmen, 
 the King's enemies, who defend Ix>mbardy for him, doth always, at his 
 pleasure, levy a subsidy of the whole Clergy of England: that the Pope, 
 for more gain, maketh sundry translations of all the bishoprics, and other 
 dignities, within the realm : that the Pope's collector hath this year taken 
 to nis use the first-fruits of all benefices: Miat therefore it would be good 
 to renew all the statutes against provisions from Rome, since the Pope 
 reserveth all the benefices of the world for his own proper gift, and hath 
 within this year, created twelve new Cardinals ; so that now there are 
 thirty, whereas there were wont to be but twelve in all ; and all the said 
 thirty Cardinals, except two or three, are the King's enemies : that the 
 Pope, in time, will give the temporal manors or dignities to the King's 
 enemies, since he daily usurpeth upon the realm, and the King's regality : 
 that all houses and corporations of religion, which, from the King, ought 
 to have free elections of their heads, the Pop* 1 hath now accroached the 
 same unto himself: that in all legations from the Pope whatsoever, 
 the English beareth the charge of the Legates ; and all lor the goodness 
 of our money. It also appeareth, they say, that if the money of the realm 
 were as plentiful as ever, the collector aforesaid, with the Cardinals* 
 Proctors, would soon convey away the same. For remedy whereof, 
 they advise it may be provided, that no such collector or proctor do remain 
 in England, upon pain of life and limb ; and that, on the like pain, no 
 Englishman become any such collector or proctor, or remain at the 
 Court of Rome. For better information hereof, and namely, touching 
 the Pope's collector ; for that the whole Clergy, being obedient to him, 
 dare not displease him ; they say, it were good that Dr. John StrensalL 
 parson of St Botolph's in Holborne, be sent for to come before the Lords and 
 Commons of this Parliament, who, being straitly charged, can declare much 
 more, for that he served the same collector in house five years." It was 
 further complained, that "by this unbridled multitude of apostolical pro- 
 visions, as the Pope's disposals of church-benefices by his bulls were 
 called, the lawful patrons of the several benefices were deprived of their 
 right of collation or presentation ; the noble and learned natives of Eng- 
 land would be wholly excluded from all church-preferment, however of 
 such as was valuable or honourable, so that, as was observed before, there 
 would in time be a defect of council as to those matters that concern the 
 spiritualise, and none would be found fit to be promoted to ecclesiastical 
 prelacies : that divine worship would be impaired, hospitalitie and alma 
 would be neglected, contrary to the primary intention and design of 
 the founders of the churches : that the legal rights of the respective 
 churches would be lost, the church buildings would all go to ruine, and 
 the devotion of the people be lessened and withdrawn. " See Fox ; p. 48% 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 155 
 
 And these demands were vigorously fol- 
 lowed up, in the Parliament of the next 
 year, by a petition, that all provisors, and their minis- 
 ters, should be out of the King's protection; that 
 remedy might be had against such Cardinals as had 
 purchased reservations to the value of 20,000, or 
 30,000 scrutes of gold and also against the Pope's 
 collector, a Frenchman, who was then residing in 
 London, and conveying, annually, to the Pope 20,000 
 marks, or 20,OOOZ. ; and who, that year, was actually 
 gathering the first-fruits throughout the kingdom. To 
 this request the answer was, that redress had been 
 promised by the Pope ; and that, if he should fail to 
 perform it, the Statutes and Ordinances should be 
 observed.* 
 
 The year 1377 was remarkable for the 
 first violent eruption of that displeasure 
 which Wiclif had been long heaping up for himself 
 by his labours for the Reformation of the Church. 
 He had returned from Bruges with a firm persuasion, 
 that the Pontiff, the proud, worldly, priest of Rome, 
 was " the most cursed of clippers and purse-kervers :" 
 and he, probably, continued, more loudly than ever, 
 his denunciations against the whole mechanism and 
 fabric of his power. The English hierarchy felt 
 themselves, at last, called upon to silence and to 
 chastise the pertinacious heretic. And,, accordingly, 
 in the Convocation held on the third of February, 
 
 1377, a citation was issued for his ap- .. rf 
 
 ^ o* T* u i- 1 Wiclif sum- 
 
 pearance at St. Pauls, on the nineteenth imm ed to ap- 
 day of the same month, on a charge of pear before the 
 maintaining and publishing a variety of gt?Pau?s. n 
 erroneous doctrines. Wiclif was now 
 placed in circumstances of imminent peril ; and it was 
 extremely fortunate, both for him, and for his cause, 
 that he enjoyed, at that time, the coun- He is prot8Cte a 
 tenance and patronage of the Duke of by John" 01 
 Lancaster. It would be vain, at this day, Gaunt< 
 
 * Fox, p. 483. Ed. 1684. 
 
156 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 to search for the origin of his connexion with that 
 ambitious Prince. The existence of such connexion^ 
 however, is very far from wonderful. Nothing can 
 be more certain than the fact, that the Duke was de- 
 cidedly adverse to the overbearing pretensions of the 
 Papacy. It might, therefore, be reasonably expected, 
 that his notice would be attracted by the abilities of 
 a renowned Divine, almost incessantly employed in 
 opposition to the same power. That Wiclif was 
 not unknown at court so early as 1366, is obvious, 
 from the circumstance that, in his Vindication of the 
 Resistance to the Papal Census, he writes himself 
 Chaplain to the King.* The Vindication itself would, 
 very naturally, recommend him further to the good 
 opinion of the Duke.f And it is, moreover, tolerably 
 certain, that his notions respecting the incongruity 
 between secular office, and the clerical character, 
 were in notorious accordance with those of John of 
 Gaunt. And, lastly, his residence at Bruges might 
 have brought him into still more immediate inter- 
 course with the duke, who was there at the same 
 time, as ambassador on the part of England, to con- 
 duct certain negotiations, then pending with France, 
 under the mediation of the Pope. All these circum- 
 stances, taken together, may be sufficient to account 
 for the appearance of this illustrious personage, as 
 the friend and protector of Wiclif, in the hour of 
 his danger. It is, however, by no means impossible, 
 that he may have been influenced, not solely by his 
 hatred of ecclesiastical power, but partly by his per- 
 
 * Peculiaris Regis Clericus?. 
 
 t It is stated by Mr. Lewis, that Wiclif "addressed some of his works 
 which he published," to the Duke of Lancaster, in 1368. Mr. Vaughan, 
 however, has shown that this must be a mistake ; arising, probably,1from 
 a notice to that effect prefixed to a volume of Wiclif 's MSS. in T. C. 
 Dublin. On examination of the pieces in that volume, it was found that 
 only one of them could be safely assigned to the year 1368, and that the 
 rest 'contain allusions which clearly point to a subsequent period. 
 Vaughan, vol. i. p. 304, 305. The contents of the MS. volume in ques- 
 tion, are the tracts from No. 1. to No. 19. in the second section of Mr. 
 Vaughan's Catalogue of Wiclif 's writings. Vaugh. vol. ii. p. 385. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 157 
 
 sonal aversion lo Courtney, Bishop of London, who 
 was a Churchman of notorious arrogance, and had 
 shown himself a determined adversary of the duke 
 in the parliamentary proceedings of the last year. 
 
 On the day appointed for his appear- Wic i if > g ap . 
 ance, Wiclif was attended to St. Paul's pearance at St. 
 by the Duke of Lancaster, and by Lord Paul ' s> 
 Henry Percy, the Earl Marshal. The scene which 
 ensued was exceedingly tumultuous. An The tumultuous 
 immense concourse was collected in the scene which foi- 
 church to witness the proceedings ; and lowed - 
 it was not without the greatest difficulty, that a pas- 
 sage could be made through the crowd, for Wiclif 
 and his distinguished companions to approach the 
 spot where the prelates were assembled. The Bishop 
 of London on observing the impatience with which 
 the Earl Marshal was forcing his way, and not, per- 
 haps, highly gratified by seeing the delinquent so 
 powerfully attended, told the earl, peremptorily, that 
 " if he had known what maistries he would have kept 
 in the church, he would have stopped him out from 
 coming there." This unceremonious address was 
 instantly resented by " the fiery Duke," who (possi- 
 bly conscious that nothing more had been done than 
 was necessary to make their way through the press) 
 replied to the bishop, that " he would keep such mais- 
 try there, though he said nay." The parties, at last, 
 struggled through, to our lady's chapel, behind the 
 high altar, where the archbishop (Sudbury,) the 
 Bishop of London, and other prelates, were assem- 
 bled, together with several noblemen who had resorted 
 thither to witness the proceedings. When Wiclif 
 came into the presence of his judges, and stood be- 
 fore them to make answer as to the charges which 
 mi^ht be produced against him, the Earl Marshal 
 desired him to be seated ; an indulgence which the 
 fatigues of the day would render reasonable, and 
 even necessary, " as he had many things to answer 
 for, and therefore would have need of a soft seat." 
 14 
 
158 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 " This interference," says old Fox, " eftsoons cast the 
 Bishop of London into a furnish chafe." He declared 
 that Wiclif " should not sit there. It was not ac- 
 cording to law or reason, that he, which was cited to 
 appear before his ordinary, should sit down during 
 the time of his answer, but should stand." Upon 
 these words much angry and indecent altercation 
 ensued j in the course 01 which the duke began to 
 assail the bishop with violent menaces, and told him 
 that " he would bring down the pride not only of him, 
 but of all the prelacy of England :" and added, " thou 
 bearest thyself so brag upon thy parents, which shall 
 not be able to help thee : they stall have enough to 
 do to help themselves." The parents of the bishop 
 were the Earl and Countess of Devonshire : and yet 
 it would seem, he was able to keep the noble blood 
 in his veins from hotly rebelling at this imperious 
 threat ; for his reply was singularly moderate and 
 wise : he declared that, in truth, " his confidence was 
 not in his parents, nor in any man else, but only in 
 God in whom he trusted." The soft answer failed, 
 in this case, to turn away wrath. The passion of the 
 duke overcame both his prudence and his sense of 
 propriety, (a circumstance not very unusual even in 
 those days of chivalrous courtesy !) and he vented 
 his indignation by saying, in a low voice, to his 
 next neighbour, that " he would rather pluck the 
 bishop by the hair of his head out of the church, 
 than he would take this at his hand." The words 
 were not so gently uttered, but they reached the ears 
 of some of the Londoners near him. The duke was 
 at that time far from popular with the citizens. He 
 was not free from suspicion of some design upon 
 their liberties. They had, moreover, been thrown 
 into a state of some excitement by the display of 
 angry feelings which they had witnessed. Hence, 
 the vindictive language of the duke set them instant- 
 ly in a flame ; and they cried out vehemently, that 
 they would lose their lives rather than see their bishop 
 
LIFE OF WICL1F. 159 
 
 so contemptuously and brutally treated. On this, 
 the uproar became general : the assembly was broken 
 up in furious disorder ; and the process against Wic- 
 lif was, for a time, suspended.* The tumult of the 
 day, however, did not end here : all London was 
 speedily in confusion. A band of rioters proceeded, 
 the next day, to the Savoy, the Duke of Lancaster's 
 palace, one of the most princely structures in the 
 kingdom, reversed his arms as those of a traitor, and 
 massacred a clergyman, whom they mistook for the 
 Earl Marshal. The mob was at last dispersed by 
 the exertions of the Bishop of London ; the Mayor 
 and Aldermen were removed from their offices ; and 
 their places are said to have been filled by the duke 
 with dependents of his own."f 
 
 * Mr. Milner, in his Church History, vol. iv. p. 115, says, "It would 
 have given real pleasure to the lover of Christian reformation, if he could 
 have discovered any proof that Wiclif protested against the disorderly 
 and insolent behaviour of his patrons :" and, " that the deportment of 
 the archbishop and bishop seems to have been more unexceptionable than 
 that of Wiclif and his friends." Now does not this language seem to 
 intimate that the writer must have been on the watch for an opportunity 
 of disparaging the Reformer ? As for the conduct of WicliPs patrons, 
 we have no objection to deliver it over to tiie displeasure of Dr. Milner. 
 Little more, perhaps, can be said for it, (if correctly reported) than, that 
 it was very nearly what might be reasonably anticipated from the 
 haughty and semi-barbarous aristocrats of that age. The declaration of 
 Bishop Courtney, that he would gladly have excluded the Earl Marshal 
 from the Church, might be expected, in those times, to chafe the temper 
 of a Percy, and highly to exasperate a Prince of the blood. But as for 
 Wielif himself, charity would, surely, presume that, if he did not inter- 
 fere, it was because the tumult and violence of the scene were such as 
 to make all interference hopeless and nugatory. Nay, any attempt to 
 interfere, on his part, might only have aggravated the irritation of hia 
 high-born friends. Nothing can well be more unfair than to raise up 
 unfavourable surmises on the strength of a negative circumstance like 
 this. 
 
 t Mr. Lewis represents the appearance of Wiclif at St. Paul's as oc- 
 curring in 1378. Mr. Vaughan, however, has shown, very clearly, that 
 it must have been in 1377. There is no doubt that Lord H. Percy was 
 Earl Marshal in 1377, and that he resigned that office the following year, 
 and succeeded to the earldom of Northumberland. Besides, the days of 
 the week and month, mentioned in the accounts of this transaction, agree 
 to 1377, and not to 1378. Mr. Lewis, probably, was misled by the fact, 
 thai the bulls issued by the Pope against Wiclif, were dated June, 1377 ; 
 since he describes the meeting at St. Paul's as held in obedience to those 
 mandates. See Lewis, p. 54 58. Vaushan, vol. i. p. 354 357. Fox, 
 p. 387, 388. Ed. 1684. In addition to the above considerations, it may 
 
160 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 June, 1377. On the 21 st of June, 1377, Edward 
 D 6 ^ of Ed- in. breathed his last, and the first Par- 
 accession' *of liament of his grandson, Richard II. 
 Richard ii. assembled in October following. It 
 appears from the rolls, that they continued, per- 
 Funher com- tinaciously, to clamour against the 
 plaints of the shameless spoliation practised by the 
 against 116111 the agents of the Pope. They complained 
 Pope. that English benifices to the annual 
 
 amount of 6,000/. were held by Frenchmen, and they 
 prayed that the collecting of first-fruits and the pro- 
 curing of Papal provisions within this kingdom 
 mteht be punished by out-lawry ; that all aliens, as 
 well religious as others, should be compelled to avoid 
 the realm ; and that, during the war, all their lands 
 and goods should be appropriated in aid of its ex- 
 penses.* The war here mentioned was among the 
 blessings entailed upon his people by Edward's pas- 
 sion tor military renown. The drain of national 
 treasure which it occasioned, was ruinous beyond all 
 precedent; and, subsequently, exposed the Crown to 
 persevering and indignant remonstrance from the 
 Question whe- Commons. Even at this time the pres- 
 ther the trea- sure was so severely felt as to raise the 
 sure of the king- question, in Parliament, "whether the 
 
 dom might not i j / -r i 
 
 be detained, ai- kingdom of England, on an imminent 
 though required necessity of its own defence, might law- 
 ope - fully detain the treasure of the kingdom, 
 that it be not carried out of the land ; although the 
 Lord Pope required it, on pain of censures, and by 
 virtue of the obedience due to him."f On what pre- 
 cise occasion this momentous point was mooted, is 
 not certainly known. It has been surmised that the 
 Pope, encouraged by the prospect of weakness and 
 dissension, incident to the accession of a minor, had 
 
 be remarked that, on this occasion, it appears that Wiclif was cited to 
 appear before his Ordinary, not before the Papal delegates; conse- 
 quently, not in obedience to the Papal bulls. 
 
 Cotton's Abridgement, p. 160. 162. Lewis, p. 55. 
 
 t Lewis, p. 54, 55. Cott. Abridg. p. 154. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 161 
 
 revived the exaction of Peter-pence, the payment of 
 which had been peremptorily forbidden by Edward 
 III. The terms in which the question was proposed 
 were, however, quite large enough virtually to deter- 
 mine, if answered in the affirmative, that the whole 
 load of Papal exactions might be rightfully shaken 
 off, in utter defiance of Pontifical fulmi- The question of 
 nation. The matter was referred to the payments to the 
 intrepid casuistry of Wiclif. In his an- $j cli r f * ferred 
 swer, he tosses to the winds all merely 
 human authorities, and appeals at once Hisanswer - 
 to the divine law. In the first place, he, in substance, 
 affirms that, by the ordinance of God, the principle of 
 self-preservation, which belongs to individual crea- 
 tures, is likewise clearly extended to communities : 
 .and that, consequently, our kingdom may lawfully 
 reserve its treasure for its own defence, whenever its 
 -exigences may be such as to render that measure 
 necessary. The same conclusion, he, secondly, asserts 
 may be drawn from the law of the Gospel. The 
 Pope, he says, " cannot challenge the treasure of this 
 kingdom but under the title of alms; and conse- 
 quently, under the title of works of mercy, according 
 to the rules of charity ;" and by these very rules, " it 
 were no work of charity but mere madness," to waste 
 -our resources upon foreigners, already wallowing in 
 opulence, while the realm itself is sinking under do- 
 mestic taxation, and in danger of falling into ruin. 
 These considerations alone might be amply sufficient 
 to set the question at rest : but Wiclif seizes the op- 
 portunity thus afforded him of protesting, as it were 
 before the king and his Parliament, against the world- 
 liness and avarice of him who called himself the vicar 
 .of Christ, and yet was not ashamed to load himself 
 with the spoil of the mighty, and to suck the very 
 marrow of kings. It may, therefore, be important to 
 jurnish the reader with the very words of his un- 
 daunted testimony. The affirmative of this question, 
 jie says, " appeareth also by this, that Christ, the 
 14* 
 
162 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 head of the Church, whom all Christians ought to 
 follow, lived by the alms of devout women. Luke 
 vii. 8. He hungered and thirsted, he was a stranger, 
 and many other miseries he sustained, not only in 
 his members, but also in his own body, as the Apos- 
 tle witnesseth. 2 Cor. viii. He was made poor for 
 your sakes, that through his poverty you might be rich : 
 whereby, in the first endowing of the Church, what- 
 soever he were of the clergy that had any temporal 
 possessions, he had the same as a perpetual alms, as 
 both writings and chronicles do witness. Whereupon 
 St. Bernard, declaring in his second book to Eugenius, 
 that he could not challenge any secular dominion by 
 right of succession, as being the vicar of St. Peter, 
 writeth thus : 'If St. John should speak to the Pope 
 himself, (as Bernard doth to Eugenius,) were it to be 
 thought that he would take it patiently ? But let it 
 be so that you challenge it unto you by some other 
 ways or means : but, truly, by any right or title apos- 
 tolical you cannot so do. For how could he give you 
 that, which he had not himself? That which he 
 had he gave you ; that is to say, care over the Church : 
 but, did he give you any lordship or rule? Hark 
 what he saith, Not bearing rule, as lords over the 
 clergy, but behaving yourselves as examples to the flock. 
 And because thou shalt not think it to be spoken only 
 in humility, mark the very word of the Lord himself 
 in the Gospel, the kings of the people do ride over them ; 
 but you shall not do so. Here lordship and dominion 
 is plainly forbidden to the apostles, and darest thou, 
 then, usurp the same ? If thou wilt be a lord, thou 
 shalt lose thine apostleship ; or, if thou wilt be an 
 apostle thou shalt lose thy lordship ; for, truly, thou 
 shalt depart from one of them. If thou wilt have 
 both, thou shalt lose both ; or else, think thyself to 
 be of that number, of whom God doth so greatly 
 complain, saying, They have reigned, but not through 
 me ; they are become princes, but I have not known it. 
 Now if it do suffice thee to rule with [without ?J the 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 163 
 
 Lord, thou hast thy glory; but not with God. But, 
 if we will keep that which is forbidden to us, let us 
 hear what is said, He that is greatest among you, saith 
 Christ, shall be made as the least, and he which is high" 
 est shall be made as the minister ; and for example, he 
 set a child in the midst of them. So this, then, is the 
 true form and institution of the apostle's trade : lord- 
 ship and rule is forbidden, ministration and service 
 commanded.' By these words of this blessed man, 
 whom the whole Church doth reverence and worship, 
 it doth appear that the Pope hath not power to occupy 
 the Church goods, as lord thereof, but as minister, 
 and servant, and proctor for the poor. And would to 
 -God that the same proud and greedy desire of rule 
 and lordship, which this seat doth challenge unto it, 
 were not a preamble to prepare a way unto Anti- Christ. 
 For it is evident by the Gospel, that Christ, through 
 his poverty, and suffering, and humility, got unto him 
 die children of his kingdom. And moreover, so far 
 as I remember, the same blessed man, Bernard, in 
 his third book, writeth also unto Eugenius. ' I fear 
 no other greater poison to happen unto thee, than 
 greedy desire of rule and dominion.' "* 
 
 And thus, for the second time, did Wiclif stand up, 
 as the public advocate of his sovereign and his coun- 
 try. The reader will doubtless have remarked the 
 peculiar language in which he here speaks of the 
 temporal possessions of the clergy. He represents 
 them as a perpetual alms; that is, not as contribution 
 to be solicited by the clergy, day by day, or year by 
 year, from the members of their flock ; but, rather 
 as an endowment originating purely in voluntary 
 benevolence, and piety, to be equitably and faithfully 
 .continued to them upon the same kindly principle. 
 
 * This answer is printed in Fox, p. 510. Ed. 1684 ; but so printed, (as 
 Mr. Vaughan observes,) that it is not easy to see where Wiclii ends, and 
 where the martyroligist begins again. Mr. Vaughan consulted the MS. 
 Job. Seldeni, B. 10. and thus ascertained that what is given above belongs 
 ,to Wiclif. Vaugh. vol. i. p. 363-365, 
 
164 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 Whether this opinion be correct or not, it is evident 
 from the above extract, that it was the opinion en- 
 tertained by the Reformer; and that, although he 
 speaks of clerical emoluments as eleemosynary, he 
 must be understood to include their perpetuity in his 
 notion of them. According to his views, the priest- 
 hood may be considered as holding their property 
 under a tenure, liable to forfeiture by such gross 
 abandonment of their duties, as must defeat the pur- 
 poses for which the Christian ministry was instituted. 
 This notice of his peculiar views is of considerable 
 importance towards a just estimate of his theory, 
 which has sometimes been represented as virtually 
 reducing the secular clergy to a condition precisely 
 similar to that of the Mendicant Orders. Against 
 those Orders, and the very principle of their institu 
 tion, his whole life was, almost, one incessant war- 
 fare ; nothing, therefore, can be more absurd or self- 
 destructive than the surmise, that he was anxious 
 for the introduction of a similar principle into the 
 ancient and established system. On this subject, 
 however, more will be said hereafter. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 165 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 13771379. 
 
 Bulls issued by the Pope against Wiclif Coldly received at Ox- 
 ford Wiclif appears at Lambeth before the Papal delegates- 
 Violence of the Londoners Message from the Queen Dowager 
 Wiclif 's written answers to the charges He is dismissed with 
 injunctions to abstain from spreading his doctrines His conduct 
 on this occasion considered His reply to the mixtim theologus 
 His views with regard to Church JProperty In what sense he 
 considered the possessions of the Church as Alms His dangerous 
 sickness He is visited by several of the Medicants, who exhort 
 him to repentance His answer. 
 
 THE pastoral duties of Lutterworth, and the labours 
 of the theological chair probably divided the time of 
 Wiclif, in the interval, between the month of Feb- 
 ruary, 1377, when the tempest which threatened him 
 was so suddenly dispersed, and the close of the same 
 year, when it once more gathered over his head. It 
 does not appear that any record has been preserved 
 of the erroneous articles of doctrine for which he was 
 summoned to answer before the convocation at St. 
 Paul's. Agents, however, were busily at work, by 
 whose fidelity and diligence the Apostolic See was, 
 soon after, provided with materials of accusation; 
 and, accordingly, in the course of some months from 
 the tumultuous proceedings related in the preceding 
 chapter, no less than four bulls issued 1377 
 forth, for the suppression and punish- Bulls issued by 
 ment of the audacious innovator. In ^ i ^ asaillst 
 these instruments, three of which are 
 addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
 Bishop of London, the servant of the servants of God, 
 " laments that England, illustrious for its wealth and 
 grandeur, but still more illustrious for the purity of 
 
166 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 its faith, should now be overrun with the tares of a 
 pernicious heresy; and, (to complete the affliction 
 and the shame,) that the evil had been felt at Rome, 
 before it had ever been resisted in Britain ! His 
 Holiness had been credibly informed that John Wic- 
 lif, Rector of the church of Lutterworth, and Pro- 
 fessor of the Sacred Page (it were well if he were 
 not a master of errors 1) had broken forth into a 
 detestable insanity, and had dared to assert and 
 spread abroad opinions utterly subversive of the 
 Church, and savouring of the perversity and igno- 
 rance of Marsilius of Padua, and John of Ganduno,* 
 both of accursed memory." For this cause it was 
 strictly enjoined that inquiry should secretly be made, 
 respecting this matter ; and, if it should turn out 
 to be as represented, then the said John Wiclif 
 should forthwith be apprehended and imprisoned, 
 that his confession should be taken, kept strictly con- 
 cealed, and transmitted under seal to Rome., and the 
 offender himself detained,, until further directions 
 should be received. It was als,o enjoined that due 
 vigilance should be exercised to preserve the king, 
 and the royal family, together with his nobles and 
 counsellors from the defilement of these pestilent 
 perversions. And as " the arm of flesh" would be a 
 convenient auxiliary in the execution of these spirit- 
 ual measures, a paternal epistle is, further, addressed 
 to his Majesty Edward III. requesting that he would 
 
 *. Of Marsilius, or Marsilius, of Padua, and John of Ganduno, some 
 account may be found in Fox. These two men were the most active 
 champions t>f the Franciscans, when they were suffering from the severi- 
 ties of the Pope John XXII. When the conflict broke out between him 
 and the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, they fled to the Emperor, and were 
 employed by him as advocates against the Pontiff. The writings of 
 Marsrlius laid the axe directly to the root of the Papal supremacy ; and, 
 what is at least equally remarkable, they maintained the true Protestant 
 doctrine of free Justification by Grace. They declared that merits are 
 no efficient causes of our salvation, but only a condition sine qua non ; 
 that works are no causes of justification, but that justification goeth not 
 without them. For these, and similar opinions, he and John de Ganduno 
 were condemned by the Pope, in 1330. See Fox, p. 443, 444. EcL 
 1684. Mosheim, vol. ii. p, 348. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 167 
 
 deign to extend his gracious support to the proceed- 
 ings of the prelates,, as he valued his good name on 
 earth, his bliss in heaven, and the benediction of 
 the Holy See. A mandate similar to the three for- 
 mer, was also addressed to the University of Oxford, 
 strictly commanding them, on pain of forfeiting all 
 the privileges conferred on them by the Holy See, 
 to suppress the doctrines and conclusions imputed to 
 Wiclif, to seize the person of Wiclif him sen, and to 
 deliver it to the custody of the archbishop or his 
 colleague. With these documents was inclosed a 
 schedule containing nineteen erroneous conclusions, 
 said to be maintained and taught by the heresiarch. 
 The whole of the above formidable apparatus of 
 missives, bears date the llth of June, 1377; so that 
 there must have been abundant time for conveying 
 to Rome, previous to the concoction of these instru- 
 ments, full intelligence of the decisive answer given 
 by Wiclif to the question proposed to him by Parlia- 
 ment, in the early part of the year, relative to the 
 lawfulness of withholding payments from the Pope. 
 This last overt act of rebellion must have amply 
 filled up the measure of his iniquities, and heated one 
 seven times hotter than before, the furnace of the Pon- 
 tifical wrath. In the Primate of England and the 
 Bishop of London, the Holy See found most willing 
 and faithful ministers, who declared that neither en- 
 treaties, nor menaces, nor gifts, nor the imminent 
 terrors of death itself, should divert them from their 
 duty in this righteous cause.* At Oxford, however, 
 the reception of the Papal rescript was lamentably 
 different from what might have been expected from 
 true sons and champions of the Church. It was even 
 debated whether the Bull should be honourably re- 
 
 * "Episcopi. . . . animati plurimum, profitebantursenulliusprecibus, 
 nullius minis vcl muneribus esse flectendos, quin, in ista causa recta, 
 justitiam sequerentur, etiam si periculum capitis immineret." Wals, 
 p. 205. 
 
163 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 ceived, or disdainfully rejected.* In the first place, 
 it was a manifest invasion of their privileges ; and 
 secondly, it demanded the sacrifice of a man who 
 had long been the champion of their rights, and the 
 glory of the University. The mandate, however, was 
 
 at last received, though with manifest 
 ders cokHy re- coldness and reluctance ; and its recep- 
 ceived at Ox- tion was followed by no symptoms of 
 
 readiness to comply with its requisi- 
 tions. To quicken their movements, a peremptory 
 letter was addressed by Sudbury, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, to the Chancellor of Oxford, insisting upon 
 a speedy and faithful obedience to the commands of 
 the Pope; and the result of all these preliminary 
 
 proceedings was, that early in the next 
 Wiclif 3 appears y ear ' "W^f appeared before the synod 
 at Lambeth be- of Papal commissioners, assembled in, 
 DeTe^a^s Pai>al ^ e arc hbishop's chapel, at Lambeth 
 
 palace. But here again, disappointment 
 was in store for the inquisitors. At the time of the 
 meeting, the place was besieged by multitudes of the s 
 Londoners, who are represented by the chronicles of 
 the time, as deeply infected by the heresy of Wiclifr. 
 The more violent and outrageous among them broke 
 violence of the into the chapelf where the delegates- 
 Londoners, were convened, and showed by their 
 words and demeanour, that they were prepared ta 
 resent very effectually the infliction of injury on the 
 person of the reformer. The consternation of the 
 delegates was extreme ; and it was not at all miti* 
 
 * To the utter amazement and dismay of Walsingham! "Diu i 
 pendulo haerebant utrum papalem bullam deberent cum honore recipere, 
 vel omnino cum dedecore refutare. Oxoniense Studium generate ! quam 
 gravi lapsu a sapientise et scientise culmine decidisti ; quod quondam 
 fnextricabilia atque dubia toti mundo declarare consu^sti ; jam, ignoran- 
 tice nubilo obfuscatum, dub i tare non vereris quae quemlibete laicis Chris- 
 tianis dubitare non licet. Pudet recordationis tantae imprudentiaB : et, 
 ideo, suj>ersedeo in hujusmodo materia immorari, ne materna videar 
 \ibera decer])ere manibus, quee dare lac potum scientias consuevere !" 
 Wals. p. 200. Ed. 1574. ad. An. 1377. 
 
 t Wals. p. 206. Ed. 1574. 
 
LIFE OF WICXIF. 169" 
 
 gated by the sudden appearance of Sir Lewis Clif- 
 ford in the court, with a message from Mcg8RSe from 
 the Queen Mother, the widow of the the uueen Dow- 
 Black Prince, positively forbidding them a = er - 
 to proceed to any definite sentence against Wiclif, 
 The effect of this mandate is indignantly described 
 by Walsingham ". " As at the wind of a shaken reed, 
 their speech became softer than oil; to the public 
 loss of their own dignity, and the damage of the 
 whole Church. They who had sworn that they would 
 yield no obedience even to the princes and nobles of 
 the realm, until they had chastised the excesses of 
 the heresiarch, conformably to the Papal mandate, 
 were smitten with such terror by the face of an ob- 
 scure retainer of the princess, that you would have 
 thought their horns were gone,* and that they had 
 become as a man that heareth not, and in whose 
 mouth are no reproofs." And thus was the prey 
 once more rent from the jaws of the lion. The 
 whole scene furnishes a curious indication of the 
 turbulent spirit of those times ; and the irruption of 
 the mob, on the one hand, and the imperious message 
 of the royal dowager on the other, demonstrate that 
 the influence of Wiclif had made formidable incur- 
 sions into almost every region of society, from the 
 Highest to the lowest. 
 
 At this meeting, Wiclif delivered to wiciifs written 
 the commissioners a paper, containing answer to the 
 an answer to the charges of heresy, and char s es - 
 an explanation of the opinions contained in his 
 conclusions.! He was, nevertheless, He is dismissed, 
 strictly admonished by the delegates to with injunctions 
 abstain from repeating such proposi- to abstain fr 
 
 i . *% i_ i r spreading nis 
 
 tions, either in the schools, or in his doctrines" 
 sermons, in order that the laity might 
 
 * Such are the words of the Chronicler: " ut cornibus eos carere 
 putares ; factos velut homo non audiena, et non habens in ore euo redar- 
 gntiones." Wals. Hist. Angl. p. 205, 206. Ed. 1574. 
 
 t " Conclusions suae, cum responsione sua." Selden, MSS. Archi. 
 B. 10. It is also printed in Walsingham, p. 20& 209. 
 15 
 
170 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 not be made to stumble by his perversions : an in- 
 juction, which, as the popish chronicler complains, 
 lie treated with contempt, and persisted in scattering 
 conclusions still more pernicious.* Besides this pa- 
 per, be presented to the Parliament, which assembled 
 early in April, 1378, another document of a similar 
 import, though with some variations, and in several 
 parts, much more diffuse and explicit than the former. 
 His reason for submitting this declaration to Parlia- 
 ment, if we may judge from the somewhat obscure 
 titlef prefixed to it, is, that he had reason to believe 
 that his conclusions had been imperfectly, or incor- 
 rectly reported at Rome. And here it is necessary 
 for the biographer of Wiclif to pause awhile ; because 
 it is here that his conduct has been not only assailed 
 by Popish adversaries, but languidly defended, if not 
 openly condemned, by certain Protestant friends. 
 His conduct on ^et us lnen > fi rst listen to the representa- 
 this occasion tions of his enemies. Among these, we 
 considered. may, naturally, expect to find the Popish 
 annalists ; of whom none was more bitter and inve- 
 terate than "Walsingham. By this writer it is affirm- 
 ed, that " by these artful explanatory statements he 
 deluded his judges, and threw some plausible mean- 
 ing into his nefarious propositions ;J all of which, if 
 simply taken, according to the mode in which he 
 produced them in the schools, and in his public 
 preaching, unquestionably savour of heretical pravity" 
 To this the answer is very simple and obvious : His 
 
 Wals. p. 206. 
 
 t " Protestatio Reverendi Doctoris, una cum ejus Conclusionibus, 
 quee ab eo, in subscripts, forma, sunt positse ; quae, in consimilibus ma- 
 teriis, et dissimilibus Ibrmis, sunt et fuerunt reportatse, et ad Curiam 
 Romanam transmissae ; et sic, in muftis, minus bene impositcB." This 
 paper is printed in Lewis, p. 382, No. 40., from MSS. Selden. Arch. 
 B. 10. 
 
 t I presume, but am not quite certain, that this must be the meaning 
 of his words. The reader shall judge. After reciting his first explanatory 
 paper, (the second he does not give,) the Chronicler adds, " Hoc eodem 
 modo, idem versipellis ille Wicklefides, ponendo intelleetum in suis 
 nefandis propositionibiis, favore et diligentia Londinensium, delusit 
 suoa exarmnatores, Episcopos derisit, et evaeit." Wals. p. 209. 
 

 LIFE OF WICLIF. 171 
 
 opinions, even as represented by himself in his ex- 
 planatory papers, will unquestionably, be found, by 
 all good Catholics, to savour very sufficiently of here- 
 tical pravity. And, if they savour of it somewhat 
 less rankly than the conclusions imputed to him by 
 the holy see, it is because he could not, in justice, be 
 expected to stand or fall by a statement of his own 
 opinions, coming from the mouth of an adversary, 
 or an accuser. But this part of his case will be more 
 fully considered below. 
 
 Still more dishonourable to the memory of Wiclif, 
 is the representation of a modern enemy to Pro- 
 testant reformation. " To prepare for the day of 
 trial," says Dr. Lingard, "he first published a defence 
 of part of his doctrine, in language the most bold 
 and inflammatory. Soon afterwards he composed a 
 second apology, in which, though he assumed a mo- 
 derate tone, he avowed his willingness to shed his 
 blood in defence of his assertions. There is, how- 
 ever, reason to believe that the new apostle was in 
 no haste to grasp the crown of martyrdom. At his 
 trial he .exhibited to the prelates the same paper, 
 but with numerous corrections and improvements." 
 And in a note, the same historian says, " these three 
 
 Eapers may be found in Walsingham," (whereas, in 
 ict, only one of them is to be found there ; namely, 
 the paper which he presented on his trial,) and then 
 adds with matchless composure, " there is no date to 
 any of them ; but their contents seem to point out the 
 order in which they succeeded each other."* 
 
 It is impossible to mistake the object of this state- 
 ment. Its purpose, evidently, is to represent Wiclif 
 as maintaining the port of heroism, when .danger was 
 at a convenient distance, and as lowering his tone 
 precisely according to the urgency of its approach ! 
 ^Now, in the first place, on a moment's consideration, 
 it must surely occur to every reader, that to publish 
 
 * Lingard's England, vol. iv. p. 256, 27, 
 
172 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 an inflammatory statement of heretical opinions, must, 
 in those times, have been rather a hazardous mode of 
 preparing for trial, before a tribunal of spiritual in- 
 quisitors, acting under the immediate commission of 
 the Pope. But, in the second place, I know not to 
 what inflammatory paper the historian alludes, unless 
 it be to an answer published by Wiclif, to a violent 
 assault upon his positions, by an anonymous writer, 
 whom he calls a " motley theologue ;"* and if this be 
 so, it is next to an absolute certainty, that this attack, 
 or at least the answer to it, appeared subsequently to 
 those two papers, which Dr. Lingard has been pleased 
 to describe as the second and the third, and, therefore, 
 could not be put forth by way of preparation for his 
 trial. From the very language of the tract itself, it is 
 evident that the delegates must then have been wait- 
 ing the final decision from Rome. For, in speaking 
 of the unlimited power of binding and loosing, claimed 
 by the Pope, he there says, " Whether the judges or 
 delegates, by the Pope's permission, proceed to con- 
 demn my conclusions, or the Lord Pope himself, the 
 faithful are unanimously to make opposition to that 
 blasphemous opinion."! Combine these words with 
 the language of the Papal bull, which enjoins that 
 the examination of Wiclif, together with the whole 
 proceedings of the delegates should be transmitted 
 under seal to Rome, to await the further direction of 
 his Holiness^ and no reasonable doubt can remain, 
 that the case had then been disposed of in England, so 
 far as the commissioners had authority to dispose of it; 
 and that they were actually expecting further instruc- 
 tions from the Pope, either in the shape of a final sen- 
 tence from himself, or of a general permission to 
 them, to deal with the matter as they should think fit. 
 Again, if Dr. Lingard's arrangement of these docu- 
 ments is to be accepted, it will follow, that the bolder 
 
 * Mixtus theologus. t Lewis, p. 79. 
 
 f Donee a nobis super hoc aliud receperitis in mandatis. See this pa* 
 sage of the bull in Lewis, p. 311. 
 

 LIFE OF WICLIF. 173 
 
 and more explicit of the two remaining papers was 
 composed before his trial, and afterwards softened 
 down into the comparatively moderate apology which 
 he actually exhibited to the prelates. All the evi- 
 dence that yet remains to us, is directly opposed to 
 any such inversion of their order. In the first place, 
 the title prefixed to the more diffuse of these Ex- 
 planations, intimates that it was addressed to the 
 Parliament ;* and, if so, it must have appeared sub- 
 sequently to the proceedings at Lambeth; for the 
 Parliament did not meet till after those proceedings 
 had been concluded. But, further, the paper itself 
 contains a manifest reference to certain explanations 
 and reasonings produced by him in some previous 
 ^document ; and such reasonings are actually found in 
 the Paper presented to the Delegates. For instance 
 in Article 6 of the Paper, which stands second in 
 Lewis, Wiclif speaks of the power of temporal au- 
 thorities to take away the goods of a delinquent Church. 
 This authority he had asserted to be derivable from 
 ,lhe supreme power of God, which might, for that, as 
 well as for any other purpose, be communicated to 
 earthly potentates. But he adds " lest this conclu- 
 sion should, by reason of its remoteness, appear to be 
 impertinent, / have shown that temporal Lords have 
 power to take away the alms conferred by them on 
 the Church, whenever the Church abuses them :" and 
 to show this, is actually the object of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth Articles of the former Paper. f The 
 contents of these Papers do, therefore, " seem to 
 point out, very plainly, the order in which they were 
 delivered:" and that order is, beyond all reasonable 
 question, directly at variance with the convenient 
 .surmise of Dr. Lingard.t 
 
 * Its title in the Selden MS. is " ad Parliamentum Regis." See 
 >Vaugh. vol. ii. p. 384. 
 
 t See Lewis, p. 70, compared withj). 65 ; 66. 
 
 j The representation of this question given above, agrees, essentially, 
 with that of Mr. Vaughan, which, on the best consideration I could bo* 
 .etow upon it, appears to me to be just. Vaughan, vol. i. p. 406, note 18. 
 
 15* 
 
174 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 The slanderous insinuation, that Wiclif, on this 
 memorable occasion, began by bullying, and ended 
 by lameness and submission, in the mouth of a 
 Catholic adversary, will, perhaps, excite but little 
 astonishment, though it may give rise to certain 
 other emotions. But what must be our sorrow, 
 should we find similar unworthy suspicions of Wic- 
 lif's integrity adopted, and maintained by a Protestant 
 historian ? And yet it is even so. " He delivered to 
 the Court," says Milner, in his Church History, " a 
 protest and qualification of his positions, which had 
 
 been deemed erroneous and heretical* One of 
 
 his conclusions was this : * All the race of mankind, 
 here on earth, have no power simply to ordain, that 
 St. Peter and his successor should politically rule over 
 the world for ever.' His explanation before the As- 
 sembly was to this effect: "This conclusion is self- 
 evident, in as much as it is not in man's power to 
 stop the coming of Christ to judge the quick and the 
 dead :' an explanation," Mr. Milner observes, " which 
 renders the conclusion equivocal, if not altogether 
 nugatory." 
 
 Now, one would naturally conclude, from this 
 statement, that the document in question contained 
 not another syllable, which could affect the perpetual 
 and uncontrollable supremacy of the Pope. But, if 
 we turn to the eighteenth article! of this very Paper, 
 we shall find a position insufferably offensive to 
 Catholic ears, and virtually subversive of the Papal 
 claim to absolute and irresponsible dominion. It is 
 there distinctly asserted, that even the Pope himself 
 may, on some accounts, be corrected by his subjects; 
 and, for the benefit of the Church, may be impleaded 
 fay both clergy and laity. This position is grounded 
 by him on the consideration, that the Pope is our 
 peccable brother, and liable to sin as well as we : and 
 ie plainly affirms, that, when the whole college of 
 
 Vol. iv, p. 117, &c. t Lewis, p, 66. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 175 
 
 cardinals is remiss in correcting him for the necessary 
 welfare of the Church, the rest of the body, which 
 may chance to be chiefly made up of laity, may, me- 
 dicinally, reprove him and implead him, and reduce 
 him to better life : a doctrine, which it would be dif- 
 ficult in theory, and quite impossible in practice, to 
 reconcile with the indefeasible autocracy of the Vicar 
 of Christ. Yet this is the doctrine exhibited by Wic- 
 lif to the Papal delegates at Lambeth, even according 
 to the representation of Walsingham ; and it is wound 
 up by these memorable words : " Far be it from the 
 Church that the truth should be condemned because 
 it sounds ill in the ears of the sinful and the ignorant ; 
 for then the whole faith of Scripture must be liable 
 to condemnation."* , 
 
 Again : his eleventh article maintains, that there 
 "is no power granted by Christ to his disciples, to 
 excommunicate a subject for the denial of temporali- 
 ties to the clergy."f " This," says Mr. Milner, " is 
 a part of Wiclif 's doctrine, which undoubtedly, was 
 levelled at the right of the clergy to possess any kind 
 of property ; and was intended to be applied to the 
 purpose of setting that right aside. He takes care, 
 however, in his explanation, to avoid the direct asser- 
 tion of his real sentiment, by saying only this is 
 declared, in that doctrinal principle, taught in Scrip- 
 ture, according to which we believe that God is to be 
 loved above all things ; and our neighbour and ene- 
 my to be loved above all temporal goods : for the 
 law of God cannot be contrary to itself." 
 
 That this particular conclusion was levelled at the 
 possessions of the clergy, is a point very far removed 
 from the certainty which is here claimed for it by Mr. 
 Milner. From the tenor of various other positions 
 in the Paper, it seems, rather, to have been directed 
 against the abuse of the power of excommunication. 
 The ninth Article denounces the application of that 
 
 * Walsingh. p. 208, 209. Lewis p. 66, 67. 
 t Walsingh. p. 208. Lewis, p. 64. 
 
176 UFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 power to the purposes of personal revenge or passion: 
 and, by parity of reasoning, it may here be con- 
 demned as a means. of extorting the payment of cleri- 
 cal demands, whether those demands were just or 
 questionable. His views, it must be confessed, are 
 but obscurely and imperfectly developed in this Arti- 
 .cle ; but from this, in combination with several other 
 Articles, it will appear that, in his estimation, the 
 power in question ought never to be resorted to, 
 except with an immediate and charitable view to the 
 Benefit of human souls; and that, consequently, it 
 could not, without impiety, be employed merely as an 
 auxiliary to the interests of the priesthood; and that 
 its use, for such purposes, was never warrantable, 
 unless the ca^se were one which might, directly and 
 immediately, involve the honour of religion and the 
 cause of God.* And such a case might be fairly 
 .said to occur if the substraction of clerical dues should 
 be such, as to seriously threaten an utter cessation or 
 suspension of religious ordinances. 
 
 The theory of Wiclif, respecting the temporal pos- 
 sessions .of the clergy, is intimated in his eighteenth 
 Article :-^" When the Pope, or temporal Lords, shall 
 have endowed the Church wi.th temporalities, it is 
 lawful for them to take them away, by way of medir 
 cine, to prevent sin, notwithstanding excommunication, 
 because they are .not given but under a condition" 
 This position is precisely conformable to the doctrine 
 he had maintained in his answer to the question of 
 the Parliament, wherein he affirms the ecclesiastical 
 endowments to be in the nature of a perpetual alms ; 
 Jiable to forfeiture, on a gross failure of the condition 
 upon which they were originally granted. Whatever 
 may be the merits or the demerits, of this doctrine, 
 it is here, at least, with entire consistency, asserted by 
 the Reformer. But, then, says Mr. Milner, the fol* 
 lowing is his explanation of it before the delegates, 
 
 * He allowed that temporalities might be exacted by ecclesiastical cen- 
 sures, accessoi-it, ad vindicationem Dei. Wals. p. 208. Lewie, p. 64. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 177 
 
 *' The truth of this is evident, because nothing ought 
 to hinder a man from performing the principal works 
 of charity. Yet God forbid that, by these words, occa- 
 sion should be given to the Lords temporal to take 
 away the goods of the Church." And the historian 
 adds " I need make no remark on this conclusion, 
 and its explanation !" Now, it is submitted, on the 
 contrary, that the following remarks may be made, 
 and ought to be made upon it : first, that his notions 
 n the subject are not to be collected solely from the 
 brief and meager language of this particular Article, 
 but from the tenor of the whole document; which 
 shows, that he considered the subject of ecclesiastical 
 property with constant reference to its effect on the 
 spiritual interests of men ; that he, accordingly, held 
 that the purposes of charity might, in some cases of 
 egregious abuse, be more transcendency and efFect- 
 tually accomplished by withdrawing, or suspending 
 those spiritual alms, than by continuing to supply 
 them ; and that, consequently, the terror of excommu- 
 nication itself ou^ht not to deter the temporal autho- 
 rities from venturing on this act of what he considered 
 as charitable justice. The sixth Article of the same 
 Paper, however, shows that he never contemplated, 
 as legitimate, a spoliation of the Church, by the 
 " bare authority" and capricious will, of individuals ; 
 but a deprivation, by the authority of the Church: 
 and by the Church, be it always remembered, Wiclif 
 understood, not merely the clerical body, but the 
 whole Christian community. So that the sum of his 
 doctrine, as here asserted, amounts to this that the 
 authority of the temporal magistrate is fully compe- 
 tent to the office of providing, that ecclesiastical 
 endowments should be applied to the purposes for 
 which they were originally granted, on pain of for- 
 feiture and confiscation ; a doctrine which was after- 
 wards formidably exemplified in the sixteenth century, 
 but which it must have demanded no ordinary courage 
 for any individual to breathe in the days of Wiclif: 
 
 i 
 
178 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 especially in the presence of such a Court as was then 
 assembled at Lambeth. 
 
 Another complaint of Mr. Milner is, that in some 
 of his writings, WicMf called the Pope antichrist, 
 robber, and insolent priest of Rome; hut that no 
 such language is to be found in this protestation. It 
 is, indeed, undeniable, that no such epithets or attri- 
 butes are bestowed upon the Pontiff in this paper; 
 and it would have been truly surprising if it had been 
 .otherwise. The conclusions which he was accused 
 of maintaining, contain not a syllable to that effect ; 
 and I know not that the spirit of martyrdom itself can 
 require of a man wantonly to exasperate his judges, 
 by avowing practices or opinions which he is not 
 called upon to vindicate or explain. But, further, it 
 is extremely important to remark, that, in all proba- 
 bility, those writings of Wiclif 's, which contain the 
 most unsparing denunciation of Papal corruption and 
 arrogance, were published subsequently to his appear- 
 ance at Lambeth. I say, in all probability ; because 
 his works are so numerous, and so dispersed, that it 
 might look like rashness to venture on a more confi- 
 dent assertion. Thus much, however, is next to 
 certain, that several of his treatises, which have 
 hitherto been ascribed to an earlier period, could, by 
 no possibility, have been composed till after that 
 transaction ;* and that precisely in those treatises it 
 is, that we find the most violent language of reproba- 
 tion levelled at the Papacy, In that case, the fair 
 and reasonable inference is, not that the terrors of 
 persecution kept his opinions in concealment, but 
 rather, that his detestation of the Romish system grew 
 
 * This, I think, is shown irresistibly by Mr. Vaughan, with respect to 
 the Triaiogus, the Sentence of Curse expounded, the treatises on Pre- 
 lates, arid on Clerks possessioners, How Antichrist and his Clerks feren 
 true Priests fro preaching the Gospel, How Satan and his Priests casten 
 by three cursed heresies, &c. These are supposed, by Mr. Lewis, to have 
 appeared previously to the Lambeth Synpd. But Mr. Vaughan has 
 proved this to be impossible, by showing that every one of them contains 
 some allusion to events which happened subsequently. See note 9, to 
 second edition of Vaughan, vol. i. p. 381. 
 

 LIFE OF WICLIF. 179 
 
 stronger as he advanced in life ; and that his indig- 
 nation was probably aggravated, in his latter years, 
 by the scandal which the Papal schism inflicted upon 
 Christendom. 
 
 After all, however, it would ill become any candid 
 biographer of Wiclif, to claim unqualified commenda- 
 tion for the document which, on this occasion, he 
 exhibited to his judges. It would be vain to deny 
 that there is, in some parts of it, an air of obliquity, 
 of confusion, of scholastic intricacy, which very 
 greatly weakens its dignity and effect. Whether this 
 is to be partially ascribed to the peril of his situation ; 
 or whether it may more justly be considered as one 
 unhappy symptom of the influence of the scholastic 
 discipline upon his understanding, none can pro- 
 nounce, but He who searcheth the heart of man. In 
 the formation of our own judgment, however, it 
 should always be recollected, that we have this paper 
 just as it has been transmitted to us by his bitterest 
 enemy, the historian Walsingham; that, neverthe- 
 less, with all its imperfections and obscurities, it con- 
 tains an unflinching assertion of certain truths, which 
 must have been as gall and wormwood to the adhe- 
 rents of the Romish hierarchy. Dr. Lingard, indeed, 
 would have us believe that this explanation was 
 received as orthodox, by the prelates. If the paper 
 was so received, their lordships must have been be- 
 yond comparison, less fastidious than usual. The 
 articles, for instance, which asserted the peccability 
 of the Pope, and the power of the Christian commu- 
 nity to correct his moral aberrations, were proposi- 
 tions of no easy digestion to an orthodox and zealous 
 churchman of the fourteenth century ! And if the 
 judges of Wiclif were able to receive that saying, it 
 is tolerably clear that their capacity for it must have 
 been powerfully quickened by the cries of the London- 
 mob, and the " pompous" message from the mother 
 of the king. But for these active stimulants, the 
 conclusions of the reformer would probably have beett 
 
180 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 rejected with every symptom of abhorrence ; and we 
 have already seen that the Popish chronicler deplores 
 and reprobates the rapid effect of these applications 
 to the conscience of the delegates. Even as it was, 
 they felt it necessary to enjoin that he should, for the 
 future, abstain from trying the effect of his perni- 
 cious preparations upon the moral constitutions of 
 the people. 
 
 It should further be kept in mind, that the explana- 
 tions of Wiclif were still to be submitted to the 
 judgment of the Pontiff, and that the impending 
 terrors of that judgment had no effect whatever, in 
 arresting or mitigating his exertions. In what Dr. 
 Lingard calls his inflammatory paper, (his answer to- 
 the " motley divine," who had assailed him) his lan~ 
 guage is, more than ever, vehement and uncompro- 
 mising; and this tract, it must be observed, was put 
 forth at the very time, when his fate was pending at 
 Rome ; when every syllable that fell from his pen, or 
 from his lips, would be faithfully and speedily reported 
 to the Pope ; and when the sentence of excommuni- 
 cation might, every moment, be expected to burst 
 upon his head. And this sentence must, in all likeli- 
 hood, have actually gone forth against him, had not 
 the arm which wielded the thunder, been suddenly 
 paralyzed by that portentous schism, which, soonr 
 after, astonished and convulsed the whole Christian- 
 world. 
 
 Both in the paper which he presented at Lambeth, 
 and in that which he afterwards submitted to Parlia- 
 ment, Wiclif protests that he is willing to defend his 
 opinions even unto death ;* and in the latter docu- 
 ment, he distinctly professes that his object is a 
 Wiciif's reply reformation of the Church. f In his re- 
 to the mixtus ply to his " motley" antagonist, his pro- 
 fession is to the same effect. His adver- 
 
 * Wals. p. 206. Lewis, p. 60. 
 
 1 The concluding words of that paper are, "Hae eunt conclusiones, 
 mias vult, etiam usque ad mortem, defendere, ut, per hoc, valeat mores 
 Ecclesiae reformare." Lewis, p. 389. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 181 
 
 sary had affirmed, that from the moment any one 
 becomes Pope, he likewise becomes incapable of 
 mortal sin ; an assertion, says the Reformer, the con- 
 sequence of which is, that whatever he ordains, must, 
 of necessity, be just and rightful. The Pope might 
 expunge any book from the canon of Scripture, or 
 might add any book to it, or alter the whole Bible at 
 his pleasure, and turn all the Scriptures into heresy, 
 and establish as catholic, a scripture that is repugnant 
 to the truth ? It was his opposition to these mon- 
 strous notions, he observes, that had called forth the 
 Papal fulminations, and armed the hierarchy, the 
 University, and the throne, against him. He then 
 alludes to the various conclusions, above adverted to, 
 precisely according to the enumeration of them in his 
 two defences ; and he tells us, that the mark of heresy 
 was most deeply branded upon those positions, which, 
 maintain that the temporalities of the Church are 
 liable to forfeiture, in cases of habitual abuse, and 
 that the Pontiff himself may lawfully be accused and 
 corrected by his subjects. He then proceeds to vin- 
 dicate those articles which relate to the power of 
 absolution; and to denounce as blasphemous, the 
 assertion, that the Pope, or the clergy, can bind or 
 loose as effectually as God himself. Whoever makes 
 this assertion, he declares to be a heretic and a blas- 
 phemer ; one that should not be allowed by Chris- 
 tians to live on earth, much less to be their leader and 
 their captain, since his guidance could only conduct 
 them to a precipice. Such usurpation ought to be 
 resisted by the secular authorities ; not only on account 
 of the heresy whicn denied them the power of with- 
 drawing their alms from a delinquent Church ; not 
 only because it claimed for the clergy much more 
 than a ministerial distribution of ecclesiastical posses- 
 sions ; but because it imposed an Egyptian bondage 
 on the laity, and took from them the liberty of 
 the law of Christ. And then it is, that he goes on to 
 exhort the soldiers of Christ, both secular and cleri- 
 16 
 
182 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 cal, to stand for the law of God even unto Hood, and 
 not to sink under the fear of pain, or the seductions 
 of society, or the love of worldly profit. " If," says 
 he, " the Lord Pope himself, at the suggestion of a 
 Sergius, or an apostate Julian, or of his own heart, 
 or at the instigation of the devil, nay, if an angel 
 from heaven, were to promulgate such blasphemous 
 opinions, the faithful, who hear the honour peculiar 
 to their Lord thus unfaithfully usurped, must make 
 resistance to it, for the preservation of the faith. 
 For if," he adds, " it were once established, that the 
 Pope, or his Vicar, does really bind and loose, when- 
 ever he pretends to do so, how shall the world stand ? 
 If, whenever the Pope pretends to bind, with the 
 pains of eternal damnation, all person* who oppose 
 nim in the acquisition of temporal things, those 
 persons are actually so bound ; what can be easier 
 than for him to seize on all the kingdoms of the 
 earth, and to subvert every ordinance of Christ ? For 
 a less fault than this, Abiathar, was deposed by Solo- 
 mon, Peter reproved to the face by Paul, and Pontiffs 
 unseated by emperors and kings. What, then, should 
 hinder the faithful from complaining of much deeper 
 injuries offered to their God ? You are told that 
 secular men must not lay a finger on the possessions 
 of the clergy; that ecclesiastics are placed beyond 
 the reach of secular justice ; that if the Pope issue his 
 decree, the world must instantly obey his pleasure. 
 If this, indeed, be so, what follows, but that your 
 wives, and your daughters, and your worldly substance, 
 are all at the mercy of the Pontiff, and his priesthood ; 
 yea, that the whole order of the world may be sub- 
 verted ! And is impiety like this to be endured by 
 Christian men ?"* 
 
 Such was the testimony lifted up, at the close of 
 the fourteenth century, against the gigantic power 
 of the Vatican. Such was the voice which, in this 
 
 * See Lewis, p. 7850. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 183 
 
 country, may be said to have opened those mighty 
 pleadings, that were continued, at intervals, from 
 generation to generation, until the days of Luther, 
 when the cause was brought to its glorious arbitre- 
 ment. In producing, however, the memorable words 
 of these three Papers, I am not to be understood as 
 the advocate for every doctrine they convey. Wiclif, 
 beyond all doubt, both on this, and on many other 
 occasions, expressed himself in language wiclif s views 
 which may seem almost to justify the with regard to 
 charge, that, by his system, all ecclesi- Church proper- 
 astical possessions were marked out for 
 spoliation.* It must be allowed that he taught a 
 lesson to princes, and to nobles, and to commoners, 
 which they were all abundantly willing to learn ; and 
 most zealously, in a future age, did they " better the 
 instruction !" At the same time, I cannot but repeat 
 my belief that a somewhat more sweeping principle 
 of forfeiture and confiscation has often been ascribed 
 to him, than the general tenor of his writings will 
 fairly warrant. The hierarchy of those days seemed 
 to think and to act, as if the earth were theirs as if 
 the work of clerical appropriation was neither more 
 nor less than a redemption of worldly wealth and 
 substance from unhallowed uses and that to touch 
 their possessions, however fraudulently acquired, or 
 however scandalously abused, was to be guilty of an 
 impious desecration, which no enormity of Church- 
 men could justify in the sight of God or man. The 
 spirit of Wiclif was stirred within him to protest 
 against these principles. He accordingly laboured 
 to recall the attention of the world to the original of 
 all these sacred endowments : to show, that they 
 were derived from the voluntary and pious liberality 
 of laymen, under the implied condition that they 
 were to be used for the temporal and eternal benefit 
 of the human ia.ce. This, however, he unfortunately 
 
 * Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 358. fourth edit. 
 
184 LIFE OF WTCLIF. 
 
 in what sense did by the reiterated application of a 
 dered if the COn >s vei T dangerous syllable. Alms was the 
 soSons'oMhe designation which he gave to clerical 
 church as aims, emolument of almost every description: 
 and this little word, it must be confessed, was admi- 
 rably fitted to make popular and current the conve- 
 nient notion, that religious ministers are to be solely 
 dependent on the feelings and the caprices of their 
 congregations. He sometimes, indeed, speaks of the 
 possessions of the Church as alms in perpetuity ; as 
 alms, because they had their origin in the religious 
 bounty of secular men : as held in perpetuity, because 
 they were granted by the donors without any limita- 
 tion of time. Nevertheless, two things seem quite 
 indisputable; first, that, in his judgment, it would 
 have been much better for the Church, if her minis- 
 ters had never been invested with secular possessions 
 at all; and, secondly, that, in cases of flagrant abuse 
 or neglect, the revocation of, such grants fell, not 
 only within the competency of the temporal authori- 
 ties, but within the line of their positive duty. Such 
 cases, he conceived, were perpetually occurring, un- 
 der the system of ecclesiastical polity, which it was 
 the business of his whole life to denounce, and, if 
 possible, to reform : and it cannot be denied, that the 
 tone in which he called for the correction of that 
 system was, often, as inflammatory as his principles 
 themselves were questionable and hazardous. 
 
 It may be convenient to introduce, in this place, a 
 circumstance which occurred in the course of the fol- 
 lowing year, highly characteristic of Wiclif 's uncon- 
 querable energy. Worn out by the toil of incessant 
 composition, and by the anxieties occasioned by his 
 1379 recent prosecution, he was seized with 
 Wiclif s dan- an alarming sickness, while at Oxford, 
 gerous sickness. ^ the beginning of 1379. His old ad- 
 versaries, the Mendicants, were in hopes that, with 
 him, the season of suffering and danger would, like- 
 wise, be the season of weakness ; and that they 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 185 
 
 might, thus, have an opportunity of extorting from 
 him some healing acknowledgment of his manifold 
 sins against their Order. With this view, 
 they resolved to send a deputation of geverlf^f the 
 their body to his sick bed ; and, in order Mendicants, 
 to heighten the solemnity of the pro- who exhort him 
 
 i . i i / i j i t repentance. 
 
 ceedinf, they took care to be attended by 
 the civil authorities. Four of their own doctors, or 
 regents, together with as many senators of the city, 
 or aldermen of the wards, accordingly entered his 
 chamber ; and finding him stretched upon his bed, 
 they opened their commission by wishing him a 
 happy recovery from his distemper. They soon en- 
 tered, however, on the more immediate object of 
 their embassy. They reminded him of the grievous 
 wrongs he had heaped upon their fraternity, both by 
 his sermons and his writings ; they admonished him 
 that, to all appearance, his last hour was approach- 
 ing; and they expressed their hope that he would seize 
 the opportunity, thus afforded him, of making them, 
 the only reparation in his power, and penitently re- 
 voking, in their presence, whatever he might have 
 uttered or published to their disparagement. This 
 exhortation was heard by him in silence : but when 
 it was concluded, he ordered his servants to raise him 
 on his pillows ; and then, fixing his eyes upon the 
 company, he said, with a firm voice, " I 
 shall not die, but live, and again declare ] 
 the evil deeds of the Friars." The consternation of 
 the doctors may easily be imagined. They imme- 
 ately retired in confusion ; and Wiclif was happily, 
 raised up again, and spared for several years longer, 
 during which time he amply redeemed his pledge of 
 renewed hostility to the Mendicants. 
 
 16* 
 
188 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 1379-1381. 
 
 Origin of the Papal Schism WicliJ ''* " Schtema Papa" Hi* 
 Treatise on the truth and meaning of Scripture His Postils 
 Wiclifasa Parish P ^est Picture of the Clergy of that age from, 
 his tract, " How the Ouice of Curate is ordained of God' 1 Widif's 
 translation of the Scriptures Notice of previous versions of 
 parts of the "bible C&dmon Alfred JEljric The Ormulum 
 Sowle-hele Rolle, the hermit of Ilampnle Elucidarinm Biblio- 
 
 proscnoed by the Church, but, nevertheless, widely circulated 
 insurrection of the Peasantry Causes assigned for it by Papal 
 writers its real cause, probably, the wretchedness ana degra- 
 dation of the peasantry Possibly aggravated by the growing 
 impatience of Ecclesiastical power Injustice of ascribing it to 
 the religious opinions ofWiclifand his followers. 
 
 IT will be remembered by all who have Origin of the 
 any acquaintance with ecclesiastical his- Pa ? al Schism. 
 tory, that very early in the fourteenth century the 
 Papal residence was removed from Rome to Avig- 
 non. The first prelate that submitted to this migra- 
 tion was Clement the fifth, a native of France, who, 
 being indebted for his elevation to the influence of 
 Philip the Fair, complied with the urgent wish of 
 that monarch, that the head of that Church should 
 be constantly within his own dominions. This de- 
 sertion of the ancient seat of spiritual empire was 
 contemptuously styled by the Italians the Babylonish 
 captivity : and, in truth, no form of sarcastic speech 
 could well be too strong to describe the irreparable 
 disaster and disgrace which this transfer inflicted on 
 the Apostolic See. The absence of the vicegerent of 
 Christ was a signal for all the winds of faction to 
 break loose, and to fight against the honour of the 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 187 
 
 Church, and the peace of Italy. During this calami- 
 tous period, the patrimony of St. Peter was ravaged, 
 and the authority of his successor frequently treated 
 with contempt. The thunders which shook the world 
 when they issued from the seven hills, sent forth an 
 uncertain sound, comparatively faint and powerless, 
 when launched from a region of less elevated sanc- 
 tity. The mighty voice which formerly made earthly 
 potentates tremble, now seemed almost to whisper 
 out of the dust; so that the terrors of the Inquisition 
 itself were, sometimes, scarcely sufficient to keep 
 alive the belief, that Christ had any longer a delegate 
 or an oracle upon earth. 
 
 The termination of this captivity was, if possible, 
 still more calamitous to the Papacy, than its com- 
 mencement and its continuance. On the death of 
 Gregory XL in 1378, the people of Rome, disgusted 
 and enraged by the spectacle of a long succession of 
 Frenchmen in the Papal chair, terrified the conclave, 
 (a majority of which were, likewise, Frenchmen,) 
 into the election of an Italian prelate, Bartholomeo 
 de Pregnano, who, together with the tiara, assumed 
 the name of Urban VI. His insolence and rapacity 
 soon drove the Cardinals from Rome to the territory 
 of Naples, where they collected courage to declare 
 their former choice a nullity, and to substitute for 
 Urban, Robert, Count of Geneva, since known by 
 the name of Clement VII. Which of these two was 
 lawfully entitled to the pontifical throne, is, to this 
 hour, a subject of debate. Each party, however, 
 seemed to be confident of his own right : and the 
 Italian, accordingly, remained at Rome, while the 
 Frenchman adopted the example of his eight prede- 
 cessors, and fixed his residence at Avignon. The 
 cause of Clement was maintained by France, Spain, 
 Scotland, Sicily, and Cyprus. The rest of Europe 
 acknowledged Urban to be the true vicar of Christ. 
 And thus, to use the subsequent language of Wiclif, 
 " the head of Anti-Christ was cloven in twain, and 
 
188 LIFE OP WICLIf. 
 
 the two parts were made to fight against each 
 other." 
 
 Historians present us with a frightful picture of 
 the miseries inflicted on Christendom by this great 
 schism of the West. In the first place, there was the 
 odious spectacle of two competitors for the spiritual 
 vicegerency assailing each other with dire and vin- 
 dictive fulminations. Then followed the utter dis- 
 solution of morals among the ministers of Christ, 
 who assumed the aspect rather of conflicting powers 
 of evil than messengers of peace. Lastly came the 
 distraction, and desolatipn of heart, suffered by pious 
 and sorrowing multitudes, who knew not where to 
 look for the representative of their Saviour on earth, 
 and who thus fancied themselves cut off from that 
 communion with the Head of the Church, from which 
 alone they would derive any hope of salvation. 
 Society appeared, for a long period, in imminent 
 danger of being utterly cast loose from the anchor- 
 age either of faith, or hope, or charity. In short, 
 the haunts of Superstition seemed to be burst open, 
 and to disclose their secrets to the gaze of men and 
 angels. But the march of God's Omnipotence was 
 in the midst of this confusion. The tribulation of 
 those days was a part of the process by which his 
 Church was enabled to shake off her impurities. The 
 Papal power was then smitten with a deep and des- 
 perate wound ; and though she at length appeared to 
 " close and be herself," her full strength never return- 
 ed unto her ; and half the world was enabled, after 
 many a convulsive struggle, to break away from her 
 deadly embrace. 
 
 By these commotions, the elements of destruction 
 which had been gathering over the head of Wiclif 
 were for a time dispersed. The fury of the rival 
 Pontiffs was wasted upon the adherents of each 
 other; and, in the midst of this most unhallowed 
 strife, the delinquencies of the English heretic seem 
 to have been well nigh forgotten. To him, however, 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 189 
 
 the imminent peril, which had just passed away, 
 brought no thoughts of relaxation. On the contrary, 
 the Papal schism, to which he prohably owed his 
 safety, became instantly the object of his indignant 
 assault. At the very outset 01 the conflict, Wiclif 
 was soon ready with a treatise on the 
 subject, in which he invites the sove- J^p^f ***" 
 reigns of Christendom to seize the occa- 
 sion, which Providence had sent them, of shaking to 
 pieces the whole fabric of the Romish dominion. 
 " Trust we in the help of Christ " he exclaims 
 " for he hath begun already to help us graciously, in 
 that he hath cloven the head of Anti- Christ, and made 
 the two parts fight against each other; for it cannot be 
 doubtful that the sin of the Popes, which hath so 
 long continued, hath brought in the division." The 
 time, he said, was now come for " Emperors and 
 kings to help, in this cause, to maintain God's law, 
 to recover the heritage of the Church, and to destroy 
 the foul sins of clerks, saving their persons. Thus 
 should peace be established, and simony destroyed." 
 The suffrages of cardinals or of princes, could never, 
 he adds, confer on man an immunity from error ; 
 " the children of the fiend should, therefore, learn 
 their logic and their philosophy well, lest they prove 
 heretical by a false understanding of the law of 
 Christ : and, of all heresies, none could be greater 
 than the belief that a man may be absolved from sin, 
 if he give money, or because a priest layeth his hand 
 on the head, and saith / absolve thee. Thou must be 
 sorrowful in thy heart, or God absolveth thee not." 
 He then goes on positively to deny the necessity of 
 confessing to a priest ; and, lastly, he calls on the 
 secular powers to gird them up to the great work of 
 ecclesiastical reformation.* 
 Nearly about the same time with the above, ap- 
 
 * "SchismaPapae." There is a copy of this Tract in Trin. Coll 
 Dublin. Class C, tab, 3, No. 12, See Vaughan, vol. ii, p. 4, 
 
190 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 peared his work " on the Truth and 
 Xh l n ami Meaning of Scripture;" one of the most 
 Meaning ^ of copious and important of all his per- 
 formances. If this were the only monu- 
 ment which Wiclif had left us, it would have been 
 nearly sufficient to put us in full possession of 
 his opinions and his views, relative to every mo- 
 mentous question connected with religion. In this 
 volume he contends for the ^supreme authority, and 
 entire sufficiency, of the Scriptures, and for the ne- 
 cessity of translating them into English. He more- 
 over insists, intrepidly and faithfully, on the right of 
 private judgment, discusses every branch of the cleri- 
 cal power, and examines every department of moral 
 obligation.* A work like this would, alone, have 
 been enough to entitle him to the veneration and 
 gratitude of this country, as the great herald and 
 forerunner of her reformation. 
 
 w IT P 'i Among the voluminous remains of 
 3 ' Wiclif, ample specimens are to be found 
 of his instructions from the pulpit, delivered, proba- 
 bly, between the year 1376, when he was presented 
 to the rectory of Lutterworth, and his death, which 
 happened in 1384. Of the value of this species of 
 ministration, his estimate appears to have been very 
 exalted : and it is further evident, from his extant 
 labours, that he selected that species of it which, if 
 skilfully and vigorously executed, is, of all others, 
 most useful and edifying, and which, unquestionably, 
 is most in conformity with the primitive practice. 
 The preachers of those days had two methods of 
 addressing their congregations from the pulpit : they 
 either announced some particular subject, on which 
 it was their intention to enlarge; and in that case, 
 their discourse assumed something of the form of an 
 oration, or declamatory essay : and this, in the tech- 
 nical language of the times, was known by the name 
 
 ' Lewis, p. 81. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 191 
 
 of declaring : or, else, they read to their audience a 
 certain portion of Scripture, which they proceeded to 
 illustrate by exposition, and to render practically 
 useful in the way of application. This latter method 
 was designated by the barbarous term of "postulat- 
 ing ;"* that is, explaining by a sort of running com- 
 mentary. Another practice, of much less ancient 
 example, was that of choosing one or more verses of 
 Scripture, and raising upon them a superstructure of 
 exhortation or disquisition. In those days of meta- 
 physical dissection, the preacher was frequently 
 tempted, by this practice, into a labyrinth of divisions 
 and subdivisions : and, in later times, the same 
 method has, virtually, brought back the ancient prac- 
 tice of declaring ; for, with us, the text is often little 
 more than a scriptural motto, which serves to an- 
 nounce the subject of the oration or discourse. It is 
 probable that the expository method has been gra- 
 dually abandoned, from the extreme difficulty of 
 conducting it with sufficient force and animation ; the 
 statement of their own thoughts being, to many, an 
 easier task, than that of illustrating facts and charac- 
 ters, or developing the precepts and meditations of 
 other teachers. This method, however, of postilla- 
 tion, or exposition, was the form selected by Wiclif 
 for his parochial instructions. Some three hundred 
 of his manuscript homilies are still preserved in the 
 British Museum, and the libraries of Cambridge and 
 Dublin, and in other collections. Of these many 
 consist of little more than brief notes, thrown to- 
 gether, apparently, for the sole purpose of recalling 
 to his memory the points on which it was his inten- 
 tion to enlarge. Others, again, are more completely 
 wrought out, and sometimes approach to the form 
 and length of a modern sermon. We learn from 
 one,f who has laboriously examined the whole of 
 
 * Postilla is a word of degenerate Latinity, signifying a marginal 
 glosB, or commentary. 
 
 t Mr. Vaughan, whose account of WicliPs homilies may be found in 
 his second volume, p. 1236. 
 
192 LIFE OF WICL1F. 
 
 them, that " there is scarcely a peculiarity of opinion 
 adopted by Wiclif, the nature or the progress of 
 which mi^ht not be illustrated from these volumin- 
 ous remains." They are uniformly adapted to the 
 purposes of popular instruction ; and the Reformer 
 evidently considered it as no departure from that 
 office, to assail the abuses of the hierarchy, and to 
 denounce them to his people as the grand impedi- 
 ment to their moral and spiritual progress. Through- 
 out, the holy Scriptures are represented as the su- 
 preme authority from which we are to seek the 
 knowledge of our duty, and the grounds of our social 
 and moral obligations ; the great truths of the Gos- 
 pel are plainly and faithfully set forth; the frailty 
 and depravity of man are urgently insisted on ; the 
 sufferings and merits of the Saviour, are represented 
 as the only ground on which the sinner can rest his 
 hope of pardon and acceptance ; and the influence of 
 the Eternal Spirit, as the only fire which can baptize 
 the hearts of men unto holiness and purity. 
 
 One or two extracts from the sermons of "Wiclif 
 are here introduced ; as some curiosity* may natu- 
 
 * For the power of gratifying their curiosity in this respect, the public 
 is partly indebted to the industry of Mr. Vaughan, and partly to that 
 of the compilers above mentioned, in whose recent publication may be 
 found copious specimens of Wiclif's Postils, p. 186336. Some few 
 passages, indeed, had previously been given by Mr. Turner, in his His- 
 tory of England, vol. ii. p. 426, 427. In those extracts he has preserved 
 the anc'rent orthography. A pecimen or two of these venerable remains, 
 in their primitive form, are here subjoined. 
 
 "And thus seyen these folk to the princes of the world, that these here- 
 tikes (the Lollards) ben false men agenis holy religioun ; and they casten 
 to destroy lordships and reumes ; ami therefore to maund them to be 
 dede, orlettthemto speke. But lordis seyen again, that they scholden 
 knowe thelawe that Holy Churche hath to punische such heretikes; and 
 therefore they scholden go forth and punish hem by herp lawe. Bi such 
 execution of such false Prelatis and freris is Goddes lawe q wench id, and 
 Ante-Christs arered. But God wolde, that these lords passeden Pilat in 
 this poynt, and knew the treuthe of Goddes law in here moder tonge, 
 and have this two folke in suspecte for here cursed lyvynge, and hidynge 
 of his lawe from knowinge of seculeres : for, by this cautel of the fend ben 
 manye trewe men qwenchid." 
 
 The following is the style in which he speaks of the pomp and grandeur 
 of the high ecclesiastics: "In this point men synnen, specially the gret- 
 tisteof Hie cherche; for they suwen nat Christe here, but Ante- Christ 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 193 
 
 rally be felt respecting the addresses of so eminent a 
 preacher, to a parochial congregation in the four- 
 teenth century. One of the first things that srikes us 
 in these discourses, is, the entire confidence with 
 which they apply to the Papacy the character of 
 Anti-Christ. " The laws and judgments," says the 
 preacher, " which Anti-Christ brought in, and added 
 to the law of God, mar too much the Church of Christ. 
 For, with the stewards of the Church, the laws of 
 Anti-Christ are the rules by which they make offi- 
 cers therein : and, to deceive the laity, Anti-Christ 
 challengeth to be, in such things, fully God's fellow. 
 For he affirms that, if he judgeth thus, his will 
 should be taken for reason ; whereas, this is the 
 highest point that falleth to the Godhead. Popes 
 and kings, therefore, should seek a reason above 
 their own will : for such blasphemy often bringeth 
 to men more than the pride of Lucifer. He said he 
 would ascend, and be like the Most High ; but he 
 challenged not to be the fellow of God, even with 
 him or passing him. May God bring down this 
 pride, and help, that his word may reverse that of 
 the fiend ! We//, indeed, I know, that when it is at the 
 highest, this smoke shall disappear"* Again: " It is 
 known that Anti-Christ hath enthralled the Church 
 more than it was under the old law, though then the 
 service was not to be borne. New laws are now 
 made by Anti-Christ, and such as are not founded on 
 the laws of the Saviour. More ceremonies are now 
 brought in, and more do they tarry men in coming 
 to heaven than did the traditions of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees. One cord of this thraldom, is the lordship 
 
 and the world. Loke at the Pope first, and his Cavdinalis, whether they 
 taken no wordly worse hipe. but ben the lest, and the moost meke of an 
 oth re. More foul pride and covetise is in no lord of the world. Go we 
 to bishopis binetne them, and rich abbotis, fadris of covemis; and these 
 axcn worldly worschipis; and by this may men know hem. And gif 
 thon go down to freris, that been beggeris, that scholden be mekest, more 
 worschipe of ther brethren taketh no man in this world, as bi knelinge, 
 with kissinse of feet." Turner, vol. ii. p. 426, notes 50, 51. 
 Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 26, 27. 
 
194 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 claimed by Anti-Christ, as being full lord, both of 
 spirituals and temporals. Thus lie turneth Christian 
 men aside from serving Christ in Christian freedom ; 
 so much so, that they might well say, as the poet saith 
 in his fable, the frogs said to the harrow, * cursed be 
 so many masters /' For, in this day, Christian men 
 are oppressed, now with Popes, and now with 
 bishops ; now with cardinals under Popes, and now 
 with prelates under bishops ; and now their head is 
 assailed with censures. In short, buffeted are they, 
 as men would serve a football. But, certainly, if the 
 Baptist were not worthy to loose the latchet of the 
 shoe of Christ, Anti-Christ hath no power to impede 
 the freedom which Christ hath bou^nt. Christ gave 
 this freedom to men, that they might come to the 
 bliss of heaven with less difficulty ; but Anti-Christ 
 burdens them that they may give him money. Foul, 
 therefore, is this doing, both to God and his law."* 
 
 Doctrine like this must have made the ears of the 
 good people of Lutterworth to tingle again ! They 
 had probably heard nothing at all resembling it from 
 his predecessor : and if so, they must almost have 
 looked to see the roof of their church falling upon 
 their heads, when it first echoed to sounds of such 
 audacity. Equally strange to mos,t of them, though 
 not perhaps so fearfully astounding,- were his instruc- 
 tions on the mode ot their acceptance with God. 
 Having solemnly dwelt on the supreme majesty of 
 Jehovah, and shown that His justice must be violated 
 by forgiving sin without an atonement, (" else must 
 He give free license to sin, both in angels and men, 
 and then sin were no sin, and our God were no God,") 
 he proceeds to consider what that atonement must 
 be. His people, probably, might, at first, have ex- 
 pected to hear of the good offices of the saints, or of 
 the maternal influence and authority of the H6ly 
 Virgin, who alone could secure the effective interces- 
 
 * Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 27, 28. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 195 
 
 sion of her Son, in behalf of transgression against the 
 laws of the Father. Not a syllable of all this did 
 they hear from the parson of Lutterworth. He refers, 
 directly and solely, to the only Name whereby men 
 can be saved ; and this in language which might en- 
 tirely become a Protestant pulpit at the present day. 
 " The person," he says, " who may make atonement 
 for the sin of our first father, must needs be God and 
 man. For, as mankind trespassed, so must man- 
 kind make satisfaction : and, therefore, it could not be 
 that an angel should make satisfaction for man ; for 
 neither has he the might, nor was his the person (or 
 nature) that here sinned. But, since all men are one 
 person, if any member of this person make satisfac- 
 tion, the whole person maketh it. And by this we 
 may see that, if God made a man of nought, or anew, 
 to be of the kind of Adam, yet he was holden to God, 
 as much as he might, for himself; and so he might 
 not make satisfaction for himself, and also for Adam's 
 sin. Since then, satisfaction .must be made for the 
 sin of Adam, as it has been said, such a person must 
 make this satisfaction, as was both God and man ; 
 for, the worthiness of such a person's deeds would be 
 even with the unworthiness of the sin."* The whole 
 tenor of his ministrations points to the agonies of this 
 Divine and Incarnate Saviour as .the only object on 
 which the thoughts of men are to be fixed, when they 
 are seeking forgiveness and salvation : and the prac- 
 tical inference is, that " we follow after Christ in his 
 blessed passion, that we keep ourselves from sin 
 hereafter, and gather a devout mind from him."f 
 In speaking of the deservings of man, and the grace 
 of God, he will be found to set his face, like a flint, 
 against the current notion of man's sufficient and 
 meritorious righteousness. He teaches us to look up 
 to God as the only source of whatever may be good 
 
 * On the Nativity of Christ. Postils, p. 187, ubi supri. 
 t Similar statements may be found iu his Sermon on the Priesthood 
 of Christ Postils, p. 204, <fcc. 
 
196 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 or acceptable within us. "We should know," he 
 says, '' ihat faith is a gift of God ; and so God gives it 
 not to man, unless he gives it graciously. Thus, in- 
 deed, all good things which men have, are of God: 
 and, accordingly, when God rewardeth a good work in 
 man, he crowneth his own gift. All this is of grace ; 
 even as all things are of grace, that men have, of the 
 will of God. God's goodness is the first cause which 
 giveth men these good things : and so, it may not be 
 that God doeth good to men, but if [except] he do it 
 freely, by his own grace : and, with this, we shall 
 grant that men deserve of God." He then proceeds 
 to express his utter contempt for the Pelagian doc- 
 trines on this point : " The chiding of idiots, such as 
 was Pelagius, and others, who conceive that nothing 
 may be, unless it is of itself, as substances are, is 
 to be scorrred and left to fools."* The freedom and 
 sovereignty of Divine grace are here brought out into 
 very bold relief; but there is no reason to suppose, 
 from the whole complexion of his writings, that 
 Wiclif held this doctrine in connexion with the belief, 
 that the sanctifying influence can never dispense with 
 the necessity of moral exertion on the part of man. 
 
 These specimens may serve to show the spirit in 
 which the Reformer discharged the office of a preacher ; 
 an office, the neglect of which he regarded as the 
 " foulest treason" to Christ ; for this, he says, " Christ 
 enjoined on his disciples more than any other: by 
 this he conquered the world out of the fiend's hand ; 
 and whosoever he be that can but bring priests to act 
 thus, hath authority from God, and merit in his deed."t 
 That his labours, in this line of duty, were abundant, 
 
 * The Leper and the Centurion. Postils, p. 193. ubi supri. I suppose 
 that the intention of the Reformer, here, is, to condemn the notion which 
 represented responsible beings as resembling mere substances, whose 
 essence is entirely independent of the qualities, and properties, which the 
 Creative Wisdom may have been pleased to annex to them. Men are to 
 be considered, not merely with reference to any thing inherent, essential, 
 or unalterable in their natures ; but according to the worth which may 
 te communicated to them by the free and unbought grace of God, 
 
 t Epistola ad Simplices Sacerdotes. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIfr. 197 
 
 ns well as faithful and enlightened, may be concluded 
 from the fact, that so many as 300 of his familiar 
 Sermons, or Postils, still remain, notwithstanding 
 his writings were marked out for destruction after 
 his death; and that many of them actually perished, 
 under the vigilance and activity with which the pro- 
 scription was carried on. That his diligence in 
 communicating instruction to the people, in their na- 
 tive tongue, was one grand instrument by which the 
 diffusion of his opinions was accomplished, is beyond 
 all controversy. The example was followed up with 
 indefatigable vigour, by his adherents ; and a power 
 was thus put forth, in defence of the truth, similar to 
 that which Innocent the Third had called into action for 
 the support of falsehood and corruption. It is noto- 
 rious, that the Mendicant Orders, at their first insti- 
 tution, were the most popular and effective preachers 
 of their day. The Franciscans, more especially, were 
 to be found in every village ; and by the unwearied 
 assiduity of their ministrations, they, and the Domi- 
 nicans, at one time, nearly monopolized the venera- 
 tion and obedience of the populace throughout the 
 Christian world. One great secret of their power 
 was the practice of addressing the people in a familiar 
 style, and in the language of their country. The sin- 
 cere and genuine words of eternal life, indeed, were 
 never heard from their lips. Lying miracles legen- 
 dary histories puerile and monstrous fables " chro- 
 nicles of the world and stories of the battle of Troy" 
 these were the themes, which, in those ages, be- 
 guiled and led captive the souls of men, and banished 
 the sound of the Gospel from the earth. The 
 degeneracy of these fraternities has already been 
 noticed ; and it brought upon them the full weight of 
 Wiclif 's tremendous hostility. But while he detested 
 their abuses, he was keenly alive to the efficacy of 
 their system ; and hence it was, that not only was he, 
 himself, an indefatigable preacher of Gospel truth, 
 but his " poor priests," both before and after his death, 
 17* 
 
198 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 were in perpetual activity almost throughout the king- 
 dom. And although they may have dropped many 
 a rank and worthless weed into the soil, it cannot be 
 denied that they, likewise, cast abroad, in every 
 direction, that good seed, which after a long wintry 
 season, sprung up into the glorious harvest of our 
 Reformation. 
 
 Wiciif, as a It may, with propriety, be mentioned 
 Parish Priest, here, that the faithfulness, the zeal, and 
 the spirit of charity, 'with which all the duties of a 
 parochial minister were discharged by Wiciif, have 
 given occasion to the conjecture, that he may have 
 been the real original of Chaucer's celebrated picture 
 of the Village Priest. 
 
 " A good man there wa of religion, 
 He was a poor parson of a town, 
 But rich he was of holy thought and work, 
 He was a learned man, also a clerk, 
 That Christ's Gospel truly would preach, 
 His parishioners devoutly would he teach. 
 Benign he was, and wondrous diligent, 
 And in adversity full patient, 
 And such a one he was proved oft sithes, 
 For loth were he to curse for hip tithes, 
 But rather would he give, out of doubt. 
 Unto his poor parishioners all about, 
 Both of his offering and his substance, 
 He could in little have a suffisance. 
 Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, 
 But. he ne'er left, neither for rain nor thunder, 
 In sickness, nor in mischief, for to visit 
 The furthest in his parish, great or light, 
 "Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff. 
 This noble example to his eheep he gave, 
 That first he wrought, and afterward taught, 
 Out of the Gospel he the words caught. 
 And this figure he added thereunto, 
 That if gold rust, what shall iron do? 
 For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust, 
 No wonder 'tis that a layman should rust. 
 And shame it is, if a priest take keep, 
 To see a foul shepherd, and a clean sheep. 
 Well ought a priest, example for to give 
 By his cleanness, how his sheep should live. 
 
 " He set not his benefice to hire, 
 Nor left his sheep encumbered in the mire, 
 And ran to London, to St. Paul's, 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 199 
 
 To seek himself a chantry for souls.* 
 Nor with a brotherhood to be withold, 
 But dwelt at home, and kept well his fold. 
 So that the wolf made them not miscarry ; 
 He was a shepherd, and not a mercenary. 
 And though he holy were and virtuous, 
 He was not to sinful men despiteous, 
 Nor of his speech dangerous nor dign, 
 But in his teaching discreet and benign. 
 To draw folk to heaven with fairness, 
 By good example, this was his business. 
 But if he knew any person obstinate, 
 Whether he were of high or low estate, 
 Him would he reprove sharply for the nonce. 
 A better priest I trow, no where there is, 
 He waited after no pomp nor reverence, 
 He made himself no spiced conscience, 
 But Christ's lore, and his apostles twelve 
 He taught, but first he followed it himself." 
 
 If the above be really a picture of John Wiclif, it 
 is difficult for the imagination to figure to itself a 
 more interesting spectacle than that of the Reformer, 
 at one time shaking the pillars of superstition, and 
 bursting through the wall which enclosed its cham- 
 bers of imagery and at another, delivering the sin- 
 cere milk of God's Word to his spiritual children, and 
 standing as the minister of peace and consolation in 
 the abodes of poverty and ignorance. At all events, 
 it is refreshing to contemplate a picture like this, in 
 the midst of the general declension from Christian 
 integrity. One would willingly hope that, even in 
 those days of degeneracy, many a similar example 
 of ministerial zeal and faithfulness might still be 
 found in the retired hamlets and villages of our 
 country. If any one, however, is desirous of looking 
 upon a deplorable contrast to Chaucer's representa- 
 tion, he has only to consult Wiclif 's Treatise "How 
 
 "ThusLangland, in Piers Plowmen's vision, describes a priest: 
 
 -" Plained he to the bishop, 
 
 That his parishes were poor, since the pestilence time 5 
 To have a license, and leave at London to dwell, 
 To sing there for simony, for silver is sweet." 
 
200 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 Pin,, ni tv,* tne Office of Curates is ordained of God." 
 
 rioture oi tne TT .., . _ , , . , 
 
 cierey from He will there find, under three-and- 
 "jiow the tn o!' ^ty Distinct heads, the multiplied de- 
 fice of Curates Hnquencies of the secular clergy of this 
 is ordained of kingdom, as they exhibited themselves to 
 a censor in the fourteenth century. The 
 language of this tract is quite as uncompromising as 
 that with which he assailed the abuses of Mendicancy. 
 " The Office of Curates," he begins, " is ordained of 
 God: few do it well, and many full evil; therefoie 
 test we their defaults, with God's help :" and then 
 immediately follows the catalogue of their misdoings. 
 Every one would gladly believe that the picture must 
 be overcharged : but if the representation does not 
 outrageously exceed the truth, the clergy of that age 
 were, not merely neglectful of their sacred obliga- 
 tions, they were, absolutely, the pests of society 
 " angels of Satan to lead men to hell." Had tney 
 acted under a direct commission from the Enemy of 
 man, they could not have fulfilled theit charge with 
 more dangerous and pernicious fidelity. They set 
 to the world an example of every thing which an 
 immortal and accountable being should scrupulously 
 avoid. They were, many of them, if we are to be- 
 lieve their accuser, infamous for ostentation, sen- 
 suality, and avarice. Their doctrine, it may well be 
 imagined, was no better than their example. "They 
 taught sinful men to buy hell full dear. They shut 
 against their people the kingdom of heaven, and 
 would neither go in themselves, nor suffer other men 
 to enter." They were the flatterers and the parasites 
 of the great, whose vices they encouraged by their 
 own base and servile imitation. They were buried 
 in all tire surfeitings of a worldly life, "haunted 
 taverns out of measure, and stirred up laymen to ex- 
 cess, idleness, profane swearing, and disgraceful 
 brawls." They wasted their time and wealth in 
 gambling, and revelry, went about the streets roar- 
 ing and outrageous, and " sometimes had neither eye 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 201 
 
 nor tongue, nor hand, nor foot to help themselves, for 
 drunkenness." They even gloried in that which was 
 their shame, and were ambitious of winning, by 
 these enormities, a reputation for " nobleness, cour- 
 tesy, goodness, freeness, and worthiness." In the 
 midst of this worse than pagan desecration of them- 
 selves, they maintained their influence and authority 
 by an impious prostitution of the power of the keys, 
 and extorted, by the terror of spiritual censures, the 
 money and the obedience of their enslaved congrega- 
 tions.* In some instances, they entered into an ac- 
 cursed partnership with the objects of their secret 
 jealously and hate, the itinerant friars and pardon- 
 ers.f " For, when there cometh a pardoner to rich 
 
 * As Chaucer's plowmarusays 
 
 Christ's people they proudly curse 
 With broad book, and braying bell, 
 To put pennies in their purse, 
 They will sell both heaven and hell. 
 If tbou the truth of them will tell, 
 In great cursing shalt thou fall. 
 
 t The practices of these pardoners are described to the life by Chau- 
 cer: 
 
 His wallet before him on his lap, 
 
 Brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot : 
 
 In his mail he had a pillowbeer, 
 
 Which, as he said, was our lady's veil ; 
 
 He said he had a gobbet of the sail 
 
 That St. Peter had, when that he went 
 
 Upon, the sea, till Jesus Christ him hent4 
 
 He had a cross of latten full of stones, 
 
 And in a glass he had pig's bones. 
 
 But with these relics, when he found 
 
 A poor parson dwelling in upland, 
 
 Upon a day he got him more money, 
 
 Than that parson got in months tway, 
 
 And thus, with feigned nattering and japes, 
 
 He made the parson and people his apes. 
 
 But truly to tell at the last, 
 
 He was in church a noble ecclesiast. 
 
 Well could he read a lesson or a story, 
 
 But always best he sung an offertory. 
 
 Full well he wist when that song was sung 
 
 He must preach and well afile his tongue, 
 
 To win silver as well as he could, 
 
 Therefore he sung so merrily and loud. 
 
 * Caught Tricks. 
 
202 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 places, with stolen bulls, and false relics, granting 
 more years of pardon than come before doomsday, 
 for gaining worldly wealth, he shall be received of 
 curates, to have a part of that which he getteth." 
 With all these abominations upon their heads, they 
 " magnified themselves above Christ, both God and 
 man ; for Christ bade his enemies, if he had spoken 
 evil, to bear witness of the evil :" whereas these 
 ministers of Anti-Christ defied all censures, disclaim- 
 ed all penal jurisdiction, and commanded the world 
 to follow their teaching, whether it were true or false. 
 " Ye Curates," exclaims the indignant Reformer, 
 "See these heresies and blasphemies, and many 
 more, which follow from your wicked life, and way- 
 ward teachings. Forsake them for dread of hell, and 
 turn to good life, and true preaching of the Gospel, 
 and ordinances of God, as Christ and his Apostles 
 did, for reward of heavenly bliss."* 
 
 It should be observed, that this tract cannot have 
 been written until after the crusade, which was led 
 by the Bishop of Norwich, in support of Urban VI., 
 against his rival, Clement VII., as appears from the 
 notice of that event, which occurs in the sixteenth 
 section. It may, nevertheless, with perfect propriety, 
 be introduced here, as exhibiting the accumulated 
 result of Wiclif 's observation, during the whole pe- 
 riod of his public life. The picture, therefore, whe- 
 ther exaggerated or not, is, at least, not executed by a 
 rash and youthful hand, impelled by the first ardour 
 of reforming zeal. It is one of the latest perform- 
 ances of his mature and reflecting a^e. It proves that 
 every day he lived, only gave additional keenness to 
 his perception of these evils, and additional intensity 
 to his desire for their correction, And even if charity 
 should be allowed to approach and touch the canvass, 
 to discharge from it some tints of its fiery colour- 
 in^ and even to mitigate the vile deformity of its 
 
 * The tract in question is given, in a compressed form, in the extracts 
 from WicJiPs writings above advened to, p, 123 136. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 203 
 
 outline, enough will still be left to raise the aston- 
 ishment of later and better times ; enough to com- 
 mand our veneration for that brave spirit which went 
 forth to a conflict with such tremendous abuses. 
 
 But we are now to consider that mighty Wiclirs u^. 
 undertaking, which, more than all the lation of the 
 other labours of Wiclif, poured a blaze Scri P tures - 
 of unwelcome light into these regions of darkness. 
 For ages together, the mysterious and evil Power, 
 shadowed forth in the Apocalypse, had shown itself 
 armed with scales, that could turn back the point of 
 ridicule, or the edge of invective, or the assaults of 
 worldly might. But to unseal the sacred Scriptures, 
 was to let loose an element, in the midst of which it 
 was doomed to sicken and wax faint, and gradually 
 to loosen the grasp with which it had well nigh 
 strangled the energies of the human mind. And this 
 was the immortal service performed for his country 
 by Wiclif, when he put forth his translation of the 
 Bible into the English tongue. <Et is impossible to 
 convey to Protestant readers a more just conception 
 of the importance of this task, than by producing the 
 words in which it is mentioned by a Catholic histo- 
 rian. " There was another weapon," says Dr. Lin- 
 gard, " which the Rector of Lutterworth wielded with 
 equal address, and still greater efficacy. In proof of 
 his doctrines he appealed to the Scriptures, and thus 
 made his disciples judges between him and the 
 Bishops. Several versions of the sacred writings were 
 even then extant : but they were confined to libraries, 
 or only in the hands of persons who aspired to supe- 
 rior sanctity. Wiclif made a new translation, multi- 
 plied the copies with the aid of transcribers, and by 
 his poor priests recommended it to the perusal of their 
 hearers. In their hands it became an engine of won- 
 derful power. Men were flattered with the appeal to 
 their private judgment; the new doctrines insensibly 
 acquired partisans and protectors in the higher classes, 
 who alone were acquainted with the use of letters ; 
 
204 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 a spirit of inquiry was generated ; and the seeds were 
 sown of that religious revolution which, in little more 
 than a century, astonished and convulsed the nations 
 of Europe."* ... 
 
 These suggestions of Dr. Lingard are nothing more 
 than what might reasonably be expected from any 
 conscientious writer on the Catholic side of the ques- 
 tion ; and they are cited here purely as the most con- 
 clusive of all acknowledgments, that, whatever may 
 be the merits of the great religious revolution, the 
 labours of Wiclif in translating the Bible were pow- 
 erfully instrumental in producing it. There is, how- 
 ever, one inaccuracy in this extract worthy of notice, 
 because its tendency is to lower, in some degree, our 
 estimate of the value of this gigantic work. It is as- 
 Notice of previ- ser . l ed that " several versions of the sacred 
 ous versions of writings were even then extant;" in sup- 
 parts of the p Ort o f w hich assertion the writer alleges 
 the authority of Sir Thomas More :f and 
 the impression left by the statement is, that the Eng- 
 lish people were, at that time, in possession of some 
 translation of every portion of the sacred Volume. 
 That this representation is not correct, seems to be 
 fully established by the inquiries of Mr. Baber \\ from 
 which we learn, that no researches, hitherto made, 
 have discovered any attempt towards a complete 
 English Version of the books of the Old and New 
 
 * Lingard, vol. iv. p. 266, 267. 
 
 t "The whole Bible was, long before Wiclif's days, by virtuous and 
 well learned men, translated into the English tong, and by good and 
 godly people, with devotion and soberness well and reverently red." 
 Sir Thus. More's Dialogues, iii. 14, quoted in Ling. vol. iv. p. 27, note 
 
 :en.se in which it is to be understood. 
 
 ; See the " Historical Account of the Saxon and English Versions of 
 the Scriptures previous to the oj>ening of the fifteenth century." prefixed 
 by Mr. Baber to his edition of Wiclif's translation of the New Testament; 
 in which will he found the most complete body of information hitherto 
 collected relative to this interesting subject. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 205 
 
 Testament previous to the undertaking of Wiclif. 
 In the interval between the seventh and eleventh 
 centuries inclusive, paraphrases and versions of dif- 
 ferent portions of the Bible, undoubtedly, appeared 
 in the Saxon tongue. The earliest of these was the 
 work of the monk Ccedmon ; which, how- e ffi( | mon 
 ever, has no pretensions to the charac- 
 ter of a translation. It is merely a religious poem, 
 (the most ancient specimen of Saxon poetry) the 
 materials of which are taken from the Scriptures. It 
 opens with the fall of the angels, and the creation ; 
 proceeds through tne whole series of events related in 
 the book of Genesis ; and comprehends various other 
 portions of Scriptural history. This achievement 
 was followed by literal Saxon versions of other parts 
 of the Holy Writ, undertaken by a succession of 
 writers, (among whom our illustrious Alfred ' 
 Alfred holds an honourable place,) con- 
 cluding with .ZElfric, a learned and pious -^fric. 
 Saxon monk, who lived towards the end of the tenth 
 century, and who laid before his countrymen, in 
 their own language, considerable portions of the Old 
 Testament histories.* Even this work, however, is 
 very far from a complete version. In many parts it 
 is rather an abridgement, which gives merely the 
 substance of the precepts enforced, and the facts 
 recorded, by the sacred writers. To these, indeed, 
 may be added a few manuscripts of the Psalter in 
 Saxon and Latin, of uncertain date, but which may, 
 probably be assigned to the period of the Conquest ; 
 and three manuscripts of the Gospels, in the Anglo- 
 Norman dialect, of which the earliest may have 
 been composed during the reign of the Conqueror, 
 and the other two somewhere about the time of 
 Henry II. 
 
 It is obvious, from the above statement, that at- 
 
 * The list is as follows. The Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, some part 
 of the books of Kings, Esther, Job, Judith, and the two books of the Mac- 
 cabeevS. fee Baber's Hist. Ace. p. Ixii. Ixiii. 
 
 18 
 
206 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 tempts like these, even if executed with the utmost 
 fidelity and correctness, being in an obsolete dialect, 
 must have been entirely unserviceable in making the 
 people of England, in the fourteenth century, ac- 
 quainted with the contents of the holy Scriptures. 
 It will, also, be found that subsequent undertakings 
 of the same nature had very imperfectly supplied the 
 defect. The earliest of these monuments, after the 
 Saxon times, is a paraphrase of the Gospels and Acts 
 The ormuium. f lfte Apostles, entitled " Ormulum," 
 
 (from the name of its author, Orme, or 
 Ormin) written in imitation of Saxon poetry, without 
 rhyme, but in the English language, in its very in- 
 fancy. Next to this stands a curious volume, of 
 Sowie-heie. prodigious size, entitled* Sowle-hele, (or 
 
 Soul's health) which has been referred 
 to a period shortly anterior to the thirteenth century. 
 It is beautifully written on vellum, and elegantly 
 illuminated : and contains a metrical paraphrase of 
 the Old and New Testament. The object of the 
 compiler seems to have been to form a complete body 
 of legendary and scriptural history in verse, or rather 
 to collect into one view, all the religious poetry he 
 could find.f Apparently coeval with this, is another 
 version of a similar description, comprising a large 
 portion of Genesis and Exodus, but evidently the 
 work of another hand, and composed in the northern 
 dialect of that age. In the same dialect is a rhymed 
 version of the Psalms, which has been referred to the 
 end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the four- 
 teenth century. There are likewise extant, copies 
 of the same version revised and considerably im- 
 proved4 It is not till somewhat later that we are 
 to look for any thing like a literal translation even 
 
 * MSS. Bodl. 779. 
 
 t Wharton's Hist. ofEngl. Poetry, 1, cited in Baber's Hist. Ace. p. 
 Ixiv. note . 
 
 I Mr. Baber has furnished us with the translation of the hundredth 
 Psalm, from this work, both in its original and its improved form. As 
 these are interesting specimens of our language in an early stage of its 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 207 
 
 of any portion of the Sacred Writings. At that pe- 
 riod the psalms and hymns of the Church were trans- 
 lated into English prose, with a comment to each 
 verse, by Richard Rolle, a hermit of the RoUe> the her . 
 Order of St. Augustine, known by the mit 'of Ham- 
 title of Richard of Hampole, from his P le - 
 residence in a nunnery of that name, near Doncaster. 
 His prologue to what Mr. Baber calls this versio 
 princeps will furnish a good specimen of his English, 
 which will be found almost as intelligible as that of 
 any modern work. " In this werke," he says, " I 
 selce no strange Ynglys, hot lightest, and communest, 
 and swilk that is most like unto the Latyne ; so that 
 thai that knowes noht the Latyne, be the Ynglys 
 
 transition towards standard English, the reader may not be displeased 
 with their introduction here. 
 
 ORIGINAL VERSION. Corp. Chr. Coll. Camb. MS. 278. 
 
 Mirthes to God al erthe that es, 
 
 Serves to Lpverd in faints. 
 
 In go yhe ai in his siht, 
 
 In gladnes that is so briht. 
 
 Whites that loverd god is he thus ; 
 
 He us made, and our self noht us, 
 
 His folke and shep of his fode. 
 
 In gos his yhates that are gode ; 
 
 In schrift, his worches belive, 
 
 In ympnes to him ye schrive. 
 
 Heryhes his name for loverde is hende, 
 
 In all his merci do in strende and strende. 
 
 IMPROVED VERSION. Cott. MS. Vespas. D. vii. 
 
 Mirthes to laverd at erthe that es, 
 
 Serves to laverd in famens. 
 
 Ingas of him in the sight, 
 
 In gladeschip bi dai and night. 
 
 Wite ye that laverd he god is thus ; 
 
 And he us made, and ourself noght us, 
 
 His folke and schepe of his fode. 
 
 Ingas his yhates thater gode : 
 
 In schrift his porches that be 
 
 In ympnes to him schrive ye. 
 
 Heryes oft him name swa fre, 
 
 For that laverd soft is he. 
 
 In evermore his merci esse ; 
 
 And in strende and strende his sothneea. 
 
208 LIFE OF WTCLIF. 
 
 may come to many Latyne wordis. In the transla- 
 cione, I felogh the letter als-mekille as I may ; and 
 thor I find no proper Ynglys I felogh the wit of the 
 wordis, so that thai that thall read it, them thar not 
 dread errynge. In expowning I felogh holie doc- 
 tors. For it may come into some envious mannes 
 honde, that knowes not what he suld say at will, 
 that I wist not what I sayd, and so do harm till 
 him, and till other." Besides this translation, the her- 
 mit achieved various poetical compositions, among 
 which are a version of the seven penitential Psalms, 
 a paraphrase of some portions of the Book of Job, 
 and another, on the Lord's Prayer, of extreme 
 prolixity. About the same time, it would appear 
 that the clergy were often in the habit of appealing 
 to private judgment by translating for the use of their 
 congregations such portions of Scripture as were 
 more prominently introduced into the services of the 
 Churcn ; and to this pious practice we owe several 
 other versions of the Psalter, of parts of the Gospel 
 of St. Mark and St. Luke, and of the Epistles of St. 
 Paul, usually accompanied with a devotional com- 
 mentary; and among the MSS. in the British Mu- 
 seum is a translation, in the northern dialect, of the 
 Dominical Gospels for the year, together with an 
 exposition of the whole.* 
 
 From the above brief survey, it is manifest that the 
 task of presenting England with a complete version 
 of the Old and New Testament, still remained open 
 for Wiclif. The only circumstance which can throw 
 the faintest shade of suspicion over his claim to the 
 honour of this enterprise, is the existence of a little 
 work, by the title of Elucidarium Biblio- 
 awiommTor"'" 1 / r > "Prologue to the complete 
 Prologue, &c. Version of the Bible." There are two 
 of Wiclif. W rk i? 01111 ^ 8 on which this tract has been 
 supposed to impeach the title of the Re- 
 
 * They who are desirous of more full information on the subject, must 
 eonsnlt my authority, Mr. Baber, Hist or. Ace. p. Ivii Ixviii. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 209 
 
 former to the distinction in question. The first is, 
 that the Bodleian Library has a Manuscript of this 
 Book, to which is annexed the date of MCCC....VIIT. 
 And if this date be correct, as it stands, of course 
 there is an end of Wiclif 's title to the glory of !First 
 Translator. This objection, however, may be dis- 
 posed of by a moment's inspection of the MS.; from 
 which it is clear, that the interval between the two 
 Roman numerals, (C and V,) was originally occupied 
 by another numeral, of which there has been a mani- 
 fest erasure : and if, as is most probable, that numeral 
 was a C, the date of the manuscript, instead of 1308, 
 will be 1408, a period later than the death of Wiclif 
 by four-and-twenty years. But, again, the Prologue 
 above mentioned, has, by many writers, been as- 
 cribed to Wiclif himself. Now, most unquestionably, 
 the sentiments and opinions it contains, are in perfect 
 harmony with those of the Proto-Reformer; and the 
 title-page of the printed edition of 1550, accordingly, 
 speaks of if; expressly, as " written about 200 years 
 before by John Wyckliffe."* If this were correct, the 
 fact would, undoubtedly, be fatal to the notion, that 
 his was the first complete Version of the Bible ; for the 
 Author, in the course of his work, not only adverts to 
 his own labours as a translator, but alludes to another 
 translation already in existence. But, that Wiclif 
 was not the author, is irresistibly established by 
 the internal evidence of the work itself. In the first 
 place, it appeals, in the tenth chapter, to the authority 
 of G-erson, (one of the most illustrious divines of that 
 age) by the name of Parisiensis ;f and, as Gerson 
 
 * The title is as follows : " The true Copye of a Prologue wrytten about 
 two C yeeres past by John Wyckliffe, (as may be justly gathered bi thaL 
 that John Bale hath written of him, in his boke, entitled the summarie of 
 famouse writers of the He of Great Britan,) the original whereof is founde 
 written in an Old English B ble, bitwixt the Okie Testament, and the 
 Newe. Which Bible remaynith now in the Kyng his Majesties Cham- 
 ber. Imprinted at London by Robert Crowley, dwellynge in Elie rents 
 in Holburn. Anno Do. MDL." 
 
 t John Charlier Gerson was styled Parisiensis, in consequence of his 
 being chancellor and canon of some church in Paris. His piety and eru- 
 
 IS* 
 
210 LIFE OF WICLIF, 
 
 was not born till 1363, it is scarcely credible that he 
 could have become an author of celebrity till after the 
 death of Wiclif, which happened in 1384. Again, in 
 the thirteenth chapter, the writer complains bitterly 
 of the impediments to the prosecution of theology, 
 occasioned by a regulation at Oxford, which prohibited 
 the study of divinity till two years after commencing 
 in arts, thus deferring it for nine or ten years from 
 the time of entering the University. It is true that 
 this regulation was as old as the year 1251 ; but it 
 had long fallen into utter desuetude and oblivion, 
 and was not revived till 1387, three years after the 
 decease of Wiclif. Lastly, the same thirteenth 
 chapter (in which the author adverts to some un- 
 speakable depravities, said to be notoriously prevalent 
 among ecclesiastics) contains, towards the end of it, 
 a manifest allusion to the articles, exhibited to the 
 Parliament, in the eighteenth year of Richard II., 
 with a view to the reformation of the Church ; and 
 this seems to fix the date of the composition, as sub- 
 sequent to the year 1395, in which that Parliament 
 was holden.* 
 
 dition, likewise, acquired for him the title of Evangelical, and Most 
 Christian Doctor. 
 
 * See Fox, p. 577, 578. Ed. 1684, where these articles, or conclusions, 
 are printed at length. They show that the eyes of men were then very 
 widely open indeed to the corruptions of the clergy ! The same may be 
 said of the " Prologue," mentioned above. It speaks of the vices of the 
 dignified ecclesiastics in language, to say the least, quite as unceremonious 
 as that of Wiclif. For instance, in his tenth chapter, the writer labours 
 after all manner of "base comparisons," wherewith to illustrate the prof- 
 ligacy and indolence of the prelates. He produces divers competent argu- 
 ments and authorities, to prove that an evil prelate is a roaring lion a 
 wolf ravishing prey an unclean dog a crowe, or a raven, (for the 
 blackness of his sinnis) salt without savour, not profitable for any thing 
 a hog (for his gluttony.) He is, moreover, a capon " for, as a capon 
 croweth not, even so, an evil prelate croweth not in preaching. Also, as 
 a capon maketh fat himself, so an evil prelate maketh fat himself." Fur- 
 thermore, an evil prelate is a chimera, " that hath a part of each beast :" 
 and, again, he is nothing better than an idol the mere semblance of a 
 living prelate : and of such idols there be six several sorts ; that is, idols of 
 clay, of wood, of brass, of stone, of silver, and of gold. The fleshy and sensual 
 prelate is an idol of clay the witless and ignorant prelate is a figure of 
 wood "simulacrisof brass ben they that have only worldly eloquence; 
 for why brass giveth a great sowne. ' ' Some prelates are wholly broken 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 211 
 
 From all this it seems, beyond reason- No complete 
 able controversy, that Wiclif had no version before 
 predecessor in his vast undertaking. It Wiclif ' 8 - 
 only remains, therefore, to be observed, that some 
 writers have gravely questioned whether Wiclif had 
 any hand whatever in the great work which now 
 bears his name. Of all "historic doubts," this, per- 
 haps, is the most baseless. The language of Knygh- 
 ton alone is sufficient to overthrow it. "Christ," 
 says the zealous Romanist, " committed the Gospel 
 to the clergy and doctors of the Church, that they 
 might minister it to the laity, and weaker persons, 
 according to the exigency of times, and the wants of 
 men. But this Master John Wiclif translated it out 
 of Latin into English, and, by that means, laid it 
 more open to the laity, and to women, who could 
 read, than it used to be to the most learned of the 
 clergy, and those of them who had the best understand- 
 ing : and so the Gospel pearl is cast abroad, and 
 trodden under foot of swine ; and that, which used to 
 be precious to both clergy and laity, is made, as it 
 were, the common jest of both; and the jewel of the 
 Church is turned into the sport of the people ; and 
 what was before the. chief talent of the clergy and 
 doctors of the Church, is made for ever common to the 
 laity."* To this testimony may be added the words of 
 Wiclif himself, who, in one of his homilies,! mentions 
 the severity and persecution he had endured, because 
 he had enabled the people to read the word of God in 
 
 off from " rightfulness and virtue :" they have nothing hut mere "tempo- 
 ral strength," and are not better than statues, carved out of stone; far 
 different from the stone which was set in the head of the corner, these are 
 only- stones " of hurtyng and of sclander." The images of silver be they 
 who are made by money, and who say, what will ye give us that we should 
 betray Christ unto you ! Lastly the image of gold is the prelate who is 
 advanced only for the sake of worldly pomp and nobility ; for gold is the 
 emblem of nobility, and therefore it is that the image set up of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar was of gold. These specimens of coarse satire are to be found 
 from the seventh to the eleventh page of the tenth chapter, in the edit, of 
 1550. The volume itself h as no pag i ng. 
 
 * Knighton, De Eventibus Angliae, col. 2644. quoted by Lewis, p. 83, 84. 
 
 t Horn, on Matt xi. 23. See Baber, Hist. Ace. p. brix. 
 
212 LIFE OF W1CLIF. 
 
 their own tongue; and the fact, that in no list of his 
 works that has yet appeared, has his translation of 
 the Scriptures ever been omitted.* 
 
 It is to be always remembered, that Wiclif 's trans- 
 lation was made entirely from the Latin text, the only 
 one at that time in use. It may justly be regarded 
 as a glorious monument, not only of religion, but of 
 letters. It exhibits our language in the most perfect 
 form which it had then attained, and might, alone, 
 have been sufficient to save it from relapsing into 
 barbarism. The inestimable benefits conferred on 
 the English tongue by our present version, are ac- 
 knowledged by all who have entered deeply into the 
 spirit of our national literature : and there can be 
 little doubt that the labours of the Reformer were 
 calculated to do a similar service to our genuine An- 
 glo-Norman dialect, two centuries earlier. It is the 
 opinion of Mr. Turner, who has diligently studied 
 the orifi-nes of our literature, that Wiclif 's ordinary 
 style is less perspicuous and cultivated than that of 
 Rolle, who lived and wrote many years earlier. 
 Whether this is to be ascribed to his recluse colle- 
 giate life, to the cramping influence of his scholastic 
 studies, or to some defect in fluency and facility of 
 thought, the historian does not venture to determine ; 
 but he hesitates not to affirm, that his poslils, in which 
 familiarity and plainness were most to be expected, 
 are decidedly inferior, in clearness and felicity of ex- 
 pression, to the composition of the Hermit, and even 
 to those of some among the contemporaries of Wic- 
 lif.f That his style may have been somewhat dark- 
 ened and confused, by his familiarity with the bar- 
 barous jargon of the schools may easily be imagined; 
 and it must further be recollected, that his labours 
 were so incessant, and his works so numerous, that 
 he probably poured out the wealth of his mind with 
 little habitual attention to the graces of composition, 
 
 * Baber, Hist. Ace. p. Ixix. 
 
 t Turner, Hist, of Eng. voL it p. 583. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 213 
 
 or the lucidness of arrangement. Thomas Aquinas, 
 indeed, is said to have " the rare merit of com- 
 bining great perspicuity and purity of expression, 
 with all the refined distinctions and speculations of 
 the schoolmen ;" while Wiclif, like Peter Lombard 
 and Duns Scotus, is neither classical (in the humblest 
 sense of that word) in his Latin style, nor always 
 distinct or vigorous in his English elocution. This 
 remark is more or less applicable to all his works, 
 except the version of the Scriptures ; and there, Mr. 
 Turner observes, " the unrivalled combination of 
 force, simplicity, dignity, and feeling in the original, 
 compel his old English, as they seem to compel every 
 other language into which it is translated, to be clear, 
 interesting, and energetic." 4 
 
 It is scarcely to be imagined, that in the comple- 
 tion of his task, Wiclif disdained to receive such as- 
 sistance as he could procure. The labour must have 
 been such as to overpower almost any single-handed 
 
 * " There is something," says Mr. Turner, " remarkable in the com- 
 position of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, that although, in every 
 language, they are the easiest book to a learner, they are yet dignified, 
 interesting, and impressive. The Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Gos- 
 pels, unite in a singular degree, simplicity and perspicuity, with force, 
 energy, and pathos. I cannot satisfy myself what are the literary pecu- 
 liaritiesthe felicities of language, which make them so universally 
 comprehensible, and yet avoid insipidity, feebleness, and tedium ; which 
 display, so often, such genuine eloquence and majesty ; and yet are nei- 
 ther affected nor elaborate, nor, in general, above the understanding of 
 the commonest reader." Turner, Hist t of Eng. vol. ii. p. 561, note 8. 
 
 The extraordinary combination of excellence, which is here most 
 justly described by Mr. Turner, may surely be regarded as one depart- 
 ment of that vast apparatus of evidence, from which we conclude that 
 the authors of Scripture were under the influence, and control of the 
 Spirit of Truth. To that Spirit was distinctly known " what is in 
 
 take captive the hearts and the capacities both of the simple and the 
 wise. The " literary peculiarities," by which this marvellous result has 
 been accomplished, may, indeed, lie beyond the depth of human investi- 
 gation. It may here be truly said, that the wind bloweth even as it 
 listeth. We hear the sound thereof, but no man can tell whence it 
 cometh or whither it goeth ! 
 
 A specimen or two of WicliPs Translation will be found in the Ap. 
 pendix. 
 
214 LIFE OF WICL1F. 
 
 strength, unless it were exclusively devoted to the 
 work, instead of being divided by a vast variety of 
 other engagements and undertakings. That he re- 
 ceived some aid seems highly probable, from an inti- 
 mation which is to be found in one of the manuscript 
 copies of his Bible, at the end of a portion of the 
 Book of Baruch ; where are written the following 
 somewhat obscure words explicit translationem Nico- 
 lay de Herford.* This remarkable notice, we are 
 told, is subscribed by a different hand, and in less du- 
 rable ink, than that employed by the transcriber of 
 the MS., and may probably have been done by some 
 one who had sufficient authority for his assertion. 
 To what extent Wiclif was assisted in his great 
 work, it is now quite impossible to ascertain. There 
 has, however, descended to us nothing which renders 
 it doubtful, that the whole was completed under his 
 superintendence and revision, and put forth on his 
 responsibility, or that the substantial and almost 
 undivided honours of the enterprise are, righteously, 
 his own. 
 
 The manuscripts of this version are, to this day, 
 exceedingly numerous. They are to be found, not 
 only in the great public libraries of the empire,! but 
 even in the collections of private individuals. We 
 may readily judge of the activity and eagerness with 
 which they were originally circulated, when we find 
 that such a multitude of copies have still survived 
 the exterminating zeal of Papal inquisitors. That 
 the appearance of such a work occasioned, among 
 
 * Baber, Hist. Ace. p. Ixix. 
 
 t The British Museum, Lambeth, Sion College, the University libra- 
 ries, particular colleges, and some cathedrals. Some few of these MSS. 
 differ so materially from the rest, that we are led to believe that there 
 must have been two distinct translations of Scripture. Some passages 
 have no other correspondence except that which arises from the cir- 
 cumstance of their having been rendered from one common original, 
 the Latin Vulgate. In general, however, the resemblance is such as to 
 leave no doubt that the earlier translation must have been consulted'by 
 the author of the later. Baber, Hist. Ace. p. Ixix. <fcc. where the reader 
 may find some specimens of their nearest agreement, and their most 
 remarkable variation. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 215 
 
 the Romanists, the deepest alarm, and the hottest 
 indignation, is perfectly notorious. The influx of 
 light naturally produced consternation among those 
 whose element was darkness.* Wiclif himself was 
 represented as little hetter than an audacious violator, 
 whose hand spared not to rend the veil which had 
 for ages concealed the mysterious sanctity of truth 
 from the gaze of the profane multitude. His work 
 was denounced and proscribed, as tainted almost with 
 the guilt of sacrilege. The vehemence of displeasure 
 which it excited among the hierarchy will sufficiently 
 appear from the fact, that, some ten years after this 
 period, a Bill was actually brought into the House of 
 Lords, to forbid the perusal: of the English Bible by 
 the laity. This measure, indeed, was manfully op- 
 posed by John of Gaunt, who rose up in his place, 
 and said, that " the people of England would not be 
 the dregs of all men, seeing all nations besides them 
 had the Scriptures in their own tongue."! But the 
 seal was, nevertheless, afterwards affixed to the con- 
 demnation of all such attempts, by a constitution of 
 Archbishop Arundel, which begins by declaring that, 
 " it is a perilous thing, as Saint. Jerome testifieth, to 
 translate the text of Holy Scripture from one idiom 
 into another ; since it is no' easy matter to retain in 
 every version an identity of sense; and the same 
 blessed Jerome, even though he were inspired, con- 
 fesseth that herein he had, himself, been frequently 
 mistaken." It was, therefore, enacted and ordained, 
 that, " thenceforth, no one should translate any text 
 of sacred Scripture, by his own authority, into the 
 English or any other tongue, in the way of book, 
 tract, or treatise ; and that no publication of this sort, 
 composed in the time of John Wiclif, or since, or 
 thereafter to be composed, should be read, either in 
 part or in whole, either in public or in private, under 
 the pain of the greater excommunication, until such 
 
 * Trepidant immisso lumine Manes, 
 t Lewis, 84. 
 
216 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 translation should be approved by the diocesan of the 
 place ; or, if the matter should require it, by a pro- 
 vincial council : every one who should act in contra- 
 diction to this order, to be punished as an abettor of 
 heresy, and error."* Such was the decree of the con- 
 vocation held at St. Paul's in 1408. It evidently 
 amounted to an utter prohibition to translate, or to 
 peruse translations ; for it is easy to conjecture what, 
 in those times, would be the fate of all applications 
 for that purpose, either to diocesan or council ! The 
 persecutions which followed this edict are well known 
 to all, and amply attested by the various episcopal 
 registers. Ruinous fines, cruel imprisonment, and 
 martyrdom at the stake, were the portion of multi- 
 tudes, who ventured to consult for themselves the 
 charter for their salvation. 
 
 The objections urged at that day, and still more 
 confidently in subsequent ages, by the Romish Church, 
 Question of ap- to tne liberty of free access to the Scrip- 
 peal to private tures, are now tolerably well known to 
 every Protestant ; and it may very safely 
 be conceded, that there is about them, at first sight, 
 an air of plausibility, which may well render them 
 dangerous and embarrassing to many an honest mind. 
 It is insisted, that the sanctity of the Divine Oracles 
 is tarnished by the rash curiosity of ignorant men ; 
 that the Word of God, when cited by all parties, 
 either for refutation, or defence, is degraded into an 
 implement of unhallowed warfare; that the appeal 
 to private judgment engenders a spirit of arrogance, 
 a contempt for authority, and a lust for perpetual in- 
 novation; that its tendency is to break down the 
 solid unity of the Faith, and to shiver it into frag- 
 ments ; to stretch over the Church " the line of con- 
 fusion, and the stones of emptiness" and desolation. 
 And by those writers who have lived since the period 
 of the Reformation, it has been broadly asserted, that 
 
 ' "Wilkins's Concilia, vol. iii. p. 317. Constit. vii. Archb. ArundeL 
 140a 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 217 
 
 the innumerable swarm of sects wnich have sprung 
 up under this system, are to be regarded as a plague, 
 wherewith the displeasure of Heaven hath manifested 
 itself against this insane presumption. The answer 
 to all this, must, of course, be liow perfectly familiar 
 to every intelligent Protestant. The members of any 
 reformed community will always be prepared to reply, 
 that apparent and external unity is much too dearly 
 purchased by a general sacrifice of private judgment; 
 that schism itself is a less evil than a uniformity of 
 error and corruption ; and that no multiplication of 
 divisions could be so pernicious, as the- universal 
 prostration of intellect and conscience before the au- 
 thority of an uninspired tribunal. Such is the point 
 of view under which the subject unavoidably presents 
 itself to every tolerably well-informed understanding 
 at the present day. To the mind of Wiclif, or any 
 independent thinker of the fourteenth century, the 
 question would naturally exhibit itself in a much 
 more simple light. At that time it was hardly to be' 
 expected that any human sagacity should anticipate 
 all the consequences of an unrestrained resort to the 
 Sacred Text, and of free exercise of individual judg- 
 ment as to the sense of it. In the primitive ages',- 
 indeed, the Scriptures were not locked up in a foreign 
 tongue ; and it may be said, that the early history of 
 the Church is accordingly found to oppress the in- 
 quirer with a bewildering catalogue of heresies. But, 
 then, the controversies of those times, it could not 
 fail to be remarked, were chiefly confined to the re- 
 gions of metaphysical speculation. The questions 
 then agitated, had, most of them, no very intelligible 
 reference to Christian practice ; and they were, more- 
 over, almost wholly unmixed with considerations, 
 which involved the grounds of civil right, and secular 
 interest. The Reformer of the middle ages, there- 
 fore, could hardly be expected to foresee the full ex- 
 tent of the price which Christian Europe would have 
 to pay for the privilege of searching the Scriptures 
 19 
 
218 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 without any reference to the authority of an infallible 
 guide. With him, the " one thing needful" would 
 be the liberty of comparing the practice of the Church 
 with the text of the Holy Writings, which formed , 
 her charter. In his mind, the reasonableness of an 
 appeal to the " Law and the Testimony," could not 
 be embarrassed with the misgivings and apprehen- 
 sions with which the question has subsequently been 
 perplexed, in consequence of the endless variety of 
 systems and opinions, engendered by the almost un- 
 fettered license of interpretation. These were dif- 
 ficulties and objections which never, probably, occur- 
 red to him, and against which he was not called upon 
 to provide any vindication. He, accordingly, defends 
 the translation of the Scriptures, simply 
 fence "of the on fhe ground that they must have been 
 Translation of designed for the guidance and instruction 
 
 the Scriptures. of &n Christian meD) o f every degre6j 
 
 without exception. They who called it heresy, to 
 speak of the Holy Scriptures in English, must be 
 prepared, he affirms, to " condemn the Holy Ghost, 
 that gave it in tongues to the Apostles of Christ, to 
 speak the Word of God in all languages that were 
 ordained of God under heaven."* To the complaint, 
 that to open the Bible to all, was, in effect, to set 
 aside the office, and to supplant the authority of those 
 who were appointed to teach its doctrines to the peo- 
 ple, he replied, that " those heretics are not to be 
 heard, who fancy that secular men ought not to know 
 the law of God, but that it is sufficient for them to 
 know what the priests and prelates tell them by word 
 of mouth : for Scripture is the faith of the Churchy 
 and the more it is known, in an orthodox sense, the 
 better. Therefore, as secular men ought to know 
 the faith, so it is to be taught them in whatever lan- 
 guage is best known to them. Besides, since the truth 
 of the faith is clearer and more exact in the Scripture 
 
 * Wiclif a Wicket. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 219 
 
 than the priests know how to express it, (seeing, if 
 one may say so, that there are many prelates who are 
 too ignorant of Scripture) and others conceal points 
 of Scripture, such, for instance, as declare for the 
 humility and poverty of the clergy, and that there 
 are many such defects in the verbal instructions of 
 priests, it seems useful that the faithful should, 
 themselves, search out, or discover, the sense of the 
 faith, by having the Scriptures in a language which 
 
 they know and understand He who hinders 
 
 this, or murmurs against it, does his endeavour that 
 the people should continue in a damnable and unbe- 
 lieving state. The laws, therefore, which the prelates 
 make, are not to be received as matters of faith ; nor 
 are we to believe their words or discourses, any fur- 
 ther, or otherwise, than they are founded on the 
 Scripture ; since, according to the constant doctrine 
 of Augustine,* the Scripture is all the truth. There- 
 fore this translation of the Scripture would do this 
 good, that it would render priests and prelates unsus- 
 pected, as to the words which they explain."! Fur- 
 ther : " Prelates, as the Pope, and friars, and other 
 means, may prove defective : accordingly Christ and 
 his Apostles converted the world by making known 
 to them the truths of Scripture in a language fami- 
 liar to the people ; and for this purpose the Holy 
 Spirit gave them the knowledge of all tongues. 
 Why, then, should not the disciples of Christ, at the 
 present day, take freely from the same loaf, and dis- 
 tribute to the people ? . . . . Besides, according to the 
 faith which the apostle teaches, all Christians must 
 stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and be an- 
 swerable to him for all the goods wherewith he has 
 entrusted them. It is, therefore, necessary that all 
 the faithful should know these goods, and the use of 
 them ; for an answer by prelate or attorney will not then 
 avail, but every one must then answer in his own person. 
 
 * Epist. ad Volusianum. 
 
 t Speculum Secularium Dominorum. Quoted by Lewis, p. 86. 
 
20 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 Since, then, God, has given to both clergy and laity 
 the knowledge of the faith, to this end, that they may 
 teach it the more plainly, and may faithfully work by 
 it, it is plain that God, in the day of judgment, will 
 require a true account of the use of these goods, how 
 they have been put out to usury."* 
 
 It will be seen that this vindication utterly discards 
 the notion, that there can be any authority in matters 
 of faith, co-ordinate with that of the Bible. The 
 traditions of the Church, the decrees of bishops, 
 Popes, or councils, all are here thrust down to a rank 
 immeasurably below the eminence of the inspired 
 writings. The Scripture alone is truth. The Scrip- 
 ture alone is the faith of the Church ; these are the 
 grand and solid maxims upon which, as upon the 
 eternal rock, Wiclif built up the defence of this great 
 undertaking, and, indeed, the whole fabric of his 
 scheme of reformation. We have here the vigorous 
 germ of Protestantism ; cast by him with a bold hand, 
 into the generous soil of his country, there to lie for 
 a long and tempestuous period, to all appearance dor- 
 mant and powerless, till the season should arrive for 
 its starting into life. Another important merit of 
 his Vindication, is the assault it makes on that re- 
 fuge of lies, which the corrupt and superstitious 
 heart of man hath made so strong for itself, the be- 
 lief, that the obligations to righteousness and holiness 
 of life may be vicariously discharged, and that reli- 
 gion is a work which every individual may safely 
 consign to the care and management of a spiritual 
 factor. The Christian is here solemnly reminded 
 that a day will come, when each man shall be called 
 to answer personally for himself, and when no agent 
 or " attorney of the soul," will be heard in his behalf, 
 These were strange and startling words to the ears 
 of Englishmen in the fourteenth century. They filled 
 the hearts of the ecclesiastical craftsmen with dismay 
 
 Doctrina Christiana, lib. ii. ad fin. cited by Lewis, p. 87. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 221 
 
 and indignation. Throughout .their various ranks 
 and orders, they began to exclaim that, if these doc- 
 trines were to be endured, they might as well throw 
 up their functions at once. If all might consult the 
 divine oracles, without the intervention of the priest- 
 hood, if all might be allowed to conduct the entan- 
 gling traffic and mystery of their own spiritual con- 
 cerns, without the aid of a professional agent, what 
 further demand could there be for the services of the 
 consecrated Orders ? The resentment of the hierar- 
 chy, did not, however, evaporate in mere " sound and 
 fury." More substantial indications of their dis- 
 pleasure were in active preparation ; and the auda- 
 city with which the Reformer assailed the received 
 doctrine of the Eucharist, soon provided his enemies 
 with an opportunity of renewing their hostilities. 
 Before we retire from the considera- W iHip 
 
 . / i i 1 1 i iciii s ver- 
 
 tion of this great work, it will be proper sion proscribed 
 to notice the astonishing rapidity with bmneveXeaa 
 which the copies of it were circulated widely circuia- 
 among all classes of the people, in defi- ted - 
 ance of obstructions, which, at this day, it is difficult 
 for us to appreciate, or even to imagine. The as- 
 tonishing powers of the press almost disable us from 
 realizing to our conceptions the impediments through 
 which literature had to force its way, in the ages 
 previous to that invention. Those impediments, 
 however, may be partially estimated from the fact, 
 disclosed to us by the register of Alnwick, Bishop of 
 Norwich in 1429, that the cost of a Testament of 
 "Wiclifs version, was no less than 21. 16s. Sd. a sum, 
 probably, equal to 30/. of our present money, and 
 considerably more than half the annual income which 
 was then considered adequate to the maintenance of 
 a substantial yeoman. To procure a copy of the 
 whole English Bible must, therefore, have demanded 
 a sacrifice greater than that which, in our days, is 
 required to command the most sumptuous and splen- 
 did elegances of literature. To .this discouragement 
 19* *> 
 
222 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 must be added the anxiety and the danger which this 
 precious possession carried with it, wherever it went. 
 Puring the time which elapsed from the reign of 
 flenry IV. to the period of the reformation, the 
 owner of a fragment of Wiclif's Bible, or indeed of 
 any other portion of his writings, was conscious of 
 harbouring a witness, whose appearance would infak 
 libly consign him to the dungeon, and possibly to the 
 flames. He must, consequently, have eaten the breadl 
 of life in secret, and with carefulness, and must have 
 drank the waters of life with, astonishment and trem* 
 bling of heart. And yet, in defiance of obstruction 
 and of persecution, tjie work went on. Neither the 
 ruinous cost of literary treasures, nor the jealous vigi- 
 lance of an omnipresent inquisition, were able to 
 Depress it. The stream continued to force its way, 
 in a sort of subterraneous course, till the season ar- 
 rived when it should burst forth, and refresh the land 
 with its fruitful inundation. " Then was the sacred 
 Bible sought out from dusty corners : the schools 
 were ppened ; divine and human learning raked out 
 ,of the embjers of forgotten tongues ; princes and cities 
 trooped apace to the newly erected banner of salva- 
 tion ; martyrs, with the unresistible might of weak- 
 ness, shook th,e powers of darkness, and scorned the 
 fiery rage gf the old Red Dragon."* 
 
 i38l The year 1381 was rendered unhappily 
 
 insurrection of memorable by the insurrection of the 
 .the peasantry. p easan try of England; an event some 
 notice of which is forced into a narrative of the life 
 of Wiclif, by the assertion of some historians, that 
 the popular excesses were occasioned, or greatly ag- 
 gravated, by the diffusion of his doctrines. By one 
 Causes assigned of these annalists it is gravely conjectured 
 for it by Papal that this calamity was a clear indication 
 pf the displeasure of Heaven against the 
 
 * >Iilton, on Reforrnation in England. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 223 
 
 supiaeness of the hierarchy, which had omitted to 
 repress, with due vigour, the impiety of Wiclif and 
 his followers, in disseminating the perverse and 
 damnable doctrines of Berengarius, respecting the 
 body and blood of Christ. And this surmise the 
 chronicler, with all imaginable solemnity, strength- 
 ens by reference to the extraordinary fact, that true 
 commotions were simultaneous all over England; 
 and that they occurred precisely within the octaves 
 of that festival, in which the mystery of the transub- 
 stantiation is celebrated by the Church ! He adds, 
 that, although it may be reasonably believed that 
 Archbishop Sudbury, (who was brutally murdered by 
 the rabble,) may have died a martyr yet the barba- 
 rous manner of his death was probably appointed in 
 mercy, as a needful expiation for the sinful laxity of 
 his discipline. Others there were, he confesses, 
 who ascribed the affliction to the scandalous lives, 
 the odious tyranny, the shameless hypocrisy, nay, 
 the downright atheism, prevalent among the wealthy 
 and the noble of the land : and many, again, were per^ 
 suadedihat the measure of national iniquity was filled 
 up by ,the coarse profligacy, and rebellious insolence, 
 of the populace themselves. And his conclusion, 
 upon the whole matter, is, that in this instance, the 
 wrath of God manifestly came down upon the children 
 of disobedience.^ A more modern historian, without 
 .the slightest appearance of doubt or hesitation, attri- 
 butes much of the excitement to the notions ascribed 
 to Wiclif, and disseminated by his followers, namely, 
 that the right of property, was founded in grace, and 
 ithat no one who was, by sin, a traitor to 
 od, could be justly entitled to the ser- proiSy^Th^ 
 yicesofman.f A more plain and rational wretchedness 
 .account of the affair surely is, that this of 
 was one of those terrible and convulsive 
 
 Wala p. 281. t ing. vol. iv. .p. 236. 
 
224 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 efforts, by which the lower classes, in the fourteenth 
 century, laboured to heave off the load of intolerable 
 servitude; a phenomenon of the same class with 
 jacquerie of France, and the rebellion of the Flem- 
 ings ; a servile war, the natural effect of wretched- 
 ness, goaded to frenzy by the unfeeling arrogance and 
 luxury of the great. The cruelty of the English 
 aristocracy may, indeed, have been considerably less 
 atrocious than that which drove the peasantry of 
 other countries to despair. But the circumstances of 
 the age were such as probably tempted them to harrass 
 their dependents with more grinding exaction than 
 they had experienced in preceding times. The land- 
 ed proprietors had been impoverished, partly by an 
 unprecedented and long-continued severity of taxa- 
 tion, and partly by their own inordinate craving for 
 foreign luxuries 01 the most costly description. The 
 embarrassment thus produced, naturally engendered 
 avarice ; and avarice, probably, gave birth to an in- 
 human disregard for the comfort of the poor, more 
 especially of those who held their lands by the tenure 
 of unmitigated villenage.* In all this, there was 
 power sufficient to raise the tempest, which threatened 
 all the embankments of civilized society, without the 
 aid of fanatical agitation. It is true, that the grow- 
 " atre d f ecclesiastical dominion 
 
 the ma y have intimately connected itself 
 growing impa- witn a wild impatience of all authority 
 si e aSi e c^ f powe e r: whatever. It is, also, possible that the 
 voice of loud invective against the Church, 
 may have assisted to call up, from the depths of the 
 popular discontent, a. mad ungovernable spirit of 
 anarchy and rebellion. The charges with which the 
 clergy were assailed, were, indeed, frequently such 
 as an exasperated populace might easily transfer to 
 abuse and tyranny of every description : and nothing, 
 
 - See Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iv. p. 266-267. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 225 
 
 it must be confessed, can well be more hopeless than 
 the attempt to deny, that the language adopted by 
 Wiclif, or his itinerant preachers, in urging their 
 principles of reformation, did, frequently, burst 
 through the barriers of sobriety and caution, and was, 
 occasionally, violent enough to compromise the safety 
 of nearly all existing institutions. It may be diffi- 
 cult, in times remote from this tumultuous period, to 
 frame, or to admit, a complete vindication of such 
 dangerous extravagance. But every one, who is well 
 acquainted with the history of man, must, at least, 
 be well persuaded of this, that sedate and calcula- 
 ting spirits, like those of Erasmus, or Melanchthon, 
 could never have shaken the gigantic strength of the 
 Papal system. They could neither have effected the 
 Reformation of the sixteenth century, nor have done 
 the office of pioneers to that great movement. This 
 consideration, it is true, may be quite insufficient for 
 ,the justification of rashness and excess; but it may, 
 at all events, dispose us to look somewhat more in- 
 dulgently on that intensity of soul, which injustice of as- 
 troubled the waters, by whose disturbance cribing it to the 
 we have been, eventually, made whole, SfdrVSS? 
 As for the speculations of the Papal and his foiiow- 
 writers, who connect the Rebellion of ers * 
 1381 with the doctrinal heresies of Wiclif, it has 
 been truly remarked, thaj their charges are just as 
 absurd as it would be to ascribe the outrages of the 
 Anabaptists of Munster to the theological opinions of 
 Luther.* Equally unfounded is the insinuation, that 
 the principles entertained by the Reformer were de- 
 Uberately hostile to all authority, whether spiritual 
 or secular, and that he deserved the confidence of the 
 State as little as that of the Church. However per- 
 plexing it might be to defend him from the imputa- 
 tion of hazardous notions, and unguarded phraseolo- 
 
 Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. Ui. p. 266. 
 
226 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 gy, the whole course of his life, and the general tenor 
 of his writings, must unquestionably, acquit him of 
 the character of a political incendiary. Some further 
 reflections, however, on this subject, will find a pro- 
 per place, when we come to a review of the opinions 
 of Wiclif, and the proceedings of his " Poor Priests," 
 or travelling preachers. 
 
LIFE OF WICL1F. 227 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 1381-1382. 
 
 Wiclif hitherto employed in exposing the corruptions of the Papacy 
 He now engages in the Sacramental Controversy Notice of the 
 history of this question Pascasius Radbert Bertram ana Jo- 
 hannes Scotus Berengarius Transubstantiation established 
 by Innocent III. Metaphysical explanation of it by the Mendi- 
 cants This doctrine unknown to the Anglo-Saxon Church 
 Probably introduced into England at the Conquest Wiclif at- 
 tacks the doctrine from the chair of theology His positions de- 
 nounced, on pain of excommunication He appeals to the King 
 He is desired by John of Gaunt to abstain from the subject 
 He composes his Ostiolum or Wicket Courtney succeeds to the. 
 Primacy Synod held by him at the Preaching Friars' in Lon- 
 don The Assembly disturbed by an Earthquake Address and 
 self-possession of Courtney Twenty-four Conclusions f ascribed 
 to Wiclif condemned Measures taken for the suppression of his 
 Doctrines Petition of the Spiritual Lords against the Lollards 
 Royal ordinance, empowering Sheriffs to arrest and imprison 
 the Preachers of false doctrine It is introduced into the Parlia- 
 ment Roll without the consent of Lords or Commons Further 
 proceedings of the Primate Wiclif himself not yet summoned 
 before the Archbishop Possibly still protected by the Duke of 
 Lancaster Wiclif 3 s complaint to the King and Parliament 
 Petition of the Commons against the Ordinance for the suppres- 
 sion of erroneous doctrine Wiclif summoned to answer before 
 the Convention at Oxford He is abandoned by the Duke of Lan- 
 caster He maintains his opinions He delivers in two Confes- 
 sions, one in English, the other in Latin His English Confes- 
 sion His Latin Confession He is banished from Oxford He 
 retires to Lutterworth He is summoned by the Pope to appear 
 before him His answer. 
 
 THE attacks of Wiclif had hitherto been 
 principally directed against enormities, ^pfiyed 1 ^? 
 which had long been raising up a spirit posing the eor- 
 of disaffection towards the Romish hie- p^ pt ^ ns of the 
 rarchy. Up to this time, he had ap- 
 peared as the advocate of the University, in defence 
 of her privileges as the champion of the Crown, in 
 the vindication of its rights and prerogatives as the 
 friend of the people, in the preservation of their pro-* 
 
228 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 perty and as the ally of the whole world, against 
 He now en "es ^ e a ^ use ^ ecclesiastical power. He 
 hi 6 Tiw e "?cr* was now to appear in a somewhat dif- 
 mentai Contro- erent, and still more arduous, position. 
 He was about to carry his operations into 
 the most secret chambers of the great Mystery of 
 Iniquity ; to encounter the ghostly might of an 
 almost invisible, but tremendously powerful adver- 
 sary ; an adversary the more formidable, because the 
 conflict against it was to be, chiefly, carried on in the 
 regions of metaphysical abstraction, to which the 
 combatant could hardly be followed by the sympa- 
 thies, or even by the understandings, of mankind. 
 So long as he arraigned the palpable corruptions of 
 the Church, he might be regarded as sustaining the 
 contest in the open day, and under the light of hea- 
 ven. But a polemic who, in those times, should pre- 
 sume to assail the Romish doctrine of the Eucharist, 
 had an adventure before him, somewhat resembling 
 that of the pagan hero, when he plunged into the den 
 of Cacus, where he had to encounter, not only the 
 might of his antagonist, but the volumes of smoke 
 which he discharged from his jaws ; a darkness which 
 aggravated the danger and difficulty of the struggle, 
 and almost entirely concealed it from the gaze of the 
 spectator. Hence it was, that, so long as Wiclif 
 was seen to grapple with the practices of the Papacy 
 and its adherents, or with those doctrines and princi- 
 ples which were more immediately connected with its 
 visible abuses, so long he was supported by the 
 patronage of the great, and by the applauses of the 
 many. But when once he plunged into the darkness 
 of the sacramental controversy, the scene of conten- 
 tion was removed from the sphere of general intelli- 
 gence or interest. He was regarded by many as 
 engaged in desperate opposition to the awful and in- 
 scrutable majesty of truth, which, here, demanded 
 the submission of the understanding without appear- 
 ing to invade the personal comfort or interest of the 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 229 
 
 believer. They who were loudest in their outcry 
 against the Church, were, in that age, but little dis- 
 turbed by her most extravagant demands on their 
 credulity. When we are told by the chroniclers, that 
 every second man that mi^ht be met on the road was 
 a Lollard, we are not to imagine that the country 
 swarmed with persons whose minds were in a state 
 of insurrection against the extravagances of errone- 
 ous belief; but that there prevailed a very general 
 indignation against the pride and greediness of the 
 Pope and his ministers, and an increasing strength of 
 persuasion that the ecclesiastical system required an 
 unsparing reform. We shall accordingly find, that 
 when Wiclif stepped from the ground on which he 
 had hitherto combated, and ascended, as it were, into 
 the mount, where clouds and darkness were gathered 
 round him, his friends and followers began to fall 
 away. The feelings of many of the people towards 
 him somewhat resembled those of the Israelites 
 towards their legislator, when they exclaimed, " as for 
 this Moses, we wot not what is become of him !" 
 
 It would be unseasonable, and utterly Notice of the 
 useless, to introduce here a lengthened history of this 
 history of the disputes which had long <i uestloa 
 agitated the Church, respecting the mysterious pre- 
 sence of the body of Christ in the Eucharistic ele- 
 ments. That it was present, in some mode or other 
 which sufficiently warranted the faithful to speak of 
 it as really present, seems to have been the general 
 and almost unanimous opinion of the Church from 
 the earliest times ; although, as may readily be ima- 
 gined, every attempt to explain this reality, and to 
 reconcile it with the notion of a mere sacramental 
 or symbolical presence, was sure to involve the dis- 
 putants in a labyrinth of perplexity and self-contra- 
 diction. Up to the middle of the ninth century, how- 
 ever, as Mosheim observes,* " both reason and folly 
 
 * EccL Hist vol. ii. p. 340. 
 20 
 
230 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 had been left free in this matter ; nor had any impe- 
 rious mode of faith suspended the exercise of the one, 
 or restrained the extravagance of the other." The 
 first person who undertook to reduce the doctrine of 
 Paecasius itad- the Church to certainty and precision, was 
 ten. Pascasius Radbert, a monk, afterwards 
 
 abbot of Corbey : who maintained, that, after the 
 consecration of the bread and wine, nothing remain- 
 ed of those symbols but the outward figure ; under 
 which figure, the very same body that suffered on 
 the cross was really and locally present. This opinion 
 Bertram andJo- was speedily opposed by the two emi- 
 hannee Scotus. ne nt divines, Bertram, and Johannes 
 Scotus : but the controversy was still left to exhaust 
 itself, uncontrolled by any definite sentence of the 
 Church. In the eleventh century, when the dispute 
 burst out again, the cause of reason and common 
 sense was vigorously sustained by the celebrated 
 Berengarius, Archbishop of Angers, who 
 persisted in teaching that the elements, 
 after consecration, preserved their natural and essen- 
 tial qualities, being nothing more than symbols or 
 representatives of the body and blood of the Saviour* 
 By this time, however, the hierarchy of Rome appear 
 to have become sensible, that the doctrine, which 
 gave to the sacramental rite the character of a pro* 
 digy, was admirably fitted to exalt the mystie and 
 hierurgical dignity of the priesthood. The theology 
 of Berengarius was, accordingly, assailed with out- 
 rageous vehemence. The terrors of spiritual power 
 were levelled against it, fiercely and angrily by Leo 
 IX. and Nicholas II., somewhat more faintly and 
 doubtfully by Gregory VII. The heretic was com- 
 pelled to sign, successively, three distinct confessions, 
 each differing from the other, but all of them amount- 
 ing to an abjuration of his own real opinions; and 
 his latter days were passed in exercises of penitence 
 for his unworthy dissimulation.* It was not, how- 
 
 * Mosheim, vol. ii. p. 558569. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 231 
 
 ever, till the beginning of the thirteenth century that 
 all liberty of speech and opinion, relative to this sub- 
 ject, was finally suppressed. The Pontiff who claims 
 the honour of this triumph over human reason is 
 Innocent III. In the fourth council of Lateran, 
 (which was held in 1215, and at which were assem- 
 bled a vast concourse of ecclesiastics, besides the 
 ambassadors of nearly all the powers of Europe,) 
 he formerly established that doctrine, which, to the 
 present hour, is held by the Church of Rome as the 
 only orthodox and true one, and which, from that 
 time, has been uniformly designated by Thg doctrine of 
 the term transubstantiation. This word, transubstanti- 
 which was unknown before the days of ation estabiish- 
 Innocent III., was introduced to express ^ by Innocent 
 the precise nature of the change effected 
 in the elements at the moment of consecration. It 
 is obvious that the grand difficulty which thoughtful 
 persons would have to encounter, in receiving the 
 doctrine in question, arose from the astounding cir- 
 cumstance, that the mystic words of the priest left 
 the sensible qualities of the sacramental bread wholly 
 unaltered. That Christ himself should, in some 
 mysterious and spiritual sense, be present at the 
 solemnity, might not be too much for the faith of the 
 most enlightened believer. But, that an actual 
 change should take place, of which the senses should 
 give not the slightest notice, that the holy thing 
 received by the communicant should still retain pre- 
 cisely the same shape, the same colour, and the same 
 taste, which belonged to the unconsecrated wafer, 
 was a subject of endless perplexity to all, except 
 those who were prepared for an absolute and uncon- 
 ditional surrender of their faculties to the authority 
 of the Church. In order, therefore, to confound and 
 repel the stubborn testimony of the M . 
 senses, the Mendicant Orders, who were expiSon^of 
 the creatures of the Pontiff, called in the doctrine by 
 Metaphysics to the aid of Superstition. the Mendicants ' 
 
 
232 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 They scrupled not to maintain, that, although sub- 
 stances are usually known to us only by their sensi- 
 ble properties, or accidents, yet no substance is, in its 
 own nature, inseparable from its accidents, A mira- 
 cle might disunite the qualities from their proper 
 subject ; and these qualities might continue to act 
 upon our senses, even after the subject itself was 
 destroyed or withdrawn. And such a miracle, they 
 contended, was actually performed at every celebra- 
 tion of the Eucharist, The substance of the bread 
 was taken away, the instant the words of consecra- 
 tion had passed the lips of the priest, and the sub- 
 *stance of Christ's body was introduced in its place. 
 Our senses, it is true, give us no intelligence of this 
 substitution ; for our senses take no cognizance of 
 the interior essences of things. The substance of the 
 body of our Lord, when invested with the sensible 
 properties of the wafer, would, consequently, affect 
 the senses precisely as the wafer itself affected them, 
 previously to its consecration. To appeal, therefore, 
 to the evidence of the senses, was, in effect, to call 
 in witnesses which could depose nothing as to the 
 matter in question. And the grand difficulty being 
 thus disposed of, by a process of metaphysical leger- 
 demain, mankind were left without excuse, if they 
 refused the mystery of transubstantiation ! 
 This doctrine That the corporeal presence of Christ 
 unknown to'the in the sacrament was never acknow- 
 Angio-saxon ledged as an article of faith by our an- 
 cient Anglo-Saxon Church, seems to be 
 beyond all reasonable question. The opinion enter- 
 tained respecting that mystery, previously to the 
 Conquest, is distinctly expressed in a very ancient 
 homily, translated into the Saxon tongue, probably 
 from a Latin original no longer extant, by jElfric, 
 abbot of St. Alban's, in the tenth century ; and fur- 
 ther, from two epistles of the same writer, one of 
 them addressed to Wulfine, bishop of Sherborne, the 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 233 
 
 other to Wulfstane, archbishop of Canterbury.* The 
 homily in question contains a copious exposition of 
 the sacramental doctrine ; and its language expressly 
 negatives the tenet of traiisubstantiation. " Much," 
 it says, " is betwixt the body in which Christ suffered, 
 and the body which is hallowed to housell. The 
 body, truly, in which Christ suffered, was born of the 
 flesh of Mary, with a reasonable soul ; his ghostly 
 body, which we call the housell, is gathered of many 
 grains, without blood, bone, limb, or soul. And, 
 therefore, nothing is to be understood therein bodily, 
 but all is ghostly to be understood."! Again, " Truly 
 it is, as we have said, Christ's body and his blood, 
 not bodily, but ghostly: and ye should not search 
 how this is done, but hold it in your belief that it is 
 done. "| Precisely conformable to this is the lan- 
 guage of the two epistles. " Understand now that 
 the Lord, who could turn the bread, before his suf- 
 fering, into his body, and the wine into his blood, 
 ghostly, the self-same Lord blesseth daily, through 
 the priest's hands, bread and wine to his ghostly body, 
 and his ghostly blood. " " The lively bread is not 
 .bodily so, notwithstanding, not the self-same body 
 that Christ suffered in ; nor is the holy wine the Sa- 
 viour's blood which was shed for us in bodily thing 
 {or reality,) but in ghostly understanding"^ These 
 testimonies are the more remarkable, because they 
 are mixed up with other matters which savour gross- 
 ly of Romish superstition, and show that the senti- 
 ments expressed on the subject of the Eucharist, 
 were dictated by no spirit of opposition to the autho- 
 
 * This Anglo-Saxon homily, and the two epistles above mentioned, 
 also in Anglo-Saxon, were printed by John Day, 1567, under the title 
 of " A Testimony of Antiquitie, showing the auncient faith in the 
 Church of England, touching the Sacrament, &c. &c." They are fol- 
 lowed by a certificate of the faithfulness and accuracy with which they 
 were taken from the ancient books, signed by Archbishop Parker, and 
 fifteen other bishops. The copy which I have seen is in the public libra- 
 ry of Cambridge. It is in a small volume, (Ff. 16. 78.) and is bound up 
 Fith several other tracts. 
 
 t Testimony of Antiquitie, &c. p. 36. t Ibid. p. 38, 39. 
 
 Testimony of Antiquitie, &c. p. 64. B Ibid. p. 70. 
 
 20* 
 
234 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 rity of the Church, In the next, century, however, 
 The doctrine came the Norman Conquest; and this 
 probably imro- event consigned the see of Canterbury 
 i-ulii at'thcCun" to the care of Lanfranc, who was not 
 quest, by Arch- only a devoted adherent to the Papacy, 
 bish- Lanfranc. | )ut one o f fa e most eminent and power* 
 
 ful among the antagonists of Berengarius. There is 
 still extant a dissertation of his concerning the body 
 and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, in which he 
 labours to establish the reality of the corporeal prer 
 sence, in opposition to the doctrine of the Archbisnop 
 of Angers : and, from that period till the days 01 
 Wiclif, the Romish doctrine, as first maintained by 
 Radbert, and as subsequently explained and vindi? 
 cated by the Mendicants, appears to have gradually 
 and silently established itselr in our national Church, 
 There can be little doubt that the sentiments of 
 Wiclif on this point must have long been known to, 
 his friends and his parishioners ; for the subject is, 
 one of perpetual recurrence in his sermons. But i 
 1381 was fr m th chair of theology that he 
 Wiclif attacks commenced his formal attack against this 
 the ns rt rin ti f a bsurdities f tne received doctrine, and 
 tSn^from^the more especially against the metaphysical 
 chair of theoio- wonders introduced by the Friars. In 
 the lectures delivered by him in 1381, he 
 put forth twelve conclusions, in which he maintained 
 that " the consecrated host we see upon the altar, is 
 neither Christ, npr any part of him, but an effectual 
 sign of him ; and that tran substantiation, identifica- 
 tion, or impanation, rest upon no scriptural ground."* 
 J3y the religious Orders, who were then in high pre- 
 dominance at Oxford, this was regarded as an auda- 
 His sitions c * ous declaration of war : and a conven- 
 denounced "cm tion was immediately summoned by the 
 pain of excom- Chancellor, William de Berton, for the 
 ion,&c. p ur p 0se O f preparing an adverse mani- 
 festo. By this assembly, which consisted of twelve 
 
 * Lewis, c. vi. p. 91. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 235 
 
 doctors, eight of whom were either monks or mendi- 
 cants, a solemn decree was unanimously pronounced,* 
 which first recites the substance of Wiclif 's conclu- 
 sions, (namely, that the material elements remain 
 unaltered after consecration, and that Christ is not 
 essentially, substantially, or corporeally present in the 
 sacrament, but only figuratively, or tropically ;) and 
 then proceeds to declare and affirm the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, in its fullest extravagance. It 
 concludes by denouncing imprisonment, suspension 
 jof scholastic exercises, and the greater excommunica- 
 tion, as the penalties of teaching or listening to 
 ;the opposite doctrine. The instrument, thus pre- 
 pared, was not suffered to remain a moment idle. It 
 was dispatched to the school of the Augustines, 
 ,where Wiclif was actually seated, as Professor, en- 
 forcing the condemned positions, and was there 
 promulgated in the hearing of his pupils. The sud- 
 xlenness of the invasion threw the Reformer into mo- 
 jnentary confusion. He, however, soon recovered 
 his self-possession, defied his adversaries 
 to refute his opinions, and proclaimed J^theKi^ 1 : 
 his resolution to appeal to the king.t 
 
 * This decree is printed, at length, in Wilkins, Cone. vol. iii. p. 170, 
 ,with the signatures of the twelve doctors, of whom four only are seculars. 
 
 t Wilk. Cone. p. 171. We recommend to the attention of Dr. Lingard, 
 (who is pleased to censure the coarseness of Wiclif's invectives,) the 
 mild, pacific, and exemplary language, in which the chronicler Walsing- 
 ham notices the opinions of the Reformer, on the subject of the Eucharist. 
 "At this time," (A. D. 1381,) he says, "that old hypocrite, that 
 angel of Satan, that emissary of Anti-Christ, the not-to-be named John 
 Wiclif, or rather Wickebeleve, the heretic, continued his ravings, and 
 .seemed as if he would drink up Jordan, and plunge all Christians into 
 the abyss, by reviving the damnable opinions of Berengarius, &c. &c." 
 He then tells a story about a certain knight of high repute, near Salisbury, 
 who ran away with the sacrament ; and, in order to show that it was no 
 better than so much household bread, irreverently devoured it, together 
 with oysters, and onions, and wine. The knight it seems, survived the 
 sacrilege; but being afterwards brought to aljetter mind, testified his 
 sorrow, by submission to very heavy penances. And this, says the his- 
 .torian, I have the more fully related, that it may appear what evils were 
 scattered over the land by that beast from the bottomless pit, that col- 
 league of Satan, John Wiclif, or Wickebeleve. It would be difficult to 
 match this from the pages of the monster himself! Wals. p. 256. 
 
ZJb LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 This determination appears to have occasioned the 
 greatest astonishment. That a person charged with 
 theological error should think of appealing, not to 
 the Pope, not even to the bishop or ecclesiastical ordi- 
 nary, but to the Crown, was deemed an act of out- 
 rageous contumacy against the spiritual powers. The 
 measure, it must be confessed, was one of singular 
 audacity. Its boldness was too much 
 for the spirit of John of Gaunt himself, 
 to abstain from the illustrious friend and patron of the 
 Eucharist?" the R e f rmer For no sooner did he receive 
 intelligence of it, than he posted to Ox- 
 ford for the express purpose of forbidding Wiclif to 
 speak further on this matter ; and by this good office, 
 he has purchased for himself, in the chronicles of the 
 age, the title of a sa^e counsellor, and a faithful soa 
 of holy Church.* His admonitions, it will be seen 
 hereafter, were totally in vain. The only effect pro- 
 duced by the authority of the Primate, the sentence 
 of the Chancellor, and the influence of his protector, 
 was to reduce him to silence, until the opportunity 
 should arrive for removing his cause to the supreme 
 tribunal. 
 
 He composes But though his tongue was restrained, 
 kis "pstioium" his pen continued active. He employed 
 or Wicket. j^e m terval which elapsed before the 
 next meeting of Parliament, in the composition of a 
 small treatise by the title of Ostiolum, or the Wicket, 
 the object of which is to expose the manifold contra- 
 dictions and absurdities adhering to the dogma which 
 he had been forbidden to assail. In this treatise he 
 reprobates without mercy the blasphemous presump- 
 tion involved in the Popish doctrine of the Eucharist. 
 It was asserted by the clergy that, by virtue of their 
 stupendous function, they were enabled to create God 
 
 ix egregius, et 
 MI ,cc;, sacrae Ecclesise 
 quod de caetero non 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 237 
 
 their Creator ; and their deduction from these mon- 
 strous premises was, that persons invested with such 
 transcendent spiritual powers ought never to be de- 
 graded hy subjection to any secular authority. It is 
 scarcely possible to listen without a trepidation to 
 such impiety: and yet, bad as it was, Wiclif clearly 
 shows that its enormity was here greatly understated. 
 For if the words of blessing or consecration could 
 effect the wonders ascribed to them, it must inevita- 
 bly follow that the priests, who pronounced them, 
 must not only be elevated far above all earthly juris- 
 diction, but must also "wax great masters above 
 Christ himself, and be the dispensers of his substance ; 
 so that, since it is written, thou shalt honour thy father 
 and thy mother, Christ would be bound to honour 
 with filial reverence the priests who thus became 
 the fathers and creators of himself!" He, further, 
 exposes, with singular felicity, the absurdity, that 
 each portion of the sacramental bread became the un- 
 divided body of Christ. This position was sometimes 
 illustrated by reference to a glass, shivered into a 
 multitude of fragments, each of which might still 
 retain the power of reflecting the same countenance ; 
 an explanation which was ingeniously turned by 
 the Reformer against the doctrine of his opponents. 
 Each fragment of the glass, he observed, could pre- 
 sent to the eye nothing more than the image of a 
 face, not the very face itself: and even so, each por- 
 tion of the broken bread might represent the body of 
 Christ, but could do nothing more. Again, he tri- 
 umphantly asks his adversaries, why they worship 
 not the vine for God, as they do the bread? For 
 Christ has affirmed that he was a vine, in language 
 as express as that in which he declared that the 
 bread was his body, and the cup was his blood. He 
 adds, that literally to identify the bread with Christ's 
 holy body, is no less irrational than the " foul mis- 
 understanding" of the JCAVS, who perverted the figu- 
 rative words of Christ, respecting his own body, into 
 
238 LIFE OF WICLIF. % 
 
 a boast that he could destroy the temple of Jerusalem, 
 and build it in three days. 
 
 On the 14th of June, 1381, the See of Canterbury 
 became vacant by the death of Simon Sudbury, who 
 was massacred in the Tower, by the fury of the in- 
 Coimney sue- surgent peasantry. His successor was 
 cee.iv to 'the pri- William Courtney, then translated from 
 macy> the see of London ; a personage highly 
 
 connected, and distinguished for his passionate devo- 
 tion to the Papal chair. It was not till the month 
 of May, 1382, that this uncompromising prelate re- 
 ceived the pall from Rome ; an ensign which, in his 
 estimation, was absolutely needful to the completion 
 of his authority and power. On the 17th of the same 
 
 month, a convention of divines was held, 
 BraodnSb by b y nis mandate, at the priory of the 
 him, at the Preaching Friars, in London. The as- 
 ai rea SnUon Fri sem bly consisted of eight bishops and 
 
 fourteen doctors of civil or canon law* 
 together with seventeen doctors and six bachelors of 
 divinity, all of whom, except one, were either Men- 
 dicants or Monks.* At this meeting the firmness of 
 the Archbishop was severely put to the test. On the 
 commencement of their deliberations, it so happened 
 
 The assembly l ^ al l ^ e wn l e city was shaken by an 
 disturb^ by an earthquake. The convulsion immedi- 
 earthquake. ately produced some unsteadiness in the 
 counsels of the Synod, many of whom appeared to 
 regard it as a sign of the displeasure of heaven 
 against their proceedings. The sinking fortitude of 
 the divines would probably have caused a dissolution 
 Address and f tne assembly, had not the Primate, 
 seif-poesession with singular address and self-posses- 
 of Courtney. s { o ^ converted the portent to his own 
 advantage. He assured them that the commotion 
 they had witnessed, being produced by the expulsion 
 &f noxious vapours from the earth, was evidently a 
 
 See Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. p. 157, 158. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 239 
 
 most auspicious intimation, that the purity and the 
 peace of the Church could be secured only by.the vio- 
 lent removal of all rebellious spirits from her com- 
 munion. The courage of the assembly being thus 
 effectually rallied, they proceeded with their work of 
 inquisition. Twenty-four conclusions 
 were produced, which, it .was affirmed, eonduaiom^u! 
 had been publicly preached among the cribed to wic- 
 nobles and commons of the realm of llf ' condemned - 
 England ; and after three days of " good and mature 
 deliberation," ten of these conclusions were con- 
 demned as heretical, and the remaining fourteen were 
 pronounced to be erroneous.* The errors of the here- 
 tical articles related chiefly to the sacrament, and the 
 mass to the forfeiture of the priestly function and 
 power by mortal sin to the needlessness of auricular 
 confession to the unlawfulness of temporal posses- 
 sions held by the clergy and to the derivation of the 
 Pope's authority from the Emperor: and one of those 
 articles actually contained the monstrous assertion, 
 that God ought to obey the devil ! The fourteen erro- 
 neous propositions, in substance, maintained that it 
 was heretical for a prelate, to excommunicate any one 
 without knowing him to be already excommunicated 
 by God, and treasonable to excommunicate one who has 
 appealed to the King ; that the Gospel may be preach- 
 ed without license from Pope or prelate that tithes 
 are purely eleemosynary that delinquent priests may 
 be stripped of their endowments by the secular power 
 that to give alms to the friars is an excommunica- 
 ble offence and that the religious Orders, whether 
 endowed or mendicant, are sinful and unchristian. 
 
 Instructions were speedily dispatched to the bishops 
 of London and of Lincoln, enjoining 
 them rigorously to suppress the dissemi- fonhTsuppre* 
 nation of these doctrines: and, by the sum of WicliP* 
 latter of these prelates, letters mandatory dc 
 
 * These conclusions .may be seen in Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. p. 157, 15^ 
 together with the signatures of the parties who condemned them. 
 
240 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 were immediately issued, charging with the execution 
 of the decree, not only the abbots and priors, but .ill 
 the clergy, and ecclesiastical functionaries through- 
 out the archdeaconry of Leicester, within which the 
 rectory of Lutterworth is situated ; so that the Re- 
 former was, in all probability, personally visited with 
 these paternal admonitions. Similar instructions 
 were forwarded by the archbishop to one Peter Stokes, 
 a zealous Carmelite of Oxford, requiring him diligently 
 to publish the decisions of the Svnod throughout the 
 University. And, in order that trie crusade might be 
 conducted with all impressive solemnity, it was ap- 
 pointed that, at the ensuing Whitsuntide, the devotion 
 of the metropolis should be awakened by a religious 
 procession to St. Paul's. On the day fixed, a long 
 train, both of ecclesiastics and laymen, was seen 
 moving bare-footed, towards the cathedral; and on 
 their arrival there, the pulpit was mounted by a Car- 
 melite friar, who spoke to the astonished multitude 
 of the perils of the Church, of the virulence of her 
 enemies, and of the duty incumbent, in such a crisis, 
 on all her faithful children. These vigorous measures 
 of the primate were abundantly seconded by the zeal 
 of the spiritual lords of Parliament, who united in a 
 Petition of the P et ^^ on tnat a remedy might be provi- 
 spiritual lords ded against the innumerable errors and 
 against the Loi- impieties of the Lollards.* The doc- 
 trines complained of in addition to those 
 which have been already stated, were, that Urban 
 VI. is the son of Anti-Christ, and that there hath 
 been no true Pope since the days of St. Silvester 
 that they who trust in the Pope's indulgences are ac- 
 cursed, and that none are obliged to obey his canons 
 decretal that the worship of images is idolatrous 
 and execrable that pictures of the Holy Trinity are 
 
 * It would be a waste of time to detain the reader with a dissertation 
 on the origin of this term, here applied to the followers of Wiclif. Every 
 thing that can be collected on the subject may be found in Mosheirn, vol. 
 iii. p. 355-35a 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 241 
 
 not to be endured that Saints are not to be suppli- 
 cated" for their intercession that priests and dea- 
 cons are bound by their orders to preach, although 
 they have no cure of souls that the clergy who do 
 not minister the sacraments are to be removed and 
 lastly, in this long list of heresies and errors, that 
 " ecclesiastical men ought not to ride on such great 
 horses, nor use so large jewels, precious garments, or 
 delicate entertainments, but to renounce them all, 
 and give them to the poor, walking on foot, and taking 
 staves in their hands, to take on them the appearance 
 of poor men, giving others the benefit of their ex- 
 ample." 
 
 This application was attended with Royal Ordin . 
 one very remarkable consequence. It ance, empower- 
 produced a Royal Ordinance, which, j" g arresl^and 
 after reciting the activity and audacity imprison the 
 with which notorious and pernicious er- ^edoar : ne f 
 rors were circulated, by evil persons, 
 under dissimulation of great holiness, preaching in 
 churches, churchyards, markets, fairs, and other open 
 places, without the license of the ordinary, empow- 
 ers the sheriffs of counties to arrest such preachers 
 and their abettors, and to detain them in prison, until 
 they should justify themselves according to law, and 
 reason of Holy Church.* This document, it should 
 be observed, was altogether destitute of Thig Ordinance 
 the force of law ; for it contains no inti- introduced into 
 mation whatever, of the assent either of R^'^aSSS 
 Lords or Commons. It, nevertheless, wiXoattbccon- 
 was introduced into the Parliament Roll, s< r nt of Lords or 
 amon^ the statutes of the year ; and has ' 
 the distinction of being the first penal enactment 
 on our Statute Book, against heretical pravity of 
 opinion. In the next Parliament, indeed, the Com- 
 mons declared, that it had been passed without their 
 assent or concurrence, and prayed that it might be 
 
 * The document is given by Fox. See Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog. vol. 
 i. p. 62, 63. 
 
242 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 annulled y as it never was their intent to bind them- 
 selves to the bishops, more than their ancestor* had 
 been bound in times past. But though the King agreed 
 to their petition, this spurious statute " still remains 
 among our laws, unrepealed, except by desuetude, 
 and by inference from acts of much later times."* 
 
 Proceedings Armed with this formidable, but most 
 of the Primate unlawful power, the Primate assumed 
 JfwcSfs^oF ll ? e title * Inquisitor of Heretical Pra- 
 lowers. vity throughout the whole province of 
 
 Canterbury; and immediately directed 
 his attention to the extirpation of heresy from the 
 University of Oxford. The Sessions, at the Grey 
 Friars, were accordingly resumed. The most per- 
 emptory instructions were issued to the Chancellor 
 ef Oxford, Robert Rigge, commanding him to suppress 
 all attendance on the preaching of certain persons, 
 vehemently and notoriously suspected of heresy, 
 naming', particularly, John Wiclif, and several of his 
 followers, Hereford, Repingdon, Ashton, and Redman. 
 And as the chancellor himself had recently manifested 
 a disposition to favour some of the objectionable doc- 
 trines, he received from the Archbishop a reiterated 
 and solemn injunction, to abstain from all interfe- 
 rence with the proceedings of those divines, who 
 had been appointed to inquire and report respecting 
 the state of religious opinion at Oxford. For the rest 
 of their session the Synod were occupied with the 
 cases of the individuals above named ;f but it is 
 Wiclif himself somewhat remarkable, that Wiclif him-- 
 not summoned self was, on this occasion, suffered to 
 bis f ho 6theAlCh remam unmolested, while his friends 
 
 were exposed to all the bitter conse- 
 quences of their activity in the promulgation of his 
 principles. This may, perhaps, be accounted for by 
 the circumstance of his having declared his resolu- 
 
 * Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 132, 133. Fox, in Wordsworth's 
 Eccl. Biog. vol. i. p. 63. 
 
 t The proceedings against them maybe found in Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. 
 p. 158169. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 243 
 
 tion to appeal to the Crown : for, however disputable 
 might be the regularity of such an appeal, it might 
 be thought scarcely respectful to the Royal authority, 
 wholly to disregard it. It has also been conjectured, 
 that Wiclif 's doctrinal heresies had not Posslbly 8tiH 
 entirely deprived him of the favour of protected by the 
 the Duke of Lancaster, an antagonist DukeofLancas- 
 too powerful to be rashly encountered, 
 even by the high-born and inflexible Archbishop. 
 The thunders which were echoing round him, were, 
 however, unable to silence or intimidate the Reformer. 
 That his voice was lifted up, among his own people, 
 against the recent attempts to summon the powers 
 of the State in aid of the authorities of the Church, 
 seems evident from the language of one of his paro- 
 chial homilies, in all probability delivered about this 
 period. He is speaking of the entombment of Christ, 
 and of the abortive devices by which the priesthood 
 Inspired to prevent his resurrection : and these des- 
 perate expedients he produces, as illustrative of the 
 attempts of the prelates to suppress the revival of the 
 Gospel of Christ. " Even thus," he exclaims, " do 
 our high priests ; lest God's law, after all they have 
 done, should be quickened. Therefore make they 
 statutes, stable as a rock; and they obtain grace of 
 knights to confirm them ; and this they well mark 
 with the witness of lords : and all, lest the truth of 
 God's Law, hid in the sepulchre, should break out, to 
 the knowing of the common people. Christ ! Thy 
 Law is hidden thus ; when wilt Thou send Thine 
 Angel to remove the stone, and shew Thy truth unto 
 thy flock ? Well I know that knights have taken gold 
 in this case, to help that thy Law may be thus hid, 
 and Thine ordinances consumed : but well I know 
 that, at the day of doom, it shall be manifest, and 
 even before, when Thou arisest against all thine 
 
 MS. Horn. Bib. Reg. quoted by -Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 96. 
 
244 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 But it was not to be supposed that Wiclif, who 
 had proclaimed, in the face of the world, his resolu- 
 tion to appeal to Caesar, would content himself with 
 an appeal to his parishioners. In conformity with his 
 Wk-iifs com declaration, tne following November, 
 plaint to the 1382, he presented his complaint, which 
 King and Par- was addressed not to the Crown only, 
 but to the King and Parliament.* On a 
 perusal of this paper, it will appear evident that he 
 seized the opportunity, thus afforded him, of bringing 
 before the Legislature, not merely the sacramental 
 question, but nearly the whole substance of the 
 cause, which it had been the work of his life to 
 advocate and support. He divides his Gravamina 
 into four main articles. The first of these exposes 
 the absurdity of maintaining that a rule of religious 
 life can be laid down by man, more perfect than that 
 which is delivered to us by Jesus Christ and his 
 Apostles ; and he thus strikes at the very root of the 
 authority and influence, claimed, in that age, by those 
 various religious Orders, to which nearly all the re- 
 verence of the Christian world v/as then transferred. 
 The second enlarges on the power of the secular 
 magistrate over the temporal endowments of the 
 Church; in opposition to the doctrine, then very 
 generally held, and recently affirmed by certain friars 
 at Coventry, that the possessions of tne clergy were 
 absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the State, and 
 that to maintain the contrary, was damnably erro- 
 neous and heretical. In the third article, he adverts, 
 certainly in very unmeasured language, to what has 
 been represented by some as one of his favourite doc- 
 trines, viz., that every thing enjoyed by the clergy, 
 
 * This document is in print. It is entitled, " A complaint of John 
 Wyclif, exhibited to the King and Parliament." It is not always to be 
 met with separately. The copy consulted by me is to be found in a 
 volume of Tracts, in the public Library of Cambridge, (Ff. 14. 8.,) to- 
 gether with Wiclif s Treatise against the Orders of Friars, (which was 
 published in the following year, 1383,} Dr. James's Apologie for John 
 Wiclif, and several other pieces of various dates. 
 
LIFE OF WICLiy. 246 
 
 n&ore than may be needful for the most moderate ne- 
 cessities of nature, is nothing better than " theft, ra- 
 pine, and sacrilege ;" and that if the prelates and 
 priests be infected with the sins of idolatry, of covet- 
 ousness, of pride, simony, man-quelling, gluttony, 
 drunkenness, and lechery, they thereby incur, accord- 
 ing to God's law, the forfeiture of their tithes and 
 offerings ; which, in that case, may lawfully be given 
 to poor and needy men. The fourth article is the 
 only one in this paper, in which he adverts to the 
 question, respecting which he had declared, at Ox*- 
 ford, his determination to make this appeal ; namely, 
 the doctrine of the Eucharist : and it is remarkable, 
 that, on this point, he abstains from all diffuseness 
 either of statement or of argument. He contents 
 himself with simply desiring, that " Christ's teaching 
 and beleave of the sacrament of His own body, that 
 is plainly taught by Christ and his Apostles, in Gos- 
 pels and Pistles, may be taught openlie in churches 
 of Christian people ; the contrarie teaching, and false 
 believe being brought up by cursed hypocrites, and 
 heretics, and worldly priests, unkenning in God's 
 law ; which seem that they are Apostles of Christ, 
 but are fools ! " He had, no doubt, the sagacity to 
 perceive, that an elaborate exhibition of the merits 
 of this question, would involve the necessity of such 
 profound research, and metaphysical discussion, as 
 would be quite out of place before the barons, knights, 
 and burgesses of the realm, who might yet be fully 
 qualified to estimate the more popular topics upon 
 which he had been enlarging. His " Complaint" 
 closes with an animated protest against the selfish- 
 ness of the priesthood, who, he says, were " so busie 
 about worldlie occupation, that they Pet j t i on O f the 
 seemen better bayliffs, or reves, than Commons a- 
 
 ghostly priests of Jesus Christ." This gainst the Orii. 
 *=> / " ,., c 11, nance for the 
 
 appeal was speedily followed by the pe- suppression of 
 ,tition of the Commons, already advert- | eous doQ " 
 d to, protesting against the Royal Ordi- 
 21* 
 
246 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 nance, by which the civil authorities were converted 
 into instruments to be wielded by the hierarchy, and 
 employed for the extirpation of heresy. Respecting 
 this enactment, they complain, as we have seen, that 
 whatever was moved therein, was without their as- 
 sent ; and they, accordingly, require its abrogation. 
 With this requisition, the King, to all appearance, 
 willingly complied ; but, unfortunately, the unlawful 
 enactment had, in a great measure, done its office. 
 It had given a powerful impulse to the work of reli- 
 gious persecution ; and, notwithstanding its repeal, it 
 was still allowed to retain its place on the records of 
 Parliament, in consequence, as some have imagined, 
 of the sinister practices of the Archbishop. But, 
 however that may be, Wiclif derived but little bene- 
 fit from this manifestation of displeasure on the 
 part of the Commons. He was sum- 
 moned to 8U an- "p 011 ^ to answer before the Convpca- 
 ewer before the tion, at Oxford, respecting the opinions 
 Convocation at expressed in the Articles of his " Com- 
 plaint ;" and the doctrine propounded by 
 him, relative to the Eucharist, formed the most 
 prominent subject of inquisition. The integrity and 
 fortitude of Wiclif were now put to a much severer 
 test than any to which they had yet been exposed. 
 In his former perils, it might be suggested that his 
 courage was mainly supported by his secret reliance 
 on the Duke of Lancaster's protection. His bitterest 
 adversaries were now deprived of the comfort of that 
 He is abandon- insinuation. The Duke of Lancaster 
 ed by the Duke openly abandoned him.* His illustrious 
 of Lancaster. patron ( w h o stooc i faithfully by him so 
 long as he was engaged in a conflict with the open. 
 
 * The language of the Sudbury Register (as we have seen above) is 
 
 "Post appellationem advenit Dux Lancostriae prohibens quod 
 
 de CcBtero non loqueretur de ista materia." Wilk. Con. p. 171. But I 
 am not altogether certain, whether this means that the Duke came to 
 Wiclif for this purpose, after he proclaimed, at Oxford, his resolution to 
 appeal; or, not till after he had actually presented his complaint to the 
 King and Parliament : most probably the former. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 247 
 
 iniquities of the Papacy,) refused to attend him into 
 these mysterious regions of theological debate. He 
 was unwilling to encounter the wrath of the hierar- 
 chy, for the sake of barren questions relative to faith 
 or doctrine. On this occasion, therefore, it may be 
 fairly said of Wiclif, that " no man stood with him, 
 but all forsook him." The displeasure of his patron, 
 however, was as powerless with him, as the thunders 
 of his spiritual adversaries ; and the fidelity and 
 courage Avith which he acquitted himself in this hour 
 of peril, may be known from the words of his ene- 
 mies themselves. According to their account, he 
 produced a confession, containing, sub- ^ciif j^. 
 stantially, all his former errors ; and, tains his opi- 
 like an incorrigible heretic, refuted all nions * 
 the doctors of the Second Millenary, on the question 
 of the Sacrament of the Altar ; affirming that, with 
 the exception of Berengarius, they were involved in 
 error ; nay, that Satan was loosed, and had put forth 
 his power, in the person of the Master of the Sen- 
 tences, and of all who had preached the Catholic 
 faith herein.* 
 
 It must not, however, be dissembled, that one his- 
 torian has given a very different aspect to this por- 
 tion of Wiclif 's history. He maintains that hitherto 
 Wiclif had relied solely on the protection of the duke, 
 and that nothing but his patronage had saved the 
 heretic and his adherents from ignominy and de- 
 struction ; that when he was called upon to answer 
 for his perversions, " he instantly laid aside his auda- 
 cious bearing, put on the breastplate of dotage, at- 
 tempted to disclaim his extravagant and fantastic 
 
 * " Incepit confessionem quandam facere, in qua continebatur 
 
 omnis error pristinus, (sed secretius sub velamine vario verborum) in 
 qua dixit suum conceptum, et nisus est suam sententiam probare. Sed, 
 velut haereticus pertinax, reputavit omnes doctores de Secundo Mille- 
 nario, in materia de Sacramento altaris ; et dixit omnes errasse praeter 
 
 Berengarium Dixit patam Sathanam solutum, et potestatem 
 
 habere" in Magistro Sententiarum, et in omnibus, qui fidem Catholicam 
 -praedicaverunu" Sudbury Register, in Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. p. 171. 
 
248 LIFE OF WICUF. 
 
 errors,, and protested that the follies he was called 
 upon to answer for, were basely and falsely ascribed 
 to him by the malicious ingenuity of his enemies.'** 
 This calumny has been so frequently repeated, that, 
 to the present hour, there arc many who, while they 
 are disposed io honour and venerate his memory, yet 
 complain that a mist of suspicion still hangs over 
 this passage of his life, and impairs the clearness of 
 their confidence in his integrity. That our readers 
 may be enabled to judge of these imputations of du- 
 , . plicity, it will be proper to call their at- 
 
 o> e nSons,one tention to the two written confessions, 
 in English,' the one in English, the other in Latin, 
 pther m Latm. w hj c h contain the substance of his de- 
 fence before the convocation at Oxford, 
 flis English con- His confession in English is a concise, 
 Assign. a n( j tolerably perspicuous document; 
 
 framed as it would seem, with a view to convey his 
 sentiments to the popular apprehension, and accord- 
 ingly weeded from the subtlety of scholastic distinc- 
 tions, In this paper he affirms, that the sacrament 
 of the altar is very God's body in form of bread ; and 
 that if it be broken into three parts, or into a thou- 
 sand, every one of these is the same God's body : and 
 }ie adds, that it is heresy to believe that this sacra- 
 ment is od's body, and no bread, since in truth, it is 
 froth together ; in its own nature it is very bread ; but 
 pacramentally, it is the body of Christ. And he scru* 
 pies not to affirm his belief that the earth trembled, 
 when the council was held at the Grey Friars in 
 London, in testimony of God's anger at the heresies 
 maintained by his judges in that assembly. Suck 
 will be found to be the substance of this confession ;f 
 and what infatuation could have enabled Knighton 
 to find in this document a disclaimer of Wiclif 's 
 opinions, it is beyond all ordinary penetration to 
 /discover , In the spirit of it, most assuredly, there is 
 
 * Knighton, p. 2647. 
 
 t It ie printed in Le>yis, c. vi. p. 102 KM, from Knighton 2649, 2650. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 249 
 
 nothing which savours of cowardice : for he tells his 
 inquisitors to their face, that their perversions were 
 so monstrous as to call down sensible tokens of the 
 divine displeasure. In the letter of it, there is no- 
 thing to arraign him of duplicity ; for the doctrine 
 here maintained, is, in fact, no other than that which 
 he had uniformly asserted, both before the University 
 at Oxford, and before his people at Lutlerworth. If 
 it be urged that there is inconsistency on the face of 
 this paper, since it affirms, in one part, that the 
 sacrament is Christ's body verily, and in another, 
 that it is so only sacramentally , or spiritually, the 
 obvious answer is, that if this be an inconsistency, it 
 is one which he had in common with multitudes 
 who spoke or wrote on the subject, ages before the 
 transubstantiating theory was ever heard of: nay, 
 he may almost be said to have it, in common with 
 our own Reformers, whose catechism declares that 
 the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed 
 taken by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. How 
 these expressions are to be reconciled, is a question 
 totally distinct. But nothing can be more certain 
 than the fact that they have been considered as capa- 
 ble of reconcilia tion by numbers who never dreamed 
 of a corporeal and local presence ; and if so, it is 
 extravagant to produce this language, as a proof of 
 Wiclif's timidity and vacillation. The assertion 
 that the body of Christ, in its full integrity, is present 
 in every fragment into which the elements may be 
 divided, is, at first sight, somewhat more perplexing. 
 The perplexity, however, will vanish, when we find 
 that such, very nearly, was the language held even 
 by the Church of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, a 
 Church which, beyond dispute, was, on this point, 
 free from superstitious pravity. Without any con- 
 troversy to maintain, without any inquisitors to 
 propitiate, the following is the manner in which 
 the author of the Saxon homily, above adverted to, 
 expresses himself respecting the sacrament of the 
 
260 I/IFE OF WICLIF 
 
 altar i "The housell is corruptible, and divided into 
 sundry parts, cut by the teeth, and sent into the 
 jstomach ; nevertheless, after ghostly might, it is all 
 in every part. Many receive that holy body ; and 
 yet it is so, all in every part, after ghostly mystery, 
 though some take less (than others,) yet is there no 
 more might in the more part than in the less; because 
 it is in all men after the invisible might."* No man 
 who has perused the rest of the discourse can doubt, 
 for a moment, that the words above recited were 
 designed to convey this sense, namely, that, how- 
 ever minutely the sacramental elements might be 
 divided, each portion would be equally efficacious in 
 conveying to the respective communicants, the bene- 
 fits (whatever they might be,) attached to the due 
 receiving of Christ's bo3y Why, then, is a more 
 Popish meaning to be given to me words of Wiclif, 
 when he says that, whether the host be broken into 
 three parts, or into a thousand, of each part it may 
 he predicated, with equal truth, that it is the same 
 body of Christ ? 
 
 His Latm con- The Latin confession! drawn up by 
 fession. Wiclif, on this occasion, is very mucn 
 
 longer than the English one, and very much more 
 defective in simplicity. Being composed more par- 
 ticularly for understandings accustomed to the worse 
 than Cretan labyrinth of the Schools, it has, from the 
 beginning to the end of it, the appearance of a series 
 pf metaphysical and scholastic enigmas. It begins 
 with avowing, distinctly, that the body of Christ, 
 (the same which was born of the Virgin, suffered on 
 the cross> was buried, rose again, ascended into hea- 
 ven, and now sits at the right hand of God) is truly 
 and really the sacramental bread and consecrated 
 host* But then he proceeds to qualify this statement 
 by the confession, that he dares not affirm it to be 
 the body of Christ, essentially, substantially, corporeally, 
 
 * Testimonie of Antiquitie, p. 37, 38. 
 
 t This Latin Confession is printed in Lewis, Appendix No. 21, p. 323 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 251 
 
 Or identically ; and in order to make the matter quite, 
 intelligible, he tells us that there are three modes in 
 which the body of our Lord may exist in the sacra* 
 ment, namely, the virtual, the spiritual, and the 
 sacramental: and three modes more true and real 
 than the former, in which it may exist in heaven, 
 the substantial, the corporeal, and the dimensional. 
 Then he plunges us into a perfect jungle of argu- 
 mentation, in which I profess myself unable to see 
 my own way, and through which I, therefore, will not 
 attempt to conduct the reader. He emerges, how- 
 ever, at precisely the same conclusion on which he 
 takes his stand in his English confession ; namely, 
 that the venerable sacrament of the altar, is, naturally 
 bread and wine, sacramentally the body and blood of 
 Christ; and that the notion, that the Eucharist is 
 a mere accident separated from its proper subject, 
 involves both absurdity and heresy. He concludes, 
 by affirming that the priests of Baal, with a menda- 
 city worthy of the school of their father, magnify the 
 consecration of these accidents, reckon all masses but 
 their own unworthy to be heard, and pronounce unfit 
 for graduation all who dissent from their impostures: 
 and he expresses his confidence, that truth shall 
 finally overcome them. 
 
 Here then, it may a^ain be asked, where are the 
 proofs of Wiclif 's defection from his own cause ? All 
 the mazes and doublings of his scholastic logic con- 
 duct him, somehow or other, to the very position 
 which was assailed by his adversaries : a position 
 which he here maintains without a symptom of un- 
 steadiness or terror ; for he openly stigmatizes 'his 
 persecutors as priests of Baal, and ministers of the 
 father of lies ! From the charge of confusion, and 
 apparent inconsistency, it may perhaps be a matter 
 of much more difficulty to vindicate his statements. 
 Righteously and fully to estimate his merits or de- 
 merits, in this particular, would probably require the 
 application of a mind, as familiarly conversant as his 
 
252 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 own with the barbarous jargon of the schools, and 
 with the modes of reasoning, and the habits of thought, 
 then universally prevalent m the seminaries of learn- 
 ing and theology. There is, also, another considera- 
 tion, which no one should, for a moment, lose sight 
 of, who would profitably and impartially examine this, 
 or any other passage, in the history of me sacramental 
 controversy. From a very early period, this venera- 
 ble rite was spoken of as a most awful mystery.* 
 There seems to have prevailed, in all aces, an extreme 
 anxiety to avoid every mode of speech which might 
 lower its dignity and solemnity in the estimation 
 of the people. The language of the ancient fathers 
 bears emphatic testimony to the existence of this 
 feeling. It frequently is such, as to identify the hal- 
 lowed elements with the sacrifice they represented.! 
 
 * In the liturgy ascribed to St. James, the sacramental symhol are 
 
 ^ Ispovp- 
 
 vfcr Oela KCU Qetl iroios x&P 1 *' &*>Pv i^ir^pio'v tytfitov /uv/jatj' 6o\1j- 
 \arpcia- ev\oyia- .i)\apiaTta- re\rf] re\CToJv. Dominicum; hoetia 
 hostiarum ; rnysterium mysteriorum. 
 
 The disposition of Christians, of almost every sect, to see in the Eucha- 
 rist all that was awful and precious, is strikingly illustrated by J. Taylor : 
 "The beholders of a dove walking the sunshine, as they stand in seve- 
 ral aspects and distances, some see red, and others purple, others per- 
 ceive nothing but green, but all allow and love the beauties : so do the 
 several forms of Christians, as they are instructed by their first teachers, 
 or their own experience, conducted by their fancy and proper principles, 
 look upon these glorious mysteries, some as virtually containing the 
 reward of obedience ; some as solemnities of thanksgiving, and records 
 of blessing ; some as the objective increase of faith ; others as sacramental 
 participations of Christ ; others as acts and instruments of natural union ; 
 yet all affirm some great thing or other of it, and, by iheir very differences, 
 confess the immensity of the glory." 
 
 t " When you see this body before you," says the most eloquent of the 
 Greek Fathers, in speaking of the sacred elements, " say to yourself, this 
 is the body which was nailed to the cross, but which death could not 
 confine. It was this which the sun beheld fixed to the accursed tree, 
 and instantly veiled his light. It was this that rent the veil, and burst the 
 rocks, and cJnvulsed the earth. Do you wish to comprehend the full ex- 
 tent of its powers ? Ask the daughter of affliction wno touched the hem 
 of the garment that encircled it. Ask the sea which bore this body on the 
 surface. Ask Satan himself' What has inflicted onthee this incurable 
 wound ? What has robbed thee of thy strength ? Whence these chains 
 and this captivity ?' He will answer, that this crucified body ie the foe 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 253 
 
 When speaking with didactic caution, they would 
 carefully separate the symbol from the object signi- 
 fied ; but when endeavouring to elevate the devotion 
 of their congregations, they often forgot this watch- 
 fulness and discretion, and expressed themselves in 
 terms which, frequently repeated, would naturally 
 familiarize the hearers with the notion, that the body 
 of our Saviour was actually and locally present, in the 
 consecrated bread and wine; and thus it was, that 
 the impassioned eloquence of the preachers grew, 
 imperceptibly, into the doctrine of the Church. The 
 consequences of this may easily be imagined. In the 
 process of time, it imposed upon divines the hopeless 
 task of reconciling the language of rhetoric with that 
 of metaphysics. They dreaded to speak of the pre- 
 sence of Christ's body in the sacrament, as otherwise 
 than real, lest they should thereby degrade that hea- 
 venly mystery ; and yet they felt themselves compel- 
 led to acknowledge, almost in the same breath, that 
 this presence was but figurative and spiritual, lest 
 they should seem to contend for a presence strictly 
 local and corporeal. Hence the inextricable confu- 
 sion of this department of the ancient theology of 
 
 that hath broken his weapons, and hath bruised his head, and hath ex- 
 posed to shame and defeat the principalities and powers of his kingdom. 
 Ask Death, and say unto him, 'How hast thou been rifled of thy sting, 
 and how hath thy victory been wrested irom thee 1 How is it that thou 
 hast become the laughing-stock of youths and maidens thou that wast the 
 terror both of the ungodly and the righteous?' They will both answer by 
 accusing this mysterious body of their discomfiture and disgrace. For 
 when this body was crucified, then the dead arose and the prison of the 
 grave was burst open and the tenants of the tomb were set free and the 
 warders of hell were terror-stricken." And, again, still more strongly 
 *'Behold, I shew you here, not angels, nor archangels, nor the heaven of 
 heavens, but the blaster of all these ! Behold the most precious of all 
 things is exposed to your gaze ; and, not only so, but you are allowed to 
 touch it, and to handle it. ; nay not merely to touch it, but actually to 
 feed upon it." Chrysost. Horn, xxliii. in 1 Cor. vol. x. p. 217219. Ed. 
 Bened. 
 
 This sort of fervid and poetical theology, was well fitted to prepare the 
 glowing imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics, for the highest mysteries 
 of the sacramental doctrine ; and the only wonder is, that the tenet of 
 transubstantiation should have first made its appearance in the Western, 
 rather than in the Eastern Church. 
 22 
 
254 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 Europe. Hence the darkness and perplexity of this 
 confession of Wiclif. There can be very little doubt 
 that many sincere, and many , ;ofound thinkers, 
 found no refuge from the difficulties which had 
 gat In-red round the question, but in the bottomless 
 pit of Transubstantiation. Into this abyss, however, 
 Wiclif refused to plunge. Urged as he was to the 
 eJge of the gulf by his adversaries, he always stub- 
 bornly wheeled round again r and buried himself once 
 more in the labyrinth of his scholastic metaphysics. 
 The fault of his Latin confession, accordingly, is, 
 not that it contains a recantation of his opinions, 
 but, that it bristles all over with the thorns and bram- 
 bles which grew up naturally in the wilderness 
 through which he wandered. And, whatever may 
 be the entanglement of his logic, he contrives to 
 scramble through it to the very point, against which 
 the assaults of his antagonists are directed ; and when 
 he is once there, he, loudly and scornfully, defies 
 them to dislodge him. 
 
 That his Confessions did not, in the estimation of 
 his Inquisitors, or their adherents, amount to any 
 thing like an abandonment of his principles, may be 
 safely concluded from the fact, that he was assailed 
 by six several antagonists immediately after their 
 publication.* It may, also, be inferred, from the 
 result of the proceedings against him. His judges, 
 indeed, did not consign him to martyrdom. The 
 heretic was, now, well stricken in years ; age and toil 
 together had done their work on his constitution ; and 
 a few winters more would rid the Church of him that 
 troubled her. It was scarcely worth the hazard of 
 
 Eopular commotion and discontent, to light up the 
 res of persecution for a victim whom the course of 
 nature would probably soon remove. Besides, nei- 
 ther the Church nor the State of England were as yet 
 familiar with the work of blood ; and it might have 
 
 * Wordsw. Eccl. Biogr. vol, i. p. 49. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 255 
 
 been dangerous to begin it with one who was not 
 only venerable for his years, but still honoured for his 
 labours and his services. Under these circumstances, 
 it would be a sufficient triumph for the hierarchy to 
 separate their enemy for ever from the most illustri- 
 ous scene of his warfare ; and letters were accordingly 
 obtained from the King which condemned him to 
 banishment from the University of Oxford. The short 
 
 remnant of his days was passed in the 
 
 f -f * i_ j j "asses tne re- 
 retirement of Lutterworth ; and was divi- ma inder of his 
 ded between the discharge of his pastoral days at Lutter- 
 care, and the continued toils of his study. worth - 
 Neither time nor infirmity could abate the fire of his 
 devotion to the cause of truth ; and to the very last, 
 he laboured by his writings to give a wider diffusion 
 to his principles. 
 
 Somewhere about this time it was that . 
 
 -r-r-r- "I / 1 f ,1 H.Q 18811111111011- 
 
 Wiclif received a summons from the e d by the Pope 
 Pope, Urban VI. commanding him to to appear before 
 appear before him in person, and there 
 to defend himself from the imputation of heretical 
 doctrines. His answer to this mandate H i sanswer 
 is a very curious document. He was then 
 suffering from paralysis, and was thus disabled for 
 so formidable a journey. In his reply, however, he 
 does not content himself with declining to obey the 
 the citation ; but seizes the opportunity of offering to 
 the Pontiff much salutary and unceremonious advice. 
 He professes his joyful readiness to give account of 
 his faith to all true men, and especially to the Pope, 
 whom he acknowledges to be the highest Vicar that 
 Christ has on earth ; adding, however, that his great- 
 ness is not to be estimated by his worldly pomp, but 
 by his more eminent conformity to the law of Christ ; 
 who, while on earth, was the poorest of men " both 
 in spirit and in having." It was therefore, he submit- 
 ted, most wholesome counsel, that his Holiness should 
 leave his worldly lordship to worldly lords, and move 
 speedily all his clerks to do the same; and if this 
 
256 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 opinion of his should be found erroneous he was wil- 
 ling to be amended, even by death, if it were needful. 
 He protests that if he might travel in person, he 
 would with God's will, go to the Pope ; but Christ 
 had " needed" him to the contrary; and to Christ's 
 will it became both him and the Pope to submit, un- 
 less the Pope were willing to set up openly for Anti- 
 christ.* 
 
 * This letter is to be found in Lewis, Appendix, No. 23. p. 333. 
 
 It so happens that Mr. Soames's Bampton Lecture for 1830, did not fall 
 in my way, until after the above pages had been sent to the press. I should, 
 otherwise, have gladly seized the opportunity of acknowledging, in the 
 proper place, the obligations conferred on our Church by that valuable 
 writer, in his "Inquiry into the Doctrines of the Anglo-Saxon Church." 
 It is in his seventh sermon that Mr. Soames exhibits "that adamantine 
 chain of testimonies, extending unbroken from Bede to the Norman 
 Conquest. which proves, even to demonstration, that ancient England 
 was taught expressly to deny the leading distinctive doctrine of modern 
 Rome;" the doctrine which, upwards of four centuries after the Con- 
 quest, Wiclif intrepidly laboured to overthrow. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 257 
 
 CHAPTER VIE. 
 13821384. 
 
 Continued labours ofWiclifin his retirement Crusade for Urban 
 VI. under the command of Spencer, Bishop of Norwich Its fail- 
 ure Wiclif 's " Objections to the Freres" He condemns the Cru- 
 sade His opinions respecting the lawfulness of wars He con- 
 ceives his life to be in danger from his enemies His death His 
 character Traditions respecting him at LutterworthHis pre- 
 ferments not inconsistent with his notions respecting clerical pos- 
 sessions Wiclif nst a political Churchman Admirable for his 
 personal piety, as well as for his opposition to Romish abuse His 
 unwearied energy Probable effect of the scholastic discipline on 
 his mind alleged coarseness of his invectives Comparison of 
 Wiclif with Luther Prevalence of Widif's doctrines at Oxford 
 after his death The testimonial of the university in honour of 
 his memory, in 1406 Question of its authenticity considered 
 Persecution of Widif's memory by the Papal writers Prevalence 
 of his opinions in Bohemia His remains disinterred by a decree 
 ef the Council of Constance. 
 
 THE palsy which disabled Wiclif for at- c ti j^ k 
 tendance on the Pope, was, fortunately, boura^nvidSF 
 not severe enougu 10 suspend, for a mo- after his retire- 
 ment, the laborious exercise of his men- ment ' 
 tal powers. Nothing can well be more surprising 
 than the unweared activity with which he continued 
 to assail, from the retirement of his parsonage, the 
 manifold abuses of the Ecclesiastical system. To 
 write completely the history of the two last years of 
 his life, would, in fact, be to enumerate and to analyze 
 a long series of pub.li cations, following each other 
 in the closest order, and exhibiting proofs of unex- 
 hausted zeal and power. Besides his ordinary labours 
 for the pulpit, there are fourteen or fifteen of his trea- 
 tises^ several of them among the most important of 
 his writings, the publication of which may safely be 
 assigned to this very period. Whether the whole of 
 these were actually composed during the interval in. 
 22* 
 
258 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 question, or whether they were partly prepared be- 
 fore, and then wrought up and finished, it is now 
 scarcely possible to ascertain. But the date of their 
 appearance before the world seems to be fixed to this 
 time, beyond all reasonable doubt, by their occasional 
 allusion to preceding circumstances and events. The 
 spectacle they present to us is singularly interesting 
 and admirable. They set before us the example of a 
 man worn down by a life of toil and anxiety smitten 
 with a maladv which might seem to command a ces- 
 sation of all harassing exertion just escaped from 
 the very jaws of destruction, and constantly expect- 
 ing, (as the tenor of his latest writings seems plainly 
 to intimate,) that Persecution would soon be ready to 
 do her worst upon him and yet learning no lesson 
 of indolence or cowardice from these perils and trou- 
 bles. On the contrary, his energies appeared, if any 
 thing, to gather strength and brightness, as the sha- 
 dows of death were thickening round his temples. 
 Never, perhaps, since the commencement of his war- 
 fare, was Wiclif more formidable, than during the 
 season of his final banishment to Lutterworth. Never 
 was his voice more loudly raised in the cause of 
 Scriptural truth, than at the approach of that hour 
 which was to silence it for ever. 
 
 We have seen that, on a former occa- 
 Crusade in sup- sion, the danger which threatened Wiclif 
 port of Urban and his followers was powerfully divert- 
 _" 'Sf ed by the grand Papal schism which 
 Spencer, bishop began to distract the attention of all 
 of Norwich. Europe. The same cause of confusion 
 Btill continued in unabated operation; and at this 
 time manifested itself in a mode very curiously illus- 
 trative of the spirit of the age. England was, at that 
 period, the leading State which supported the claims 
 of Urban VI. to the Papacy, in opposition to those of 
 Clement; and the manner in which her patronage 
 was exerted, was such as to show, that the principles 
 of religious reformation, however vigorously infused 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 by Wiclif and his adherents, had as yet but very im- 
 perfectly mixed themselves with the moral circula- 
 tion of the English people. A crusade was pro- 
 claimed for the purpose of establishing the title of 
 the rightful Pontiff; and, the cause being eminently 
 sacred, it was thought that an ecclesiastic was un- 
 questionably the properest person to conduct it. Ac- 
 cordingly, the individual fixed upon to take the com- 
 mand of the British forces employed on this expedi- 
 tion was Henry Spencer, the youthful Bishop of 
 Norwich ; a man, in some respects, signally qualified 
 for such a charge. He was of high birth, unim- 
 peachable orthodoxy, notorious for his inflexible de- 
 votion to the interests of the Church, and celebrated 
 for that spirit of martial enterprise which, in those 
 times, was regarded as no ungraceful accompaniment 
 to the spiritual function. His detestation of Lollard- 
 ism was such as to render him worthy of a place in 
 the commission assembled in the chamber of the 
 Preaching Friars, and rendered for ever memorable 
 by the earthquake which had nearly confounded its 
 proceedings. His martial quality had found an op- 
 portunity for display during the fearful insurrection 
 of the peasantry, and was said to have been mainly 
 instrumental in preserving his own diocese from the 
 dreadful effects of that commotion. Instead of con- 
 fining himself, on that occasion, to a warfare whose 
 weapons were not carnal, he put forth the arm of flesh 
 with undaunted confidence and vigour. The spiritual 
 guide was forgotten in the feudal baron ; and, at the 
 head of his vassals, the adventurous Prelate taught 
 u the ribald multitude," (as he styled them,) to res- 
 pect the laws, which the supineness or the panic of 
 the government had exposed to most disgraceful 
 outrage. There is something almost diverting in the 
 description of this bellipotent Churchman, given by 
 the annalist, who, with manifest satisfaction, records 
 his exploits. He is represented to us as " armed to 
 the very nails grasping his lance in his right-hand 
 
LIFE OF WTCLIF. 
 
 burying his spurs in the flanks of his charger rush- 
 ing with the lury of a wild boar into the midst of the 
 rascal crowd, and there dealing confusion and havoc 
 around him," until victory declared for the mailed 
 functionary of sanctity and peace.* Such was the re- 
 markable personage entrusted with the championship 
 of Urban VI. He went forth to the adventure armed 
 with all the might, and all the magic, wherewith the 
 superstition of the age could encircle him. A public 
 mandate was issued by the Primate,! calling for the 
 prayers of the faithful on behalf of an enterprise, 
 which had for its object the extermination of the 
 heretics : and, (what was of infinitely greater im- 
 portance and efficacy,) " marvellous indulgences "J 
 were placed by Urban at the disposal of the Bishop, 
 which enabled him to collect an incredible amount 
 of treasure ; towards which, the faith and bounty of 
 the female sex supplied the most prodigal contribu- 
 tions. By these stupendous absolutions, both the 
 quick and the dead were released from the guilt and 
 the punishment of sin, provided always that the 
 liberality of the living was fully commensurate to 
 the extent of the benefit conferred. And that nothing 
 might be wanting to stimulate the believers to pro- 
 fusion it was fearlessly affirmed by many of the 
 Bishop's commissaries, that angels would descend 
 from heaven, at their word, to snatch the souls of the 
 guilty from the abodes of purgatory, and to conduct 
 them without delay to the realms of bliss. It would 
 be alien from the purpose of the present work to in- 
 troduce a narrative of this expedition. It must be 
 enough to say, that the impetuous Churchman proved, 
 after all, but a very sorry captain. The vulgar attri- 
 bute of courage, he most undoubtedly possessed ; but 
 his intrepidity seems to have been wholly unmixed 
 with any higher military qualities ; and the enterprise 
 
 Walsingham, p. 278, 279. t Wilk. Cone. p. 176, 177. 
 
 J ? c Mirabiles inoulgentias," &c. Knight, p, 2671. 
 All this is gravely related by Knighton, as a very edifying affair ! 
 Knight. 2671. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 261 
 
 had precisely that termination which might be ex- 
 pected from the rashness, arrogance, and Failure of the 
 obstinacy of its commander. After crusade, 
 spreading carnage and devastation through various 
 parts of Flanders, the crusaders were soon compelled 
 to return, rich in nothing but deeds of waste and 
 bloodshed ; and the fiery prelate himself, on revisiting 
 his country, was greeted with the universal outcry 
 of public scorn.* 
 
 This mad adventure, and the means by which the 
 sinews of its warfare were supplied, must have fur- 
 nished Wiclif with mournful proof that his labours 
 had hitherto, made no deep impression upon the 
 compact and solid mass of the national superstitions. 
 But to him, dejection and despair seem to have been 
 unknown. He was always prepared to work like 
 one who felt that he was toiling for future ages. The 
 crusade against Clement might have persuaded a less 
 resolute spirit that all resistance to the powers of 
 falsehood were vain and hopeless. Wiclif had no 
 ears to hear such treacherous whisperings. His 
 spirit was powerfully moved within him at this fresh 
 eruption of impiety ; and his honest indignation was 
 manifested by a renewal of his contest with the 
 Mendicants : for the Mendicants, as Wiclifa Ob . 
 might be expected, were the busiest jections to the 
 among the tribute-gatherers for the en- Freres." 
 terprise in question. Accordingly, it was at this 
 period that he put forth his 'tract, entitled " Objec- 
 tions to the Freres ;" the same treatise which has 
 been already noticed, and in which, under fifty com- 
 pendious articles, he concentrates and sums up nearly 
 all the censures which he had ever advanced against 
 their practices and opinions. That the tract in ques- 
 tion appeared about this time, is rendered certain, by 
 its allusion to the sacramental controversy, to the 
 Papal schism, and to the war in Flanders, as an 
 
 * Froissart. Walsingh. 
 
262 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 expedition, the only object of which was " to make 
 Christ's Vicar the wealthiest in the world." In 
 another of his works which was also published nearly 
 at the same period, " the Sentence of the Curse Ex- 
 He condemns pounded," he makes a direct attack on 
 the Crusades. fa e infatuation of the Crusaders. He 
 there complains that the Pope brings " the seal and 
 banner of Christ on the cross, that is the token of 
 peace, mercy, and charity, for to slee all Christen 
 men, for love of twaie false priests, that ben open 
 Anti-Christs, for to meynteyne their worldly state, 
 to oppress Christendom, worse than Jews weren 
 against holy writ, and life of Christ and his apostles." 
 And he asks, indignantly, " Why wole not the proud 
 priest of Rome grant full pardon to all men for to 
 live in peace, and charitie, and patience, as he doth 
 to all men to fight and slee Christen men ?"* The 
 same subject is introduced into his treatise on the 
 seven deadly sins ; and it furnishes him with an oc- 
 casion of propounding certain eccentric and adventu- 
 rous opinions relative to the practice of war. The 
 . title of conquest he conceives to be utterly 
 
 ions respecting worthless and untenable, unless the con- 
 the lawfulness quest itself be expressly commanded by 
 the Almighty ; as in the case of the 
 tribes of Israel when they seized upon the land of 
 Canaan. And, even so, in these latter days, when 
 sin hath wrought the forfeiture of any kingdom, 
 Christ, as the rightful Sovereign of ail the earth, may, 
 by his word, deliver that kingdom into the hands of 
 whom he will. But then he affirms, that it is not 
 within human competency to pronounce that any 
 such forfeiture hath actually been incurred, unless 
 the assailants are certified thereof by a revelation 
 from heaven. A very different doctrine, he allowed, 
 was held by the supreme Pontiff, and his adherents, 
 who have frequently given their sanction to religious 
 
 Lewis, c. vii. p. 121. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 263 
 
 "Wars :* but it was always to be kept in mind, that 
 St. Peter himself was liable to error ; and it might, 
 therefore, fairly be surmised, that the same infirmity 
 had descended to his successors : and he infers, from 
 the whole matter, that all hostilities undertaken with- 
 out a special injunction from the God of battles, are, 
 under the Christian dispensation, as indefensible, as 
 they were under the Jewish theocracy. Wars of 
 self-defence fare little better, in his judgment, than 
 wars of conquest or aggression. Friends, he tells us, 
 have been withstood by angels, and righteous men 
 have often overcome the wicked : but in neither in- 
 stance has the cause been committed to the arbitre- 
 ment of force. Sometimes the law of the land will 
 enable us to resist our adversaries ; and, at all times, 
 men of the Gospel, by the spirit of patience and 
 of peace, have been, and ever may be, conquerors 
 through the suffering of death. How the quarrels of 
 nations are to be settled upon these principles, he 
 does not proceed to instruct us. Possibly he might 
 be withheld by the conviction, that it would be to 
 little purpose to enlarge further upon a doctrine, 
 which, as he confesses, he well knew would be re- 
 ceived with general scorn. Contemptible as" it was, 
 however, he avers that men, who would be martyrs 
 for the law of God, would hold thereby : and he sar- 
 castically adds, that the knight who derives his hon- 
 ours from the slaughter of his fellow-creatures, is 
 frequently outdone by the hangman, who killeth many 
 more, and with a better title. f 
 
 Whatever may be the crudity of some of these 
 positions, it is obvious that he who insisted on them, 
 would be prepared to give no quarter to the iniquities 
 of this Papal crusade. He accordingly returns, re- 
 peatedly, to the charge against it. A fighting priest, 
 
 * "Such wars," says Fuller, "increased the intrado of the Pope's 
 revenues. Some say purgatory fire heateth his kitchen : they may add, 
 the holy war filled his pot, if hot paid for all his second course." Holy 
 War, B. v. c. 12. 
 
 t MS. Horn. Bib. Reg. 18. b. ix. p. 109. cited by Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 211. 
 
264 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 he describes as no better than a fiend, stained foul 
 with homicide. The friars, indeed, may say that 
 bishops can fight best of all men, and that the work 
 becomes them nobly, since they are lords of the whole 
 world. Thus, they tell us, did Maccabeus fight; and 
 Christ bade his disciples sell their coats, and buy them 
 swords ; but whereto, if not to fight? But Christ, he 
 replies, taught not his apostles to fight with swords 
 of iron, but with the sword of God's word, which 
 standeth in meekness of heart, and in prudence of 
 tongue : and the two Popes would do well to give 
 heed to these truths, when they fight with each other, 
 with the most blasphemous leasings, that ever issued 
 out of hell.* 
 
 He r neeivea THat WlcHf W3S full y &Ware f the 
 
 his life to be in danger attendant on all this " free-spoken 
 danger from his truth," seems clear from various passa- 
 ges of his writings, and, more especially, 
 of his Trialogus, which was produced after his banish- 
 ment from Oxford, and in which it is plainly inti- 
 mated, that a multitude of the friars, and of others who 
 were called Christians, were then compassing his 
 death by every variety of machination.! That he 
 had fully counted the cost of his warfare, is further 
 evident from the language in which he contends for 
 the necessity of constant preparation for martyrdom. 
 " It is a satanical excuse," he says, in the same trea- 
 tise, "made by modern hypocrites, that it is not ne- 
 cessary now to suffer martyrdom, as it was in the 
 primitive Church, because now all, or the greatest 
 part of living men, are believers, and there are no 
 tyrants who put Christians to death. This excuse is 
 suggested by the devil : for, if the faithful would now 
 stand firm for the law of Christ, and, as his soldiers, 
 endure bravely any sufferings, they might tell the 
 
 * From the MS. of Dr. James in the Bodleian, cited by Vaughan, vol. ii. 
 p. 212, 213. 
 
 t Trialogus, lib. iv. c. 4. 17. 39. See Lewis, c. vii. p. 125. Turner's 
 HiatofEng.pt.iv. p. 424. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 265 
 
 Pope, the cardinals, the bishops, and other prelates, 
 how, departing from the faith of the Gospel, they 
 minister unfitly to God, and what perilous injury 
 they commit against his people." And he adds, 
 " Instead of visiting pagans, to convert them by mar- 
 tyrdom, let us preach constantly the law of Christ to 
 princely prelates: martyrdom will then meet us, 
 speedily enough, if we persevere in faith and pa- 
 tience."* We have seen, however, that in the midst 
 of all his dangers, there were various causes which 
 combined to divert the malice of his adversaries, and 
 to save them from the " deep damnation of his taking 
 off." The times were full of confusion. England was 
 convulsed by contending factions. The antagonist 
 Pontiffs were still engaged in anathematizing each 
 other, and in tearing Europe to pieces. And then, 
 although the Duke of Lancaster withdrew his open 
 support from the Reformer, when once he committed 
 himself to the sacramental contest, it was very doubtful 
 whether he would endure the sacrifice of his valued 
 and time-honoured friend. Besides, it was evident 
 that the days of Wiclif were drawing to an end : and 
 the result of all these circumstances was, that the 
 man who for more than twenty years had made the 
 kingdom echo with his testimony against the corrup- 
 tions of the Church, was, nevertheless, doomed to 
 close his immortal labours by a peaceful death, f 
 After his settlement at Lutter worth, his infirmities 
 compelled him to ease the burden of his parochial 
 duties, by the assistance of a curate. To the last, 
 however, he did not wholly discontinue his personal 
 ministrations ; and it was his happiness to finish his 
 course in the public execution of his holy office. On 
 the 29th of December, 1384, he was mortally seized 
 with paralysis, in his church, during the celebration 
 
 * Trialogus, cited by Turner, pt. iv. p. 424. 
 
 t "Admirable," says Fuller, "that a hare so often hunted, with so 
 many packs of dogs, should die, at last, quietly sitting in his form." 
 Church Hist. p. 142. 
 
 23 
 
266 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 of mass, and just about the time of the elevation of 
 the sacrament. The attack was so severe as to de- 
 prive him of speech, and to render him utterly help- 
 less. In this condition he lingered two days; and 
 was finally taken to his rest, on the last 
 
 DeathofWiciif. da Y of the Y ear > and in the sixty-first 
 
 year of his age. 
 
 Character of Thus prematurely was terminated the 
 Wiciif. career of this extraordinary man. His 
 
 days were not extended to the length usually allotted 
 to our species. Ten more years of vigorous exertion 
 might reasonably have been expected from the vir- 
 tuous and temperate habits of an exemplary life. 
 But the earthly tenement was, probably, worn out by 
 the intense and fervid energy of the spirit within : 
 and if his mortal existence be measured by the amount 
 of his labours and achievements, he must appear to us 
 as full of days as he was of honours. It now remains 
 that we endeavour to form a righteous estimate of 
 him, as he presents himself to our conceptions 
 through the haze and mist of ages. Unfortunately, 
 he is known to us almost entirely by his writings. 
 Over all those minute and personal peculiarities 
 which give to any individual his distinct expression 
 and physiognomy, time has drawn an impenetrable 
 veil. To us he appears, for the most part, as a sort 
 of unembodied agency. To delineate his character, in 
 the fullest and most interesting sense of that word, 
 would be to write romance, and not biography. Dur- 
 ing a portion of his life, indeed, he is more or less 
 mixed up with public interests and transactions : but 
 of these matters our notices are but poor and scanty ; 
 and, if they were more copious, they would, probably, 
 do little towards supplying us with those nameless par- 
 ticulars to which biography owes its most powerful 
 charm. With regard to the details of his daily life, 
 the habitual complexion of his temper the turn of 
 his conversation the manner of his deportment 
 among his companions his inclinations or antipa- 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 267 
 
 thies his friendships or his alienations we must be 
 content to remain in hopeless ignorance. The only 
 circumstance recorded concerning him, that falls 
 within the description of an anecdote, is the reply with 
 which he confounded the meddling and insidious 
 Friars, who intruded themselves upon him when they 
 thought he was about to breathe his last. This inci- 
 dent is, indeed, most abundantly characteristic ; and 
 it makes us bitterly regret that it stands alone. A 
 few more such particulars would have been quite in- 
 valuable. As it is, we must be satisfied to think of 
 him as a voice crying in the wilderness, and lifting 
 up, through a long course of years, a loud, incessant, 
 heart-stirring testimony, against abuses, which for 
 ages had wearied the long-suffering of heaven. Re- 
 specting his gigantic successor, Martin Luther, we 
 are in possession of all that can enable us to form the 
 most distinct conception of the man. We see him 
 in connexion with the wise, and the mighty, and 
 " the excellent of the earth." We behold him in his 
 intercourse with sages and divines, with princes and 
 with potentates. We can trace him, too, through all 
 those bitter agonies of spirit through which he strug- 
 gled on, and on, till at last he seized upon the truth 
 which made him free for ever. But, to us, Wiclif ap- 
 pears almost as a solitary being. He stands before us in 
 a sort of grand and mysterious loneliness. To group 
 him, if we so may speak, with other living men, would 
 require a very strong effort of the imagination. And 
 hence it is that we meditate on his story with emo- 
 tions of solemn admiration, but without any turbulent 
 agitation of our sympathies. 
 
 In this penury of information, tradi- Trad i tiong re . 
 tion steps in, as it were, to " help us with specting wiclif 
 a little help." Various stories, it would at Lutterworth, 
 appear, are current to this day in the town of Lutter* 
 worth, respecting its ancient and renowned rector. 
 But the only one among them that appears worthy of 
 attention, is that which represents him as admirable 
 
268 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 in all the functions of a parochial minister. A por- 
 tion of each morning, it is said, was regularly devoted 
 to the relief of the necessitous, to the consolation 
 of the afflicted, and to the discharge of every pious 
 office, by the bed of sickness and of death. Every 
 thing which is actually known respecting Wiclif 
 combines to render this account entirely credible. 
 The duties of the Christian ministry form the inces- 
 sant burden of a considerable portion of his writings. 
 To the faithfulness and assiduity with which he 
 discharged one very essential portion of those duties, 
 the extant manuscripts of his parochial discourses 
 bear ample and honourable testimony. There is 
 nothing, therefore, which can tempt the most scepti- 
 cal caution to question the report which describes 
 him as exemplary in every department of his sa- 
 cred stewardship. " Good priests," he himself tells 
 us, " who live well, in purity of thought, and speech, 
 and deed, and in good example to the people, who 
 teach the law of God, up to their knowledge, and 
 labour fast, day and night, to learn it better, and teach 
 it openly and constantly, these are very prophets of 
 God, and holy angels of God, and the spiritual lights 
 of the world ! Thus saith God, by his prophets, and 
 Jesus Christ in his Gospel ; and saints declare it well 
 by authority and reason. Think, then, ye priests, on 
 this noble office, and honour it, and do it cheerfully 
 according to your knowledge and your power !"* it 
 is surely delightful to believe that the people of Lut- 
 terworm had before their eyes the living and breath- 
 ing form of that holy benevolence which is here pour- 
 trayed with so much admirable simplicity and beauty. 
 His prefer- The preceding narrative has already 
 menu? not in- made us acquainted with the notions 
 consistent with entertained by Wiclif relative to the 
 
 his notions re- , v i /-^i t. j v. 
 
 specting cieri- endowments of the Church, and the re- 
 cai possessions, venues of individual clergymen. And it 
 
 * MS. For the order of priesthood, cited by Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 259. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 269 
 
 y^ perhaps, be thought somewhat remarkable that 
 any one who maintained such principles should ne- 
 vertheless have held, without apparent scruple, the 
 chair of theology at Oxford, a prebendal stall, and a 
 parochial rectory. Of the value of these preferments 
 we are in no condition to form any satisfactory esti- 
 mate. They must, however, in all probability, have 
 been considerable ; at any rate, they must have been 
 far beyond the measure of what was needful to sup- 
 ply the moderate necessities of life, at a period when 
 the sacred office doomed its professors to celibacy; 
 and, therefore, far beyond that which his system 
 would seem to allot, as the legitimate provision of a 
 Christian minister. The truth is, that Wiclif seems 
 to have regarded all the endowments of the Church 
 as a manifest departure from the original spirit of 
 the Christian system. Had he been allowed to re- 
 model our ecclesiastical polity, he would, probably, 
 have made the clergy dependent on the voluntary 
 offerings of the people. However, he found a differ- 
 ent scheme actually established ; and he, doubtless, 
 conceived himself at liberty to conform to it, provided 
 the funds entrusted to his stewardship were adminis- 
 tered by him according to the intention of the ori- 
 ginal donor. This intention he understood to be, 
 that the holder of those funds should retain for his 
 own use so much as might be required for his own 
 support, upon a frugal and moderate scale ; but that, 
 for every thing beyond his own personal wants, he 
 should stand in the place of perpetual almoner to the 
 founder, and perpetual trustee for the poor. Now 
 there appears no reasonable cause to question that 
 Wiclif acted faithfully up to this principle. His ad- 
 versaries have never breathed a syllable to the dis- 
 paragement of his integrity in this particular. He 
 has never, that I am aware, been charged, by those 
 who most cordially hated him, with inconsistency, 
 for accepting or retaining his preferments, or with 
 avarice and selfishness in the disposal of his emolu- 
 23* 
 
270 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 ments. And when we combine this consideration 
 with the traditional accounts of him, which still sur- 
 vive at Lutterworth, the almost irresistible inference 
 is, that he did, actually, regard all his superfluities as 
 strictly consecrated to the relief of indigence. 
 
 With regard to the private life, and personal habits 
 of Wiclif, it has never been denied by his adversa- 
 ries, that in these respects he was altogether above 
 impeachment or suspicion. But it requires no incon- 
 siderable exercise of patience to observe the spirit 
 which seems to have presided over the representations 
 Wiclif, not a &i ven f mrn ^7 some, whom we might 
 political naturally expect to find among his 
 
 churchman. friends. By these he is pictured to us 
 rather under the aspect of an unquiet political agi- 
 tator than of a devout and spiritual servant of Christ.* 
 The foundation for this charge it is beyond my capa- 
 city to discover. It is true that his great reputation 
 fixed the eyes of the government upon him as the 
 fittest person to vindicate his country from the igno- 
 miny and the oppression of the I apal tribute that 
 the same cause dispatched him, among other illus- 
 trious men, as the representative of her ecclesiastical 
 interests in the embassy to Bruges and, lastly, that 
 the Parliament of England resorted to the sanction 
 of his judgment, when they resolved, that the very 
 marrow of the realm should no longer be drained 
 eut, to pamper the greediness and ambition of a 
 foreign court. Services like these would seem to de- 
 mand of Englishmen no other sentiments than those 
 of gratitude and reverence : and that eye must, in- 
 deed, be keen to u pry into abuses," which can dis- 
 cover in the performance of such services any griev- 
 ous departure from the sacredness of the spiritual 
 function. An English ecclesiastic, o,f distinguished 
 sagacity and erudition, was employed to defend the 
 Church and State of England against the rapacity 
 
 * Milnert Church History. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 271 
 
 of aliens ; and this, too, in an age when the talents 
 and accomplishments of Churchmen were constantly 
 in requisition, for all the most arduous responsibili- 
 ties of secular office. This is the whole truth and 
 substance of the case. If, indeed, it could be shown 
 that the days and nights of Wiclif had been wholly, 
 or chiefly, consumed in occupations and engagements 
 of this description, and that his powers were thus 
 diverted from the peculiar channel in which the main 
 current of a Churchman's exertions ought, indisputa- 
 bly, to flow, there might be some pretence for this 
 invidious exhibition of his character. But the fact is 
 not so. The occurrences in question were nothing 
 more than short episodes in his life. We have only 
 to look into his writings, or, even into a catalogue of 
 his writings, to see how small a portion of his time 
 on earth was absorbed by matters in which politics 
 had the slightest concern. And the more rigorously 
 those writings are scrutinized, the more clearly will it 
 appear, that no confessor was ever animated by a 
 more disinterested, unworldly, and devotional spirit, 
 than the man who enjoyed the friendship of John of 
 Gaunt, and the confidence of the British Parliament.* 
 The imperfect justice hitherto rendered wiciif as admi- 
 to the memory of Wiclif, as a man of rabieforhisper- 
 deep religious affections, may, in part, fo^his^op^ 
 be the natural effect of that peculiar in- tion to Romish 
 terest which attaches to his character as abuse> 
 the antagonist of a corrupt hierarchy. We have been 
 accustomed to regard him, chiefly, as the scourge of 
 imposture, the ponderous hammer, that smote upon 
 the brazen idolatry of his age ; and our thoughts 
 have thus been too much withdrawn from the work, 
 which was constantly going forward within the re- 
 
 * The limits of this work forbid the introduction of passages from the 
 works of Wiclif, in support of this assertion. They, however, who may 
 be desirous of satisfying themselves upon this point, have only to peruse 
 the more diffuse volumes of Mr. Vaughan, whose laborious examination 
 of the whole of Wiclif a writings, both printed, and in MS., has enabled 
 him, in this particular, irresistibly to vindicate his memory. 
 
272 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 cesses of his own spirit. A more just and patient 
 consideration of his writings will show us, that the 
 demolition of error, and of fraud, was not more con- 
 stantly present to his mind, than the building up of 
 holy principles and affections. These two objects 
 are, for the most part, closely interwoven with each 
 other : and this it is, together with his use of the ver- 
 nacular tongue, which gave his writings their wide 
 and powerful influence. There had, doubtless, (as 
 we have already observed,) been produced before his 
 time, and within the very bosom of the Romish 
 Church, considerable stores of solid and devotional 
 theology; but, then, they were either enshrined in 
 such " cunning work" of scholastic subtilty and ab- 
 straction, or they were so guiltless of all reference 
 to existing circumstances and abuses, that, to the 
 people, they were, generally, no better than the 
 merest nullities; and they were, consequently, re- 
 garded with supreme indifference and composure, by 
 the Romish Church. The reveries of Plato were 
 scarcely more innocuous to the worldly system of the 
 Papacv, than pure effusions of the most exalted piety; 
 such, for instance, as the works of Bradwardine, or, 
 at a later period, the treatise of Thomas a Kempis. 
 But the toils of Wiclif had a twofold object. He 
 laboured not only to shake in pieces the outward 
 fabric of the house of Rimmon, but, also, to expose 
 and to correct the personal vices and corruptions 
 which had for ages sought a shelter in its sanctuary. 
 The former of these is an undertaking, which rouses 
 the indignant sympathies of mankind. The latter is 
 a work which summons all who contemplate it, to a 
 painful examination of their own hearts and con- 
 sciences. And hence it is, that the cause which ex- 
 posed him to persecution in his own day, is that 
 which has principally made him the object of admi- 
 ration in the times which followed. The Reformer 
 of Christian morals has been forgotten in the Re- 
 former of Papal abuse ; and thus his memory has- 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 273 
 
 been left open to the suggestion, that he is to be 
 honoured as the antagonist of Popery, not as the ad- 
 vocate of Christ, fitted to join with politicians and 
 with princes, in their resistance to encroachment, 
 rather than to band with saints and confessors in 
 bearing testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus. 
 
 If any one were required to point out His unwearied 
 the distinguishing attribute of Wiclif 's energy. 
 mind, he might, with justice, fix upon its inexhausti- 
 ble and unwearying energy. He was not one of those 
 small combatants, who soon speed their puny shafts, 
 and, when their quiver is once emptied, sit down con- 
 tented, and, think their warfare is accomplished. He 
 was, it may be truly said, a most " insatiate archer." 
 For a long series of years his bolts followed each 
 other so thick and fast, that his enemies, who affirm- 
 ed that he was an emissary of Satan, might have 
 been almost justified in pronouncing that his name 
 was Legion. One would imagine, that his spirit never 
 enjoyed a moment's ease or comfort, but while it was 
 giving impulse to his pen ; for it has been conjectured 
 that, if all his works could be brought together, they 
 would form a collection nearly equal in bulk to the 
 writings of St. Augustine. His attainments, for the 
 age in which he lived, were eminent and admirable. 
 He was acknowledged as a mighty clerk, even by 
 Archbishop Arundel;* and we have already seen 
 that his skill in the scholastic discipline was allowed 
 to be incomparable. This last accomplishment, it 
 has frequently been observed, was of signal service 
 to the cause to which he dedicated himself. It is 
 justly remarked, by Mr. Turner, in speaking of his 
 Trialogus, that " its attractive merit was, that it com- 
 bined the new opinions with the scholas- _ 
 tic style of thinking and deduction. It TfThelcUS 
 was not the mere illiterate Reformer, discipline on 
 teaching novelties, whom the man of hismind ' 
 
 Thorp's Examination. 
 
274 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 education disdained and derided : it was the respected 
 academician, reasoning with the ideas of the Re- 
 former."* If estimated, however, by its effect upon 
 his own mind, rather than by its influence upon the 
 minds of others, the Genius of the Schools was but 
 a very questionable ally. It was frequently a source 
 of weakness rather than of strength. It seems, 
 whenever he called it to his aid, to have exercised a 
 sinister and treacherous influence upon all his facul- 
 ties, and often to have forced them grievously aside 
 from their simplicity and rectitude. When he is 
 addressing untutored minds, he usually drives his 
 ploughshare right onward ; but no sooner does he 
 yoke this capricious drudge with his own sturdy oxen, 
 than all manner of unsteadiness and obliquity seems 
 to be the consequence. This we have seen remark- 
 ably exemplified in his two confessions, relative to 
 the Eucharist. The English one is, on the whole, 
 simple and perspicuous enough: the other, which is 
 in Latin, and composed with a view to more accom- 
 plished judges, runs out into all the mazes and intri- 
 cacies of the favourite mode of reasoning; and the 
 result is, that it has given his adversaries occasion to 
 charge him with cowardly and disingenuous artifice, 
 and to affirm, that his object was to envelope him- 
 self in darkness, and so to effect his escape. The 
 injustice of this charge, however, has been already 
 shown. Timidity can have had no concern with the 
 obscurity and perplexity of this document for timid- 
 ity never would have dictated the sentence with 
 which it concludes, and which very intelligibly stig- 
 matizes his persecutors and assailants as little better 
 than agents .of the Devil. The scholastic discipline 
 may, perhaps, have occasionally bewildered his intel- 
 lect ; but it would be very difficult to show that it 
 ever spread a mist over his moral perceptions. 
 
 * Turner, Hist. England, pt. iv. p. 420. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 275 
 
 It is, perhaps, scarcely worth while to Alleged coaiae , 
 recur to the imputation of unmannerly ness of his in- 
 coarseness, which the adversaries of vectives - 
 Wiclif have laboured to fix upon the style in which 
 he arraigned the existing iniquities of the Romish 
 system. One word more upon the subject may, 
 however, be endured. Refinement, it must surely 
 be well known, was not among the characteristics of 
 the fourteenth century. The language of Wiclif 's 
 Romish adversaries would alone be sufficient to show 
 this ; for he can bear no comparison with them in the 
 command of these implements of controversial war- 
 fare. Even if we advance from the fourteenth cen- 
 tury to the sixteenth, we shall, unhappily, perceive, 
 that urbanity and mildness had found but little favour 
 among men who were engaged in theological or lite- 
 rary conflict. Wiclif might, really, have gone to 
 school to Martin Luther and John Calvin, had he 
 lived in their days, and had he been desirous to perfect 
 himself in the accomplishment of railing. It is hu- 
 miliating, indeed, to think, that this species of fire- 
 brand should ever be madly tossed about by men, who 
 appeared as ministers and champions of a religion, 
 which speaks incessantly of benevolence and of 
 courtesy. But, in estimating the blame of such 
 excesses, it is weak and ignorant to disregard the 
 complexion of the age, which will usually be exhibited 
 in greater vividness, in proportion to the vehement 
 sincerity of its masterful and over-ruling spirits. 
 
 The name of Wiclif irresistibly carries comparison of 
 us forward to that of Luther, and invites Wiclif with Lu- 
 us to a moment's comparison of these ther - 
 mighty spirits with each other. In one respect the 
 resemblance between their destinies is eminently 
 striking : it was the glory of each to give the holy 
 Scriptures to his countrymen, in their native tongue. 
 In vehemence of temperament, in audacity of genius, 
 and heroism of soul, the German may, indeed, be 
 thought to stand above our countryman ; and, in truth, 
 
276 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 it would, perhaps, be difficult to fix on many, among 
 the sons of men, fit to endure, in these particulars, a 
 comparison with the Saxon monk. It is impossible 
 to think of him, setting at nought the thunders of 
 the earthly divinity, and tossing into the flames his 
 Bull of excommunication, without being reminded 
 of the warrior of antiquity, proclaiming that if the 
 bolt of Jove himself were to fall at his feet, it should 
 not, for a moment, arrest his course.* On the other 
 hand, however, it should be remembered, that Luther 
 breathed an air which had long been most potently 
 impregnated with the very essence of innovation. For 
 several ages, an accusing spirit had been wandering 
 throughout the continent, and loudly arraigning the 
 abuses of the Papacy. In many parts of Europe, it 
 had found a congenial element, sometimes even 
 within the precincts of the Imperial Palace of Germa- 
 ny. But, till the days of Wiclif, " the noise of its 
 wings 11 had been but faintly heard in England. Its 
 influences may, doubtless, have been considerably 
 aided by the intercourse between this country and its 
 continental dependencies. But it was never power- 
 ful enough to seize on any strong positions in our 
 land. The resistance offered to Popery by our mo- 
 narchs, our barons, and our parliaments, was the 
 resistance of politicians, indignant at the impoverish- 
 ment and disgrace of their country, rather than of 
 Christian men, afflicted for the perversion and abuse 
 of their religious institutions. Among our bravest 
 and loftiest minds, indeed, that of Grostete seems to 
 have been most deeply smitten with an earnest long- 
 ing for better and purer times. But even his aspir- 
 ings stirred him not to an open and systematic con- 
 flict with corruption, in the face of the whole realm. 
 This was an enterprise reserved for our Reformer : 
 and the circumstances under which he seized upon the 
 adventure, were, in some respects, perhaps, more full 
 of terror than those which ever frowned upon the 
 Sept. central Thebas. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 277 
 
 antagonist of Tetzel. In the early days of Luther, 
 the Papacy appears to have settled quietly down upon 
 its lees. The outcry for improvement was occasion- 
 ally loud and vehement, indeed: but the clamour 
 had been so often raised in vain, that it was listened 
 to, at length, with most insolent composure ; so that 
 the lethargy of the Vatican was broken only by the 
 uproar of the assault upon it. And then, too, when 
 once the conflict began, the leader of it could number 
 potentates among his allies and partisans ; till, at last, 
 he may be said to have had 
 
 A kingdom for a stage, princes for actors, 
 And monarchs to behold the swelling scene. 
 
 Not so in the age of Wiclif. The Papacy then, at 
 least, was vigilant and active, and nearly m the full 
 integrity of its strength. At all events, the secret of 
 its weakness had not then been partially exposed by 
 the Councils of Pisa, of Constance, and of Basil ; and 
 therefore it was, that a voice from England, demand- 
 ing reformation, denouncing the religious Orders as 
 the legions of the fiend and calling on the Holy 
 Father himself to cast away his " crown of pride," 
 and his unhallowed wealth (and all this too in a 
 tongue understood, not only by the Scribe, and the 
 Recorder, and the Priest, but by the people sitting on 
 the wall) a voice like this, from the chiefest and 
 and most fruitful paradise of the Papacy, must have 
 sounded like the trumpet-note of insane rebellion and 
 apostasy ; and must have awakened the direst wrath 
 in the heart of the Papal autocrat. It must also be 
 considered, that although the Englishman was, to a 
 certain extent, countenanced 'by the mother of the 
 King, and by the most powerful Prince of the blood, 
 he met with no support which deserved to be com- 
 pared with that retinue of powerful patronage which 
 gave effect to the exertions of Luther; and, that, 
 towards the close of his life, even that protection 
 dropped away from him, and left him open to an- 
 24 
 
278 LIFE OF W1CLIF. 
 
 ticipations of martyrdom. And yet, in spite of these 
 discouragements, he continued urgent and faithful to 
 the very last ; differing from his former self, at the 
 close of his days, in nothing but the larger extent of 
 his views, the deeper intensity of his convictions, and 
 the more exalted daring of his purposes. Allowing, 
 therefore, to Luther, the highest niche in this sacred 
 department of the Temple of Renown, I know not 
 who can be chosen to fill the next, if it shall be denied 
 to Wiclif. 
 
 There seems to be no doubt that, after 
 WiSt^ the death of Wiclif, his opinions conti- 
 ions, at Oxford, nued to prevail in the University of Ox- 
 ath - ford, to an extent which excited the in- 
 dignation of the Ecclesiastical authorities, and that 
 his memory was cherished there with feelings of the 
 profoundest veneration. The prevalence of his doc- 
 trines is abundantly attested by the reiterated com- 
 plaints of Archbishop Arundel, who affirms that Ox- 
 ford was as a vine that brought forth wild and sour 
 grapes, which being eaten by the fathers, the teeth 
 of the children were set on edge ; so that the whole 
 province of Canterbury was tainted with novel and 
 damnable Lollardism, to the intolerable and notorious 
 scandal of the University.* Again : " She who was 
 formerly the mother of virtues, the prop of the Catho- 
 lic faith, the singular pattern of obedience, now 
 brings forth only abortive or degenerate children, who 
 encourage contumacy and rebellion, and sow tares 
 . among the pure wheat."! Their rever- 
 rf*TuSi?S! ence for the name and labours of Wiclif 
 shy, in honour is indicated by a solemn testimonial to 
 
 ?n i406 mem ry> his worth '> which is said to have been 
 given by the University, in the year 
 1406, and sealed with their common seal. It is true 
 Question of its tnat considerable suspicion hangs over 
 authenticity the authenticity of this document. The 
 considered. precise occasion on which it was drawn 
 
 Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. p. 318. t Lewis, c. x. p. 235. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 279 
 
 up and executed, is unknown ; and, besides, it has 
 been gravely affirmed, " that one Peter Payne, a here- 
 tic, stole the University seal, under which he wrote 
 to the heretics at Prague, in Bohemia, that Oxford, 
 and all England were of the same belief with those 
 of Prague, except the false Friars Mendicant." 
 There is something in this story not very probable : 
 for, as Lewis observes, it is not lightly to be credited 
 tbat the seal of the University should be so carelessly 
 guarded, as to render practicable this impudent im- 
 posture. A somewhat more plausible supposition is, 
 that the friends and admirers of Wiclif may have 
 seized upon the advantage afforded them, by the ab- 
 sence of his enemies, during the vacation, and may 
 have assembled for the purpose of honouring the 
 memory of the Reformer by the above Certificate. 
 And this conjecture receives some slight support 
 from a statute afterwards made, providing, that the 
 seal of the University shall not be fixed to any writ- 
 ing, but in full congregation of Regents, if in full 
 term ; or in full convocation of Regents and non- 
 Regents, if in vacation; and that nothing shall be 
 sealed till after one day's full deliberation. Nothing 
 can be more likely than that this statute may have 
 been framed to obviate practices similar to those by 
 which this testimonial is supposed to have been ob- 
 tained : but, yet, when it is recollected that this enact- 
 ment did not take place till 1426, twenty years after 
 the passing of the document in question, it will not 
 appear eminently probable that this was the fraud by 
 which the statute was occasioned. It should further 
 be remembered that, although, according to some ac- 
 counts, this testimonial was stigmatized as a forgery 
 by certain Englishmen at the Council of Constance, 
 yet there was no act produced, on the part of the 
 University, disclaiming its authenticity.* But whe- 
 ther the paper be authentic or not, it may still be 
 
 * See Lewis, c. x. p. 228236, where the authenticity of this testimo- 
 nial is amply discussed, 
 
280 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 relied on as evidence of the estimation in which the 
 character of Wiclif was still held at Oxford ; for the 
 preparation of such an instrument would never have 
 entered the head of the most unscrupulous of his 
 admirers, if it were not perfectly notorious that his 
 memory was deeply honoured by a very large portion 
 of the members of the University : and for this reason 
 the testimonial is here inserted at length.* 
 
 " The ptiblike Testimonie given out by the Universitie of 
 Oxford, touching the Commendation of the great 
 Learning and good Life of John Wickliffe. 
 
 " Unto all and singuler the children of our holy 
 mother the church, to whom this present letter shall 
 come : the vicechancellor of the Universitie of Ox- 
 ford, with the whole congregation of the masters, 
 wish perpetual health in the Lord. Forsomuch as it 
 is not commonly scene, that the acts and monuments 
 of valiant men, nor the praise and merits of good 
 men should be passed over and hidden with per- 
 petuall silence, but that true report and fame should 
 continually spread abrode the same in strange and 
 farre distant places, both for the witnesse of the same, 
 and example of others : Forasmuch also as the pro- 
 vident discretion of mans nature being recompensed 
 with cruelty, hath devised and ordained this buckler 
 and defence, against such as doe blaspheme and 
 slander other mens doings, that whensoever witnesse 
 by word of mouth cannot be present, the pen by 
 writing may supply the same : 
 
 " Hereupon it folio weth, that the special good will 
 and care which we bare unto John Wickliffe, some- 
 time child of this our Universitie, and professour of 
 divinitie, moving and stirring our minds (as his man- 
 ners and conditions required no lesse) with one mind, 
 voice, and testimonie, wee doe witnesse all his con- 
 
 The original Latin is printed in Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. p. 302, from the 
 Cotton MS. Faust, c. 7. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 281 
 
 ditions and doings throughout his whole life, to have 
 been most sincere and commendable : whose honest 
 manners and conditions, profoundnesse of learning, 
 and most redolent renoune and fame, wee desire the 
 more earnestly to bee notified and knowne unto all 
 faithfull, for that we understand the maturitie and 
 ripenesse of his conversation, his diligent labours and 
 travels to tend to the praise of God, the helpe and 
 safegard of others, and the profit of the church. 
 
 " Wherefore we signifie unto you by these presents, 
 that his conversation (even from his youth upwards, 
 unto the time of his death) was so praise worthie and 
 honest, that never at any time was there any note or 
 spot of suspicion noysed of him. But in his answer- 
 ing, reading, preaching and determining, he behaved 
 himselfe laudably, and as a stout and valiant cham- 
 pion of the faith ; vanquishing by the force of the 
 Scriptures, all such who by their wilful beggery 
 blasphemed and slandered Christ's religion. Neither 
 -was this said doctor convict of any heresie, either 
 burned of our prelats after his buriall. God forbid 
 that our prelats should have condemned a man of 
 such honestie, for an heretike : who amongst all the 
 Universitie, had written in logicke, philosophic, di- 
 vinitie, moralitie, and the speculative art without 
 peere. The knowledge of which all and singuler 
 things, wee doe desire to testifie and deliver forth; 
 to the intent, that the fame and renoune of this said 
 doctor, may be the more evident and had in reputa- 
 tion, amongst them, unto whose hands these present 
 letters testimoniall shall come. 
 
 " In witness whereof, we have caused these our 
 letters testimoniall to bee sealed with our common 
 seale. Dated at Oxford in our congregation house, 
 the 5. day of October, in the yeare of our Lord 1406." 
 
 Next to the admiration of those who are friendly 
 
 to his cause and memory, the most forcible encomium 
 
 of Wiclif is to be found in the virulent abuse heaped 
 
 upon his name by his adversaries. Among the vari- 
 
 24* 
 
282 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 ous extant testimonials of this description, we may 
 c tio f se ^ ect l ^ at f tne Chronicler, Walsing- 
 Wi^ifTmemo- ham. We have seen, above, the titles 
 ry by papal which Wiclif earned from the pen of that 
 writer, by the faithful and zealous labours 
 of his life. The following is the language in which 
 the same historian exults over his death : " On the 
 day of St. Thomas the Martyr, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, that organ of the Devil, that enemy of the 
 Churcn, that confusion of the populace, that idol of 
 heretics, that mirror of hypocrites, that instigator of 
 schism, that sower of hatred, that fabricator of lies, 
 John Wiclif, when, on the same day, as it is reported, 
 he would have vomited forth the blasphemies, which 
 he had prepared in his sermon against St. Thomas, 
 being suddenly struck by the judgment of God, felt 
 all his limbs invaded by the palsy. That mouth, 
 which had spoken monstrous things against God and 
 his Saints, or the holy Church, was then miserably 
 distorted, exhibiting a frightful spectacle to the be- 
 holders. His tongue, now speechless, denied him 
 even the power of confessing. His head shook, and 
 thus plainly showed that the curse which God had 
 thundered forth against Cain, was now fallen upon 
 him. And, that none might doubt of his being con- 
 signed to the company of Cain, he showed by mani- 
 fest outward signs, that he died in despair."* Again : 
 " After he had been smitten with the palsy, he dragged 
 out his hated life until St. Silvester's day. On which 
 day he breathed out his malicious spirit to the abodes 
 of darkness. And, in truth, most justly was he 
 stricken on the day of St. Thomas, whom his en- 
 venomed tongue had often blasphemed; and was 
 doomed, with temporal death, on the day of St. Sil- 
 vester, whom he had exasperated with his incessant 
 invectives."* It would be idle to waste a word of 
 
 " Walsingh. p. 338. 
 
 t Wals. Ypod. Neustr. p. 142. It was vain to hope that the memory 
 <tf an audacious heretic would find mercy at the hand of Romish writers, 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 283 
 
 censure upon this stupid and barbarous jargon. It is 
 utterly undeserving of notice, otherwise than as af- 
 fording a curious indication of the spirit of the age, 
 and a strong testimony to the formidable nature of 
 Wiclif's aggressions on its predominant superstitions. 
 The hatred of Wiclif's enemies was quite as long- 
 lived and as active as the admiration of his adherents. 
 It not only persecuted his memory, but forbade his 
 remains to rest in peace. This pitiful exhibition of 
 malignity was occasioned by the wide dispersion of 
 the English Reformer's opinions in many parts of the 
 continent, but more especially in Bohe- 
 mia. The queen of Richard the Second wkUPs^opin- 
 was a Bohemian princess ; and, on her ions in Bohe- 
 decease her attendants are supposed to mia * 
 
 when one of their own Prelates is stigmatized by them as a victim of 
 God's just vengeance, for having dared to intimate his dislike of one 
 of the grossest of their superstitious follies. The massacre of Archbishop 
 Sudbury, by the insurgent peasantry, was regarded as no less than a 
 manifest judgment of heaven ; as may be seen from the following narra- 
 tive, by the author of " the looking-glass for little children:"* "In 
 the fourth jubilee of the most famous martyr, St. Thomas, the people 
 from every place flocked to Canterbury, with intense affection of heart. 
 At the same time, it happened that the venerable lather, the Lord Simon 
 de Suthberi, then Bishop of London, was travelling towards Canterbury ; 
 and being misled by the spirit of error, assured the multitudes, then on 
 their pilgrimage thither, that the plenary indulgence they hoped for at 
 Canterbury was of no profit or value : on which many of the crowd, 
 with downcast looks, stood amazed at this saying of so great a father. 
 Some of them actually went back again: but others, with loud voices, 
 cursed the bishop to his face, saying and wishing, that he might die a 
 base and shameful death, who was not afraid thus to injure and insult 
 the glorious martyr. A Kentish knight, also, (whose name the writer 
 thinks was Sir Thomas de Aldoun,) being moved with anger, came up 
 to the bishop, and said : < My Lord Bishop, because you have raised this 
 sedition among the people, against Saint Thomas, on pain of my life, or 
 on peril of my soul, you shall die a shameful death ;' to which all the 
 people cried, amen, amen ! And accordingly, in the reign of Richard 
 II. this Simon de Suthberi, then archbishop of Canterbury, was beheaded 
 by the mob that rose under Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, that the voice of 
 the people (that is, saith the writer of this story, the voice of God,) might, 
 even as it was foretold, be in due time fulfilled." And this narrative, the 
 writer tells us, is given, in order that others might be deterred from all 
 opposition to the Papal indulgences, and from all attempts to repress the 
 devotion of the pilgrims. 
 
 * Speculum parvulorum. lib. v. c. 27. apud Wharton, Angl. Sacr. voL 
 it cited by Lewis in his Life of Biahop Pecock, c. iii. p. 6$, 67. 
 
284 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 have carried back with them to their own country 
 some considerable portions of Wiclif's compositions, 
 and thus to have been greatly instrumental in the 
 dissemination of his doctrines. The soil was, at that 
 time, well prepared for the reception of the seed ; 
 and the effect of his writings there was even more 
 striking and rapid than that which they produced in 
 his own country. It is said that full two hundred of 
 his books were burnt by Subinco Lepus, bishop of 
 Prague. The number may, at first sight, appear 
 surprising: but it must be recollected, that Wiclif 
 generally sent forth his notions into the world in 
 small detachments. He, doubtless, perceived, that 
 the frequent appearance of little tracts would much 
 facilitate the dissemination of his tenets, an object 
 which, before the invention of printing, would be 
 most injuriously retarded by the publication of 
 more bulky volumes. The estimation in which these 
 treatises were held in Bohemia, is illustrated by the 
 fact, that many of those which were burnt by Subinco 
 were very finely written, and decorated with splendid 
 bindings, and costly embossments of gold. It is still 
 more conspicuously manifested, in the open commen- 
 dation with which they were honoured by the illus- 
 trious martyrs, John Huss and Jerome of Prague; 
 and in the consequent reprobation of 
 
 His writings , i /->! ! r /i 
 
 condemned, and them by the Council ofConstance, In 
 his remains dis- 1415 ? full thirty years after the death of 
 Decree of the Wiclif, a long list of intolerable proposi- 
 Councii of Con- tions was selected by that assembly from 
 his writings, and branded with the mark 
 of heresy. The memory of the writer was, at the 
 same time, consigned, in due form, to infamy and 
 execration; and an order was issued, that "his body 
 and bones, if they might be discerned and known 
 from the bodies of other faithful people,* should be 
 
 * This must have been a matter of some difficulty : " for though," says 
 Fuller, "the earth in the chancel of Lmterworth, where he was interred, 
 fcath not so quick a digestion as the earth of Aceldama, to consume flesh 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 285 
 
 taken from the ground, and thrown far away from 
 the burial of any church, according to the canon laws 
 and decrees." "And here," exclaims old Fox, " what 
 Heraclitus would not laugh, or what Democritus 
 would not weep, to see so sage and reverend Catoes, 
 to occupie their heads to take up a poor man's bodie, 
 so long dead and buried? And yet, peradventure, 
 they were not able to find his right bones, but tooke 
 np some other bodie, and so of a catholic made a 
 heretic." But, whether the bones discovered were 
 catholic or heretic, the grave was actually ransacked, 
 in pursuance of this decree, though not till thirteen 
 years after it was pronounced : and melancholy it is 
 to think, that the person to whom the order was 
 dispatched, was Richard Fleming, once a zealous 
 adherent of the Reformer, but then bishop of Lincoln, 
 and an unsparing persecutor of the opinions which 
 he formerly professed ! The remains of Wiclif were 
 accordingly disinterred and burned, and the ashes 
 cast into the adjoining brook, called the Swift. " And 
 so," exclaims the martyrologist, "was he resolved 
 into three elements, earth, fire, and water; they 
 thinking thereby utterly to extinct and abolish both 
 the name and doctrine of Wiclif for ever. Not much 
 unlike the example of the old Pharisees and Sepul- 
 chre-knights, which, when they brought the Lord 
 unto the grave, thought to make him sure never to 
 rise again. But these, and all other, must know, that, 
 as there is no counsel against the Lord, so there is no 
 keeping down of veritie, but it will spring and come 
 out of dust and ashes ; as appeared right well in this 
 man. For though they digged up his body, burned 
 his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the word of 
 God, and truth oT his doctrine, with the truth and 
 success thereof, they could not burn ; which, yet, to 
 
 in twenty-four hours, yet such the appetite thereof, and all other English 
 graves, as to leave small reversions of a body, after so many yeara" 
 Church History, p. 170. 
 
286 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 this day, for the most part of his articles, dp remain."* 
 " The brook," says Fuller, " did convey his ashes into 
 Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow 
 seas; they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes 
 of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now 
 is dispersed all the world over."f 
 
 * Fox, in Wordsw. Eccl. Biogr. vol. i. p. 96, 97. 
 
 t Church History, p. 171, vyhere Fuller notices a vulgar tradition, that 
 the brook, into which the ashes of Wiclif were poured, never since over- 
 flowed its banks! Both Papists and Protestants, it seems, have claimed 
 the benefit of this circumstance. In the estimation of the Papists, the 
 regulated flow of the stream is a blcs-sins, by which heaven has clearly 
 expressed its approval of the indianity offered to the remains of a heretic. 
 The Protestants (if any thing, with a better show of reason,) have con- 
 tended, that the peaceful state of the waters indicates the sanctity of the 
 dust which was once committed to them. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 287 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WICLIF'S OPINIONS. 
 
 Wiclif 's views of Justification by Faith Wiclif charged by some 
 with Pelagianism, by others, more justly, with the doctrine of 
 Predestination His Predestinarian notions chiefly confined to 
 his Scholastic Writings Pilgrimage and Image-worship Pur' 
 gator y Auricular Confession and Papal Indulgences Excom- 
 munication and Papal Interdicts Papal poicer and supremacy 
 Episcopacy The Church Church visible and invisible The 
 Sacraments Baptism Confirmation Penance Ordination 
 Matrimony The Eucharist Extreme Unction Celibacy of 
 the Clergy Fasting Ceremonies Church Music Judicial As- 
 ^trology Notions imputed to Wiclif that God must obey the Devil, 
 Wand that every creature is God Dominion founded on Grace, how 
 understood and explained by Wiclif Scriptural principles cf 
 civil obedience faithfully enforced by him Wiclif ''s opinions as to 
 the poicer of the State over Church property Wiclif considers 
 Church Endowments as inconsistent with the spirit oj Christian- 
 ity Tithes represented by him as Alms -Value of Wiclif 's ser- 
 vices, as preparatory to the Reformation Notion of the Reform- 
 ation, as it would probably have been effected by him The belief 
 prevalent in his time that Satan was loosed Its probable influence 
 on his views and opinions. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the general tenor and complexion of Wic- 
 lif 's theological opinions may be collected, with tole- 
 rable clearness, from the foregoing narrative of his 
 life, our account of him might reasonably be deemed 
 imperfect, if not followed up by something of a more 
 systematic exhibition of his principles. The attempt, 
 however, to supply the reader with a comprehensive 
 view of his notions, will by no means involve the 
 necessity of dwelling diffusely upon those points, 
 respecting which his protestantism (if the term may 
 be allowed,) has never been subject to question. Our 
 attention will, therefore, be chiefly directed to those 
 topics which have furnished occasion of doubt and 
 misgivings to his admirers, or, of slander and perver- 
 sion to his enemies. 
 
288 LIFE OF WICLI7. 
 
 Wiciifa views Of course the defender of his memory 
 of jj u . 8t .j ficalion can have no peace until he has disposed 
 of the censure with which his theology 
 has been stigmatized by Melanchthon, and, after him, 
 by some other Protestant Divines; namely, that it 
 was not only tinctured with Pelagianism, and often 
 ascribes desert to human actions, but that it con- 
 tains no recognition whatever of the grand doctrine 
 of justification by faith. In the mouth of a reformer 
 of the sixteenth century, this objection ought, per- 
 haps, to excite but little surprise. The doctrine in 
 question may be said to have been the key which 
 opened the gates of Paradise to Luther; for until he 
 had discovered it, the kingdom of God appeared to 
 him, surrounded as it were by a wall of adamant: 
 and it might naturally be expected that they, who| 
 drank deeply into the spirit of Luther's theology, 
 should look with distrust on any one who should dare 
 to approach the sacred enclosure without bearing this 
 mighty instrument aloft in his hand. To them the 
 pilgrim would appear as an unblest adventurer, bent 
 upon scaling the battlements of heaven, instead of 
 entering in at the appointed gate. It was not enough 
 for them, that the spirit of this great truth should es- 
 sentially pervade the writings of a teacher: his words 
 would, m their eyes, have but little faithfulness in 
 them, unless they prominently and constantly set 
 forth this precious secret, as the beginning, the mid- 
 dle, and the end, of all saving doctrine. Estimated 
 by a standard like this, the divinity of Wiclif may, 
 possibly, appear to come short of the glory of God, 
 and his gratuitous salvation. In our times, this doc- 
 trine, of course, has not lost--as it never can lose 
 a tittle of its value ; but it can scarcely be reasonable 
 for us to brood over it with the same jealousy, as if it 
 were a long-buried treasure, but recently dug up by 
 us from the rubbish of ages. At this day, it will 
 hardly be questioned, that, even without an incessant 
 iteration of this truth, the essence of it may be so 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 289 
 
 fnixed up with our teaching, as to give it all the pe- 
 culiar unction and savour of the Gospel. And if so, 
 we shall find but little difficulty in perceiving that the 
 doctrine of justification by faith was in truth the vital 
 principle of Wiclif's theology. He tells us, in express 
 words, that the merit of Christ is sufficient to redeem 
 mankind from hell, and this without the concurrence 
 of any other cause ; that faith in him is sufficient for 
 salvation ; that they who truly follow him are justi- 
 fied by his justice, and made righteous by participa- 
 tion in his righteousness; and that infidels are not to 
 foe accounted as living virtuously, even though they 
 should do such works as, in their kind, are good.* 
 Conformable to these declarations is the whole tenor 
 of his doctrine. The merits of his Saviour evidently, 
 form the central object of his meditations. And if 
 there occasionally drop from him any allusion to hu- 
 man desert, it is obviously introduced, not in dis- 
 paragement of the sovereign merits of Christ, but of 
 the vicarious good offices either of priests or saints; 
 not to weaken our dependence on our Redeemer, but 
 to strengthen our conviction that, in the presence of 
 his Judge, each man must stand or fall by his own 
 personal doings, not by those of his confessor, or of 
 his mass-priest, or of any other spiritual agent. That 
 he rejected all Pharisaic and Pelagian confidence iri 
 human merit, is clear and undeniable. "Heal us, 
 Lord," he exclaims, " for nought ; nor for our merits, 
 tut for thy mercy. Lord, not to our merits, but to 
 thy mercy give the joy. Give us grace to know that 
 all thy gifts be of thy goodness. Our flesh, though 
 it seem holy, yet it is not holy. We are all originally 
 sinners, not only from our mother's womb, but in our 
 mother's womb. We cannot so much as think a good 
 thought, unless Jesu, the Angel of great counsel, send 
 it ; nor perform a good work, unless it b3 properly 
 his good work. His mercy comes before us, that we 
 
 * James's Apology for Widif c v. 
 
 25 
 
290 LIFE OF WICL1F. 
 
 receive grace, and followeth us, helping and keeping 
 us in grace."* And yet, with passages like these seat- 
 Wiciif cha^d < ered ver his works, Wiclif has been 
 by some with deemed a worthy associate of Pelagius, 
 Peiagianism. an( ] nas b een charged with suppressing 
 or. denying the grace of God, and of teaching his 
 followers to put their sole trust in human virtue and 
 deserving !f 
 
 As aw antagonist charge to that of Pe- 
 justiy, wuhThe lagianism, we find him accused by others 
 doctrine of Pre- of maintaining that all things come to 
 pass by absolute necessity; a doctrine 
 which, in its fullest latitude,. annihilates not only 
 human merit, but human responsibility. That a 
 Schoolman should resist the temptation to meddle 
 with this untractable question, was scarcely to be ex- 
 pected. That, like all other mortals who have ever 
 approached it, he should be defeated and baffled, was 
 a necessary result of the attempt. I cannot find, 
 however, that he has advanced any thing upon this 
 subject which should fix upon him the imputation of 
 unqualified fatalism. He confesses, indeed, in his 
 Trialogus, that he had ascribed every event to abso- 
 lute necessity ; not being able to conceive that there 
 should be any effective impediment to the Divine 
 Will ; but then he, likewise, professes to modify this 
 proposition by the needful caution, that, since we are 
 ignorant of the purposes of God, future occurrences 
 must present themselves to our understanding as so 
 many possibilities, and that all his promises and 
 threatenings must be received by us as under a con- 
 dition either tacit or express4 And thus his views 
 
 * James's Apology, c. vi. The last of the above-cited passages, turned 
 into a prayer, gives us, precisely, one of our own Collects : " Lord, we 
 pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us 
 rontinually to be given to all good works throueh Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 Collect for the 17th Sunday after Trinity. See also Lewis, c. viiL ps. 
 174, 175. 
 
 t See the quotations from Walden, in James's Apology, c. vi. 
 
 t This, if I comprehend it rightly, is the substance of the passage cited 
 by Lewis, (c. viii. p. 178.) though the language is sufficiently obscure. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 291 
 
 are found to be in unison with those of the soundest 
 thinkers of our own times, whose sentiments may be 
 summed up in the language of Dr. Hey :* " Disputes 
 on liberty and necessity are vain and idle ; as much 
 so as if you were placed within a spherical surface, 
 and I without it, and we were to enter into abstruse 
 arguments on the question, whether the surface be- 
 tween us were concave or convex. In my situation 
 it is convex, in yours it is concave." If we consider 
 events with reference to the Divine Mind, it seems 
 utterly impossible to think of them as otherwise than 
 fixed : if we consider them with reference to respon- 
 sible agents, it seems as impossible to regard them as 
 otherwise than contingent. This was clearly per- 
 ceived by Wiclif; and he likewise appears to have 
 been aware of the vanity of all attempts to reconcile, 
 by a mere logical process, conditional decrees, with 
 absolute foreknowledge, perfect independence, and 
 unlimited sovereignty.! 
 
 In his application of the doctrine of necessity to 
 theological subjects, Wiclif is sparing and cautious. 
 In his Trialogns, indeed, he says that 
 " we are predestinated to obtain divine na ^!f n ^kms 
 acceptance, and to become holy;" and chiefly confined 
 professes it to be his opinion, that " this ^ r ^ n ^ holastic 
 grace of predestination can by no means 
 fail." But, whatever may have been the rigour with 
 which he held this theory, the subject is but rarely 
 introduced into his practical discourses. The Trialo- 
 gus, it must be remembered, was one of his more 
 abstruse and scholastic lucubrations : and so long as 
 the predestinarian question is confined to the Schools, 
 its mischievous influence will be comparatively tri- 
 fling. In his popular and pastoral compositions, the 
 allusions to this unfathomable topic are but slight and 
 transient ; so that it may be reasonably hoped, he had 
 
 See also James's Apology, c. ix. Answer to the fourth objection of the 
 apologists. 
 
 Leot. vol. iii. p. 248. t See Lewis, p. 178. 
 
292 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 not wrought himself into persuasion, that such specu- 
 lations formed au indispensable ingredient in a scheme 
 of sound religious belief. 
 
 It must be almost needless to state, that every 
 thing which tends to exalt the creature into the place 
 of the Creator, or to transfer to inferior beings any 
 share in the work of mediation or intercession, was 
 rigidly excluded from the faith of Wiclif. On the 
 
 Pilgrimages, subject of images and pilgrimages, and 
 and image wor- invocation of saints, he is, perhaps, less 
 Bhi P- copious than might be expected. That 
 
 the use of images, (considered merely as the books of 
 ignorant and unlearned laymen) was not forbidden, 
 he most distinctly concedes ; and he likens them to 
 the wedding ring, which is cherished by the wife as 
 .the symbol of her attachment and fidelity to her hus- 
 band.* But though he considers the practice as law- 
 ful, it is quite evident that he does not regard it as 
 safe : and he has a most watchful eye on the abuses 
 to which it offers such powerful temptation. He 
 conceives that the venom of idolatry lurks within it ; 
 and affirms that Papists, in effect, assimilate them- 
 selves to Pagans, when they attempt to repel the 
 charge of idolatry, by the shallow pretext, that their 
 devotions terminate not in the figure, but in that 
 which it represents.! He, moreover, affirms, thai 
 when the dumb idol is honoured with costly offerings, 
 and with such adoration as is due to God alone, it 
 may lawfully be broken or burnt by Christian kings, 
 witn the assent of their lords and clergy, even as the 
 brazen serpent was broken in pieces by Hezekiah, 
 when the children of Israel began to offer incense to 
 it. His perception of the vanity of all applications 
 to men deceased, appears to have gained strength 
 with his advance in life : for in one of his latest 
 works, he censures it as folly to seek for any interr 
 cession but that of Jesus Christ ; and, thougn he so 
 
 * Lewis, c. viii. p. 175. t James's Apol. c. viii. a. 6. 
 
OF WICLIF. 293 
 
 far conformed to the usage of the Church as to keep 
 the festivals of the saints, yet he intimates plainly, 
 that it might be as well if they were altogether abo- 
 lished, so that men might celebrate the festival of 
 Jesus Christ alone, and the devotion of the people 
 might cease to be parcelled out among his members- 
 And he concludes, that the multitude of canonizations 
 may reasonably be ascribed to the decay of faith, and 
 the growth ef^ovetousness.* In the early part of his 
 life, indeed, his opinions on this subject may, pos- 
 sibly, have been less decided. But that he retained 
 any erroneous impressions respecting it, at the close 
 of his days, seems distinctly negatived by the cla- 
 mours of his enemies, who speak of him as actually 
 raving against the saints, and as visited with a 
 frightful death for this, among his other manifold 
 impieties.^ 
 
 His notions relative to purgatory pur 
 would seem, on the whole, to have been, 
 in like manner, progressive ; though it assuredly, 
 cannot be affirmed that they ever advanced so far as 
 to the total abandonment of that fiction. In one of 
 his earlier writings, he expressly acknowledges, on 
 the authority of St. Augustine, that souls in purga- 
 tory are helped and comforted by the alms and reli- 
 gious exercises of good men4 And in a subsequent 
 treatise he allows, that saying of mass, with burning 
 devotion, and holiness and integrity of life, is well 
 pleasing to God, and profitable to Christian souls in 
 purgatory. In another place he treats all the fear- 
 ful sayings concerning purgatory, as things spoken by 
 way of commination, and, as it were, so many pious 
 falsehoods. He divides the church into three por- 
 tions, the militant, the reposing, and the triumphant; 
 and speaks of the Sabbath as prefiguring the rest 
 
 ' Trialogus, c. iii. p. 30, 31. 
 
 t James's Apology, c. viii. a. 24, 25. 
 
 JMSS. Cotton. Titus. D. xix. 129, cited by Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 288. 
 
 Sentence of curse expounded, c. vii. cited in Lewis, c. viii p. 161. 
 
 25* 
 
294 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 of those who sleep in purgatory.* From which it 
 would appear that, in his opinion, all that could he 
 done by the prayers of the faithful would be to im- 
 prove, in some indefinite manner, the condition of 
 departed souls, in their intermediate state. All this, 
 it must be allowed, is indistinct and unsatisfactory 
 ^enough : but, vague as it is, it strikes directly at the 
 root of the Romish doctrine and practice, which 
 proved so vast a source of unholy emolument to the 
 Church. As Dr. James remarks, " it thrusts the 
 Popish purgatory clean put of doors: for there is 
 little rest, and less sleeping there, if we believe them 
 who have come from thence. And by this reason, if 
 the fire of purgatory be clean put out, the smoke of 
 it, that is, prayers for the dead, must needs, in a 
 very short time, vanish away."f It should further 
 be recollected, that, whatever might by the efficacy of 
 prayers for the deceased, that efficacy is repeatedly 
 ascribed by him, to the devotions of the laity as well 
 as those of the priesthood; nay, that, in his judg- 
 men,t, the prayer of the pioys layman was, without 
 measure, more availing than that of a worthless and 
 reprobate prelate. $ On the whole matter, therefore, 
 it may reasonably be concluded, that, relative to the 
 precise condition of the dead, his mind remained, to 
 the very last, in a state of indecision but that he 
 never ceased to stigmatize the system of fraud, which 
 converted the doctrine of purgatory into an engine for 
 extorting immense revenues from the popular credu- 
 lity and terror. He loudly accuses the clergy of 
 " inventing pains, horrible and shameful, to make 
 men pay a vast ransom ;" and describes " all masses 
 for which money is taken, as an artifice of Satan, and 
 , contrivance of hypocrisy and avarice. " It was no 
 
 * Omnia dicta de purgatorio, dicuntur solummodo comminatoriS, tan- 
 quam pia mendacia. De Verit. Scripturae, p. 267. Sabbathum pre- 
 figurat quietem dormientium in purgatorio. Ibid. p. 479. See James's 
 Apol. c. viii: s. 24, 25. Trialosus, li iv. c. 22. 
 
 t James's Apol. c. viii. 24, 25. * Vaughan, vol. i i. p. 289, 290. 
 
 On Prelates, c. iii. cited in Yaughan, vol. ii. p. 2S9. 
 
or 
 
 ordinary strain of daring, in the fourteenth century, 
 to make so fierce an irruption into these dark reposi- 
 tories of the Romish treasury ! 
 
 Intimately connected with purgatory are the enor- 
 mities of Auricular Confession and Papal 
 Indulgences; and here, at least, the n <n: 
 trumpet of Wiclif gives utterance to pal induigen- 
 nothing like an uncertain sound. It ces< 
 would be quite impossible to do justice to the intre- 
 pidity of his attack upon these fortresses, which Papal 
 Rome had, in the course of ages, made so strong for 
 herself, without much more ample citations than the 
 limits of this work allow. It must suffice to say, 
 that Luther himself never rushed to the assault with 
 more desperate courage, than did his great predeces- 
 sor, when once his spirit was roused by the sight of 
 these impieties. He proclaims to the world, not in 
 the learned dialect of the Schools, but in plain and 
 homely English, that pardons and indulgences are 
 mere forgeries, whereby the priesthood "rob men 
 cursedly of their money ; that they are nothing but 
 a subtle merchandise 01 Anti-Christ's clerks, whereby 
 they magnify their own fictitious power, and, instead 
 of causing men to dread sin, encourage them to wal- 
 low therein like hogs." And, as for the despicable 
 pretext, that the payment was not demanded as the 
 price of the pardon itself, but simply as a gratuity or fee 
 Jbr the instrument by which it was formally conveyed, 
 he sarcastically exclaims, " Certes, then, a little dead 
 lead* doth cost many a thousand pound by the year, 
 to this poor land !" and he adds, that the mockery is 
 no less impudent than it would be to offer a fatted 
 goose for nothing, but to charge a good round sum 
 for the garlic with which it was to be seasoned !f To 
 us, the exposure of these impostures, may seem but 
 a light and unimportant matter. But, again, let it 
 be considered, what it was for an individual to rise 
 
 * The seal affixed to the Papal Bulls was of lead. 
 
 t See Lewis, c. viii. p. 168171. Vaughan, vol. ji. 297304. 
 
296 LIFE OF WICLIF, 
 
 up, and to talk thus to a whole nation, in an age 
 when the possessions of men in this world, and their 
 destinies in the world to come, were held to be at the 
 disposal of an infallible and irresistible representative 
 of God upon earth I 
 
 Excommunica- , Still more admirable, if possible, was 
 tioo, and Papal the sternness of his fulmmations against 
 another kindred abomination; namely, 
 that stupendous abuse of the power of the keys. 
 This power, it is well known, has always been re- 
 garded, not only by the Romish, but by the Eastern 
 Church, as the very axis on which alone the eccle- 
 siastical system can revolve with regularity and 
 steadiness ; and without which no Christian society 
 can deserve even the name of a Church. The man- 
 ner in which this terrific authority was frequently 
 prostituted to the darkest passions, is indelibly writ- 
 ten in the history of Christian Europe. We there 
 learn that the very spirit of Druidism was, at last, 
 transferred to the seat of the Vicar of Jesus Christ : 
 so that the vengeance of an Italian Ecclesiastic could 
 not only outlaw individuals from all the charities of 
 our nature, but could almost suspend the health, yea, 
 the very life, of whole communities. It is needless, 
 however, to dwell on the miseries inflicted by the 
 Papal sentence of Excommunication or Interdict, or 
 on the terrors with which the power of the keys in- 
 vested even the obscurest parochial priest. At this 
 day the thunders of Rome may, in our ears, be like 
 the sounding brass, or the tinkling cymbal. But in 
 the age of Wiclif, it must always be remembered, 
 they had power to " make mad the guilty and appal 
 the free." They were uttered by a voice, at the 
 wrathful sound of which all countenances gathered 
 blackness. And yet these were the armories of 
 heaven,* which our countryman had the heroism to 
 denounce and to defy ; and this., in the hearing of the 
 
 Armamentaria coeli. Juv. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 297 
 
 whole reajm of England, then one of the fairest por? 
 tions of the Pontifical domain. Why, he exclaims, 
 in one of his English treatises, do our wayAvard cu- 
 rates curse the souls of men to hell, and their bodies 
 to prison, and doom them to forfeiture of goods, and 
 loss of life, and all for the sake of paltry gain ? and 
 this, too, while they themselves are accursed of God, 
 for entering on their office by simony, and betraying 
 it by abandonment of duty, and unholiness of living ! 
 The pains of hell, rather than tithes and offerings, 
 are their proper recompense. They are rather mali- 
 cious tormentors, than spiritual fathers to the souls 
 of men. Pagan tyranny and persecution confined its 
 rage to the body, but these children of Satan seek t# 
 plunge the soul into everlasting pain. Yea, they are 
 worse than the fiends themselves ; for the fiends tor- 
 ment no human soul, but for the measureless enormity 
 .of sin : while these clerks of Satan doom souls to hell 
 for some trifling due, which poverty may disable them 
 from paying, and which, after all, is no lawful debt, 
 but a mere fraudulent exaction, founded ,on usages 
 that have no warrant in the commandments of God.* 
 He hesitates not to add, that when prelates extend 
 their execrations to all that shall commune with men, 
 whom they have declared to be accursed, they may 
 be said, virtually, to include the Almighty himself hi 
 their maledictions ; for God assuredly does not cease 
 Jiis communion with the vilest outcast, so long as he 
 affords him breath and sustenance, and is ready to 
 xestore him to grace and forgiveness. And well, he 
 says, may men wonder at this prodigality of cursing, 
 called forth, as it often is, not for false oaths, and in- 
 fernal ribaldry, and other offences against the majesty 
 of God and Christ but for some invasion of the in- 
 terests and privileges, and wayward customs, of the 
 priesthood.! Fearful, almost beyond imagining, must 
 
 * Great sentence of curse expounded, c. xvii. See Vaughan, vol. ii. p. 
 t Ibid. 'c. xxv. 
 
298 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 have been the abuses which, in that age of darkness, 
 could have stirred the spirit of any man to denun- 
 ciations like these; more especially of a man who 
 never questioned the legitimacy of spiritual censures, 
 as one essential department of ecclesiastical disci- 
 pline, when duly and charitably administered, with a 
 single eye to tne promotion of holiness, and to the 
 purification of the Church of God. 
 
 The whole of Wiclif's life is a per- 
 Huprenwcy r ' P etua l commentary on his views respect- 
 ing the authority of the Pope, whether 
 temporal or spiritual. That he allowed a certain 
 precedency of honour and authority to the Bishop of 
 Rome, would appear from a passage in his treatise 
 on the Truth of Scripture, in which he holds, that 
 a man incurs the charge of Paganism, who scornfully 
 refuses obedience to the Apostolic See : and we have 
 seen that in his letter to the Pope, towards the close 
 of his life, he addresses him as the greatest of Christ's 
 Vicars upon earth. And it is highly probable that, 
 if they who claimed to be the Vicegerents of God, 
 had exhibited a preeminence of holiness at all cor- 
 responding to their supremacy of rank, he might have 
 been prepared to render unto them all the reverence 
 which could reasonably be claim eJ for the occupiers 
 of the first See in Christendom. But he had no con- 
 ception that this transcendent dignity and honour 
 could adhere unalienably to men who often brought 
 to the Apostolic Chair the worst passions of man's 
 fallen nature. Neither spiritual infallibility, nor 
 secular supremacy, could, in his judgment or belief, 
 be the attributes of the " worldly priests of Rome, 
 the most accursed of cut-purses, the evil man-slayer, 
 and burner of the servants of Christ." Hence it is 
 that his days were passed in incessant warfare against 
 this " Master of the Emperor, this fellow of God, this 
 Deity on earth," and against the whole army of cleri- 
 cal satellites and slaves, who conspired to bow the 
 neck of Europe under his dominion. And whatever 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 299 
 
 may, at any period, have been his respect for the 
 Pope, in the ideal perfection of his character, of the 
 actual Pope, he scruples not to pronounce that he is 
 the veriest Anti-Christ.* According to him, therefore, 
 so long as Christ is in heaven, the Church hath in 
 Him the best Pope : and no true man will dare to put 
 two heads, lest the Church be monstrous.! 
 
 His passion for simplifying the Insti- 
 tutions of Christianity is strangely mani- P lsc P ac : 
 fested in his opinions respecting the Hierarchy. The 
 spiritual aristocracy in his time was, undoubtedly, a 
 phenomenon which the primitive Evangelists, if they 
 could revisit the earth, might be supposed to contem- 
 plate with measureless astonishment. And Wiclif, 
 whose thoughts were constantly wandering back to 
 the days of apostolic simplicity, had looked upon 
 the Pontiff and his cardinals, the patriarchs, arch- 
 bishops and bishops, the archdeacons, officials and 
 deans, and the whole inferior retinue of the Romish 
 priesthood, till his very heart grew sick at the spec- 
 tacle of so much cumbrous and " Ccesarean" pomp, 
 and sought relief in the persuasion that the two or- 
 ders of priest and deacon, were the only ones which 
 could plead the sanction of Holy Writ, or primitive 
 institution. Whether he would have altogether dis- 
 carded the Episcopal order, had he been allowed to 
 carry into effect his own principles of Reformation, 
 or whether he Avould have retained it as a con- 
 venient and useful appointment, it is impossible to 
 pronounce with any certainty. But it seems per- 
 fectly clear that he did not consider it as at all essen- 
 tial to the legitimate constitution of a Christian 
 Church. $ It is deeply to be deplored that his power- 
 ful and independent mind, while it was rending in 
 pieces the cords of superstition, should have tamely 
 
 Potiasimug Anti-Christus. De Verit. Scriptures, in James's Apology, 
 c. iii. s. 4. On Prelates, c. xxii. 
 
 t Horn. Bib. Reg. p. 181. in Vau?h. vol. ii. p. 273, note 50. 
 J Lewis, c. viii. p. 154, 155. 157. 
 
300 LIFE OF WJCLIF. 
 
 surrendered itself to the captivity of this miserable 
 prejudice. " Had it pleased him not to hoodwink his 
 own knowledge," he must have seen, clearly enough, 
 how to dispose of his own objections. A divine like 
 him can, surely, never have been ignorant that, from 
 the time of the apostles, to the days in which he 
 lived, no other form of government but the Episcopal 
 had ever been known to the Christian Church; and 
 he might have learned from his master, St. Augus- 
 tine, that Aerius, the first person who ever thought 
 of confounding bishops and presbyters, was judged 
 to be a heretic for that opinion. And yet we actually 
 find him asserting, that " by the institution of Christ, 
 priests and bishops were all one ; but that, afterwards, 
 the Emperor divided them, and made bishops, lords, 
 and presbyters, their servants ; 1} and, again, that 
 " from the faith of Scripture, it seems sufficient that 
 there should be presbyters and deacons, holding the 
 stale and office which Christ assigned them ; since 
 it appears that all other orders and degrees have their 
 origin in the pride of C&sar."* 
 
 It seems quite clear that the veil, in which he 
 wrapped up his better judgment against the light of 
 history, was no other than his detestation of the 
 abuses which then dishonoured the episcopal office. 
 " The ordinances of Christ," he says, in discussing 
 this subject, " are founded in meekness, in unity, in 
 charity, in contempt of riches and high estate." Of 
 these apostolic qualities he discerned but very faint 
 traces among the prelates of his day, and therefore 
 he concluded, that they ceuld not, even by their office 
 and institution, be the successors of the apostles. 
 That episcopacy existed long before the pride of 
 Caesar meddled with the offices of the Church, anti- 
 quity bears witness ; but the effect of this testimony 
 was, probably, wiped away from his mind, by 'the 
 
 * MS. on the Seven Deadly Sins. Cod. Ric. Jamesii. Bibl. Bodl. 
 Trialog. lib. iv. c. 15. James's Apology, p. 31. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 301 
 
 same " odd kind of shifting answer," which moved 
 the indignation of Hooker, when it was produced by 
 the fanatics of the Holy Discipline; namely, that 
 " the bishops which now are, be not like unto them 
 that were :" an argument, (as the venerable and judi- 
 cious man remarks,) which would often be quite as 
 effective against the legitimate power of kings, as the 
 order and authority of bishops. It is truly wonderful 
 that an intellect, disciplined like Wiclif's, in the 
 severity of the Schools, should, in this instance, have 
 been unable to " discern between the nature of 
 things, which changeth not, and their outward and 
 variable accidents." But from this, as well as from 
 various other symptoms, it is evident, that the inces- 
 sant contemplation of existing corruptions, had 
 wrought up his spirit into something of a revolu- 
 tionary temper ; so that it would have been extremely 
 unsafe to trust him With unlimited discretion in pro* 
 securing the work of ecclesiastical reformation. 
 
 Respecting the Church itself, his no- 
 tions are such as all the faithful mem- 1 
 &ers of our Establishment would do well to keep in 
 ftiind at the present day. It is lamented by one who 
 Aad imbibed his sentiments and principles,* that 
 "when men speak of Holy Church 1 , they understand 
 aiion prelates and priests, canons and friars, and all 
 men that have crowns, (tonsures,) though they live 
 never so cursedly against God's law ; and they clepe 
 (call) not nor hold secular men to be of Holy Church, 
 though they live never so truly after God's law, and 
 end in perfect charity:" whereas the true notion of a 
 Church comprehends the clergy, the secular lords, 
 and the commons, the lay members, in short, as 
 well as the spiritual orders. The evils arising from 
 this gross misconception are of the most opposite 
 descriptions. In Wiclif's age, it invested the hier- 
 
 * Lewis, c. viii. p. 152, from the Prologue, <fec. It has been shown 
 above, that this Prologue is not the work of Wiclif himself. But there 
 is reason to believe that it generally speaks his sentiments.- 
 
 26 
 
302 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 archy with something like a Brahminical sacro-sanc- 
 titv, and degraded the rest of the community into an 
 inferior caste. In our own times, it exhibits the 
 clergy as an order, in whose preservation the rest of 
 society have but a slight and ambiguous interest. 
 The same error, according to the varying complexion 
 of the times, on the one hand, elevates the conse- 
 crated class to an almost praeternatural immunity 
 and power ; or, on the other, places them in most in- 
 jurious disunion from the rest of the social body, 
 with which, in truth, they should be indissolubly 
 bound up. It should never be forgotten that the ec- 
 clesiastical establishment alone does not constitute 
 the Church ; and that both the privileges and the re- 
 sponsibilities of churchmanship belong to the laity 
 as well as to clergy, according to their several op- 
 portunities and stations. 
 
 In common with the soundest doctors, 
 Church visible ne allows the distinction between the 
 
 and ,nv,s,ble. 
 
 The former he calls the very body of Christ ; the latter 
 his medlied (or mixed) body ; which includes men or- 
 dained to bliss, and hypocrites doomed to perdition,* 
 His fanciful and nugatory distribution of the Church 
 militant into the clergy, the military, and the popu- 
 lace,! is scarcely worthy of notice. It would be a 
 weariness to accumulate passages for the purpose 
 of showing that he postponed the authority of the 
 Church to that of the Holy Scriptures that he dis- 
 regarded tradition as a rule of faith co-ordinate with 
 the written word that he maintained that all things 
 necessary to salvation might be found in the Sacred 
 Volume, and that the oracles of God might freely be 
 consulted by all Christian people. These opinions are 
 profusely scattered throughout his writings, and were 
 finally embodied in the mightiest of all his works, 
 the translation of the Bible. As for the assertion 
 
 Lewis, c. viii. p. 152. t Ibid. p. 153. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 303 
 
 that the Church is of more authority and credence 
 than the Gospel, he reprobates it as " a forecasting 
 of Satan to destroy Holy Writ and the belief of 
 Christian men, by means of Anti-Christ, and his 
 false and worldly clerks."* " Though we had a hun- 
 dred Popes," he tells us, " and all the friars in the 
 world were turned into cardinals, yet should we 
 trow more the law of the Gospel, than all this mul- 
 titude."! 
 
 There seems to be little doubt that, to 
 the last, Wiclif acknowledged the sacra- me e sacra ' 
 ments of the Romish Church ; for in one 
 of his latest works he speaks of them as seven in 
 number.^ But then it may be questioned Avhether he 
 attached to the word sacrament, a signification of 
 such deep importance and solemnity as we have been 
 accustomed to. He understands by it " a token that 
 may be seen, of a thing which may not be seen with 
 any bodily eye ;" but he does not allow every sacra- 
 ment to be generally necessary to salvation.^ With 
 regard to Baptism, he denies the neces- Ba tjgm 
 sity of chrism, or of trine immersion, or 
 of any thing more than the affusion of water. That 
 he deemed the baptism of infants to be requisite, is 
 evident from his concession, that females may be al- 
 lowed to administer it to children in cases of urgent 
 need : but he abstains from any presumptuous deter- 
 mination respecting the future condition of infants 
 unbaptized. As a caution against formality or su- 
 perstition, he warns men not to seek the worship of 
 God too little, and their own too much ; and adds, 
 that priests must minister the outward token ; but 
 that the spiritual grace within, which we see not, is 
 ministered to us of God, who is the priest and bishop 
 of our souls. It is he alone that christeneth the soul, 
 that is, washeth it from the uncleanness of all manner 
 
 * Lewis, c. viii. p. 155. 
 
 t James's Apol. c. 1. s. 2. See also Vaugh. vol ii. p. 212317. 
 
 J Trialog. iv. 1. Lewis, c. viii. 165. .- 
 
304 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 of sin ; and therefore children, and sometiraes men 
 and women, are christened with water.* 
 
 . Of Confirmation he speaks as a rite, 
 
 ' the importance of which has been much 
 exaggerated, to the disparagement of more worthy 
 and needful sacraments.^ The ceremonies with which 
 it was loaded, he condemns as unscriptural ; professes 
 himself unable to see why this sacrament should be 
 reserved to Csesarean prelates ; and suggests that the 
 short and trifling Confirmation performed by them, 
 together with its pompous mummery, must, probably, 
 have been introduced by the instigation of the devil, 
 for the purpose of deluding the people, and advancing 
 the importance and dignity of the Episcopal order 4 
 It is scarcely possible to listen to this almost fanatical 
 extravagance without astonishment, and even dis- 
 gust. In perusing this passage, we could well nigh 
 fancy that we had before us the very words of those 
 intractable and self-willed spirits who, two centuries 
 later, were demolished by the learning, the sanctity, 
 and the incomparable irony of Hooker.^ Awful, in- 
 deed, is the responsibility of those, who, by their 
 corruptions and perversions, have ever made the fra- 
 grance of truth to be abhorred ! Sacrament, or no 
 sacrament, the rite of Confirmation, administered by 
 bishops, has the sanction of Scripture, followed up 
 by the testimony of the most venerable fathers, and 
 by the immemorial usage of Christendom. And, yet, 
 such was the dishonour brought upon it by frivolous 
 and superstitious vanities, that, in the eyes of Wiclif, 
 it seemed as little better than a worthless and unholy 
 thing! 
 
 In what precise sense it was that 
 Wiclif ascribed the sacramental charac- 
 ter to absolution and penance, it would be very diffi- 
 cult to say. The act of confession to an intelligent 
 
 Lewis, c. viii. p. 166, 167. 
 
 t Sentence of Curse, fcc. c. vii. Vaugh. vol. ii. p. 308. 
 
 } Trialog. iv. 14. ^ewis, c. viii. p. 167. Book v. e. 66. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 305 
 
 and holy minister, accompanied by sincere contrition, 
 and all the fruits meet for repentance, were, unques- 
 tionably, regarded by him as among the most profita- 
 ble and salutary of religious duties.* 5 And since un- 
 feigned penitence for sin is, undoubtedly, necessary 
 to salvation, this mode of expressing sorrow, and 
 seeking pardon, might be allowed by him to retain 
 its place among the sacraments of the Church. It is, 
 however, beyond dispute that he deemed the exercise 
 of the sacerdotal office in this solemnity to be a 
 matter of very subordinate importance. In making 
 themselves the principal parties in assorting, or absolv- 
 ing, the sinner, he affirmed, that the priesthood were 
 blasphemers against the Father of heaven, to whom 
 alone belongs the power of remission. The function 
 of the priest he considered to be purely ministerial 
 and declaratory. They are "vicars and messengers," 
 ordained to testify that God grants absolution to the 
 truly penitent : and when they take upon themselves 
 to pronounce judicially the sacramental absolution, 
 they are, in his judgment, usurpers of God's majesty, 
 deceivers of the people, and encouragers of vice.f 
 And he distinctly asserts, that "in schrift, though 
 we tell our sins to a priest, and he put us on penance, 
 we are assoiled never the rather, but if (unless) God, 
 who is the priest of souls, see that we sorrow with 
 all our hearts for our sins, and that we be in full 
 purpose and will to leave them for ever after. "J 
 
 Episcopal Ordination, he expressly re- Ordination 
 cognises as a sacramental ordinance: 
 but he seems to question whether it imprints an in- 
 delible character. The nature, or, as he terms it, the 
 quiddity of this character, he tells us, is a matter of 
 ,much dispute : and he therefore prays, that God would 
 ie pleased to confer on the clergy some further grace ; 
 the cJiaracter in question being found in such a mul- 
 
 Great Sentence of Curse, <fcc. c. vi. Lewis, c. viii. p. 17L 
 t Of Prelates, MS. 43. Lewis, c. viii. p. 167, 168. 
 Of the Seven Sacrament*. MS. Lewis, c. viii. p. 168. 
 26* 
 
306 LITE OF WICLIF. 
 
 titude of instances, to be useless and ineffective. In 
 speaking on this subject, he seizes the opportunity of 
 reprobating the multiplied and intolerable exactions 
 which were practised in conferring the sacerdotal 
 office,* and wnich gave to the transaction an appear- 
 ance of Simoniacal trafficking. 
 
 . His speculations respecting the sacra- 
 
 ment of matrimony are strangely subtle 
 and fantastical. He conceives it to have been or- 
 dained, not only for the perpetuation of mankind 
 until the day of doom, and for the suppression of 
 licentious intercourse, but also for the restoration and 
 fulfilment of the multitude of angels damned for pride, 
 and the completion of the number of the saints in 
 heaven. t He condemns the practises of the courts 
 which pronounce matrimony valid from words of con- 
 sent ; apparently forgetting that the secrej intention, 
 is hidden from human j udges, who are able to decide 
 only from overt acts, and that, if the ordinance is to 
 be considered as sacramental, it would, of course, re? 
 quire a sensible and outward sign.t He seems to 
 question the application of the Levitical prohibitions 
 to Christian societies, and even to contend for the 
 restoration of the usages prevalent in the earliest 
 ages of the world : marriage, within the very closest 
 degrees of propinquity, being, in his opinion, con- 
 demned only by arbitrary human maxims, and insti- 
 tutions.^ This unnatural and unscriptural opinion 
 
 * There is one of these enormities which seems, more especially, to 
 move his virtuous indignation. Not only were exorbitant gratuities ex- 
 ;iacted for the Letters of Orders, but the authorized officiating barber was, 
 usually, so unconscionable in his demands for executing the^ clerical ton- 
 sure, that a man, he complains, might actually be shaved and clipped for 
 a whole year together, by an ordinary practitioner, for the same sum that 
 was extorted by the official artist on this one occasion. This, says Wiclif, 
 is a foul extortion ! Lewis, c. viii. p. 157. 
 
 t Of Wedded Men and Wives, MS. c. i. Lewis, c. viii. p. 171. 
 
 t Trialogus, iv. 22. Lewis, c. viii. p. 172. 
 
 Tempore primi hominis, fratres et sorores fuerunt, ex ordinatione 
 divina, talker conjugati : et tempore Patriarcharum, ut Abraham, Isaac, 
 et talium, satis propinquS cognati. Nee euperest ratio, quare non sic 
 Jiccret hodifcj nisi humana ordinatio, (jute dicit non solum ex cognatione, 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 307 
 
 .can be ascribed to nothing but that species of infatu- 
 ation, which is found, occasionally, to seize on minds 
 of great energy, when once they become heated with 
 the work of innovation. The notion is so monstrous, 
 that it painfully weakens our reliance on his judg- 
 ment. It may be said, almost, to resemble the dead 
 fly, which giveth an evil savour to a whole vessel of 
 .the most precious ointment. 
 
 Respecting the Eucharist, it is, per- TheEuchariBt 
 haps, more easy to state with precision 
 what he did not believe than what he did. He did 
 not believe that the substance of Christ's body was 
 miraculously substituted for that of the bread. He 
 did not believe in any separation of accidents or 
 .qualities, from their proper subject. He did not be* 
 lieve, in short, that the visible emblems ceased to 
 retain their own nature after the words of consecra- 
 jion. But that some sort of change was effected, he 
 .assuredly did believe ; and that this change was of 
 sufficient importance to warrant us in affirming that 
 'Christ's body is really present in the Eucharist. The 
 precise manner of this presence he does not under- 
 take to define; but contents himself with vaguely 
 describing it as figurative or sacramental : and he 
 conceives that many things are involved in this mys- 
 terious subject, which form no part of necessary faith, 
 and which should neither be granted nor denied, but 
 treated rather as matter of humble and reverent con- 
 jecture.* One thing, however, appears indisputable ; 
 namely, that whatever may have been the perplexity 
 of his opinions, he cannot, without the most resolute 
 perversion, be charged with want of integrity or firm- 
 ness, when called upon to support them in the face of 
 the world. 
 
 The number of seven sacraments can?- Extreme Uno 
 not be made up without admitting ex- tion - 
 
 sed ex affinitate, amorem inter homines dilatari : et causa haec hominum 
 est nimis debilis. Trialogus, lib. iv. c. 20, 21. Lewis, c. viii. p. 173. 
 * Seven Deadly Sins, MS, Cod. James. Also, James's Apol. c. vii. 
 
308 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 treme unction among them : and yet Wiclif has been 
 charged with the heresy of denying to that rite the 
 sacramental character.* The truth probably is, that 
 he suffered it to remain on the list of sacraments, 
 without allowing it to be requisite to salvation ; for 
 we have seen that he did not consider all the sacra- 
 ments to be of equal necessity and worthiness. 
 Celibacy of the The compulsory celibacy of the cler- 
 ciergy. gv an d the forcible imposition of mo- 
 
 nastic vows, He reprobates in the strongest terms, 
 as practices tending to flagitious corruption of man- 
 ners, f Prudent and "measurable" fasting he held to 
 Fastin, be salutary. But abstinence from flesh, 
 
 only to indulge in fish, he derides as fool- 
 fasting, and as nothing better than another form of 
 gluttony : and fasting beyond the powers of nature, 
 he censures as a mistaken and presumptuous emula- 
 lation of Elias or of Christ4 Ceremonies, he allows 
 Ceremonies to ^ e use ^ u ^> as sens ible signs by which 
 
 men may be led into the way of happi- 
 ness, but deprecates the cumbrous and fantastic 
 bravery, the " pride, pomp, and circumstance," of 
 the existing ritual ; and he complains that the slight- 
 est neglect of these beggarly elements was more 
 dreaded than the breach of God's commandments. "$ 
 Among the many " fretful and angry 
 mtf m sentences " which fell from Wiclif, there 
 are few which savour more strongly of fanatical aus- 
 terity, than those which he has bestowed on the vocal 
 and instrumental Psalmody of the Church. Nothing 
 appears more vehemently to have moved his bile than 
 what he is pleased to term the " novelrie of song," 
 which had then been introduced into our religious 
 services. He loudly complains that it not only di- 
 
 * James's ApoL c. viii. s. 4. 
 
 t Order of Priesthood, MS. c. ix. Wedded Men, &c. MS. Lewis, 
 c. viii. p. 163, 164. James's Apol. c. viii. s. 12, 13. 
 J James's Apol. c. viii. s. 13. 
 5 Trialogus, iv. 11. Lewis, c. viii. p. 174. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 309 
 
 verted the attention both of priest and worshipper 
 from their devotional duties, but was maintained at 
 an enormous cost, which might be applied to much 
 better purposes. Such, according to his representa- 
 tion, was the frivolity and artifice of these perform- 
 ances, that " it's small breking stirred vain men to 
 dauncing more than mourning :" and he warns the 
 " fools" who delight in it, that they " shulden dread 
 the sharp words of Austin, that saith, As oft as the 
 song liketh me more than doth the sentence sung, so 
 oft I confess that I sin grievously." The temple ser- 
 vices of the old law he rejects as models for the Chris- 
 tian worship, the best distinctions of which are its 
 simplicity and spirituality. "And if," he observes, 
 " they seyn that angels hearen God by song in hea- 
 ven, seye that we kunnen not that song : they ben in 
 full victory of their enemies ; but we ben in perilous 
 battle, and in the vally of weeping and mourning; 
 and our song letteth us fro better occupation, and 
 stirreth us to many great sins, and to forget our- 
 selves. But our fleshly people hath more liking in 
 their bodily ears, in such knacking and tattering, than 
 in hearing of God's law, or speaking of bliss in hea- 
 ven When there ben fourty or fifty in a quire, 
 
 three or four proud and lecherous lorels* shullen, 
 knack the most devout service, that no man shall 
 hear the sentence, and all other shullen be dumb, and 
 looken on them, as fools. And then, strumpets and 
 thieves praisen Sire Jack, or Hobb, and William the 
 proud Clerk, how small they knacken their notes, and 
 seyn that they serven well God and Holy Church ; 
 when they despisen God in his face, and letten other 
 Christen men of their devotion and compunction, 
 and stirren them to worldly vanity. And thus the 
 true service of God is letted, and this vain knacking-, 
 for our jollity and pride, is praised above the moon,"t 
 
 " Worthless fellows. 
 
 t Of Prelates, c. xi. cited in Lewis, c. viii. p. 1C2, 163. 
 
310 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 Here, again, we cannot well avoid to recognise the 
 visitation of the same spirit, which, in after times, 
 suggested, that the practice of chanting derived its 
 authority from the contrivance of the Devil ; by 
 whose device it was, that this mode of singing was 
 accounted as an invention of Ignatius, or an imita- 
 tion of the angels of heaven ! If the celebration of 
 God's holy name were marred and dishonoured, in 
 Wiclif 's days, by unbecoming exhibitions of musical 
 skill, the correction of the abuse was, doubtless, a 
 worthy object of his anxiety. His language, how- 
 ever, leaves us under the impression, that he regarded 
 all musical performance as an abomination, which 
 ought to be ruthlessly banished from our public wor- 
 ship. " In Church music," says a Reformer of a 
 of a very different complexion, " curiosity and osten- 
 tation of art, wanton, light, or unsuitable harmony, 
 doth rather blemish and disgrace that we do, than 
 add either beauty or furtherance unto it. On the 
 other side, the faults prevented, the force and efficacy 
 of the thing itself, when it drowneth not utterly, 
 but fitly suiteth with matter altogether sounding to 
 the praise of God, is, in truth, most admirable ; and 
 doth much edify, if not the understanding, because 
 it teacheth not, yet, surely, the affection, because 
 therein it worketh much. They must have hearts 
 very dry and tough, from whom the melody of the 
 Psalms doth not, sometime, draw that, wherein a 
 mind, religiously affected, delighteth."* 
 
 It ought to be mentioned to the honour of Wiclif 's 
 sagacity and hardihood of mind, that he condemned 
 Judicial astro- the insane vanities of judicial astro- 
 lo gy- logy- He distinctly affirmed, that the 
 
 science of the astrologer was destitute of all founda- 
 tion ; that all his maxims and opinions rested on no 
 substratum of knowledge,! To venture on such an 
 assertion, in the fourteenth century, must have re- 
 
 Hooker, b. v. s. 53. t Lewis, p. 174. Trialogus, lib. ii. c. 15. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 311 
 
 quired no ordinary exercise of intrepidity and judg- 
 ment. 
 
 It will easily be believed, that the Notions impu . 
 opinions of an innovator, like Wiclif, ted to Wiclif, 
 surrounded as he was by exasperated and ^f y Jf De ^ 
 watchful adversaries, would be exposed and that every 
 to gross exaggeration and perversion, creature is God. 
 He, accordingly, makes frequent complaint, that 
 notions were constantly ascribed to him, which, in 
 fact, he never entertained. Of these, there is one so 
 extravagantly profane, that it is difficult to imagine 
 by what process of torture it can have been extracted 
 from his writings. We have seen, above, that among 
 the articles preferred against him at Oxford, he is 
 charged with maintaining, that God could not choose 
 but obey the Devil ! And this charge, it appears, has 
 since been repeated by Bellarmine, and the Jesuit 
 Gretser; who, likewise impute to him another no- 
 tion scarcely less monstrous, that every creature is 
 God. This latter accusation must, doubtless, have 
 been drawn from certain abstruse metaphysical 
 speculations of Wiclif 's, in which he intimates, that 
 all the laws of truth, residing in the Divine Essence, 
 are no other than God himself; nay, that every thing 
 in the universe, considered with reference to its in- 
 telligible essence, is identified with the Deity.* It 
 is beyond my power to develope these obscure ima- 
 ginings ; but to suppose that they were intended by 
 Wiclif to involve the unqualified impieties and ab- 
 surdities of Pantheism, is, in effect, to maintain that 
 a few sentences of abstract scholastic disquisition are 
 to obliterate the testimony of a whole life. Surely, 
 no synod of Inquisitors would burn a poet for saying, 
 that all the glorious phenomena of nature " are but 
 the varied God." And, if so, it would be difficult to 
 see why the displeasure, even of the soundest divines, 
 
 * primes veritatis leges in Essentia Divina, sicut omnia, sunt Deus. 
 Again: Omnisres, secundumesse intellisnbile, est Deus. Expos. DecaL 
 cited in James's Apology, c. ix. 10th and llth Objections. 
 
312 LIFE OF W1CLIF. 
 
 should rise against a Christian philosopher, who 
 might contemplate a pervading Deity in the essence 
 of all created things. As for the position, that God 
 must obey the Devil, it is the raving of a maniac, 
 rather than the aberration of a heretic. In what 
 part of Wiclif 's writings his enemies professed to 
 read this blasphemy, I have not been able to discover. 
 He says, indeed, that God is a title which is some- 
 limes used in an absolute sense, at other times in a 
 sense more qualified. It is properly applied only to 
 the Lord of the universe: it is, however, often intro- 
 duced to signify any other object which may usurp 
 the adoration and service that is due to Him alone ;* 
 (as when the commandment says, Thou shah have 
 none other Gods but me :) and over such a God as this, 
 it cannot be denied, that the Devil may be supposed 
 to exercise a very ligitimate dominion. I have seen 
 no other passage but this produced as the possible' 
 foundation for the charge in question ; and one would" 
 imagine, that it must surpass even the subtlety and' 1 
 the malice of a Jesuit, to infer from the words " a con-* 
 elusion so foul and irreligious," that, as Dr. -James 4 ' 
 remarks, " scarcely any Devil of hell Would dare to-' 
 utter it." 
 
 Nothing could well be more useless, than to exa-; 
 mine, minutely, all the perversions by which some of 
 the most blameless of Wiclif 's principles have been 
 rendered questionable or odious. There are, however, 
 some of his opinions which demand a more attentive 
 notice, because they have tended to fix upon him the 
 imputation of a deliberate revolutionist and spoliator. 
 The course of our narrative has already brought this 
 department of his speculations under occasional re- 
 vie\v : and the reader will recollect, that any attempt 
 to vindicate the language, which was sometimes dic- 
 tated by his burning zeal for improvement, has been 
 
 * Dei accept io duplex ; absolute, Dominus Dominonim : quando con- 
 trahitur, vel specificatur, per signum detrahens, significat quodcunque 
 benum quod quis plus diligit. Expos. Decal. cited by James. Ibid. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 31'3 
 
 studiously disclaimed. Of the positions ascribed to 
 him, the most formidable is that domi- 
 nion is founded on grace ; a maxim which aST in grac? 
 fanaticism might inscribe upon its ban- how understood 
 ners; an oracle which, taken to the let- HwSSK^ 
 ter, cries havoc in-, the ears of the elect, 
 and would soon let slip the dogs of war and anarchy 
 upon the world. This watchword of rebellion has 
 been described by a modern historian, as the cardinal 
 and favourite position of the Reformer ; a charge 
 which, if clearly established, would be sufficient to fix 
 dishonour on his memory, in the estimation of every 
 friend of social order. Now, in considering this im- 
 putation, it must, in the first place, be recollected, 
 that in his English writings, designed for the purposes 
 of popular instruction, there are not more than two 
 or three passages in which the slightest allusion to 
 this dangerous maxim is to be found :* and, secondly, 
 that only one passage from his other compositions, 
 has ever been produced by his accusers, in support 
 of the charge ; and even this is expressed by him in 
 far too guarded and moderate a manner to inflict dis- 
 turbance on any mind, which was not already pre- 
 pared to find a heretical opinion.! He there observes, 
 that, " as Christ, by the title of original righteousness, 
 was master of all the possessions of theVorld, even 
 so all things belong to the just, by the grace or favour 
 of Christ." But, then, far from making a dangerous 
 use of this maxim, he immediately adds, that, " with 
 this title of grace the just must rest content. They 
 
 * I assert this on the authority of Mr. Vaughan, who speaks with the 
 confidence of one who has painfully examined all the writings of Wiclif, 
 whether in manuscript, or in print. 
 
 t "Titulo originalis justitiae habuit Christus omnia bona mundi ; ut 
 
 saspe declarat Augustinus, illo titulo, vel titulo gratiae, justorum sunt 
 
 omnia ; sed longe ab illo titulo civilis possessio. Unde Christus et sui 
 
 Apostoli, spretadominatione civili, fuerunt de habitione pur ; secundum 
 
 ilium titulum contentati. Ideo regula Christi est, quae (quod ?) nullus 
 
 discipulorum suorum prczsumat pro temporalibus suis contendere ; 
 
 ' ut patet, Matth. vi. qui aufert qu& tua sunt ne repetas, Sed longfe 
 
 snnt leges civiles, et consuetudo dominantium, ab ilia sententia." Tna- 
 
 log. lib. iv. Vauehan, vol. ii. p. 235, note 6. 
 
 27 
 
314 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 maybe satisfied that the world is theirs; but they 
 must on no account whatever presume to enforce their 
 right by any worldly means ; for the law of Christ 
 expressly forbids his disciples to contend for temporal 
 things, nowever clearly and rightfully their own." 
 Surely the lords of the earth might hear, with pro- 
 found composure, a claim to all the good things in it, 
 provided it were accompanied by a law, which posi- 
 tively forbade the claimants to take a single step 
 towards the enforcement of their visionary right. 
 Nothing could well be less alarming than the doc- 
 trine in question, as thus guarded and qualified 
 not!) ing which could afford less ground for the suspi- 
 cion that the holder of it was to be dreaded as a 
 political incendiary ! 
 
 It is remarkable, that St. Augustine has expressed 
 himself on this matter with much less reserve than 
 Wiclif ; for he says, broadly, that every thing which 
 is unworthily possessed, does not rightfully belong to 
 the possessor ; and that every thing is unworthily 
 possessed, which is unworthily used : that the whole 
 world is the portion of the faithful man ; but that 
 the unfaithful hath no just title to a single penny.* 
 And yet, who ever seriously imagined that the Bishop 
 of Hippo intended to proclaim to the saints a crusade 
 against wicked rich men, as having forfeited, by their 
 vices, all title to their possessions ? 
 
 * Omne quod mate possidetur, alienum est ; male" antem possidet qui 
 malfc utitur ; fideli homini totus mundus divitiarum est, infiueli nee obo- 
 lus. See Lewis, c. viii. p. 142. This notion, it seems, had been adopted 
 by the Albigenses : but, whatever may be its demerits, it is with a very 
 bad grace that the Papists affected to reprobate it, professing, as they did, 
 a doctrine still more dangerous to the peace of mankind ; namely, that 
 the lives and sceptres of kings are at the mercy of the Pope. " That do- 
 minion is founded in grace," says Fuller, "seemeth to be the very opinion 
 of the Albigenses : yea, it hangeth as yet in the Schools upon the file, as 
 a thing disputable, finding many favourers. But grant it a great error 
 (for wicked men shall be arraigned before God, not as usurpers, but as 
 tyrants ; not for not having right, but for not right using the creature,) 
 yet herein they proceeded not so far as the Papists now-a-days, to un- 
 throne and depose excommunicated princes : so that they who do most 
 accuse them, have least cause to do so." Fuller, Holy War, b. iii. c. 20. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 315 
 
 It is, nevertheless, very greatly to be wished, that 
 Wiclif, and all other writers, had rigidly abstained 
 from language, which, in spite of every qualification 
 attached to it, was liable to the most mischievous 
 perversion. It might easily have been foreseen, that 
 the maxim itself would speedily get abroad, without 
 the explanatory words, which alone could make it 
 innocent ; that the title of the just would be remem- 
 bered, and the prohibition to enforce it forgotten. It 
 will immediately occur to every one, that the princi- 
 ple was actually thus abused, long afterwards, by the 
 German Anabaptists, when they maintained, that 
 the time was come for the meek ones to inherit the 
 earth, their title thereto being the same as that by 
 which the Israelites seized the property of the wicked 
 Egyptians. Such wresting of the language of Scrip- 
 ture, at all times extremely perilous, becomes objec- 
 tionable, in a tenfold degree, when it assumes the 
 form of a commentary on existing institutions, or 
 even a denunciation of existing abuses. Neither can 
 it safely be denied, that the words of Wiclif, in the 
 mouth of many of his more ignorant followers, may 
 have helped to impart something of a revolutionary 
 character to the spirit of Lollardism, and to give a 
 pernicious currency to the principle, that the saints 
 are the only true and legitimate proprietors of all 
 things. But that he himself actually designed, or 
 contemplated any such extreme result, is, to me, 
 absolutely incredible. All that we demand for him 
 is, that he may stand or fall not by a 
 scholastic speculation, or an adventur- C ipies tU of 'civil 
 ous speech, but by the general tenor obedience faith- 
 of his popular teaching. And what f $ l fa$* 
 that teaching was may be judged from 
 the following passage, in which he enforces, with the 
 deepest urgency, the scriptural principles of civil 
 obedience. 
 
 " Christ," says he, " and his apostles weren most 
 obeisant to kings and lords, and taughten all men to 
 
316 LIFE OF WICLTF. 
 
 be suget to them, and serve them truly and wilfully 
 in bodily works and tribute, and dread them and 
 
 worship them before all other men. Jesu Christ 
 
 paid tribute to emperor, and commanded men to pay 
 him tribute. And St. Peter commandeth, in God's 
 name, Christen men to be suget to every creature of 
 -man, either to king as more high than other, either 
 to dukes as sent of him to the vengeance of misdoers, 
 and praising of good men. Also St. Paul command- 
 eth, by auctority of God, that every soul be suget to 
 higher powers, for there is no power but of God. 
 Princes ben not to the dread of good work but of evil 
 work. Wilt thou not dread the potestate? do good, 
 and thou shalt have praising thereof. For he is God's 
 minister to them to good. Sothly if thou hast don 
 evil, dread thou, for he beareth not the sword without 
 cause ; for he is God's minister, venger into wrath to 
 him that doth evil. Therefore through need be ye 
 suget not only for wrath but for conscience. Pay to 
 all men debts, both tribute, and custom for things 
 born about in the lond, and dread and honour and 
 love. And our Saviour Jesu Christ suffered mekely 
 painful death of Pilate, not excusing him for his juris- 
 diction by his Clergy. And St. Paul profered him 
 ready to suffer death by doom of the emperor's jus- 
 tice, if he were worthy to death, as deeds of the apos- 
 tles techen."* Accordingly he blames the clergy of 
 his time for being traitors to kings and lords in deny- 
 ing this obedience, because they pleaded to be exempt 
 from the king's jurisdiction and chastising, and 
 refused " to pay any subsidie, or tax, or helping of 
 our king and our rewme, without leave and assent 
 of the worldly priest of Rome." Well, therefore, 
 might Wiclif say of himself and his followers, that 
 they " destroien most, by God's law, rebelty of ser- 
 vants agenst lords, and charge servants to be suget, 
 .though lords be tyrants." 
 
 * Great Sentence of Curse Expounded. MS. c. 1 1 . 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 317 
 
 Again, Wiclif saw himself surrounded on all sides, 
 by such profligacy and oppression as seemed to inti- 
 mate that they who called themselves the excellent 
 of the earth, had well nigh lost all remembrance of 
 the tenure by which men hold their possessions or 
 their privileges at the hand of God. And he is ac- 
 cused of imbodying his sense of these enormities 
 in the following maxim, " that no one in mortal sin 
 hath a true dominion over any of the creatures apud 
 Deum, in the sight of God : but deserves to be called 
 a tyrant and a robber, although, by reason of some 
 human law, he retain the name of ting, or prince, or 
 lord." This is the language of his Trialogus, as 
 represented by his adversary Wodford :* and it is, 
 doubtless, quite in harmony with what has fallen from 
 him in one of his English compositions. If tem- 
 poral lords do wrongs and extortions to the people, 
 they ben traitors to God and his people, and tyrants 
 of Anti-Christ."! These, undoubtedly, are very bitter 
 words. But they are not much more bitter than re- 
 ligion, and morality, and even history, have some- 
 times bestowed on men who were seated on the high 
 places of the earth, and whose vices and oppressions 
 have blackened the annals of the world. Besides, it 
 must again be recollected, that, although the rights 
 of the great might be forfeited by abuse, in the righ- 
 teous estimate of God; the just, according to Wiclif, 
 were in no condition to take advantage of the for- 
 feiture, or to help themselves to the possessions of 
 the delinquents. The disciples of Christ, he tells us, 
 are positively forbidden even to seek their own, by 
 any secular means ; of course, therefore, they could 
 never be warranted in aggressions upon the dominion 
 or the property of the most worthless of mankind. 
 However keen may be the sting of his expressions, 
 they were put forth by one who was perpetually ex- 
 horting his own followers to abstinence from all 
 
 * Adversus ,1. Wiclefum. See Lewis, c. viii. p. 142. 
 t Ecclesiae Regimen. Lewis, c. viii. p. 142. 
 
 27* 
 
318 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 contention about worldly matters. Who can believe 
 that it was his design to encourage the violation of 
 that law, which commands us to render unto all their 
 due, when we hear him uttering such complaints as 
 these? "Prelates slander poor priests, and other 
 Christian men, saying they will not obey their sove- 
 reign, nor fear the curse, nor keep the laws, but 
 despise all things that are not to their liking, and that 
 they are, therefore, worse than Jews or Pagans ; and 
 that all lords and prelates, and mighty men, should 
 destroy them, or else they will destroy holy Church, 
 and make each man to live as him liketh, and nothing 
 may more destroy Christendom."* He allows, in- 
 deed, that " the fiend moveth some men to say, that 
 Christian men should not be servants nor vassals to 
 heathen lords, since they are false to God, nor to 
 Christian lords, because they are brethren by nature, 
 and bought by the cross of Jesus Christ, who made 
 them free." But he adds, that " the apostles have 
 written against this heresy in God's law." Once 
 more, " The feigned reason of Anti-Christ's clerks, 
 is this, if subjects may lawfully withdraw tithes and 
 offerings from curates, who live in open lechery, or 
 in other great sins, and do not their office, then ser- 
 vants and tenants may lawfully withdraw their ser- 
 vice and rents from their lords, who live openly an 
 accursed life." But he replies, that " men are charged 
 of God, by St. Peter and St. Paul, to be thus subject 
 to wicked lords; and therefore Christ paid tribute, for 
 himself and his apostles, to the heathen emperors."! 
 His " Short Rule of Life," speaks similar language : 
 " If thou art a labourer, live in meekness, and wil- 
 lingly do thy labour, that thy lord or thy master, it' 
 he be a heathen man, by thy meekness, willing and 
 true service, may not have to grudge against thee, 
 nor slander thy God, nor thy Christian profession, 
 And serve not Christian lords with grudgings; not 
 
 * De Obedientia Prelatorum, MS. apud Vauehan, vol. ii. p. 237, note 9. 
 t Of servants and lords, MS. cited by Vaughan, voL ii. p. 338, 239. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 319 
 
 only in their presence, but truly and willingly, and in 
 absence : not only for worldly dread, or worldly re- 
 ward, but for dread of God and conscience, and for 
 reward of heaven."* They who can peruse such 
 passages as these, and yet contend that Wiclif either 
 seriously meditated or desired the general overthrow 
 of property and government, must be prepared to 
 maintain that he was, not only a wild enthusiast, but 
 a most execrable hypocrite. 
 
 With regard to unworthy churchmen, it must be 
 confessed, his language is frequently much more 
 unsparing and unqualified. He has been charged 
 with heresy, as affirming that one who is living in 
 mortal sin is neither bishop nor prelate ; and the tenor 
 of his writings does, undoubtedly, show, that it would 
 have pleased him well, if human laws were rigorously 
 to enforce that forfeiture of office, which he conceived 
 profligate ecclesiastics to have already incurred in 
 the just judgment of the Almighty. He has further 
 been arraigned for maintaining that, temporal lords 
 may, at their discretion, seize the possessions and 
 estates of unfaithful churchmen. Now this is a posi- 
 
 * WicliPs writings, by the Religious Tract Society, p. 151. 
 
 That dominion is founded on grace, is a notion which, probably, lurks 
 to this day in some of the dark corners of fanaticism. It is, indeed, one 
 vital element of Antinomianism, "that thick-skinned monster of the 
 ooze and the mire;" as appears from the following account, given by 
 Wesley, of his conversation with one of the most oracular persons of that 
 persuasion : 
 
 Do you believe you have nothing to do with the law of God? 
 
 I have not. I am not under the law. I live by faith. 
 
 Have you, as living by faith, a right to every thing in the world ? 
 
 I have. All is mine, since Christ is mine. 
 
 May you, then, take any thing you will, any where ? Suppose, out of a 
 flhop, without the consent or knowledge of the owner ? 
 
 I may, if I want it ; for it is mine : only I would not give offence. 
 
 Have you, also, a right to all the women in the world? 
 
 Yes, if they consent. 
 
 And is not that a sin? 
 
 Yes, to him that thinks it sin ; but not to those whose hearts are free. 
 Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. ii. p. 319. And this they call being per- 
 fect in Christ, not in themselves ! One would gladly see such perfection 
 under a scourge like that of Wiclif; in spite of all that has been said con- 
 cerning his patronage of it. 
 
320 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 w _ . tion which has a more dangerous sound 
 ions df the Sow- to modern ears, than it had to the ears 
 cr of the state of the generation to which it was ad- 
 oI*rty Ch ' * dressed. When we hear of temporal 
 lords, we are apt to think of noblemen, or 
 land-holders, in their private capacity ; and to suppose, 
 that the intention of Wiclif was, to place the property 
 of the Church at the mercy and discretion of every 
 such individual proprietor. Whereas, in fact, the title 
 of temporal lords, was, in those days, equivalent to 
 that of temporal governors, or authorities : and un- 
 derstood in this sense, there is, undoubtedly, very 
 sufficient ground for the imputation. That the en- 
 dowments of thje Church were at the disposal of the 
 secular government, and that gross breaches of clerical 
 duty ought to be punished with loss or confiscation, 
 he most indisputably did maintain. He held, in short, 
 the entire supremacy of the State over all orders and 
 degrees of men, ecclesiastical as well as civil. In 
 this respect his principles were at mortal variance 
 with the established doctrine of the Papal Church ; 
 according to which, the possessions of the clergy were, 
 under all imaginable circumstances, absolutely sacred 
 and inviolable.* The evil consequences of this doc- 
 trine had become so intolerable in the days of Wiclif, 
 that he frequently cast away all moderation in his 
 
 ' la early times, the language of Genesis i. 16. had been modestly 
 spiritualized, in its application to this subject. The greater light was 
 considered as typical of the State, the lesser, of the Church. Six hun- 
 dred years afterwards, it was discovered that this interpretation ought to 
 toe reversed ; that, as there were two luminaries in the heavenly firma- 
 ment, the sun and the moon, even so were there two in the social firma- 
 ment, the pontifical power and the regal. It followed, of course, that, for 
 the temporal authorities to touch the possessions of the Church, of which 
 the Pontiff was the head, would be little better than an inversion of the 
 order of nature acd of providence. See Laud's Conference with Fisher, 
 p. 203, 204 ; where also may be found a very curious specimen of Pon- 
 tifical arithmetic. The earth was supposed to be seven times greater 
 than the moon ; the sun eight times greater than the earth : therefore the 
 power of the Pope is forty-seven times greater than the power of the em. 
 peror. (It ought, surely to be fifty-six times greater.) What would have 
 been the triumph of the Papacy, if philosophy had then discovered the 
 .actual proportion of these luminaries 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 321 
 
 -protest against it. The mischiefs it occasioned ex- 
 torted from him a loud and almost incessant appeal 
 to the wisdom of ^the ruling powers ; whose province 
 he contended it was, to see that there should be some 
 connexion between the discharge of duty, and the 
 enjoyment of enormous emoluments. And there can 
 be no doubt that the urgency of his denunciations 
 was greatly increased by the persuasion which he 
 frequently expresses, that the spirit of Widif congi . 
 Christianity was violated by the endow- ders church en- 
 ments of the clergy;*' and that "venom ^Stent'with 
 was poured into Church" on the very the spirit of 
 day which first invested her ministers, Christianity. 
 as such, with the rights of property. He was with- 
 held by no scruples in denouncing the abuse of reve- 
 nues, held by a title which he conceived to be doubt- 
 ful, if not positively vicious ; and the vehement 
 language in which he clamoured for a reformation of 
 it, must, beyond all question, have sounded, in the 
 ears of many, as a welcome signal for spoliation. 
 
 Among the hardiest of WicliPs doctrines, relative 
 te clerical emoluments, may be reckoned that which 
 he held respecting tithes. He, every Tithes 
 where, speaks of them merely as alms ; sented by him 
 an expression which seems to imply, w alms 
 that the clergy were to be left to the mercy, the ca- 
 price, or the conscience of their parishioners. Some 
 consideration has already been bestowed upon this opi- 
 nion of the Reformer ; and it has been intimated that 
 his view of this matter was, mainly, suggested by the 
 fact, that all church property, of every description, 
 originated in voluntary bounty, and might, therefore, 
 without impropriety, be regarded as eleemosynary. 
 
 * That such was his conviction, appears constantly in his writings ; 
 and nowhere more evidently, than in the continuation of the passage 
 last quoted from the Trialogus, lib. iv. ; in which he complains that " leges 
 istae mundanse, et executio furiosa illarum, sunt, tarn culpabiliter, inter 
 
 Cleria s introductae Nam habere tiyiliter, cum necessitate 
 
 ad sol xitudinem circa temporalia, et leges hominum observaridas, debet 
 amnino clericis interdici." 
 
322 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 And this presumption is fortified by his assertion, 
 that it is the province of kings and others, to rectify, 
 or to regulate, the alms of their progenitors.* After 
 all, however, it would be idle to disguise, that his 
 language, on this subject, is generally so unqualified, 
 as still to leave it doubtful, whether he did not con- 
 sider every congregation, nay, every individual of 
 the congregation, as at liberty to withhold all pay- 
 ments from the minister, whenever they might be 
 pleased to imagine that his life was such as rendered 
 him unworthy of their liberality. Most assuredly 
 it was his doctrine, that the indignant layman was 
 infinitely less culpable in refusing tithes or offerings, 
 than the unfaithful clergyman m disregarding his 
 sacred obligations. The truth is, that his thoughts 
 were constantly attracted towards the model of apos- 
 tolic poverty. He himself went often barefoot, clad 
 in a gown of frieze ; and his poor itinerant priests 
 usually did the same. It can, therefore, scarcely be 
 doubted that he would most gladly have seen the 
 Ecclesiastical Order reduced to a much closer con- 
 formity with the primitive example, and made more 
 dependent, for their support, on the zeal and painful- 
 ness of their own ministrations. And, as the clergy 
 of his time were compelled to a life of celibacy, com- 
 paratively moderate funds would be sufficient for 
 their subsistence. It would be useless to plunge into 
 a long discussion as to the wisdom or the folly of 
 these notions, in a work, the chief object of which is 
 to ascertain the actual sentiments of the man. It is, 
 however, quite indispensable, that he should be vin- 
 dicated from the imputation fixed upon him by the 
 misconception of certain of his apologists. Misled 
 by his use of the word aZms, they imagined that he 
 would have condemned the ministers of the Gospel 
 to beg their bread. f Now, a great part of his life 
 
 * Interest regum et aliorum rectificare eleemosynas progenitorum 
 tuorum. De Verit. Script, p. 466. James's Apol.c. ix. obj. 5. 
 t James's Apol. c. ix. obj. 2 of the apologista. I have thought it quite 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 323 
 
 was passed in one uncompromising struggle against 
 religious mendicancy ; and this circumstance alone 
 might surely have satisfied his friends, at least, that, 
 even if he wished to consign the clergy to the spon- 
 taneous bounty of their people, he would never have 
 thought of driving them to solicit their maintenance 
 from door to door. 
 
 Such was this great pioneer of the Value of wic- 
 Reformation. That he was apt to ply 1S 8 ara s t e 7 ice t ^ 
 the axe with indiscriminate violence, it fhe pai Reforma^ 
 would be scarcely reasonable to deny ; tion. 
 with such violence, indeed, that he, occasionally, seems 
 to work like one, who was rather making a regular 
 clearance for the foundation of new edifices, than 
 ridding the earth of the rubbish which encumbered 
 and deformed the old. All this vehemence of action, 
 however, is precisely .such as must, sometimes, be 
 expected from natures like his, with their excess of 
 athletic vigour, and their fervid impatience of wrong. 
 Capacious and overruling spirits are scarcely ever 
 sent into this world, but " they have something in 
 them dangerous" something which it may be our 
 wisdom to fear, provided our apprehensions degene- 
 rate not into blind and abject consternation. There 
 is terror in the voice of the tempest, and there is often 
 destruction in its course; but its breath may sweep 
 away the pestilence, and lash the elements out of 
 their corrupt stagnation. The Lord himself, it is 
 true, is not always in the fire, the whirlwind, or the 
 earthquake ; and yet these wild and fearful agencies 
 may, from time to time, be needful, to prepare the 
 
 unnecessary to load the pages of a compendious work like this with 
 interminable citations from Wiclif 's writings, in support of the above 
 representations of his principles. My statements are the result of a 
 careful examination of the materials before me. Any person desirous 
 of ample details may find them in Dr. James's Apology, and in the 
 works of Mr. Lewis and Mr. Vaughan. 
 
324 LIFE OF W1CLIF. 
 
 hearts of men for the accents of the still small voice.- 
 To be appalled, therefore, at the working of those 
 mighty energies by which the destinies of this world 
 are often moulded, may, peradventure, be to manifest 
 something like a distrust of God's wisdom and pro* 
 vidence. Of the instruments employed by him for 
 the gradual destruction of a corrupt system, Wiclif 
 may surely be reckoned among the most formidable, 
 both for weight and keenness : and it can scarcely be 
 a subject of wonder, though it may be of deep regret, 
 that while this weapon was busy in the ranks 01 
 error, its sway should have frequently been perilous 
 to the closely neighbouring truth. 
 Notions of the ^ n estimating his rank among the 
 Reformation, as great intellects which have influenced 
 wrhaVbe?n the forlunes of mankind, we shall hard- 
 affected by Wic- lyr, perhaps, be justified in assigning 
 him a place with those who have been 
 most distinguished for philosophic depth, or steadi^ 
 ness of judgment. The foregoing survey of his 
 labour? and opinions must show, that he was too 
 violently agitated by the evil which, in his time, was 
 done and suffered under the sun, to weigh or mea- 
 sure, with the necessary firmness of hand, the expe- 
 dients needful for its correction. Admirable as he 
 was, he seems to have been somewhat better fitted 
 for the business of demolition than of building up. 
 As the fearless assailant of abuse, nothing could well 
 be more noble than his attitude and bearing. But, 
 had he succeeded in shaking the established system 
 to pieces, one can scarcely think, without some awful 
 misgivings, of the fabric which, under his hand, 
 might have risen out of the ruins. If the reformation 
 of our Church had been conducted by Wiclif, his 
 work, in all probability, would nearly have antici- 
 pated the labours of Calvin ; and the Protestantism 
 of England might have pretty closely resembled the 
 Protestantism of Geneva. Episcopal goverment 
 might then have been discarded ecclesiastical en- 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 325 
 
 dowments and foundations might have been, for the 
 most part, sacrificed the clergy consigned to a de- 
 grading dependence on their flocks the worship of 
 God, if not wholly stripped of its ritual solemnity, 
 yet deprived of the aids of instrumental harmony 
 and, lastly, the fatalism which lurked in the scholastic 
 writings of the Reformer, might then, possibly, have 
 raised up its head, and boldly demanded a place in 
 the Confession of the National Church ! Had Wic- 
 lif flourished in the sixteenth century, it can hardly 
 be imagined that he would have been found under 
 the banners of Cranmer and of Ridley. Their cau- 
 tion, their patience, their moderation, would scarcely 
 have been intelligible to him; and rather than con- 
 form to it, he might, perhaps, have been ready, if 
 needful, to perish, in the gainsaying of such men as 
 Knox or Cartwright. At all events, it must plainly 
 be confessed, that there is a marvellous resemblance 
 between the Reformer, with his poor itinerant priests, 
 and at least the better part of the Puritans, who 
 troubled our Israel in the days of Elizabeth and her 
 successors. The likeness is sufficiently striking, al- 
 most to mark him out as their prototype and progeni- 
 tor : and therefore it is, that every faithful son of the 
 Church of England must rejoice with trembling, that 
 the work of her final deliverance was not consigned 
 to him. It must be regarded as providential, that he 
 was raised up precisely at the time when his peculiar 
 qualities could be most serviceable. A mighty en- 
 gine was required, whose momentum might shake 
 and loosen the cyclopean masonry of the Papal fabric, 
 and thus prepare for the labours of wiser and sedater 
 men. For this service Wiclif was incomparably 
 adapted : and the faithfulness and courage with 
 which he performed it must demand the warmest 
 gratitude of Protestants to the latest generations. 
 
 Before we retire from our con templa- The belief preva- 
 tion of Wiclif, it is but equitable to re- Ssa^n' 
 mind the reader, that, in one particular, loosed 
 28 
 
326 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the times in which he lived were singularly adapt- 
 ed to engender a fierce spirit of opposition to exist- 
 ing establishments. In those days, there wandered 
 about Christendom a persuasion, that the world 
 had seen an end of the Apocalyptic period of a thou- 
 sand years, during which Satan was to be bound, and 
 that he was then actually loosed from that confine- 
 ment, and was in the full exercise of his remaining 
 privilege of mischief.* To this opinion there are 
 repeated allusions in the writings of Wiclif. He 
 seems to speak of it as a thing beyond all controver- 
 sy; and to consider the Christian community as, 
 once more, exposed to the desperate malice of its in- 
 visible persecutor and adversary. Now it will easily 
 be understood that a notion like this would be very 
 babi lively to create the wildest disturbance 
 fluenceupcnihis i n any brain which was firmly possessed 
 views and opin- by it. When once a man of an impetu- 
 ous and fervid temperament, is fully 
 persuaded that the spirit of Anti-Christ, and the 
 powers of darkness, are actually let loose upon the 
 world, he will be apt to contemplate the dominant 
 institutions with certain feelings of suspicion and 
 alarm. All the corruptions which might deform the 
 Church, and all the oppressions which might burden 
 society, would readily be ascribed by him to some 
 preternatural and infernal instigation. Arbitrary 
 kings, tyrannical and profligate nobles, selfish and 
 worldly ecclesiastics all would be regarded as im- 
 mediate agents of the Evil Potentate all would 
 appear to be revelling, as it were, in that carnival of 
 wickedness and delusion, which was to precede the 
 final consummation of all things. 
 
 Something of this sort of half-fanatical excitement 
 occasionally betrays itself in the writings and the la- 
 
 * See the beginning of the Fifth Book of Fox, from which it appears, 
 that some reckoned the thousand years from the birth of Chriei ; others, 
 as he conceives, more correctly, from the cessation of the Church's suf- 
 ferings in the days of Constantme. According to either supposition, the 
 period had expired previously to the birth of wiclif. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 327 
 
 bours of the Reformer. It may possibly be this which 
 helped to reconcile him to those hazardous specula- 
 tions, which were thought to menace the rights of pro- 
 perty, and to hold up all wicked men to public hatred, 
 not merely as unworthy members of society, but as 
 little better than robbers and usurpers. It is this too, 
 we may reasonably presume, which often prompted 
 him to describe the whole hierarchy of that day as 
 clerks of Anti-Christ, and servants of the Fiend : and 
 to represent the Mendicant Orders as the " tail of the 
 dragon which drew a third part of the stars of heaven, 
 and cast them on the earth." And though he is 
 always for sparing the persons of clerical delinquents, 
 he frequently speaks like one who is prepared for a 
 sweeping destruction of their whole apparatus of 
 iniquity. The extreme danger of such feelings and 
 opinions may now, of course, be easily discerned : 
 but even they who most cordially disapprove them, 
 must, at least, be prepared to allow, that they assisted 
 to swell the torrent which was destined to cleanse 
 away the Augean accumulation of ages. 
 
328 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 WICLIF'S OPINIONS. 
 
 Wiclif 's Poor priests Wiclif's tract, Why Poor Priests have no 
 Benefices." viz. 1. Their dread of simony 2. Their fear of mis- 
 spending the goods of poor men 3. That Priests are obliged to 
 preach, whether beneficed or not John Aston John Purney 
 
 Wiclif's followers The fanatic John Bdlli, not a disciple of Wic- 
 lif The Insurrection of the Peasantry falsely ascribed to"Wiclif 
 and his followers Attributed by the Commons to the oppression of 
 the Peasantry Encouragement afforded to Wiclif by the great 
 Edward III. -Johanna, Queen DowagerJohn of Gaunt Anne. 
 Queen of Richard it. Richard II. Various Noblemen ana 
 Knights Lord Cobham. 
 
 Wiclif's Poor IT has already been intimated, that the 
 Priests. doctrines and principles of Wiclif were 
 
 disseminated almost throughout the realm by the ex- 
 ertions of certain travelling preachers, whom he de- 
 nominates " Poor Priests ;" and whose activity and 
 usefulness is occasionally celebrated by him in the 
 course of his later writings. A brief account of this 
 class of persons may, therefore properly find a place 
 in this work. There can be little doubt that these are 
 the individuals alluded to in the preamble to that un- 
 constitutional ordinance which was obtained by arch 
 bishop Courtney in 1382; in which we have seen 
 them described as persons affecting peculiar sanctity 
 and simplicity of manners, and making the fairs and 
 markets through the kingdom, as well as the churches 
 and church-yards, the scene of their irregular minis- 
 trations. Most irregular they unquestionably were; 
 for they were performed in open disregard of eccle- 
 siastical authority. None of these zealous men ever 
 thought it necessary to obtain the sanction of a license 
 from his ordinary; and, with all of them, itinerancy 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 329 
 
 was the very life and soul of their vocation. By 
 their itinerant labours it will be recollected, the Men- 
 dicant Orders had, for a time, achieved wonders in 
 reviving the torpid faith of Europe, or, at least, in 
 rekindling her fidelity to the visible head of the 
 Church upon earth. It might, therefore, very natu- 
 rally occur to a reformer, that the instrument which 
 accomplished so much for the cause of superstition, 
 might very profitably be employed in the service of 
 reformation. Accordingly, towards the latter part of 
 his life, the kingdom was traversed, nearly from one 
 end of it to the other, by a multitude of preachers^ 
 under the sanction and encouragement of Wiclif. 
 They imitated the Friars in their vagrant mode of 
 life, in their incessant activity, and in their professed 
 renunciation of all worldly pomp and superfluity; 
 and, though they did not solicit contributions from 
 house to house, they, undoubtedly, relied for their 
 support on the voluntary bounty of their hearers. 
 
 A full exposition of the habits and the 
 principles of these effective auxiliaries wh y s Poor 
 is given us by Wiclif himself in his trea- Priests have no 
 tise, " Why Poor Priests have no bene- benefices -" 
 fices" and, consequently, why they have no fixed or 
 stationary duties. In this tract, three principal rea- 
 sons are assigned for their adopting this mode of ad- 
 vancing the cause of scriptural truth. Of i. Their dread 
 these reasons, the first is, their dread of P f simony. 
 simony. No man, it is alleged, could, in those days, 
 obtain a benefice, without making certain payments, 
 or submitting to certain conditions, which, as they 
 imagined, gave a most unholy and mercenary char- 
 acter to the appointment. The prelate had his de- 
 mand for first-fruits ; and his officers had their demand 
 for fees and gratuities ; and to acquiesce in such ex- 
 tortions, as a condition of being allowed to exercise 
 their ministry, was conceived to be, in spirit, grossly 
 simoniacaL The exactions of the lay patron, it 
 seems, would often be of a still more degrading na- 
 
330 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 ture : for the nominee, on accepting his benefice, 
 would be expected to violate his sacred character by 
 descending to the performance of some worldly office, 
 for the gratification or the profit of his benefactor. 
 To pay for their preferment by such a desecration of 
 themselves, they regarded as simony of the very 
 deepest die. All who were unmolested by these 
 scruples, whatever mi^ht be the profligacy of their 
 lives, found but little difficulty in obtaining benefices 
 involving the care of many thousand souls; while 
 they who manifested nothing but a desire to live 
 righteously and soberly, and to teach truly the law of 
 God, had little to expect but slander and persecution. 
 They were stigmatized as hypocrites, as teachers of 
 novelties, or to comprehend all enormities in a single 
 word, as heretics. Against them, therefore, the door 
 of promotion was hopelessly closed up. The laity, 
 indeed, as Wiclif further informs us, would occasion- 
 ally abstain from the exaction of pecuniary payments, 
 in the exercise of their patronage; but then they 
 hoped to disguise the simoniacal character of the 
 transaction, by accepting nothing but " a kerchief 
 for the lady, or a palfry, or a tun of wine;" and even, 
 if the lord himself were desirous of presenting a man 
 purely for his worth, the lady would frequently inter- 
 fere, and contrive that " a dancer should be presented, 
 or a tripper on tapits, or a hunter, or a hawker, or a 
 wild player of summer gambols." All these prac- 
 tices are loudly condemned by Wiclif, as treasonable 
 to the majesty and holiness of God ; and as involving 
 in the most odious guilt of simony the patron who 
 presents, the prelate who institutes, the curate who 
 accepts the benefice, and, finally the confessor who 
 fails to reprobate such proceedings, whenever they 
 fall within his knowledge. The poor priests, there- 
 fore, finding the path to preferment so fearfully beset 
 by sin, felt themselves constrained by conscience, to 
 the exercise of an irregular and unlicensed ministry.* 
 * Vaughan, vol. iii. p. 164166. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 331 
 
 Another of their scruples arose from 2 Their fear of 
 their extreme apprehension of " mis- "mis-spending 
 spending the goods of poor men." Every Jjj r |2jf?, of 
 portion of clerical emolument that might 
 remain, after supplying the most moderate exigen- 
 cies of nature, was regarded by them as the rightful 
 patrimony of the indigent; whereas the usages of 
 those days, as they affirmed, compelled the clergy to 
 waste this sacred residue on the rich, the worthless, 
 and the idle. The rapacity of patrons and prelates, 
 and ecclesiastical functionaries, together with the 
 custom of prodigal entertainment and luxurious 
 living, swallowed up the resources of charity : and, 
 if any one should affect more simple and frugal 
 habits, he was sure to be harassed by every form of 
 calumny and molestation. Besides, the parochial 
 clergy were frequently converted by the hierarchy 
 into instruments for pillaging the poor. They were 
 perpetually wearied and degraded by the letters of 
 their ordinaries, commanding them to wring money 
 from the hard hands of their necessitous congrega- 
 tions, by the terrors of ecclesiastical censure and 
 anathema, and thus to become the ministers of ava- 
 rice and extortion. " So many cursed deceits," ex- 
 claims Wielif, "hath Anti-Christ brought up by his 
 worldly clerks, to make curates mis-spend poor men's 
 goods, and not truly to do their office ; or else to for- 
 sake all, and to leave the clerks of Anti-Christ as 
 lords of this world, to rob the people by feigned cen- 
 sures, and to teach the lore of the fiend, both by open 
 preaching, and the example of an accursed life." 
 Abuses such as these, in the judgment of Wielif and 
 his disciples, were sufficient, of themselves, to con- 
 vert non-conformity almost into a positive obligation. 
 
 They had yet another motive for de- 3. That priests 
 clining preferment: but it was of a p^ch^^he? 
 much more questionable description ther beneficed 
 than the former. They contended that or not - 
 the want of a benefice afforded no dispensation from 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the duty of preaching. Their commission, as they 
 contended, authorized and required them to be instant, 
 in season and out of season, wherever they might 
 help their brethren heavenward, whether by their 
 teaching, their prayers, or their example. Their 
 charge they maintained to be as general as the mis- 
 sion of Christ and his apostles ! They were free to 
 fly from one city to another, " when persecuted by the 
 clerks of Anti-Christ," conformably to the injunctions 
 of Christ himself. Without the challenge of any hu- 
 man authority or jurisdiction, they might dwell wher- 
 ever their ministry would be most profitable, and for 
 such time as might be convenient, " after the moving 
 of the Holy Ghost ;" and the example of Christ and 
 his apostles was better observed by living on the 
 voluntary alms of their followers, than in receiving 
 tithes or offerings, conformably to the customs or- 
 dained by sinful men. " For these dreads," he says, 
 " and for a thousand more, and for to be more like 
 Christ and his apostles, and more to profit their own 
 souls, and other men's, some poor priests think, with 
 God, to travel about where they shall most profit, and 
 by the evidence that God giveth them, while they 
 ^ have time, and a little bodily strength and youth." 
 V\Ve have here the principles of a complete system of 
 fcitinerancy, subject to no other control whatever, ex- 
 Jcept the supposed direction of the Holy Spirit, and 
 entirely independent of all human superintendence 
 or authority. On the manifold evils that might result 
 from such a system, if divested of all qualification, 
 it must be quite needless to enlarge. Such qualifica- 
 tion, however, "Wiclif conceived himself to supply 
 in the declaration, " that neither he, nor his poor 
 priests, presumed to condemn curates who do well 
 their office, and dwell where they shall most profit, 
 and teach, truly and stably, the law of God, against 
 false prophets, and the accursed deceptions of the 
 fiend." It would appear, therefore, that in some res 
 pects, he might be styled the Wesley of his day. He 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 333 
 
 did not, it is true, itinerate himself; neither does it 
 appear that he encouraged laymen to take upon them- 
 selves the office of public religious instruction. But 
 he gave his express and deliberate sanction to the 
 practice of itinerancy and field preaching, though 
 without pretending to supersede the regular and faith- 
 ful ministrations of the parochial clergy. In one 
 particular, indeed, he had clearly the advantage of 
 Wesley. The modern Reformer lived in times 
 when the law and practice of the established Church 
 gave no countenance to this species of missionary 
 proceeding. .Whereas Wiclif had constantly before 
 his eyes the phenomenon of itinerant mendicancy; 
 and might, therefore, be excused for wishing to im- 
 prove, and to convert to salutary purposes, a usage, 
 which had the avowed sanction of Christ's vicar upon 
 earth. 
 
 The persons who took upon themselves the exer- 
 cise of an unlicensed ministry, in defiance of all 
 ecclesiastical discipline, ought, unquestionably, to 
 have counted the cost of the irregular warfare upon 
 which they had voluntarily entered. It is to be 
 charitably presumed that this computation had been 
 faithfully made by the generality of those persons, to 
 whom the reformer lent the sanction of his name. 
 It must, however, be frankly confessed that, if we 
 were to estimate their firmness by the example of 
 several among them, respecting whom some distinct 
 account has been preserved, we might be strongly 
 tempted to doubt whether they went forth to their 
 work in the genuine spirit of martyrdom. Of these 
 reforming missionaries, John Aston was 
 one of the most energetic and untiring. John Aston - 
 He seems to have been the very model of a poor 
 itinerant priest. He is described as one who had 
 nearly shaken off all the incumbrances of the flesh. 
 He travelled on foot, with his staff in his hand. He 
 was in continual circuit among all the parishes in 
 every part of the kingdom. He scarcely ever suffered 
 
334 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the need of refreshment to interfere with the prose- 
 cution of his labours. He is, accordingly, compared 
 by the chronicler, Knighton, to a bee perpetually on 
 the wing; or to a hound, in constant readiness to 
 start up from his repose, and to bark at the slightest 
 sound. It further appears that he was not content 
 with publishing the conclusions of his master, but 
 added a multitude of novelties of his own coinage: 
 and, like most of his brethren, he affirmed that the I 
 poor priests were the only true preachers, and that all / 
 the rest of the clergy were preachers of falsehood/ILJ 
 This man was among those followers of Wiclif, who 
 were summoned before Archbishop Courtney, at the 
 synod of the Preaching Friars ; and his demeanour 
 on that occasion was remarkable for its boldness and 
 pertinacity. He was repeatedly urged by the primate 
 to address the court in Latin, lest his statements 
 should convey error, or excitement, to the minds of 
 the ignorant by-standers. With this injunction he 
 positively refused to comply. On the contrary, he 
 addressed the auditors in English, with so much 
 vehemence, that it was thought expedient to hasten 
 the proceedings, and without further delay, to pro- 
 nounce against him the sentence of excommunica- 
 tion.! From a sturdy evangelist like this, one might, 
 perhaps, be prepared to expect a stern defiance of 
 ecclesiastical censure. Nevertheless, it appears that 
 the terrors of persecution were, after all, too much 
 for his courage. It is affirmed, indeed, by William 
 Thorpe, in the course of his examination before 
 Archbishop Arundel, in 1407, that this John Aston 
 taught the doctrine of Wiclif, " and used it himself, 
 right perfectly to his life's end."t But it is difficult 
 to reconcile this assertion with one undoubted fact ; 
 namely, that by the letters of the archbishop, dated 
 November 27, 1382, he was restored to the school 
 exercises, in consideration of his having renounced 
 
 Knighton, p. 2568, 2569. t Wilk. Cone. p. 164, 
 
 J Wordsw. Eccl. Biog. vol. i. p. 132. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 335 
 
 and anathematized his heretical opinions.* The con- 
 clusion, therefore, seems inevitable, that he once re- 
 treated most unworthily from the position which he 
 maintained at first with so much intrepidity. Of his 
 recovery we have no other intimation, except that 
 which may possibly be implied in the above assertion 
 of Thorpe's. 
 
 Another of Wiclif s distinguished coad- John Purnev . 
 jutors was John Purney, or Purvey. This 
 man, as we are informed by Knighton, was of a grave 
 aspect, affecting an appearance of sanctity beyond his 
 fellows. His dress was that of an ordinary person. 
 He was wholly regardless of his ease, and unwearied 
 in journeying through the land, for the purpose of en- 
 lightening and converting the people. He was, in- 
 deed, the personal friend and companion of Wiclif ; 
 and having, thus, drunk deeply of his doctrine, was 
 passionately devoted to the work of a reformer. In 
 his sermons, he is said to have assailed with the 
 deadliest detraction all preachers but those of his own 
 sect; and, more especially those of the Mendicant 
 Order. His vehemence and boldness brought upon 
 him, at length, the weight of the ecclesiastical arm. 
 He was seized, and cruelly tortured, by order of Arch- 
 bishop Arundel. His faith was unequal to the trial; 
 and he pronounced his recantation at Paul's Cross in 
 1396. f The rest of his story is deplorable enough. 
 The archbishop rewarded his repentance with a bene- 
 fice ; and the following is the language in which that 
 prelate afterwards spoke of him to William Thorpe 4 
 " Thou, and such other losels of thy sect, would shave 
 your beards full neere, for to have a benefice. For, 
 by Jesu, I know none more covetous shrews then ye 
 are, when that ye have a benefice. For lo ! I gave 
 to John Purvey a benefice but a mile out of this castle 
 
 Wilk. Cone. p. 169. Lewis, c. x. p. 262266. 
 t Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. p. 260. 
 
 J See " the Examination of William Thorpe, penned with his own 
 hand." Wordsw. Eccl. Biogr. vol. i. p. 130. 
 
336 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 (Saltwood) : and I heard more complaints about his 
 covetousness for tithes, and other misdoings, then I 
 did of all the men that were advanced within my 
 diocese." All this, Thorpe was unable to deny. He 
 could only answer, that it was not for the sake of the 
 benefice that Purvey was then on the archbishop's 
 side, but, because he had faithlessly abandoned his 
 former doctrines and principles. And when Thorpe 
 was urged to follow Purvey's example, and that of 
 Hereford,* he said that their example would have 
 been good had they persevered in a life of simplicity 
 and poverty : but, he adds, " since they had slander- 
 ously and shamefully done the contrary, (consenting 
 to receive, and to have and hold temporal benefices, 
 living more worldly and more fleshly than they did 
 before, conforming themselves to the manner ot this 
 world,) I forsake them herein, and in all their fore- 
 said slanderous doing." Whether Purvey lived to 
 repent of his retraction, is uncertain. It appears, 
 however, not altogether unlikely ; for he was a second 
 time imprisoned by Archbishop Chichely in 1421, and 
 probably died in confinement.! 
 wniiam swin- William Swinderby was another of 
 derby- these preachers. He was called by the 
 
 people, William the Hermit. He is represented by 
 Knighton as a man of inconstant temper, and unset- 
 tled habits. He first signalized himself at Leicester, 
 by a somewhat rash and perilous assault upon the 
 pride and vanity of women. His ungracious free- 
 dom of speech excited the wrath of all the females in 
 the place, both good and bad, to such a degree, that 
 they were ready to stone him out of the town. He 
 next attacked the merchants, and nearly drove some 
 of them to despair, by declaring that no rich man 
 could enter the kingdom of heaven. He then, for a 
 time, became a recluse, and was enabled to indulge 
 
 * See " the Examination of William Thorpe, penned with his own 
 hand." Wordsw. Eccl. Biosr. vol. i. p. 203. 204. 
 t Lewis, c. x. p. 207270. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 337 
 
 his passion for solitude, by the bounty of the Duke of 
 Lancaster, who allowed him a house within his park, 
 and provided him with a maintenance. Growing' 
 weary of total seclusion, he was taken into the abbey 
 for a time : but his fondness for itinerancy soon re- 
 turned, and forced him out, once more, to a conflict 
 with the corruptions of the world, in company with 
 one W. Smith, a deformed blacksmith, who was 
 driven by a disappointment in love to habits of asce- 
 tic moroseness. His denunciations were now levelled 
 against the enormities of the Church, a theme which 
 was sure to find him an abundance of willing hearers. 
 When Bokyngham, Bishop of Lincoln, attempted to 
 restrain him, he made a pulpit of two mill-stones, in 
 the high-street of that city, from which he proclaimed 
 that, in spite of the Pope's teeth, he could and would 
 preach in the Ring's highway, so long as he had the good 
 will of the people. He was preserved from the full 
 severity of punishment, which otherwise would have 
 awaited him, by the intercession of the Duke of Lan- 
 caster; but was, nevertheless, compelled to abjure 
 his conclusions. Being deeply depressed by the dis- 
 grace of his retraction, he fled to Coventry, resumed 
 his former habits, and was recovering his popularity; 
 when he was expelled by the diocesan with shame 
 and contempt. This is the substance of Knighton's 
 account. One fact is added to it by Walsingham, 
 which, if credited, may help to explain Swinderby's 
 escape from worse consequences ; namely, that when 
 the Bishop of Lincoln had made preparations to cor- 
 rect him, and to take from him his license to preach, 
 the multitude raged so violently as to frighten the 
 bishop, and deter him from further proceedings against 
 the heretic.* 
 
 It must be fairly acknowledged, that the picture 
 here presented to us, of a poor travelling priest, is 
 very far from honourable to that class of agitators, 
 
 Lewis, c. x. p. 271276. 
 
 29 
 
338 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 It exhibits a combination of rashness and inconstancy 
 which might have reflected discredit on the very best 
 of causes. It is true that the above narrative, like 
 every other recital of the monkish annalists, when 
 the Lollards are their theme, must be received with 
 very considerable caution. At the same time, it 
 cannot be denied that the account of William Swin- 
 derby, preserved to us by Fox, is scarcely more credit- 
 able to his fortitude, than that of the Popish chroni- 
 cler. In perusing the details, indeed, in Kni^hton 
 and in Fox, we seem to be reading the histories of 
 two different men. In the marly rologist, whose 
 authority is the Episcopal Register of Hereford, we 
 find abundant complaints against him, for " pervert- 
 ing the whole Ecclesiastical State, and stirring up 
 schism between the clergy and the people ;" but not 
 one syllable of his fanatical proceedings at Leicester; 
 nothing of his urging the damsels and matrons to 
 fury, by his preachment against feminine frivolities ; 
 nothing of his driving merchants to despair, by de- 
 claring the rich incapable of salvation ; nothing of his 
 restless temper, or of the frequent and capricious 
 change of his habits and pursuits. The substance of 
 what is told us by Fox is simply this. In 1389, 
 William Swinderby, priest, was presented before the 
 Bishop of Lincoln, upon certain articles, in which 
 as he afterwards complained his real opinions were 
 maliciously distorted. His accusers were Mendi- 
 cants, and so hotly did they long for his destruction, 
 that they brought dry wood with them into the town 
 to burn him : and here Fox, undoubtedly, agrees 
 with Kni^hton, in stating, that his fears compelled 
 him to abjuration. He then removed to the diocese 
 of Hereford. But the sleepless eye of discipline was 
 upon him. His old enemies, the friars, were still 
 about his path: and the consequence was, that, in 
 1391, he was summoned to answer before the Bishop 
 of Hereford, upon the charge of holding heretical 
 opinions, and of preaching without the license of the 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 339 
 
 bishop, and in defiance of his injunction. On his 
 appearance, he was allowed further time to prepare 
 his answer, which he accordingly did, in the form of 
 a written protest, and exposition of his doctrines: 
 but it seems that he had the prudence to decline any 
 further appearance in person ! Sentence was, here- 
 upon, pronounced in due form against him, as a 
 heretic, schismatic, and false informer of the people; 
 and all persons were solemnly admonished, under 
 pain of the law, that they should neither receive, de- 
 fend, or support him, until he should be reconciled to 
 the church. Against this sentence he appealed to the 
 King in council ; and presented, at the same time, 
 what Fox calls " a fruitful letter to the lords and 
 burgesses of parliament." This exhortation, or 
 homily, is little more than a string of scriptural sen- 
 tences and passages, in condemnation of the manifold 
 obliquities and corruptions of the age. It is some- 
 what more lengthy than would, probably, suit the 
 patience of our modern Protestant legislature ; and 
 it concludes with a profession that, if any thing found 
 therein could be proved contrary to the law of God, 
 he would " revoke his conceit, and be amended by 
 God's law, with which he was ever ready to hold, 
 openly and privily, with God's grace, and nothing 
 to hold, teach, or maintain, that is contrary thereto. " 
 Of the fate of " this worthy priest, and true servant 
 of Christ," as he is styled by the martyrologist, no 
 account has been preserved : though Fox conjectures, 
 upon very slight and insufficient grounds, that he 
 was burnt in Smithfield, at the beginning of the next 
 reign.* 
 
 It is a relief to turn from these very equivocal spe- 
 cimens of non-conformity, to the case wmiam ^^ 
 of William Thorpe, whose character and 
 life, as a " poor priest," reflected signal credit on 
 the cause to which he devoted himself. Thorpe was 
 
 * Fox, vol. i. p. 530542. 
 
340 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 destined by his parents for the sacerdotal office : and 
 no expense, within their means, was spared in his 
 preparation for it. Being smitten, however, with 
 certain scruples, he hesitated to take upon himself 
 the sacred responsibility, until he had consulted 
 several wise and virtuous priests, and among them 
 Hereford and Repingdon, who had not then fallen 
 away from their fidelity : and finding that " their 
 honest and charitable works passed the fame which 
 he heard of them," he resolved to join them in their 
 pious labours. And, not only was he " right home- 
 ly"* with these men, "and communed with them 
 long time and oft," but he, also, sought the truth at 
 the lips of their great master himself, John Wiclif, 
 who, he says, was " holden of full many men the 
 greatest clerk that they knew then living, and, withal, 
 a passing ruly^ man, and innocent in his living : for 
 which reason, great men communed oft with him, 
 and they so loved his learning, that they wrote it, 
 and busily enforced them to rule themselves there- 
 after." tfeing thus captivated with the teaching and 
 the character of Wiclif, (as " most agreeable unto 
 the living and teaching of Christ and his apostles, 
 and most openly showing and declaring how the 
 Church of Christ had been, and yet should be, ruled 
 and governed,") he devoted himself, for more than 
 thirty years, to the work of spreading the precious 
 knowledge he had attained through various parts of 
 England, but more especially in the northern coun- 
 ties. At last the hand of ecclesiastical discipline 
 seized upon him. He was imprisoned in 1407 at 
 Saltwood Castle, in Kent; and, on his examination 
 before Archbishop Arundel, at that place, maintained 
 his cause with modest, but inflexible, constancy. 
 His own account of this examination is still preserved, 
 and is among the most interesting documents in the 
 earlier history of our Reformation 4 The end of this 
 
 * Familiar. t Sedate, orderly. 
 
 } It is printed from Fox, in Wordsw. Eccl. Biogr. vol. i. p. 111212. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 341 
 
 worthy confessor is not known; though it seems 
 most probable that he closed his days in prison. 
 
 The part of the examination with which we are 
 more immediately concerned, is that which relates 
 to the duty of preaching. When the archbishop re- 
 proached him with holding that he might lawfully 
 preach without authority of any bishop, his reply 
 was, that by the authority of God's law, and also of 
 saints and doctors, he was taught that it was the 
 priest's office to preach busily, freely, and truly, the 
 word of God ; that no man should take the priest- 
 hood upon him without a hearty good-will to preach, 
 or without competent learning for the work ; and 
 that he who became a priest, was under the most 
 awful obligation to make known the law of God to 
 his people, when, where, and to whom he best might. 
 The archbishop then pressed him with the question 
 of St. Paul, how should priests preach except they be 
 sent ? and added, that " he never sent Thorpe to 
 preach ; for his venomous doctrine was so well 
 known throughout England, that no bishop would 
 grant him a license." On this, Thorpe replied, that 
 he well knew that no license would be granted to him, 
 or any of his brethren, without such terms and con- 
 ditions as those which were imposed upon the friars, 
 and such other preachers ; and to these limitations 
 they could not in conscience submit. " And, there- 
 fore," he added, " though we have not your letter, sir, 
 nor letters of any other bishops, written with ink 
 upon parchment, we dare not therefore leave the office 
 of preaching ; to which preaching, all priests, after 
 their cunning and power, are bound by divers testi- 
 monies of God's law, and great doctors, without any 
 
 mention-making of bishops' letters For that 
 
 God commandeth us to do the office of priesthood, he 
 will be our sufficient letters and witness, if we by example 
 of his holy living and teaching, specially occupy ug 
 faithfully, to do our office justly : yea, the people to 
 whom we preach, be they faithful or unfaithful, shall 
 29* 
 
342 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 be our letters, that is, our witness-bearers; for the 
 truth, where it is sown, may not be unwitnessed." 
 
 It will immediately be perceived that notions like 
 these were well nigh subversive of all ecclesiastical 
 discipline whatever. It can, therefore, hardly be a 
 subject of wonder, or even of blame, that the prelates 
 should be extremely anxious for their suppression. 
 The rack and the stake, indeed, were most execrable 
 instruments for the maintenance of conformity ; but 
 these, though of recent introduction into this country, 
 had long been familiar to the spiritual judicatures of 
 the continent ; and it could scarcely be expected that 
 the English hierarchy, in that barbarous age, should 
 be more scrupulous in the use of them, than their 
 brother inquisitors abroad, when once the legislature 
 had been prevailed upon to sanction such inhuman 
 extremities. On the other hand, it must never be 
 forgotten, that, if some intrepid spirits had not been 
 found, to burst through the " privilege and custom" 
 of ages, the evils of corrupt and superstitious doc- 
 trine might have been eternal : and we might not, 
 at this day, have been living under a system, which 
 combines the blessings of a reformed religious estab- 
 lishment, with those of a liberal and enlightened 
 toleration. 
 
 It may be convenient to introduce in this place 
 the mention of several other persons, who, though 
 they cannot properly be numbered among the " poor 
 priests" of Wiclif, were yet, at one time, most strenu- 
 ous auxiliaries in the cause of reformation, and like 
 some others named above, unhappily abandoned it in 
 Nicolas Here- time of persecution. Among these, one 
 ford. O f the most distinguished was Nicolas , 
 
 Hereford, above alluded to by Thorpe. He was a 
 a doctor of divinity, of Queen's College, Oxford, 
 eminent as a scholar and a divine, and for a while, a 
 zealous supporter of the new doctrines. He was, 
 accordingly, summoned to answer at the Preaching 
 Friars, before Archbishop Courtney, was excommu- 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 343 
 
 nicated for contumacy in not appearing, but after- 
 wards restored, in consideration of his subsequent 
 obedience to the summons, and his abjuration of the 
 erroneous opinions imputed to him.* It is affirmed 
 by Knighton, that he, subsequently, went to Rome, 
 with a view to defend these same conclusions, and 
 was, eventually, committed to perpetual imprison- 
 ment by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Others 
 maintain, that being wearied out with persecution, 
 he finally submitted, and ended his days in the habit 
 of a Carthusian, at the monastery of St. Anne, Coven- 
 try. Our own records give a very different account 
 of his fate. By them it appears that, in 1394, the 
 King conferred upon him the Chancellorship of the 
 Church at Hereford; which perfectly agrees with 
 what is said of him in Thorpe's examination ; where 
 he is spoken of, together with Purvey and Philip 
 Repingdon, as having renounced all heretical opi- 
 nions, and accepted preferment in the Church. f 
 
 Philip Repingdon, also mentioned Philip Reping- 
 above, was another of those who were don- 
 convened at the Preaching Friars. He was one of 
 the Canons, and afterwards Abbot, of Leicester ; and 
 had vehemently maintained all the opinions of Wic- 
 lif before the University of Oxford. But his fidelity 
 to the work of reformation faded away before the 
 fear of suffering, or the hope of advancement. He 
 shamefully dishonoured the name of his master, not 
 only by abjuring his cause, but by becoming one of 
 its bitterest persecutors. In 1405 his desertion was 
 rewarded by the bishopric of Lincoln, conferred on 
 him by Papal provision ; and in 1420, his infamy was 
 crowned with the dignity of a cardinal !J 
 
 The apostasy of these two men, together with that 
 of Purvey, had the disgraceful eminence of furnish- 
 ing Archbishop Arundel, and his clerks and chaplains, 
 
 Wilk. Cone. p. 169. 
 
 t For a full account of Hereford, see Lewis, c. x. p. 256262, 
 t Lewis, c. x. p. 266, 267. 
 
344 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 with a powerful engine of attack upon the faithful- 
 ness of William Thorpe. It has already been stated, 
 that under their tuition, as well as that of Wiclif 
 himself, Thorpe had been prepared for the office of a 
 travelling preacher : but, when he was examined be- 
 fore the Primate, they had fallen from their stead- 
 fastness, and had received the wages of unrighteous' 
 ness. "As touching Philip Rampmgton,"* said the 
 archbishop, to that worthy and constant man, " that 
 was first, canon, and after, abbot of Leicester, who 
 is now Bishop of Lincoln, I tell thee, the day is come, 
 for which he fasted at even. For neither he holdeth 
 now, nor will hold, the learning that he taught when 
 he was canon of Leicester. For no bishop of this 
 land pursueth now more sharply those that hold the 
 way, than he doth." To which Thorpe replied, 
 " Sir, full many men and women wonder upon him, 
 and hold him for a cursed enemy to the truth." 
 Again, " For the pity of Christ," said several of 
 the archbishop's clergy, in their expostulations with 
 Thorpe, " for the pity of Christ, bethink thee, how 
 great clerks, the Bishop of Lincoln, (Repingdon,) 
 Hereford, and Purvey, were, and are ; which have 
 forsaken and revoked all the learning and opinions 
 that those, and such others, hold. Wherefore, since 
 each of them is wiser than thou art, we counsel thee 
 for the best ; that, by the example of these clerks, 
 thou follow them, submitting thee as they do." And 
 one of them added, that " he heard Nicolas Hereford 
 say, that, since he forsook and revoked the learning 
 and opinions of the Lollards, he had mikle great fa- 
 vour, and more delight to hold against them, than 
 ever he had to hold with them." The whole reply 
 of Thorpe to these solicitations is signally honoura- 
 ble to his firmness and integrity : but it shows that 
 the fainting of these standard-bearers was not without 
 
 * This was a ludicrous distortion of Repingdon's name, occasioned bv 
 the rampant violence with which he was known to persecute the Lol- 
 lards. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 345 
 
 its effect upon the courage of the host ! " Certainly," 
 says Thorpe, "many men and women do mark and 
 abhor the foulness and cowardice of these aforesaid 
 untrue men; how they are overcome, and stopped 
 with benefices, and withdrawn from the truth of 
 God's word, forsaking utterly to suffer therefore bodi- 
 ly persecution. For by this unfaithful doing, and 
 apostasy of them, especially, that are great lettered 
 men, and have acknowledged openly the truth, and 
 have, now, either for pleasure or displeasure of ty- 
 rants, taken hire and temporal wages to forsake the 
 truth, and to hold against it, slandering and pursuing 
 them that covet to follow Christ in the way of righte- 
 ousness, many men and women are therefore moved. 
 But many more, through the grace of God, shall be 
 moved hereby to learn the truth of God, to do there- 
 after, and to stand boldly thereby."* 
 
 It is somewhat melancholy to reckon, among the 
 deserters from the doctrine of Wiclif, a man so illus- 
 trious for learning and munificence as Richard Fiem- 
 Richard Fleming, the founder of Lin- in ?- 
 coin College, Oxford. After he had proceeded to his 
 master's degree he became notorious, at the Univer- 
 sity, for his zealous patronage of .the reformed opin- 
 ions, and actually appeared as their defender in the 
 public schools. One would gladly be persuaded that 
 the subsequent counter-revolution in his principles, 
 was the result of honest conviction, and that his in- 
 tegrity did not sink under the weight of his Church 
 preferments. The change of his conduct, whatever 
 may have been the cause of it, was as complete as 
 the most vehement sincerity could have produced. 
 His enmity to the heretical notions was quite as de- 
 cided as his support of them had ever been. His 
 noble foundation is, itself, a monument at least of 
 the strength of his hostility; for it was expressly 
 designed by him for the education of adversaries to 
 
 Thorpe's Examination in Wordaw. Eccles. Biogr. ubi supra. 
 
346 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 the doctrines of the Reformer. In 1396 lie was one 
 of the twelve censors, appointed by the University, 
 for the examination of Wiclif 's writings. In 1420 
 he was promoted to the see of Lincoln ; and would, 
 afterwards, have been translated by the Pope to that 
 of York, if the King had not refused his consent. It 
 has already been stated, that it was this Richard 
 Fleming, who, as Bishop of this diocese, was charged 
 with the disinterment of Wiclif 's remains, in pur- 
 suance of the decree of the Council of Constance ; an 
 office which he executed with so much good will, 
 that he caused the bones of the heretic to be burned, 
 and the ashes to be cast into the waters of the Swift. 
 He died in January, 1430, and was buried in his own 
 cathedral.* 
 
 It would be useless to mention several other names, 
 comparatively obscure, which brought similar dis- 
 credit on the cause of Wiclif. But whatever may 
 Wide disper- have been the frailty, or the unfaithful- 
 siou of Wicfif's ness, of some among his emissaries, it 
 must always be remembered, that, when 
 the bitterest hour of persecution arrived, multitudes 
 among his followers were found faithful unto death. 
 With regard to his " poor priests," at least, the weari- 
 ness and painfulness of their exertions is beyond all 
 dispute. By their incessant labours, his principles 
 were so widely dispersed, that, as Knighton affirms, 
 " they were multiplied, like suckers from the root of 
 a tree, and every where filled the compass of the king- 
 dom ; insomuch that a man could not meet two peo- 
 ple on the road, but one of them was a disciple of 
 Wiclif 's." Of this statement Sir Thomas More com- 
 plains, as a pernicious exaggeration ; and yet he him- 
 self is compelled to acknowledge the vast increase of 
 the heretics, when seeking for probable grounds of 
 charge against them, as fomenters of rebellion against 
 Henry V.f The character ascribed to them, generally, 
 
 * Lewis, c. x. p. 279, 280. t Lewis, c. x. p. 218, 219. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 347 
 
 by the Popish chronicler, is, as might be expected, 
 much more honourable to their activity, than to their 
 wisdom or their piety. He speaks of them as wordy 
 and disputatious; outtalking all who 
 ventured to contend with them; and preSnuttion 'of 
 exhibiting a wonderful agreement in wiciifsfoiiow- 
 opinion among themselves. He even ers * 
 charges them with a Saracenic pugnacity, abhorrent 
 from the meekness and patience which become the 
 followers of Christ; declaring that " they were rather 
 suspected of being disciples of Mahomet, who forbade 
 his followers to argue for his law, but ordered them 
 to defend it with warlike fortitude, and to fight for it." 
 The whole discipline of the Lollards, indeed, accord- 
 ing to this writer, was totally different from that of 
 our Saviour : for He said, if any one will not hear 
 you, when you depart out of that house, or city, shake 
 off the dust of your feet for a testimony against them. 
 Not so the Wiclifites : their language was, If any 
 one will not hear you, or shall say any thing against 
 you, take the sword and strike him, or wound his repu- 
 tation with a backbiting tongue!"* It is somewhat 
 amusing to find this Romish ecclesiastic, ascribing 
 to the Lollards the very maxims which were noto- 
 riously in the mouth of the most zealous and igno- 
 rant Papists. Every one will remember the advice 
 of St. Lewis to all good and unlearned Catholics : 
 " Never argue with a heretic. If any such should 
 presume to assail your faith, make him no other re- 
 ply but to draw your sword from its scabbard, and 
 to drive it, as far as it will go, into his belly !" That 
 the reformists were often violent, noisy, and perti- 
 nacious, and sometimes abundantly lacking in dis- 
 cretion, may very easily be believed. It would have 
 been surprising, indeed, if their proceedings had 
 been uniformly temperate and prudent, in a cause so 
 fitted to call forth the most impetuous energies of 
 
 Knighton, 2662, 2663, 2663. Lewis, c. x. p. 218-220. 
 
343 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 human nature. It must, further, he conceded, that 
 the principles of their great master himself were, 
 some of them, very liable to abuse, and would be 
 often likely to make wild work in the brains of simple 
 and unlettered men. But when we hear them gene- 
 rally accused of maintaining their ground by means 
 of atrocious slander, or sanguinary violence, we have 
 only to recollect, that the same arts which have been 
 used to make the cause of Wiclif odious, were after- 
 wards prodigally employed against that of Martin 
 Luther. The Wiclifites had in their possession more 
 powerful resources than those of brawling, or blood- 
 shed. They had the English Bible in their hands, or 
 in their memories. Here lay the grand secret of their 
 strength. Both men and women, as Knighton him- 
 self informs us, commenced teachers of the Gospel in 
 their mother tongue. In other words, they recited the 
 very Oracles of God to those who could not read, and 
 who were, consequently, unable to consult the Holy 
 Volume for themselves. If this weapon had not been 
 at their command, they would, probably, have been 
 as men that beat the air. They might have fretted 
 out their time upon the stage of the world, " full of 
 sound and fury ;" but their counsel would have come 
 to naught ! 
 
 Another charge, made by the same historian, is, 
 that " the preachers of Wiclif's opinions were usually 
 guarded by their hearers, armed with sword and 
 target for their defence, that no one might attempt 
 any thing against them, or their blasphemous doc- 
 trine, or might dare, at any time, to contradict it."* 
 There is, it must be confessed, something rather 
 Saracenic and Mahometan in this picture. To our 
 conceptions, the preacher of the Gospel of peace, 
 surrounded by his armed satellites, is a strange and 
 revolting spectacle. But, then, in order to estimate 
 this matter rightly, we must carry our thoughts back 
 
 * Knighton, 2661, 2662. Lewi*, c. I. p. 220. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 349 
 
 into the fourteenth century. We must "entertain 
 conjecture " of a period, when society was rude and 
 turbulent, and when the omnipresence of the law was 
 not felt as it is now. The preacher of religious novel- 
 ties would, at first, have much opposition to encoun- 
 ter, from the prejudices of a people immersed in 
 superstition; especially when corrupt and interested 
 adversaries were constantly at hand to goad them 
 into fury. The doctrine, might, on the whole, be 
 found palatable enough, when once its qualities were 
 known ; but, in many instances, the difficulty would 
 be to obtain a hearing; more particularly, if the 
 preacher, like Swinderby, should begin by a direct 
 and vehement onset upon the favourite vanities and 
 indulgences of the age. In such cases, it might 
 naturally be expected, that an exasperated populace 
 would, occasionally, burst into furious outrage; so 
 that, in the absence of an effective police, the person 
 of the preacher would be left wholly unprotected, if 
 he ventured on his ministrations without a retinue of 
 friends, provided with the means of overawing the 
 multitude. Even in the eighteenth century the lives 
 of Wesley and of Whitfield were sometimes in dan- 
 ger from the passions of the mob. It can, therefore, 
 hardly be surprising, that the followers of Wiclif 
 should have been frequently compelled, between 300 
 and 400 years earlier, to guard themselves against 
 similar perils. That, when the doctrine began to 
 find favour with the multitude, the martial array 
 might be as effective against the terrors of ecclesias- 
 tical discipline, as it had been against those of popu- 
 lar violence, is, it must be allowed, very far from 
 improbable. But here, again, it must be kept in mind, 
 that the age was, comparatively, lawless. Besides, 
 there can be no doubt, that the Lollard congregations, 
 were frequently attended by worshipful knights and 
 squires, whose very costume was, in those days, at 
 least partially warlike. So that it would be un- 
 reasonable to infer, from such scenes and practices, 
 30 
 
350 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 that Wiclif was the patriarch of rebellion, or that 
 Lollardism received its main impulse from a spirit 
 of revolutionary violence and disorder. 
 
 These remarks, though perhaps somewhat digres- 
 sive, are rendered necessary by the attempts which 
 have been made to connect the name and the cause 
 of Wiclif, with all the revolutionary symptoms of 
 that period. It has been asserted, for instance, by 
 
 The fa atic Barillas an( ^ others, that the seditious 
 John Baiie%ot fanatic John Balle, was a disciple and 
 a disciple of emissary of Wiclif, or, in other words, 
 one of his poor priests. This assertion, 
 however, is destitute of all reasonable evidence. That 
 the opinions scattered by this fanatic had some re- 
 remblance to those of Wiclif and his followers, may 
 certainly be true ; but then it is also quite clear, that 
 the resemblance was precisely such as exists between 
 an outrageous caricature and a fair original. That 
 he had any connexion with Wiclif, has never been 
 shown. Nothing can be more certain than the fact, 
 that he had fallen under the censures of Archbishop 
 Langham, as a preacher of manifold and scandalous 
 errors, in the year 1366,* long before the poor priests 
 of Wiclif had been heard of. And Walsingham ex- 
 pressly affirms, that, for upwards of twenty years, 
 previous to the rebellion of the peasantry, he had been 
 busily plying the trade of revolutionary agitation, f By 
 Knighton he is accordingly styled, not the follower, 
 but the forerunner of Wiclif, as John the Baptist was 
 
 The insurreo tne forerunner of Christ. As for the in- 
 tion of the pea- surrection of the peasantry, Walsingham 
 SUShl'H tn a w;l y ascribes it, among various other causes, 
 
 ascnueu 10 vv ic- . ' 1 / i j 
 
 lif and his foi- to the prevalence of religious mendican- 
 lowers. cv> The professors of poverty, he com- 
 
 plains, (forgetful of the principles of the Order, and 
 lusting after the wealth which they had renounced) 
 had shamefully pandered to the bad passions both of 
 
 Wilk. Cone, iii, 61 . "' t Wale. p. 292. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 351 
 
 high and low ; and all with a view to the accumula- 
 tion of riches. For this purpose " they had called 
 good evil, and evil good, seducing the nobles by their 
 flatteries, the populace by their lies, and leading both 
 classes into pernicious errors." And this surmise is 
 powerfully supported by the confession of the dema- 
 gogue Jack Straw, immediately previous to his exe- 
 cution. According to his statement, the design of 
 the insurgents was to exterminate all possessioners, 
 bishops, monks, canons, and rectors of churches : and 
 the only ecclesiastics to be spared, were, not the 
 emissaries of Wiclif, but the begging friars ! These 
 alone would have been suffered to live, as being 
 amply sufficient for all the purposes of religious 
 ministration.* That the followers of the Reformer 
 were among the instigators of this commotion, is 
 rendered further improbable, by the remarkable cir- 
 cumstance, that his great patron, John of Gaunt, was 
 one chief object of the fury of the insurgents. They 
 not only fired his palace, and destroyed his furniture, 
 but actually sought his life. It is also perfectly no- 
 torious, that the Commons, (although they concurred 
 in advising the repeal of the charters of general 
 manumission, extorted from the king by the insurgent 
 villains) ascribed the insurrection wholly to the in- 
 tolerable burdens laid upon the kingdom, by the pro- 
 digality of the court. " To speak the real truth," they 
 say, "the injuries lately done to the 
 
 " ,7 ,7 f Attributed by 
 
 poorer commons, more than they ever suj- the Commons to 
 
 fered before, caused them to rise and to the oppression 
 commit the mischief done in their late * 
 riot : and there is still cause to fear greater evils, if 
 sufficient remedy be not timely provided."! It is not, 
 
 * " Q,ui in paupertate perseverare juraverant, dicunt bonum malum, et 
 malum bonum, seducentes principes adulationibus, plebem mendaciis, et 
 utrosque secum in de^ium pertrahentes." Wals. p. 281. " Soli mendi- 
 cantes vixissent super terram, qui suffecissent pro sacris celebrandis, et 
 conferendis, universae terne." Wals. p. 283. 
 
 f Rot. Parl. 5 Rich. ii. p. 100, cited in Hallam j s Middle Ages. vol. ii. p, 
 93,94. 
 
352 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 indeed, to be supposed that the language of reforma- 
 tion, however reasonable or moderate, would much 
 tend to strengthen the endurance of the people under 
 these oppressions. But this is a very insufficient 
 reason for representing Wiclif and his travelling 
 preachers, as conspirators against the peace and wel- 
 fare of the realm. 
 
 Having, above, considered the various resources 
 derived by the cause of reformation, from the energy 
 of Wiclif himself, and from the activity and zeal of 
 his followers, historical fairness requires that we 
 should survey the external and accidental advan- 
 tages, which accrued to the same cause, from the 
 
 BDeoonmneni j?, flueI J Ce a d Peonage of the great, 
 afforded to wic- The foregoing narrative has already 
 lifbyihe great, shown that the aggressions of the Re- 
 former drew down no unfavourable looks from the 
 high places of the land, so lon^ as those aggressions 
 were confined to abuses, which brought the eccle- 
 siastical and secular interests into conflict with each 
 other. The amount of encouragement and security 
 thus obtained, will be best estimated from an enume- 
 ration of the distinguished persons, who are repre- 
 sented as propitious to the views of the Reformer. 
 At the head of those distinguished persons, it is 
 usual to reckon that illustrious sove- 
 m reign, Edward the Third ; who, for the 
 countenance afforded by him to so pestilent a cha- 
 racter, has been consigned, by some historians, to the 
 severest displeasure of heaven. Bodily sickness, 
 mental decline, and an inglorious old age, if we may 
 credit those writers, were the just retribution received 
 by him at the hand of an offended God. That this 
 sovereign formed a worthy estimate of Wiclif's 
 talents and accomplishments there can be no doubt ; 
 for he employed him in matters of the deepest na- 
 tional importance, involving his own royal preroga- 
 tive, and the most vital interests of his kingdom : but 
 he, probably, was quite unconscious that, in so doing, 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 353 
 
 he had called down the divine wrath upon his head. 
 With the varieties of theological opinion, the mo- 
 narch did but slightly trouble himself; and in Wiclif 
 he found, what the exigences of his affairs required, 
 not a desperate heresiarch, but an able servant and an 
 enlightened counsellor. It is, however, undeniable, 
 that the confidence of his sovereign must have in- 
 vested the Reformer with a dignity and an authority, 
 highly favourable to the advancement of his principles 
 and opinions. 
 
 It is further indisputable, that Johanna, Johanna, Queen 
 the widow of the Black Prince, was Dowager, 
 deeply interested for the honour and the personal 
 safety of Wiclif; for, it will be recollected, that it 
 was her peremptory injunction, delivered by her mes- 
 senger, Sir Lewis Clifford, which arrested the hand 
 of ecclesiastical power, when it was ready to fall upon 
 him, in the synod at Lambeth. 
 
 How Wiclif was honoured and sup- j h n of Gaunt, 
 ported by John of Gaunt, must have 
 fully appeared in the course of our narrative. It has 
 been -supposed that the monkish historians have tes- 
 tified their sense of the duke's delinquency in this 
 matter, by falsely representing him as little better 
 than a traitorous conspirator. I will not attempt to 
 estimate the force of these imputations. " We can- 
 not hope," as the historian of the middle ages has 
 observed, " to disentangle the intrigues of that remote 
 age, as to which our records are of no service, and 
 the chroniclers are very slightly informed."* It is 
 more to our present purpose to remark, that the mo- 
 tives of the duke for patronising the cause of reform, 
 were, in all probability, more of a political than a 
 religious complexion. It is true, that he vigorously 
 resisted the attempt which was made in 1390, to 
 deprive the people of their English translation of the 
 Scriptures, declaring, with a mighty oatlij that he 
 
 * Lewis, c. x. p. 210, 
 
 30* 
 
354 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 would maintain their right to read the law of their 
 faith in their own language, " against those, whoever 
 they might be, who brought in the bill:"* and his 
 protestation was acutely seconded by the arguments 
 of other speakers, who contended, that, if the exist- 
 ing amount of error were to determine the expediency 
 of suppressing translations, the Latin vulgate would, 
 of all others, deserve prohibition, " seeing that the 
 decretals reckoned no fewer than sixty-six Latin 
 heretics."! But then, on the other hand, we have also 
 seen, that when the dispute between Wiclif and the 
 Church became more strictly theological than before, 
 the favour of the duke instantly began to wane. 
 He had set his face like a flint against the more secu- 
 lar tyranny of Rome ; but had no inclination what- 
 ever lo commit himself to a conflict with her spi- 
 ritual supremacy, relative to mere matters of belief. 
 It cannot, however, be questioned, that whatever 
 may have been his motives, his protection was, on 
 the whole, a tower of strength to the cause of the 
 reformers. 
 
 Anne, the queen From the character transmitted to us 
 or Ridiani ii. o f Anne of Bohemia, the queen of 
 Richard II. it may safely be concluded, that the pro- 
 gress of Scriptural truth was regarded by her with 
 fervid interest. This excellent and amiable lady was 
 the daughter of the emperor Charles IV. and sister to 
 Wenceslaus, kin<* of Bohemia ; and her whole life 
 and habits, in this country, were such as gave an 
 honourable and effective sanction to the most import- 
 ant of Wiclif 's labours. "The noble Queen of Eng- 
 land," says he,t " the sister of Caesar, may hear the 
 Gospel written in three languages, Bohemian, Ger- 
 man, and Latin; and to hereticate her, on this ac- 
 count, would be Luciferian folly !" There appeared, 
 indeed, but little disposition to hereticate her, on the 
 part of the hierarchy. On the contrary, her scriptural 
 
 Hallam, vol. iii. p. 96. t Lewis, c. x. p. 240. 
 
 ? In hie Threefold Bond of Love. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 355 
 
 studies formed one leading topic of commendation, in 
 the sermon delivered at her funeral, by Archbishop 
 Arundel. " Although she was a stranger," he said, 
 " yet she constantly studied the four Gospels in Eng- 
 lish, with the expositions of the doctors : and in the 
 study of these, and in the perusal of godly books, she 
 was more diligent than the prelates themselves, 
 although their office and calling required it."* This 
 may be thought a somewhat strange and hazardous 
 encomium, from the mouth of the Romish primate of 
 all England. But it may easily be imagined, that in 
 his judgment, it was one thing to sanction the use of 
 the Scriptures among persons of education and rank, 
 (especially when guarded by orthodox commentaries,) 
 and another, to throw open the sacred oracles to rash 
 and self-sufficient ignorance. Besides, the prelate 
 would probably have been rather more parsimonious 
 in his praiso, could he have foreseen, that certain of 
 her majesty's attendants would, on the death of their 
 mistress, carry back with them the writings and the 
 principles of Wiclif to their native country, Bohemia, 
 and would thus assist to scatter the seeds of reforma- 
 tion, more widely than ever, over the continent of 
 Europe. 
 
 With regard to King Richard himself, 
 it would, perhaps, be idle to predicate of 
 him, either attachment or opposition to the views of 
 Wiclif. When he came to the throne, he was merely 
 an "intoxicated boy." As he grew up to manhood, 
 the better elements of his nature were lost and dis- 
 sipated amidst the gaities of his prodigal court, while 
 its worser qualities developed themselves into a dis- 
 astrous maturity. Like his ancestor, Edward the 
 Second, he became the slave of worthless favourites ; 
 and if any thing like energy remained in his charac- 
 ter, it vented itself in eruptions of arrogance and 
 passion ; as when he declared to the messengers of 
 
 * Lewis c. r. p. 242. 
 
356 LIFE OF WICLIP. 
 
 Parliament that he would not, at their request, re- 
 move the meanest scullion from his kitchen. In a 
 character like this, it would be vain to look for any 
 decided views relative to thosfc deep and solemn 
 questions which were connected with the state of the 
 national religion, All that can be said of him is, that 
 in the early period of his reign, he manifested no 
 positive aversion to the person or the principles of 
 Wiclif; and that the persecuting ordinance above 
 alluded to, was rather the work of the hierarchy, 
 than of the king himself. It was not till the year 
 1395, that the audacity of the Lollards awakened 
 him to a decisive manifestation of his own displea- 
 sure at their proceedings. 
 
 Among the nobility and gentry of England, both 
 Wiclif and his followers found many zealous and 
 steady friends. It will be remembered that, when 
 he first appeared before the prelates at St. Paul's, he 
 was attended, not only by the Duke of 
 Lancaster but by Henry Percy, Earl of 
 Derby, and Earl Marshal of England. In 
 one of his homilies, he declares that he had great 
 comfort of certain knights, that they favoured the 
 Gospel, and were disposed to read it in English.* 
 Of these, several have been mentioned by the chroni- 
 clers,! together with dukes and earls, who, " having 
 a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, sur- 
 rounded the false preachers with a military band, that 
 they might not suffer reproaches or losses by the 
 orthodox, on account of their profane doctrine." But 
 of all the noble persons who rendered the principles 
 , of Wiclif honourable, by their own faith 
 
 JLoru u-obliam. j . T i /^ 11 i i 
 
 and virtue, Lord Cobham, is beyond com- 
 parison, the most illustrious. It is probable that he 
 was a hearer of Wiclif himself, in his youth. Most 
 
 * Lewis, c. x. p. 244. 
 
 ^ The names mentioned by Knighton, arp Sir Thomas Latimer, Sir 
 Lewis Clifford, (the same who brought the queen dowager's message to 
 {he prelates at Lambeth) Sir John Pecche, Sir Richard Story, or Sturry, 
 ir Reginald Hilton, and Sir John Trussel. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 357 
 
 certainly he was a strenuous and consistent supporter 
 of his opinions, which he intrepidly maintained, not 
 only as a private individual, but in his place as a peer 
 of Parliament. When he was finally brought to 
 answer before the archbishop and clergy, at the house 
 of the Dominican Friars in London, he bore the fol- 
 lowing testimony to the excellence of his master's 
 doctrine : " As for that virtuous man, Wiclif, whose 
 judgments ye so highly disdain, I shall say here, of 
 my part, both before God and man, that before I knew 
 that despised doctrine of his, I never abstained from 
 sin. But since I learned therein to fear my Lord 
 God, it hath otherwise, I trust, been with me. So 
 much grace could I never find in all your glorious in- 
 structions ;" all which provoked the following reply 
 from Dr. Walden, prior of the Carmelites. " It were 
 not well with me, if I had no grace to amend till I 
 heard the devil preach ! St. Hierome saith, that he 
 which seeketh such suspected masters, shall not find 
 the mid-day light, but the mid-day devil." The final 
 result of all these proceedings is well known, and 
 needs not to be recited here. This magnanimous 
 and inflexible confessor, abandoned by his sovereign, 
 and hunted down by the fury of his persecutors, was, 
 at last, consigned to martyrdom, and perished in the 
 flames, with the praises of God in his mouth, and the 
 spirit of his Saviour in his heart. * 
 
 * A full and most interesting account of the fate of this nobleman may 
 be found in Wordsw. Eccl. Biogr. vol. i. p. 217277 ; and a spirited 
 abridgement of it, in Southey's Book of the Church, vol. i. p. 358381. 
 I cannot forbear to call the attention of the reader to Dr. Lingard's nar- 
 rative of this transaction. It appears that he is sufficiently alive to the 
 horrors of the ancient mode of execution for high treason ; for, in one 
 of his notes, he relates distinctly the hanging, embowelling, and heading, 
 of Sir Thomas Blount, in order that the reader may form a vivid notion 
 of the frightful barbarity of that punishment. Vol. iv. p. 381, note. 
 But, when heretics are roasted to death, his sympathies wonderfully sub- 
 side. In speaking of Sir John Oldcastle, he merely says, " that leader 
 escaped ; and, though the king offered the most tempting rewards for his 
 apprehension, eluded, for several years, the pursuit and search of his 
 enemies." And here the account of this nobleman breaks off! Not a 
 syllable do we hear of his being dragged to London, with both his legs 
 broken in the conflict which preceded his seizure, or of his being hanged 
 
358 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 It appears, therefore, quite incontestably, that the 
 spirit which Wiclif sent abroad had brought into cap- 
 tivity, not only the poor, the weak, and the ignorant, 
 but numbers of high-born and enlightened men. 
 The excellent of the earth were touched by the flame 
 of the altar ; and with that sacred fire shut up in their 
 bones, they went forth and did valiantly, in the cause 
 of truth, of meekness, and of righteousness. That 
 dangerous and turbulent elements mixed themselves 
 up in the commotions produced by better principles, 
 it would be preposterous to deny. But such, un- 
 happily, are the conditions under which our fallen 
 humanity is often doomed to receive the most inesti- 
 mable blessings which it may please a gracious Pro- 
 vidence to bestow. It becomes us, therefore, to be 
 deeply thankful for the good which has been won- 
 derfully elicited from the conflict, and to labour, with 
 all our faculties, for its preservation. 
 
 in chains from a gibbet, and consumed to death by a fire kindled below. 
 The sufferings of a traitor call for generous compassion. Those of a 
 heretic are not even worth mentioning ! I say nothing of the historian's 
 representation of Oldcastle's ''arrogant and insulting" conduct to his 
 judges, and of the " mild arid dignified" demeanour of Archbishop Arun- 
 del. This is nothing more than was to be expected, as a matter ol course. 
 Those who may be curious for a specimen of Arundel's " mild and dig- 
 nified demeanour," will do well to consult his examination of William 
 Thorpe; who records many of the "wondrous arid blameful" words 
 ppoken to him by the primate, " menacing him, and all others of the 
 came sect, to be punished and destroyed to the uttermost." 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 359 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Proceedings against the Wiclifites Petition to Parliament on the 
 part of the Lollards Turbulence of the Lollards King Richard 
 //. requested to return from Ireland to the succour of the Church 
 
 
 Oxfo 
 
 Sautre, the first victim of this law Proceedings of Archbishop 
 Arundel Continued violence of the Lollards-^- Law, compelling 
 all persons in civil office to take an oath against Lollardism 
 Inquisitorial Constitution of Archbishop Chicheley Effect of 
 these severities Bishop Pecock writes against the Lollards 
 He defends the Bishops "His Represser" His "Treatise 
 of Faith" He censures the preaching of the Mendicants He 
 maintains the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and questions the 
 prudence of relying on the infallibility of the Church For these 
 opinions he is forbidden the King's presence, and expelled from 
 the House of Lords He is convened before the Archbishop for 
 heresy Abjures Is imprisoned for life in Thorney Abbey Per- 
 secution of the Lollards renewed under Henry VII. Martyrdom 
 of Joanna Baughton Martyrdom of Tylsworth Bishop Nix 
 Inhumanity towards those who abjured These cruelties eventu~ 
 ally fatal to the Papacy in England. 
 
 AFTER the death of Wiclif, the mighty waters which 
 he had sent forth to cleanse the land, continued to 
 flow onward, with a stream continually more impe- 
 tuous and more turbid. Their strength was, unhap- 
 pily, increased by many a tributary torrent, which 
 fall into their channel, and mingled its impurities 
 with their tide. The dangers which they threatened, 
 from the first, were doubtless formidable though, 
 probably, much exaggerated by the apprehensions or 
 the indignation of the hierarchy. At last, deep began 
 to call on deep, with a voice so fearful, that the 
 Church called loudly and passionately for the assist- 
 ance of the State, in arresting the progress of the 
 deluge, and saving the realm at on,e from pollution 
 and devestation. 
 
360 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 The work of embankment against the 
 Proceedings dreaded inundation, was vigorously pro- 
 againsttheWic- secuted shortly after Wiclif's removal. 
 In 1388, a commission was issued to cer- 
 tain individuals, for the seizure of all the "little 
 books" and tracts of the heresiarch and his auxilia- 
 ries. This commission was fortified with a power to 
 make proclamation, in the king's name, forbidding to 
 all persons, of whatever degree, on pain of imprison- 
 ment and forfeiture, the use of those pernicious writ- 
 ings, or the support of the scandalous opinions which 
 they contained. And in order that these precautions 
 might be co-extensive with the evil, letters-patent, to 
 the same effect, were addressed, at the instance of 
 the primate, to commissioners, throughout most of 
 the counties of England. In spite of these measures, 
 1394. l ^ e ideations continued to become more 
 and more formidable ; till, in 1394, they 
 were so appalling, that it was thought needful to 
 invoke the personal exercise of the royal authority. 
 In that year, a petition was presented to 
 liamem on the Parliament on the part of the Lollards, 
 part of the in the form of twelve conclusions, de- 
 nouncing the abuses of the Church, and 
 demanding its reformation, in language of greater 
 boldness than had ever before been hazarded in the 
 legislature.* In addition to this, if we may credit 
 Walsingham, such was the audacity of 
 Turbulence of tne Lollards, that they placarded the 
 
 the Lollards. /<-. vk !/-> 111 i -ITT- 
 
 gates of St. Paul's Cathedral, and West- 
 minster Abbey, with factious manifestoes, and out- 
 rageous accusations of the clergy. f Richard was, at 
 that time, in Ireland: and so pressing was the dan- 
 ger, that messengers were dispatched to him, with 
 the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London at 
 
 * This petition is printed in Wilkins, by the title of " Conchisionea 
 Lollardomm, in quooani libello porrectae pleno Parliamento Regis An- 
 glise." A.D. J394. 13 Ric. ii. Willc. Cone. iii. p. 221. 
 
 t WaJs. p. 3S3. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 361 
 
 their head, to entreat that he would The King re- 
 hasten his return, and succour the true quested to re- 
 faith and the holy Church, which were SS,to^hesuS 
 then assailed with incredible insults ur of the 
 and afflictions. Upon this application, Chmch - 
 his Majesty instantly repaired to England : and find- 
 ing that certain of the knighthood and 
 nobility of the kingdom were leaders and "rd.n'giy^and 
 instigators of these commotions, he sum- menaces the pa- 
 moned several into his presence, and trons of Lollard- 
 forbade them, with the sternest menaces 
 and rebukes, to continue their favour to the seditious 
 Lollards. Sir Richard Stury was, more especially, 
 the object of the royal indignation. He was com- 
 pelled to abjure the principles and tenets of these 
 dangerous people ; and when he had done this, the 
 king in his turn swore to him, that, if ever he dared 
 to violate his oath, he should perish, without mercy, 
 hy an ignominious death.* The faith of the king, 
 and the zeal of the hierarchy, were further invoked 
 hy an urgent epistle from Boniface IX. Letter of Pope 
 in which he called upon the Church to Boniface IX. 
 root out and destroy the maintainers of doctrines, 
 subversive of the State, both civil and ecclesiastical, 
 and exhorted the monarch to strengthen the hands of 
 the clergy with all the aids of the secular authority 
 and power. 
 
 By these manifestations of vigour, the work of 
 open agitation was, for a time, suppressed. The 
 vigilance, however, of Archbishop Arundel suffered 
 no relaxation. A provincial council was held by him 
 in 1396, in which eighteen conclusions 
 from Wiclif 's Trialcrgus were condem- certain 96 ' posi- 
 ned, and a friar by the name of Wodford tions of wicfif 
 was ordered to draw up an answer to o^. 1 16 * 1 ** 
 them. The University of Oxford was 
 further called upon to examine the writings of the 
 
 Wals. p. 388, 339. 
 
 31 
 
362 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 heretic, and to certify their report thereon in the 
 Chancery. To this injunction, that body opposed the 
 privilege of their exempt jurisdiction ; a plea which 
 was speedily beaten down by the Royal Letters Pa- 
 tent, peremptorily forbidding them to rely on any 
 such immunity. They were further threatened with 
 a Visitation from the archbishop, who distinctly 
 charged the whole University with heretical pravity; 
 and thus succeeded in goading them to reluctant ac- 
 tion. The result was, that, after some opposition, 
 twelve delegates were dispatched to the Convocation, 
 then sitting at St. Paul's, with a long list of censur- 
 able articles, extracted from the writings of the Re- 
 former; but accompanied with a protestation that, 
 with many, their authority was but small, and, ac- 
 cordingly, recommending these articles to the consi- 
 deration of " his Excellent Paternity," with a view 
 to their being submitted to their most holy Father, 
 the Pope. 
 
 statute de He- ^11 this, it will easily be understood, 
 retico c&mbu- was little better than to follow the scent 
 of heresy with keen nostrils but with muz- 
 zled jaws. More promising times, however, were 
 near at hand. The hierarchy grew weary of a conflict 
 against innovation, with blunt and impotent weapons. 
 The reign of a usurper, deeply indebted to their in- 
 fluence for his crown, promised to arm them with 
 much more destructive implements. They accord- 
 ingly forgot their loyalty in their zeal,* and hoped 
 
 * " The clergy," says Fuller, "were the first that led this dance of dis- 
 loyalty. Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, made a sermon, 
 on Samuel's words, Vir dominabitur populo. He showed himself a 
 satirist in the former, a parasite in the latter part of his sermon r a traitor 
 in both. He aggravated the childish weakness of Richard^ and his ina- 
 bility to govern, magnifying the parts and perfections of Henry Duke of 
 Lancaster And thus ambitious clergymen abuse the silver trum- 
 pets of the sanctuary, who, reversing them, and putting the wrong end 
 into their mouths, make what was appointed to sound religion, to signify 
 rebellion." Church Hist. p. 153. 
 
 In speaking of Henry as a usurper, it is not my meaning to pronounce 
 any judgment upon the deep constitutional question, whether his seizure 
 of the throne was, properly, a usurpation ; or whether the change which 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 363 
 
 that allegiance to the Church might sanctify treason 
 to their sovereign. As a reward for the invaluable 
 services of the clergy in helping him to the throne, 
 Henry IV. consented to light up the flames of reli- 
 gious persecution in the land, and to consign himself 
 to everlasting dishonour, by passing that execrable 
 law for the burning of heretics alive, which was the 
 disgrace of our statute book for two centuries and a 
 half! 
 
 It is, perhaps, scarcely too much to say, that by 
 that brutal enactment, which converted kings into 
 the slaves and butchers of the Church, the doom of 
 the Papacy in England was sealed.* It had a long 
 respite ; but, nevertheless, this was its death warrant. 
 The clergy, it may be frankly allowed, had consider- 
 able ground for complaint. The abuse heaped upon 
 them by the Lollards was not only furious but indis- 
 criminate : and besides, the Reformers would proba- 
 bly have suffered little to remain untouched, if they 
 had been left entirely to their own impulses. Cathe- 
 drals, abbeys, and monasteries might have fallen be- 
 fore them : all endowments might have been swept 
 away: and there was no inconsiderable danger lest 
 piety itself should have been rendered almost hateful, 
 by the unsocial austerity which was beginning to 
 furrow the countenance and to cloud the brow of 
 their religion. In addition to this, it can scarcely be 
 
 then took place might not more fitly be designated as a Revolution some- 
 what similar to that of 1688. The point is discussed by Mr. Hallam, Mid- 
 dle Ages, vol. iii. p. 120 124. That some of the parties concerned in 
 these transactions, and especially Henry himself, were more or less, con- 
 scious of that sort of irregularity and violence, which popularly, goes by 
 the name of disloyalty and usurpation, will scarcely be questioned : and 
 this is all which is necessary for my purpose. 
 
 * " We find a remarkable petition in 8 Hen. IV., professedly aimed 
 against the Lollards, but intended, as I strongly suspect, in their favour. 
 It condemns persons preaching against the Catholic faith or sacraments, 
 to imprisonment against the next parliament, where they were to abide 
 such judgment as should be rendered by the king and peers of the realm. 
 This seems to supersede the burning statute of 2 Hen. IV., and the spirit- 
 ual cognisance of heresy. Hot. Parl. p. 583. See, too, p. 626. The pe- 
 tition was expressly granted ; but the clergy, 1 suppose, prevented its ap.. 
 pearing on the Roll." Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 134, note *. 
 
364 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 denied, that the whole fabric of society was in some 
 hazard from their principles. There is reason to 
 believe, that by many of them the reign of the saints 
 upon earth was eagerly anticipated; and that their 
 impatience, if not effectively curbed, might have 
 broken out into wild and fearful commotion. Under 
 these circumstances, if the Church and the State had 
 combined to repress, by vigorous laws, such mani- 
 festations of opinion as threatened the peace and sta- 
 bility of the empire, they would have done nothing 
 which could reasonably merit the censures of the most 
 enlightened age. Instead of this, the hierarchy pre- 
 ferred dealing with the innovators rather as heretics, 
 than as traitors or incendiaries; and, not only so, but 
 they fixed upon the most absurd of all the Romish 
 dogmas as the test of heresv. The " murderous 
 question" by which they brought their inquisitions to 
 an issue, was, always, " Do you or do you not be- 
 lieve, that material bread remains in the Sacrament, 
 after the words of consecration have been uttered ?" 
 and if the answer was in the affirmative, nothing 
 remained for the delinquent but a death of excru- 
 ciating anguish. The immediate effect of such pro- 
 ceedings was, that the Lollards were regarded, not as 
 suffering the penally due to revolutionary opinions 
 and practices, but as martyrs in the cause of Scrip- 
 tural truth. The more remote consequences were, 
 that a sentiment of abhorrence was gradually im- 
 bibed against the clergy, as monsters of inhumanity 
 and injustice. And under the force of these convic- 
 tions, the Romish establishment sunk, eventually, 
 into the dust, 
 
 Wiiihm .au- The first victim of this detestable 
 tre, the fim v c - law was William Santre, parish priest 
 tim of ih; 8 law. of g t> o ?y th, j n the city of London, 
 who may justly be styled the proto-martyr of Eng- 
 land. He was charged with eight articles of heresy, 
 one of which related to the sacramental question. 
 With respect to this, he declared that the consecrated 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 365 
 
 clement was the bread of life, which came down from 
 heaven; but affirmed that it remained very bread, as 
 it was before. Having thus, to use the language of 
 Dr. Lingard, " refused to give any satisfaction on the 
 subject of the Eucharist" he was declared to be con- 
 victed as a heretic : and " the unhappy man," says 
 the same writer, " instead of being shut up in an 
 asylum for lunatics, was burnt to death as a male- 
 factor, in the presence of an immense multitude." 
 We have here a signal instance of the artifice with 
 which unscrupulous ingenuity can contrive to insinu- 
 ate falsehood, under the aspect of candour and hu- 
 manity. Who would not imagine, from a perusal of 
 the above sentence, that the judges were, on this one 
 occasion, forgetful of their ordinary gentleness ; and 
 that, by a strain of unusual severity, an unfortunate 
 maniac was punished as a criminal ? Who would 
 conjecture, from the words of the historian, that the 
 victim was sacrificed, according to a law dictated by 
 that very Church which pronounced his sentence ; 
 and which, at that moment was impatient to pro- 
 nounce the same sentence on all similar "malefac- 
 tors ?"* 
 
 * It is affirmed by Dr. Lingard, that SautrS, with unparalleled effron- 
 tery, denied his former conviction and recantation. This statement is 
 not quite correct. The account of the matter in the Arundel Register, is 
 as follows : Sautre was first convened before the Bishop of Norwich ; and, 
 on that occasion, abjured his opinions, and among them, that which re- 
 lated to the Eucharist. On the 23d of May, 1400, he appeared before the 
 primate, at the Chapter-house of St. Paul's. The whole of the proceed- 
 ings before the Bishop of Norwich were then read to him ; and he was 
 asked whether he was fully aware of the import of those proceedings, 
 and whether he had any thing to object to them? to which he replied 
 in the negative. He was then charged, not only with having maintained 
 that true material bread remains in the sacrament after consecration, 
 but with having done so subsequently to his abjuration of that, and the 
 rest of his heretical opinions. And here comes the perplexing part of 
 Sautre's conduct : for, to this last interrogative, he replied, as it were 
 with a smile, or rather a sneer, that he was ignorant of the premises ; 
 although, in public, he affirmed that he had so held and taught, subse- 
 quently to the date of the process before the Bishop of Norwich. The 
 words are as follows " Ad quae prssfatus Willelmus respondit ; et quasi 
 ridendo, sine deridendo, preemissa negavit, et ignoravit, ut dixit; 
 public^ tamen asseruit quod praedictam (hseresin) tenuit et docuit, poet 
 datam dicti processes facti per Episcopum Norvicensem." It would ap- 
 
366 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 As this was the first holocaust offered up on the 
 altar of the mass, it was conducted with punctilious 
 solemnity, in order that future inquisitors might be 
 provided with an exact precedent for the regulation 
 of their proceedings. The offender was stripped of 
 all his successive functions, from the order of priest 
 to that of sexton. The cap of a layman was, next, 
 placed upon his head, and he was then consigned, 
 with the usual disgusting and hypocritical recom- 
 mendation, to the tender mercy of the secular arm. 
 By the secular arm the accursed pile was, according- 
 ly", lighted; and, for the first time in England, the 
 flames of persecution arose towards heaven, to out- 
 rage and insult the God of all mercy and consolation ! 
 Proceedings of It would be tedious'and unprofitable, 
 Archbishop to commemorate at length, the incessant 
 activity with which the primate con- 
 tinued to labour for the suppression of Wiclif's wri- 
 tings, for the extirpation of heresy, and for the ruin 
 of the Lollards; or to recite the varied apparatus 
 of canons and constitutions,* which he framed for 
 these purposes, in the course of the several following 
 years. I therefore pass on to the accession of Henry 
 V. ; a period, at which the panic raised by the 
 designs imputed to these people, appears to have 
 Continued vio- r ? nc hed ils height. It is affirmed by 
 lence of the Walsiugham that the Lollards had fixecl 
 placards to the doors of the London 
 churches, proclaiming that a hundred thousand strong 
 arms were in readiness to enforce their opinions ; and 
 he adds, that they were instigated to these outrages 
 by Sir John Oldcastle, otherwise Lord Cobham. The 
 history of the transactions in which this nobleman 
 
 p3ar, therefore, that trn premises (praernissa) wh : ch he, most unac- 
 countably, d;d deny, were, not his recantation, but his sutrequent 
 perseverance in preaching the doctrine he had renounced. What can 
 poss.bly have tempted him to this de.ilal, it is extremely d.fficult to 
 imagine; for, when it was finally demanded of him, why lie should not 
 tw pronounced a relapsed heretic, he had no cause whatever to allege! 
 See Wtlk. Cone. vol. iii. p. 258. 
 * They may be found in Wilk. Cone. voL iii. See also Lewis, c. vii 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF, 367 
 
 is said to have been implicated, is involved in more 
 perplexity than I can here attempt to unravel. With 
 regard to the account of these matters delivered by the 
 Chronicler himself, it has been justly remarked, that 
 " it is all a series of surmise and rumour, of alarm 
 and anticipation. That any plot was formed, there 
 is no evidence ; and the prooability is, that artful 
 measures were taken to alarm the mind of the king 
 into nnger and cruelty, by charges of treason, and 
 rebellion, and meditated assassination."* The result, 
 however, was, that the prisons of London were 
 rilled, that nine and thirty persons were suspended 
 by chains from a gallows, and burnt alive by a fire, 
 kindled from beneath, that Lord Cobham eventually 
 perished in the same manner, and that a vindictive 
 statute was passed against the Lollards ; of which 
 one principal provision was, that all persons employ- 
 ed in civil offices, from the chancellor downward, 
 should take an oath for the destruction of Lollardy. 
 
 The preamble to this statute affirms, Law com p e j- 
 that ''great rumours, congregations, and in^'ei! pen-one 
 insurrections, had been raised in the ! n . civil office 
 
 r -~ ' , , , ,. ,. . ta.ce an oath 
 
 realm or England, by divers liege sub- arainst Lollard- 
 jects of the king, as well by those who ism - 
 belonged to the heretical sect called Lollardie, as by 
 others of their confederacy, excitation, and abetment, 
 with a view to annul and subver* the Christian faith, 
 and the law of God in this kingdom ; also to destroy 
 our sovereign lord the king himself, and all manner 
 of estates of this realm, as well spiritual as temporal ; 
 and, moreover, all manner of policy, and, finally, all 
 the laws of the land." With every allowance for 
 the exaggerations of malice, of bigotry, and of 
 terror, it is scarcely possible to believe, that im 
 putations so dark could have been wholly fictitious or 
 .unfounded. At the same time, however, nothing 
 can be more incredible than the assertion, contained 
 
 ' Turner's History of England, part iii. c. vil p. 308. 
 
368 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 in this recital, that the object of the supposed con- 
 spirators was no less than the dissolution of the 
 whole fabric of society throughout the land. Arundel 
 himself, whose words these virtually were, must 
 surely have been conscious that he was putting a 
 gross and cruel falsehood into the mouth of Parlia- 
 ment, for the purpose of heaping infamy and detesta- 
 tion on the cause of Lollardism, and the memory of 
 Wiclif. That the ranks of the reformers may, pro- 
 bably, have been disgraced by the levelling fanaticism 
 of some among its partisans, it would be preposterous 
 to question. But then, on the other hand, it should 
 never be forgotten, that the records of their persecu- 
 tion are wholly silent on the subject of sedition or 
 conspiracy. Religious heresy is me crime for which 
 they suffered, not political incendiarism. They were 
 not gibbeted for compassing the king's death, or 
 contriving the destruction of the civil institutions of 
 the kingdom. They were burnt alive for refusing to 
 affirm that there is no material bread remaining in 
 the Eucharist, after certain syllables have been pro- 
 nounced over it by the priest. Had any among their 
 numbers been duly convicted of treasonable practices, 
 and punished as enemies to their king and country, 
 their adversaries might justly have escaped the 
 curses, perhaps, they might even have merited the 
 praises, of posterity. As it is, we are required to 
 believe that all human crimes were involved in the 
 single enormity of questioning the metaphysics of 
 the Church of Rome a demand which can raise no 
 other feelings than those of disgust and horror against 
 the persecutors. 
 
 The measure of these iniquities was 
 Inquilftorial me * U P JY '? following constitution, 
 constitution of made by Archbishop Chicheley, in 1416. 
 ^rchbishopChi- it enjoined " all suffragans and arch- 
 deacons, with their officials and com- 
 missaries, to make inquisition, twice in every year, 
 after persons suspected of heresy. Wherever reputed 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 369 
 
 heretics were reported to dwell, three or more of the 
 parish were compelled to take an oath that they would 
 certify to the suffragans, or their officers, what per- 
 sons were heretics, who kept private conventicles, 
 who differed in life and manners from the common 
 conversation of the faithful, who had suspected books 
 in the vulgar tongue, or were conversant with per- 
 sons suspected of error. On such information, pro- 
 cess was to issue against the accused, who were to be 
 delivered over to the secular court, or imprisoned till 
 the next convocation."* By this accursed ordinance 
 the horrors of the writ for burning heretics were 
 completed. It set up an inquisition in every parish. 
 It sent terror and distrust into every family. Every 
 dwelling was haunted by discord and suspicion : so 
 that a man's bitterest foes were often those of his 
 own household and blood. And the fruits of this 
 flagitious system were, that multitudes were con- 
 signed to the dungeon or the stake, by the treachery, 
 or the weakness, of their nearest kindred, or their 
 dearest connexions.! 
 
 There can be no doubt that " curses Effect of these 
 not loud but deep," must have been mut- severities. 
 tered, from one end of the realm to the other, against 
 these triumphs of a Church, which maintained her 
 supremacy by the stake and the sword, by massacre 
 and perfidy. But the fires which were trodden down, 
 were not extinct. They still lived under the ashes 
 of martyrdom ; and at length they broke forth, with 
 rnigLt and fury irresistible, the ministers of God's 
 righteous retribution. The successful usurpation of 
 Henry Bolingbroke had been the result of a guilty 
 league between bigotry and ambition : and where 
 were the Bolingbrokes in little more than half a cen* 
 tury from that odious compact? Where was the 
 sceptre with which, as with a sword of flame, the 
 faithful witnesses of a good confession had been con 
 
 * Wilk. Cone. vol. iii. 378. t Lewis, c. vii. p. 135, 136, 
 
370 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 sumed ? Where was the throne, whose weight had 
 pressed down, to the very dust, not only the rights of 
 conscience, but the laws of humanity ? They were 
 tossed into that heap of ruins, wherewith the down- 
 fall of criminal greatness is incessantly loading the 
 earth a dreadful and ever-growing monument of 
 the vengeance of Him who cannot look upon iniquity. 
 There was rottenness in a dynasty which had incor- 
 porated itself with the corruptions of a merciless 
 superstition. And the rain descended, and the floods 
 came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, 
 and it fell: and great indeed was the fall thereof! 
 But its fall was, eventually, the rising of the truth, 
 and the riches of the world. 
 
 Bishop Pecock That the Church in this century was 
 writes against possessed by the fiercest spirit of intole- 
 Loiiards. ranee, is manifest from the fact, that 
 
 its fury was not satisfied with the victims offered in 
 honour of her sacramental mystery. She seized 
 upon one of the most illustrious of her own champions, 
 whose principal error was, that he was too enlight- 
 ened and candid for the age, and condescended to ad- 
 dress the reason of the people, instead of contenting 
 himself with an appeal to their credulity or their 
 fears. The distinguished individual in question 
 was Dr. Reginald Pecock, bishop, first of St. 
 Asaph, and afterwards of Chichester. He has been 
 justly described as a man of rare ability, and still 
 rarer moderation ; and, in power and gravity of writ- 
 ing, as, almost, the Hooker of his day. He began 
 his career, indeed, in a direction as orthodox as the 
 hierarchy itself could possibly desire : for he under- 
 1447 took, in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, 
 He defends the the formal vindication of several abuses 
 bishops. an( j delinquencies, which had been loud- 
 
 ly arraigned by Wiclif, and which had called forth, 
 both from Catholic and Reformer, an incessant outcry 
 of indignation or of scorn. He ventured to affirm 
 that bishops were, by the very nature of their office. 
 
LITE OF WICLIF. 371 
 
 exempt from the necessity of preaching ; that they 
 are under no obligation to strict residence on their 
 sees ; and that they may receive their bishoprics by 
 Papal provision, and pay first-fruits or annates to 
 the Pontiff, without justly incurring the charge of 
 simony. These were desperately unpopular topics ; 
 and Dr. Gascoigne* does not hesitate to ascribe the 
 civil convulsions of those times, in a great measure, 
 to the abandonment of their duties by the prelates of 
 England, and to this unblushing vindication of their 
 neglect by one of their own body. " Since," says 
 he, " Bishop Reginald Pecock, and other bishops ad- 
 vanced by the king, have asserted that bishops are 
 not obliged to preach, themselves, Almighty God hath 
 preached to some purpose in England, by actually 
 punishing the bishops, and suffering them to be 
 punished."! It must not, however, be concluded 
 from this vehement censure, that Pecock's apology 
 for his brethren was dictated by his defective sense 
 of the sacred importance of their duties. His defence 
 is grounded on the principle, that bishops are ap- 
 pointed to a higher function than that of inculcating 
 the elements of faith and holiness from the pulpit. If 
 they were exempt from that burden, it was that they 
 might be more able to exercise an effectual superin- 
 tendence over those who were ordained to bear it, and 
 that they might have leisure for the more perfect and 
 important office of teaching; that is, of enforcing 
 religious truth by evidence and argument. Again, 
 with regard to the absence of bishops from their 
 diocese, he maintained that there were many reason- 
 able causes which may justify their residence else- 
 where, and might render it more beneficial to the 
 Church and the realm, than a more constant confine- 
 ment to the seat of their episcopal office ; especially 
 in those days, when the services of churchmen were 
 so often required, as " the sage people of his majes- 
 
 * Diet. Theol. Episcopus. t Lewis's Life of Pecock, p. 19. 
 
372 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 ty's council." His defence of Papal provisions, and 
 payment of first-fruits, is entirely grounded on the 
 prodigious absurdity, (then, however, current in the 
 Church,) that the Pope, as universal pastor, is lord 
 of all the benefices in Christendom, and that it cannot 
 be simoniacal to render him a part, when the whole 
 is rightfully his own. 
 
 The next performance of the bishop 
 
 'Represser." wag a wor k lQ w hj L .h | le g ive tnc t [ t j e 
 of Represser, its object being to repress the indiscrimi- 
 nate spirit of vituperation which had gone forth against 
 ecclesiastics. In this tract he labours further in 
 vindication of the bishops and clergy; and, in the 
 true spirit of mildness and peace, endeavours to pro- 
 duce such an exposition of the doctrines and practices 
 of the Church, as might reconcile the dissenting Lol- 
 larJs to her communion. This treatise is extremely 
 valuable, not only asa monument of genuine Christian 
 liberality; but as an interesting exhibition of the 
 state of the controversy, in that day, between the 
 establishment and its adversaries. The arguments in 
 favour of various practices, which the reformers de- 
 rided and condemned, are often enforced with re- 
 markable ingenuity and acuteness. His justification 
 of pilgrimages, and the religious use of images, more 
 especially, is conducted, on the whole, with peculiar 
 felicity and candour. Reliques, he contended, were 
 to be valued only as " rememorative signs"* of de- 
 parted saints, the "devout beholding" of which, was 
 approved " by the doom of kindly well-disposed rea- 
 son." In one respect, however, if we are to judge 
 by his silence, he found this matter rather uritnct- 
 
 * Pascal, two centuries later, took infinitely higher ETDUIK! than this. 
 "The Holy Ghost," he says, " reposes, invisibly, in the reliques of those 
 who have died in the gra^e of God, until he appears, visibly, m ths resur- 
 rection. And this is the reason why the rel qu ;s of saints are so worthy 
 of veneration. For God never abandons tho^e that are h s, not even in 
 the sepulchre ; where their bodies, though daad in the sight of men, are 
 alive before God, because sin abides in them no more." Pensees. 
 Never, surely, was so superb a disguise thrown by imaginative piety 
 over absurdity and imposture ! 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 373 
 
 able. In his defence of images, and pilgrimages, 
 and veneration of reliques, he has not a single syllable 
 on the subject of indulgences ; the promise of which 
 was, notoriously, the grand motive that attached the 
 populace to these superstitions, and the main object 
 of attack to Wiclif and his followers. 
 
 The Represser, it would appear, notwithstanding 
 the moderation which pervaded the whole work, ex- 
 posed the bishop to no suspicion, or at least to no 
 open displeasure, from the Church. He was still high 
 in prosperity and honour ; and in 1450 was promoted 
 from the see of St. Asaph to that of Chichester. It 
 was not till after his translation that he His "Treatise of 
 composed his Treatise of Faith, which Faith." 
 proved the source of all his subsequent afflictions ; 
 for it was here that the temper of concession and of 
 candour began to manifest itself in a tone which 
 sounded most ominously in the ears of the Papacy. 
 In the first place, he had the boldness to He cens ures the 
 assail, with as little mercy as Wiclif him- preaching of the 
 self, the contemptible style of preaching Mendicants - 
 introduced by the Mendicants, who had substituted 
 fable and romance for the eternal truth of the Gospel, 
 and " split the ears" of their staring congregations 
 with vociferous encomiums of their saints. Pecock 
 was far too learned and enlightened to tolerate these 
 pernicious extravagances. In his honest zeal, he 
 arraigned the Friars of heresy and superstition ; and, 
 by way of imbodying his censure in a single phrase, 
 he ventured to give them the ridiculous title of pulpit- 
 bawlers. This, however, might, possibly, have been 
 endured ; for the intrusive arrogance of the Mendicant 
 orders had long been hateful to multitudes, both of 
 the secular and monastic clergy. But, not content 
 with this, Pecock, in an evil hour for his peace, 
 though, perhaps, a bright one for his fame, placed 
 himself between the main pillars, that supported the 
 fabric of the Papacy, and shook them. He main- 
 tained, first, that the Holy Scriptures are the sub- 
 
374 I.IFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 .... stantial foundation of our faith, the only 
 
 Maintains the i , , /. , , J 
 
 sufficiencyofthe rule or standard of revealed or superna- 
 Scripture?, and tural truth : and, secondly, that it is a 
 proSSoeofuS vain an(i hopeless thipg to attempt the 
 ging the infaiii- reduction of the Lollards by means of a 
 rSSLi f the principle so questionable as the infalli- 
 
 Uhurcn. ft / i i i TT i 
 
 bility of the priesthood. Upon this, as 
 might be expected, certain of the high-priests began to 
 rend their clothes, and to cry out blasphemy ! 
 
 It is a very remarkable circumstance that the tem- 
 poral lords joined heartily in the persecution which 
 . now commenced against Pecock, if they 
 io?sheTforbid- did not actually begin it. The reasons 
 den the king's for this may, probably, have been, that 
 Sailed' fm he had lost his patron the Duke of Suf- 
 the House of folk, by whom he is said to have been 
 promoted to the see of Chichester, and 
 that several of his doctrines were extremely un- 
 popular among the laity, more especially the posi- 
 tion, that the Pope was master of all the benefices in 
 Christendom. But, whatever may have been the 
 Cause, in 1457 he was expelled the House of Lords, 
 and forbidden the King's presence ; and so bitter was 
 the exasperation against him, that the peers refused 
 to proceed with any business, so long as Pecock con- 
 Convened before tm ued in the House. At last, he was 
 the archbishop brought before the primate, on a charge 
 of heresy, combined with other accusa- 
 tions, framed to all appearance with a view to de- 
 prive him of all sympathy from the people. On these 
 charges he was convicted, and the only choice left 
 him, was that of abjuration or the stake. By this 
 tremendous alternative the fortitude of the bishop 
 was overpowered. He replied that "it would be 
 better for him to become the gazing-stock of the 
 people, than to desert the law of faith, and to be sent 
 Ab'ures a ^ lcr ^ s death mto hell fire. He, there- 
 fore, made it his desire to abjure, and 
 so to frame his life in future as to give no cause for 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 375 
 
 suspicion or reproach." By his biographer* this an- 
 swer is stigmatized as weak and abject; but " there 
 is more," as Fuller observes, " required to make a 
 valiant man than to call another a coward." It 
 should, moreover, in all righteousness and charity, 
 be remembered, that Pecock never professed any 
 renunciation of his fidelity to the Romish Church. 
 For twenty years he had been her faithful, strenuous, 
 though too candid and honourable, champion. It may, 
 therefore, be reasonably presumed that he sincerely 
 dreaded the very thought of rebelliously opposing his 
 judgment to hers ; and that his conduct, on this try- 
 ing occasion, was prompted by motives similar to those 
 which impelled Fenelon to read publicly, in his own 
 cathedral, the condemnation of his own opinions. 
 
 His abjuration was performed under every circum- 
 stance of humiliation, which could make it bitter, 
 almost beyond the bitterness of death. He was 
 brought to St. Paul's Cross, in his stole, or episcopal 
 habit, and placed at the archbishop's feet. His books 
 were delivered by his own hand to the officer appoint- 
 ed to cast them into the flames. In the presence of 
 20,000 people he then read his abjuration, wherein 
 he confessed himself a miserable sinner, who had 
 before walked in darkness, but was now, by God's 
 mercy, brought back to the right way; and he ex- 
 horted all men, in the name and virtue of Almighty 
 God, to give no faith or credence to his pernicious 
 doctrines. The cup of his affliction, however, was 
 not yet drained. He had still to endure the venomous 
 contumely of his enemies, and to taste the parental 
 mercies of the Church he had defended. She did not, 
 indeed, burn him alive ; but it may, almost literally, 
 be said that she buried him alive; for, T<! ; n r : annpf i 
 
 _ . . . . c -i \ > ., 7is inipiisoneu 
 
 after stripping him of his bishopric she for life in Thor- 
 consigned him to the most rigorous im- ney Abbe y- 
 prisonment, for life, within the walls of a monastery, 
 
 * Lewis, p. 158, 
 
376 LIFE OF WICLIF, 
 
 He was sent to Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire; 
 and confined there to a single chamber, which he was 
 on no account to leave. All converse with him was 
 strictly forbidden. He was debarred from the use of 
 pen or ink, or paper, or even of books, with the ex- 
 ception of a mass-book, a Psalter, a legend, and a 
 Bible. And his diet, for the first quarter of his im- 
 prisonment, was to be the same with the daily allow- 
 ance of the convent; afterwards that of a sick or 
 aged brother, with such further indulgence as his 
 health and years might require. How long the bishop 
 survived under this cruel captivity is unknown. It 
 is probable that his miseries were shortly terminated : 
 though various accounts are given of his death. 
 
 Such was the end of this eminent churchman, un- 
 doubtedly among the most* learned of his age and 
 country. His spirit was far too equitable and mode- 
 rate for the period in which he lived. As an instance 
 of this, he, like the heresiarch, whose doctrines he 
 combated, ventured to address his countrymen in 
 their own language, on questions involving the salva- 
 tion of their souls ; a practice which was thought to 
 draw aside the curtains of mystery, and to invite the 
 vulgar gaze to the secrets of the chamber within. He 
 fell into another egregious controversial solecism. In- 
 stead of assailing the Lollards with asperity and me- 
 nace, he treated the accursed separatists with gen- 
 tleness and patience, he heard their scruples and 
 objections with paternal mildness, nay, he even 
 thought that heretics might lawfully be argued with, 
 before they were finally delivered over to the secu- 
 lar arm, as incorrigibly obstinate. This, of itself, 
 was a practical heresy, of the darkest complexion, in 
 the eyes of a priesthood, who would hear of nothing 
 but implicit faith. In short, he inadvertently dashed 
 
 * His learning, however, like most of the learning of his time, com- 
 prehended but little Greek. He confounds Cephas with itt(pa\r), and 
 translates it head : and he derives orthodoxy from opSoj, right, and 
 $o$a, glory! The Life of Bishop P., by Mr. Lewis, is a very interest- 
 ing and instructive volume. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 377 
 
 his head against that bulwark of adamant, which had 
 been raised to make the Papal fortress impregnable 
 the infallibility of the Church : a doctrine of which, 
 in that age, it might be truly said, that he who fell 
 upon it should be shattered, and he on whom it fell 
 should be crushed to dust. His fate was a dreadful 
 warning to the inquisitive world ! If Bishop Pecock, 
 the illustrious defender of the Church, was to be in- 
 tombed in a dungeon, what was to be expected by 
 those who assailed her doctrines, and execrated her 
 tyranny and corruption ? 
 
 It is a very memorable circumstance in the story 
 of this extraordinary man, that his life was passed in 
 a conflict with the errors of Wiclif, and yet that, 
 after his death, his name was solemnly coupled with 
 the name of the Reformer, and, in that company was, 
 in due form, consigned to immortality. The founda- 
 tion of King's College, Cambridge, took place about 
 fourteen years before Pecock's conviction and im- 
 prisonment : and such was the zeal and orthodoxy of 
 his Majesty, or his advisers, that a clause was added 
 to the statutes of the society, providing, that every 
 scholar, on the expiration of his probationary years, 
 should take an oath, that he would not favour the con- 
 demned opinions or heresies of John Wiclif, Reginald 
 Pecock, or any other heretic, so long as he should 
 live, on pain of perjury and expulsion, ipso facto.* 
 And it is still more curious that, in spite of this royal 
 enactment, King's College turned out to be one of the 
 most heretical societies in the University ! 
 
 The whole period of intestine commotion, and 
 more especially the reign of Edward IV. furnish, as 
 Fulkr remarks, but scanty materials for Church 
 story. "The sound of bells in the steeples was 
 
 * Item, statuimus, ordinamus, et volumus, quod quilibet Scholaris, in 
 admissione sua in Collegium nostrum Regale predictum post annos pro- 
 bationis, juret quod non favebit opinionibus damnatis, errpribus, ant 
 heresibus, Johannis Wiclif, Reginalds Pecock, neque alicujus alterius 
 heretici, quamdiu vixerit in hoc mundo, sub pena perjurii. et expulsionjg 
 ipso facto. Lewis's Pecock, p. 173. 
 
 32* 
 
378 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 drowned with the noise of drums and trumpets. And 
 yet this good was done by the civil wars, that they 
 diverted the prelates from troubling the Lollards ; so 
 that this very storm was a shelter to those poor souls, 
 and the heat of these intestine enmities cooled the 
 Pereecution of persecution against them." On the ac- 
 the Lollards re- cession of Henry VII. however, the flame 
 
 K m nder burst * rth once more - Tne merciless 
 spirit of the house of Lancaster seemed 
 to revive in the person of him who was to unite the 
 conflicting claims of the two adverse families, and 
 whom all parties were disposed to hail as the minis- 
 ter of peace and reconciliation. " Observable was 
 the carriage of this prince (I, again, am citing the 
 words of Fuller) towards the Pope, the clergy, and 
 the poor Lollards. To the Pope he was submissive, 
 not servile, his devotion being seldom without de- 
 sign ; so using his Holiness, that he seldom stooped 
 down to him in any low reverence, but with the 
 same gesture, he took up something in order to his 
 own ends. To the clergy, of desert, he was very 
 respectful, trusting and employing them in State 
 affairs more than his nobility. To the dissolute and 
 vicious clergy he was justly severe, and pared their 
 privileges, ordaining that clerks convict should be 
 burnt in the hand ; both that they might taste a cor- 
 poreal punishment, and carry a brand of infamy. 
 To the Lollards (so were God's people nick- 
 named) he was more cruel than his predecessors ." One 
 revolting instance of his wanton inhumanity is re- 
 lated by Fox. There was, at Canterbury, an aged 
 priest, so firmly rooted in the heresies of Wiclif, that 
 all the clerks and doctors of the place were unable 
 to remove, or even to shake him. The obstinacy of 
 this confessor reached the ears of the King, who felt 
 impelled to undertake the adventure of reclaiming 
 him, though " we never read before," says Fuller, 
 " of his Majesty's disputing, save when he disputed 
 Bosworth Field with King Richard the Third." A 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 379 
 
 royal polemic is proverbially irresistible. The Chris- 
 tian divine, like the philosopher of old, was unable to 
 withstand the master of legions, and surrendered his 
 opinions to the force of imperial logic. The con- 
 queror, however, made a most detestable use of his 
 victory. The unhappy convert was burnt immedi- 
 ately on his abjuration, and derived no other advan- 
 tage from his encounter with the king, than the benefit 
 of perishing in communion with the Catholic Church. 
 The martyrdom of an aged woman, Martyrdom of 
 named Joanna Baughton, has left an- Joanna Baugh- 
 other blot upon the reign of this cold- lon> 
 blooded monarch. She was upwards of fourscore 
 when she was called to suffer, for her faithful ad- 
 herence to the opinions of the Reformer, whom she 
 honoured as an eminent saint. Her venerable years 
 afforded no protection against the remorseless bigotry 
 of the age. She was informed, that the stake would 
 be the certain recompense of her perseverance in 
 misbelief. But the terrors of the threat were, in her 
 judgment, not worthy to be compared to the comfort 
 she experienced in the love of God, and the protection 
 of his holy angels. She rendered her soul, in the 
 midst of the flames, with admirable constancy ; and 
 her ashes were collected as precious memorials of her 
 martyrdom. But the measure of atrocity remained 
 yet to be filled up. At Amersworth, a heretic, named 
 Tylsworth, was consigned to the flames : Martyrdom of 
 and, with a refinement in barbarity, Tylsworth. 
 which might excite the envy of a North-American 
 savage, his only daughter, who had also fallen under 
 suspicion, was compelled to kindle the pile, that was 
 to consume her own father by an agonizing death. 
 One monster there was, in those days, who disgraced 
 the priesthood, by adding coarse and vulgar insult to 
 brutal inhumanity. Bishop Nix, of Nor- _. , __. 
 
 . i n J . c r \ i Bishop Nix. 
 
 wich, immortally infamous for his alac- 
 rity in persecution, when he spoke of persons sup- 
 posed to carry about with them the taint of heresy, 
 
380 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 described them as men who savoured of the frying' 
 pan. The extent of havoc, inflicted by this awful in- 
 fatuation of the clergy, and the sovereign, may be 
 tolerably estimated, even from the somewhat sportive 
 hyperbole of a correspondent of Erasmus, who de- 
 clares, that the frequency of executions at Smithfield 
 had advanced the price of firewood in the neighbour- 
 hood of London. That the earthly and devilish wisdom 
 of the sovereign, and the hierarchy, could have made 
 a single sincere convert, is utterly incredible. That 
 it gradually alienated the heart of England, is most 
 certain. It is true, that the multitude of dreadful ex- 
 amples was often too much for the weakness of flesh 
 and blood. From many a sincere believer in the re- 
 forming doctrines, the words of abjuration were ex- 
 torted by the terrors of the fire ; and these appear- 
 ances of success may have strengthened the Church 
 in her system of butchery. Repentance itself, how- 
 ever, had no power to mitigate her spirit ; and cruel, 
 indeed, were her tender mercies towards the wretched 
 victims of infirmity and fear. They were spared the 
 death of martyrs, only that they might linger out a 
 life of martyrdom. With a faggot on their shoulder, 
 they were compelled to witness the dying agonies of 
 their more intrepid brethren. With the likeness of 
 Inhumanity to- a f aggot, wrought or painted on their 
 wards those sleeve, and with the mark of heresy 
 who abjured, bnmded on their cheek, they were sent 
 forth to public scorn, and almost to utter excommu- 
 nication. They who wore this badge of infamy, 
 were nearly sure to perish for want of employment 
 and support ; they who, for an hour, dared to lay it 
 aside, were as certainly consigned to the flames. And 
 the horrible fate which thus awaited them, passed 
 into a proverb Put it off and be burnt, keep it on and 
 be starved. But the soul sickens at the recital of these 
 enormities. It finds no relief but in the recollection, 
 that the Church which perpetrated them was but 
 Reaping up to herself wrath against the day of wrath. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 381 
 
 The hour of vengeance was in the heart 
 of God. It was drawing nigh, with a 
 noiseless and stealthy pace. " Retribu- to the Papacy in 
 tion," it is said, " has a foot of velvet, En s lalld - 
 but a hand of steel." In the midst of the cry of per- 
 secution, the approach of ruin was unheard, and un- 
 suspected. But the arm was, even then, all but up- 
 lifted, which was to smite the scalp of this gigantic 
 and godless oppression. The trumpet was, even 
 then, at the mouth of the angel; and the blast was 
 about to go forth, which, in this land, at least, was 
 to level its battlements in the dust. 
 
382 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF WICLIF. 
 
 IT has already appeared, from the preceding narra- 
 tive, that no efforts were spared, by the adversaries 
 of Wiclif 's doctrine, for the suppression of the works 
 in which it was conveyed to the public. Their vigi- 
 lance and activity, however, were most signally baf- 
 fled. In spite of this posthumous persecution, the 
 Reformer, though dead, still continued to speak ; and 
 it has been calculated, that full three-fourths of his 
 writings survive, at this day, to proclaim the vanity 
 of all forcible resistance to the progress of Truth. 
 Of those compositions of Wiclif which have perished, 
 by far the greater part consists of scholastic treatises, 
 the loss of which may be endured without any im- 
 moderate regret. That portion which remains may 
 be contemplated as the furniture of a vast and ancient 
 armory, hung round with the weapons of a warfare, 
 the final issue of which is felt, to this hour, through- 
 out the civil and religious institutions of our country. 
 The collection may, properly, be divided into two 
 main compartments: first, those works of Wiclif 's 
 which have appeared in print ; st condly, those which 
 still remain in manuscript. To these may be added, 
 such of his writings as are not now to be found in 
 this country, the titles of certain others of which 
 nothing but their names is, at present, known, and, 
 lastly, a notice of some treatises, which have been 
 improperly ascribed to Wiclif. This, accordingly, is 
 the arrangement adopted in the following catalogue.* 
 
 * It has been already stated, in the Preface, that for the power of pre- 
 senting this catalogue to the public, I am indebted to the liberality of Mr, 
 Yaughan, and of his publishers. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 383 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 HIS PRINTED WORKS. 
 
 1. Translation of the Neto Testament, printed first by the Rer. 
 John Lewis, Minister of Margate, in the county of Kent, in the year 
 1731 ; and again in the year 1810, by the Rev. Henry Hervey Baber, 
 Assistant Librarian of the British Museum. The last editor remarks, 
 that " the text of Mr. Lewis's edition was taken from two manuscripts, 
 one of which was his own, and the other the property of Sir Edward 
 Dering, Bart, of Surrenden-dering, in Kent. From the former, he tran- 
 scribed for the press the Four Gospels ; from the latter, the Epistles, the 
 Dedis of Apostlis, and the Apocalips. The transcript was collated by 
 the learned Dr. Daniel Waterland, Master of Magdalen College, Cam- 
 bridge, with ten manuscripts deposited in different Libraries at Cam- 
 bridge ; and afterwards compared by Mr. Lewis, with specimens pur- 
 posely selected of six of the most curious manuscripts in the University 
 of Oxford." Of that edition Mr. Baber's is a reprint. 
 
 2. Trialogus. This work was printed in 1525, with the following 
 title : Jo. W-iclefi viri undiquaque piissimi, dialogorum libri quatuor ; 
 quorum primus divinitatem et ideas tractat: secundus uniyersarum 
 creationem complectitur : tertius de vertutibus vitiisque contrariis copio- 
 Bissime loquitur : quartus Romanes Ecclesise sacramenta, ejus pestiferam 
 dotationem, Antichristi regnum, fratrum fraudulentam originem atque 
 eorum hypocrisim, variaque nostro sevo scitu dignissima, graphice per- 
 stringit, quae ut essent inventu facilia, singulorum librorum turn caput, 
 turn capitis summam indice pernotavimus. M.D.XXV. 4to. The volume 
 is without the name of the printer or place. It is said to have been 
 printed by Oporin, at Basil ; and on other grounds, it has been attributed 
 to Valentia Kob. See Baber's Memoirs of Wiclif, p. 50. There are 
 copies of this work in the Libraries of Trinity College, Cambridge, the 
 Cathedral at York, and Lambeth Palace. They are also to be found, 
 though very rarely, in private collections. 
 
 The following statement of the contents of the several chapters of the 
 Trialogus, will further assist the reader in judging of that work. 
 
 LIBRI PREML 
 
 Deus sit omnium rerum prima caussa. Deus est supra omne genus. 
 De triplici suppositione. Quomodo Deus est quicquid melius est esse 
 quam non esse. De passionibus et proprietatibus Dei. Quod Deus sit 
 trinus. De natural! demonstratione Trimtatis. De ideis. De inven- 
 tore idearum, et quae res habent ideas. De intelligentia Dei. De limiti* 
 bus idearum. 
 
 LIBRI SECUND1. 
 
 De universitate creata. De triplici mensura aeternitatis. De com- 
 ppsitione rerum et creatione. De materiae primal quidditate et ejus 
 
 e'uralitate. De ariima intellectiva et suis potentiis. De anatomia cere- 
 i et suis hurnoribus. De sensationibus. Si immortalitis spiritus ration* 
 
384 LITE OF WICLIF. 
 
 deduct possiL De potentiis intellectus hominis. De angelis. De diver- 
 Borum angelorum diverse judicio. De angelorum lapsu, et eorum poena. 
 De pugna angelorum. De proedestinatione et preescientia Dei, et eorum 
 caussie. De coelo et euis partibus. 
 
 LIBRI TKRTII. 
 
 De vertutibus. Quot virtutes sunt in intellectu et voluntate. De spe. 
 De peccato. Quomodo peccatum veniale et mprtale distinguuntur. 
 Penes quid attentatur peccati gravitas. De gratia. Omnia eveniunt 
 necessitate absoluta. De septem peccatis mortal! bus. De superbia. De 
 humilitaie. De invidia. De charitate. De ira. De patientia et mili- 
 tate. De accidia, quae medium tenet inter septem peccata mortal! a. De 
 virtute accidise opposita. De avaritia. De virtute opposita avaritiae. 
 De gula. De virtute opposita gulsa. De luxuria. Decastitate. De 
 pronitate ad peccandum. De incarnatione et morte Christi. De origi- 
 nali peccato. De incarnatione, quomodo Deus potuit incamari. De 
 numero salvandorum. Quomodo Christus cxcedit ordines AngeJorum, 
 et horn inuin. Quomodo nullus sanctorum est laudandus, nisi quia 
 Christnm est imitatus. Quomodo lex Christi in infihitum excedit alias 
 leges. 
 
 1 LIBRI ftUARTI. 
 
 De signis. De eucharistia. Quid dcmonstretur per hoc. Quod post 
 consecrationem manet pania Probantur jam dicta superius rationibua, 
 Quomodo et qua caussa inolevit hceresis circa eucharistc sacramentum. 
 Quomodo panis est corpus Domini, non existens identice corpus ip- 
 Bum. De identificatione panis cum corpore Christi. Qd* corpus Christi 
 non putrefit. Si duo corpora possum esse in eodem loco. De baptismo. 
 De triplici baptismo. De poenis infantum sine peccato actuali deceden- 
 tium. De confirmatione. De sacramento ordinis. Ifnjus sacramenti 
 confirmatio. De avaritia cleri. Saeculares prppter dotationem sunt 
 puniendi. De matrimonio. Quid sit matrimonium. De caussa libelli 
 repudii. Cum quibus verbis vel signis matrimonium celebrari debet. 
 De poenitentia. In quo signo possumus capere veram contritionem. De 
 extrema unctione. De speciebus ministrorum. Quod fratres comminis- 
 cuntur haeresim in ecclesia. De mendicatione fratrum. Quod mendi- 
 catio fratrum est infundabilis in scriptura. De literis fraternitatum. 
 Quomodo fratres false vendunt sua merita et orationes. De indulgentiis. 
 Quomodo ordines fratrum sunt introducti. In quo fratres legi Christi 
 contrarii. De variis fratrum abusibus. Quomodo fratres seducunt 
 regna quss incolunt De fratrum fraude atque malicia. An domini 
 temporales debent et possunt pppulares Inuare et defendere contra fratres. 
 De statu hominis qui consequitur post hanc vitam. De ultimo judicio r 
 quare, et ubi, et quando erit. De dotibus corporum beautorum. De 
 dotibus auimse. De poenis damnatorum. De sensibus bonorum interio- 
 ribus et exterioribus. 
 
 3. Ostiolum Widen : or, Wickliffe's Wicket. This piece has been 
 several times printea. "The first edition," observes Mr. Baber, "was 
 printed at Noremberch, in 1546, 8vo. ; of the second edition, I know no 
 more than what the third informs me in its title which is as follows r 
 * Wickliffe's Wicket, faythfully ouerseene and corrected after the original 
 and first copie. The lack whereof was cause of innumerable and sham- 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 385 
 
 full erroures in the other edicion. As shall easily appear to them that 
 lyste to conf&rre the one with the other. Ouerseene by M. C.' It is a 
 16mo. w thout date, place, or printer's name - f and the language of it is 
 accommodated to that of the time :n which the book was printed. The 
 last ed.tion appeared in 1612, printed at Oxford, in 8vo. and was edited 
 by the learned Henry Jackson, of Corpus Chnsti College, Oxford. A 
 copy of the first edition of this very rare book is in the Bodleian Library ; 
 of the third, in Lambeth Palace Library ; and of the last, in the British 
 Museum." 
 
 4. Ad Regem et Parliamentum. A Latin copy of this tract is 
 among the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum ; a copy in English is 
 preserved in Benet College, Cambridge ; and another in Trinity College, 
 Dublin. It was published by Dr. James, arid printed at Oxford, 1608, 
 quarto. 
 
 5. Objections to Freres. This piece was published by Dr. James in 
 the same volume with the treatise last noticed, entitled, " Against the 
 Orders of the Begg.ng Friars." The volume is scarce, but may be seen 
 in the British Museum, and in the Bodleian Library. 
 
 6. Deter minatio de Dominio. E. CoJd. M?>-. Joh. Seldeni, Arch. 
 B. 10. Th s paper is pr nted in Mr. Lews's collection, No. 30. 
 
 7. Ad qufKsita Regis et Concilii. " Dub um est utrum regnum An- 
 gliae poss.t legitime imminente necessitate suae defencionis thesauruni 
 regni detinere ne djferatur ad exteros etiam Domino Papa sub pcena 
 sensurarum et vir'ute obedient is hoc ]>etente." In Hyperoo Bodl. 163. 
 This paper may be seen in Fox i. 584. 
 
 8. Conclusiones suee cum responsior/e sua. This document is 
 printed in Wdl?:ngham, Hist. 206208. Ad Parliamentum Regis is 
 another reply to the same conclusions, and ;s printed in Lewis's Life of 
 Wycliffe. This tracU is noticed as Wycliffe's, by Lord Chief Justice 
 Coke, in the fifth volume of his reports. These papers are in the Selden 
 M33. (Archi. B. 10.) and also a th;rd, relating to the same series of 
 Articles. 
 
 9. ConfessJo de Eurharistia. This is printed by Mr. Lewis, No. 21. 
 
 10. Dt Jide Eucharistia. " Credo ut Christus et Apostoli docue- 
 runt." 
 
 11. Excusationes ad Urbanum. "Gaudeo plane dstegere cuique 
 fidem." An English copy of ihis letter is in the Cotton Library. 
 
 12. Pro egentibus Presbyter is. Sunt causce qucb urgeant pan* 
 periores, or, "Why poor priests have no benefices." This tract is in 
 the Library of Tr.mty College, Dublin, and in C. C. C. Cambridge. It 
 was first printed by Mr. Lewis. 
 
 SECTION n. 
 
 Including the Wiclif manuscripts extant in England and Ireland. 
 This series cantains nearly forty MSX. preserved in the Library 
 of Trinity College, Dublin, the existence of which has been hi- 
 therto unknown to the Reformer's biographers. 
 
 1. De ultima JEtate Ecclesia. Trinity College, Dublin, Class C, 
 Tab. No. 12. 
 
 2. Expositio Decalogi. This exposition is in the British Museum, 
 Cott. M3& Titus D. xix. In the Bodleian is a more extended Exposition 
 
 33 
 
386 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 of the Decalogue in Latin. It was minutely consulted by Dr. James, in 
 composing his Apology for John Wiclif. 
 
 3. The Pore Caitif, sometimes called Pauper Rusticus ; sometimes 
 Confessio derelicti Pauperis, consists of a series of tracts in English, 
 designed for the instruction of the poorer classes of the people in the 
 elements of the Christian religion. It is described by its author as "suf- 
 ficient to teach simple men and women, of good will, the right way to 
 heaven." The comments on the Apostles' creed, and the pater-noster, 
 are followed by pieces with the following titles. Sweet sentences, ex- 
 citing men ana teamen to heavenly desire. Virtuous patience. Of 
 temptation. The charter of heaven. Of ghostly battle. The name 
 Jesus. The love of Jesu. The desire of Jesu. Of very meekness. 
 The effect of man's trill. Active and contemplative life. The mir- 
 ror of maidens. At the conclusion of the last piece in this collection 
 are the words, " Here endeth this book that is clepid the Pore Caitif." 
 Copies of this work are in the British Museum, Lambeth Library, and 
 Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 4. De Veritate Scripture. BibL Bodl. Archi. A. 3021. 32. Trin. 
 Coll. Dub. Class. C. Tab. 1. No. 24. 
 
 5. De Hypocritarum Imposturis. This tract is in English, beginning 
 " Crist commandith to his discinlis, and to alle Christen men to under- 
 stonde and flee the sour dow of Pharisees which is ypocrisy." C. C. C. 
 Cambridge. Trin. Coll. Dub. The following pieces also, to No. 19, are 
 in the same collections. 
 
 6. De Obedientia Pr&latornm. It begins, "Prelates slandrcn poor 
 priests and other Cristen men, that they will not obesthe to their Sove- 
 reigns," &c. &c. 
 
 7. De Clericis Possessionariis, which begins, " Clerkes Possessioners 
 fordon priesthood, knighthood, and commoners." 
 
 8. Impedimenta Enangelizantium. This is the same with the piece 
 described as, " Of Feigned Contemplatif Life," which thus begins 
 "First, when true men teach by God's law, wit, and reason, that echo 
 Priest oweth to do his wit, and his will, to preche Christ's Gospel," 
 dec. &c. 
 
 9. Pro amplexando Evangelio. The English title of this piece is, 
 " How religious men should kepe certain Articles ;" beginning thus 
 " Christen men, preyen meekly and devoutly to Almighty God, that he 
 grant his grace for his endless mercy to our religious, both possessioners 
 and medicants," <fcc. fcc. The articles are numerous, but the notices 
 connected with them are very brief. 
 
 10. How Satanas and his Priests, and his feyned Religions, 
 casten by three cursed Heresies to destroy all good living and meyn- 
 tening all manner of Sin. It begins thus, " As Almighty God in 
 Trinity ordeineth men to come to the bliss of heaven by three grounds," 
 &c. &c. 
 
 11. De Nequitiis ejusdem. This piece, in English, has a title begin- 
 ning with the words "How Anti-Christ and his Clerks travellen to de- 
 stroy holy Writ, and to make Christen Men unstable in the faith," <fcc.fcc. 
 
 12. Super Testamento Francisci. Wiclif s remarks on this Testa- 
 ment begin thus" But here the Menours sayn that the Pope dischargeth 
 them of this testament." The comment is preceded by a translation of 
 the rule of St. Francis, as given by Matthew Paris. 
 
 13. For Three Skills Lords shulden constrain Clerks to live in 
 meekness, wilfull poverty, and discreet penance and ghostly tra- 
 veile. It begins thus" Open teaching of God's law, old and new, open 
 ensample of Christ's life, and his glorious Apostles,*' Ac. &c. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 387 
 
 ' 14. De Prelatis, et eorum OJficio. This is the piece so frequently 
 cited as "Of Prelates;" beginning thus "Here it telleth of Prelates, 
 that Prelates leaven preching of the Gospel, and ben gostly manquellers 
 of men's souls." 
 
 15. Speculum de Antichristo. The English copy of this tract pro- 
 fesses to describe "How Antichrist and his Clerks feren true Priests 
 fro preching of Christ's Gospel by four Deceits." It commences thus 
 "First, they seyn that preching of the Gospel maketh dissension and 
 enmity." 
 
 16. De Clericorum Ordinatione. The copy of this preserved is also 
 in English, entitled, "Of the Order of Priesthood;" beginning " For 
 the order of priesthood is ordained of God, both in the old law, and in 
 the new." 
 
 17. De Dominis et Servis. Servi primum juste ac libenter, or, 
 " Of servants and Lords, how eche shull kepe his Degree :" begin- 
 ning " First, servants shullen truly and gladly serve to their lords or 
 masters." 
 
 18. How Prayer of good Men helpeth much, and Prayer of sin- 
 full Men displeaseth God, and harmeth themselves and other Men ; 
 beginning " Our Lord Jesu Christ techeth us to pray evermore for all 
 nedefull things both to body and soul." 
 
 19. De Episcoporum Erroribus; beginning "There bin eight 
 things by which simple Christen men ben deceyed." Also, " De xxxin 
 erroribus curatorum /" beginning "For the office of curates is ordain- 
 ed of God." 
 
 20. How Satanas and his Children turnen works of mercy upon 
 Sodom, and deceyven men therein; beginning " First, Christ com- 
 mandeth men of power to feed hungry poor men ; the fend and his techen 
 to make costly feasts, and waste many goods on lords," C. C. C. Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 21. A short Rule of Life for eche Man in general, and for 
 Priests, and Lords, and Labourers in special ; beginning " First 
 when thou risest, or fully wakest, think on the goodness of thy God, 
 how for his own goodness, and none other nede, he made all things of 
 nought," C. C. C. Cambridge. This piece is followed by a brief com- 
 ment on the^l^e Maria.. 
 
 22. Of Wedded Men and Wives ; beginning" Our Lord God Al- 
 mighty speaketh in his law of tweie matrimonies or wedlocks," &c. &c. 
 C. C. C. Cambridge. 
 
 23. Of good preching Priests ; beginning" The first general point 
 of poor priests that prechen in England, is this," &c. &c. C. C. C. Cam- 
 brigde. 
 
 24. Tfie great Sentence of the Curse Expounded; beginning 
 "First, all heretics against the faith of holy writ, ben cursed solemnly, 
 four times in the year." C. C. C. Cambridge. 
 
 25. De Blasphemia contra Fratres ; beginning " It is seide that 
 three things stourblin this realme, and specially heresie." Bibl. Bodl. 
 Archio. A. 83. 
 
 26. De Dominio Divino, is a tract of four pages ; beginning " Sith 
 false glossiris maken Goddis law derk, and letten secular men to sus- 
 teyne, and kepe it, of sich false glossis schulde each man bewar." 
 
 27. Super Oratione Dominica; beginning "When we seyn our 
 Fader that art in heaven, we ben taught." 
 
388 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 cth many ways to mar men in belief." This tract extends to two page* 
 only. 
 
 30. Sermones in Epistolas, and Sermones in Evangelia, are the 
 titles of his horn. lies, or Darochial discourses. Copies of these, more or 
 lew perfect, and some of them beautifully written, are in the manuscript 
 collections of the British Museum, Cambridge, Trinity College, Dublin, 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 31. Tranatulit in Angli'dim sermonem Biblir iota, Ac. Of this 
 memorable work, several copies are extant ; as in the nrit-sh Museum 
 and Lambeth Palace. The costs of transrribinsr obliged our ancestors to 
 secure parts of the sacred volume ; sometimes including the four gospels, 
 sometimes the epistles of St. Paul, anil not unfrequently, st.ll smaller 
 portions. Dr. Wh taker states (Hist, of Richmondshire, An. Wiclif,) 
 that the cony of Wicl.Ps Bible, in Lambeth Palace, is beautifully illumi- 
 nated ; and suggests that the portrait of Sir Antonio More was probably 
 obtained from such a sourer. But there is not, nor has there ever been, 
 a manuscript at all of that description in the Lambeth Library. 
 
 32. Translatio dementis Lanthoniensis. "In the Earl of Oxford's 
 Library," observes Mr. Lews, " is a M*. entitled, John Wiclif's Trans- 
 lation of Clement Lanthon's Harmony of the Gospels, which begins thus 
 ' Clement, a Freest of the Chirche of Lanthonth,' " in 12 parts. Lan- 
 thon was an Austin Friar, who flourished in 1154. Lelana de Scrip. 
 Brit. 226. There is a copy of this work in the British Museum, Harl. 
 M^s. 1862. 
 
 33. De Stipendiis Ministrorum. This tract is extant in English, 
 entitled, "How men shulden find Priests," and beg nning " Think 
 wisely, ye men that linden priestes, that ye don this alms for God's love, 
 and help of your soules, and help of Christen men." C. C. C. Cambridge. 
 
 34. De Ecclcsite, Dominio; in English, "Of the Chirche of Christ, 
 and of hir Membris, and of hir Governaunce ;" beginning thus 
 "Chr'.stis Chirche is his spouse, that hath three parts," &c. &c. Bib. 
 Reg. 18, 13, ix. It is also in Trin Coll. Dub. 
 
 35. In Apncalypsitt Joannis. The exposition is introduced by a 
 prologue, and the Ibrmer beg ns with the words "The undoyng of 
 teeynt Joon bitokeneth Prelatis of hooli Chirche, that understondith th 
 vois of the Gospels." B;b. Reg. E. 1732. p. 67. 
 
 36. P Vita Sacerdotum. " This peril of Freris is the last of eight 
 that falles to men in this way." B.bl. Bodl. Archi. A. 3072. 
 
 37. Speculum secularium Dominorum. Bibl. BodL Archim. A. 
 3849, B bl. Reg. 
 
 3S. De Incarnatione Verbi. Bib. Reg. E. 270 fol. This piece is in 
 Lat n ; beginning, " Prael.bato tractatu De Anima," &c. &c. 
 
 39. De Ecclesid. Cafhoticft, sometimes called, De fide Catholici, is 
 a manuscript preserved in the B<xlleian, and a copy taken from it, by 
 Dr. James, is in the lam.beth Library. 
 
 40. De Modo Orandi. On the twelve lettyngis of prayer. Cott. 
 MSS. Titus, D. xix. Bibl. Bodl. 
 
 41. Epistola ad simplicis Sacerdotes. This piece does not reach 
 beyond a page, and may be seen in the Br-itisn Museum. B;b. Reg. 17. 
 B. xvii. 
 
 42. De Virtutibus et Vitiis. This treats of relig'ous and moral obli. 
 gations after the fashion of that age. Cott. MaS. Titus, D. xix. A 
 production of the same kind, but somewhat different from the former, 
 may be seen, Bibl. Reg. 7. A. xxvi. Like the Pore Caitif, it was evident- 
 ly designed to present an epitome of religious instruction to the poorer 
 classes. 
 
LIFE OF WICLIF. 389 
 
 43. De Sermone Domini in Monte, and Octo Beatitudines, are 
 different names of the same discourse. From the Reformer's exposition 
 of the Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, seventy-four erroneous opinions 
 were extracted. There is a sermon under this name in the British 
 Museum, Cott. MSS. Titus, D. xix. But it must have been his more 
 extended exposition of that chapter which supplied his enemies with 
 such material for accusation. MS. Twini. A. 216. 
 
 44. De Papa Romana, or Schisma PapcR. Mr. Baber states that 
 this tract is in the Bodleian. There is a copy in Trin. Coll. Dub. 
 
 45. De questionibus variis contra Clerum. Lambeth Library. 
 Cott. MSS. 151. 
 
 46. In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, is a large manu- 
 script volume, including the following pieces, several of which are 
 known to be those of Wiclif, as the lOtn and llth, which are noticed by 
 Huss ; (Lewis c. ix. 179, Baber,) and of the rest, several are attributed 
 to the Reformer in the handwriting of the transcriber. MS. 326. 8. 
 C. 5. 8. 
 
 1. De ente communi. In primis supponitur ens esse, pp. 1 5. 
 
 2. De ente primo, Extenso ente secundum ejus maximam amplia- 
 tionem, pp. 59. 
 
 3. De purgando err ores, et veritate in communi. Consequens est 
 purgare errores, pp. 9 15. 
 
 4. De purgando errores, et universalibus in communi. Tractatu 
 continentur dicta de universalibus, pp. 1523. 
 
 5. De universalibus. Tractatus de universalibus continet 16 capi- 
 tula cujus primum, pp. 23 37. 
 
 6. De tempore. In tractando de tempore sunt, &c. &c, pp. 37 47. 
 
 7. De intellectione Dei. Illorum quee insunt Deo, &c. &c. pp. 
 
 8. De scientia Dei. Ex dictis superius satis liquet, <fcc. &c. pp. 
 
 9. De volitione Dei. Tractando de volitione Dei, &c. &c, pp. 70 91. 
 
 10. De personarum distinctions. Superest investigare de distinc- 
 tione, &c. <fce. pp. 91115. 
 
 11. De ideis. Tractando de ydeis primo oportet, &c. <fec. pp. 115 
 122. 
 
 12. De potentia productiva Dei. Veritatum quas Deus non potest 
 renovare, fec. &c, pp. 122134. 
 
 13. De sermone Domini. Licet totum Evangelium, pp. 134 141. 
 
 47. In a volume preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, 
 is a series of treatises described as follows : Class C. Tab. 1. No. 23. 
 
 1. Tractatus Evangelii de Sermone Domini in Monte, cum Ex~ 
 fosiwrio Orationis Dominican. Dividetur in tres Libros. 
 
 2. Tractatus de Antichristo, cum Expositorio in xxiii. xxiv. xxv. 
 cap. Matthaei. 
 
 3. Tractatus in Sermonem Domini, quern fecerat valedicendo 
 Discipulis suis. 
 
 4. Tractatus de Statu Innocentia. 
 
 5. Tractatus de tempore in 13 capitulis. 
 
 6. Expositio quorundam locorum Scriptures,, Tit. ii. cap. Heb. i. 
 cap. et Isaise xxv. cap. There is also an Exposition of 1 Thessalonians 
 iv. and of. John xi. But these are merely parts of his homilies. The 
 volume extends to 400 pages ; and what is peculiar to this collection of 
 Wycliffe's MSS it has a copious index. 
 
 33* 
 
390 LIFE OF WICLIF* 
 
 1. Trin. Coll. Dub. Class C. Tab. 1. No. 24. De Simonia. 
 
 2. De Apostasia. The first piece extends about forty small folio 
 pages; the second to about half that number; the last consists of about 
 eight pages ; v:z. 
 
 3. De Blasphemia. Another volume in the same library contains a 
 MS. entitled, " Of apostasy, and the possessions of clerks." This 
 volume further contains the following tracts. Of pseudo friars. Of 
 the eight tcpes which God wished to friars. Of Antichrist and hit 
 ways. Of Antichrist's song in the church. A treatise of prayer. 
 A treatise on confession. A tract of Christian obedience ; beginning 
 
 " Christ forsooth d d all that he could to obey to lords." In the volume, 
 there are several separate homines, meditations on various subjects, arid 
 a short treatise, beg.nninr "How are questions and answers put that 
 are written hereafter." The collection forms a duodecimo volume of 
 about 400 pages, written with a very small, but legible character. Class 
 C. Tab. 6. No. 6. 
 
 48. On the Seven Deadly Sins. Bibl. BodJ. 
 
 SECTION ra. 
 
 The following pieces are in the Imperial Library of Vienna ; the cata- 
 logue of which may be seen at the British Museum. 
 
 De minoribus fratribus se extoltentibus De sectis nionachorum. 
 De gnat a or sectis norellis. Defundatione sectarvm. De secta- 
 rum perfuli.T. De st,lufione Salhana. De Damon io meridiano. 
 Responsiones ad xiv arguineniu Radalphi Stiodi. Litera parva 
 ad qn end am sor.ium. Speculum ntili tan tits ecclesia. De oratione 
 tt ecc'esifB purgalionf. De gradibns cleri. De graduutionibus. 
 DP. duohus generibtis heretical nm. De quatuor interpretationibus. 
 Super impost Its articuHs. Socii argnmentum contra veritateni. 
 De citationibus frivol is f.t aliis versutiis Antichrititi. De jura- 
 mento Artioldi (de Grannario) colleclorix Pap^B. De sex jugis, 
 De exhortations novi docloijs De oidine Christiana. DC vati- 
 cinucinne. Dialogus intei reritalem et mendticiunt. Epislolo, de 
 peccaioin Spiritum Sanctum. Lilera parra ad quendatn Socium. 
 Litera ad Kpiscopiim Lincoln, deamore, sivede quintupled quais- 
 tione. Epistola ud Archiepiscopum Cantuar. De fjiicha* isiiet 
 et penitentia. De oclo quastiombus propositis discipulo. De tri 
 plici xinculo amor is. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 The following are the titles of pieces which are known only by these 
 names. Many were on questions of science, and others were proba- 
 bly different designations of the same tracts. 
 
 Quftstiones hgicales. Logica de singulis. Logica de aggre- 
 --f.'/.-.'. De proposiiinnibus temporal ibus. De ivsolubilibua. De 
 exclusivis et exceptivis. De eausalibus. De comparitivis. Dt 
 
LIFE Of WICLIF, 391 
 
 conditionulibus. De disjunctivis. Grammatical tropi. Mtta- 
 physica viilgaris. Metaphysica novella. De summa intellectna- 
 lium. Defornn's idealihus. De spiritu quolihet. De spectebut 
 hypotheticis. De esse itilelligihili creatures. De esse in suopro- 
 lixo. De un& commnnis generis assentia. De essentia acciden- 
 tiuin. De temporis ampliation e. De physica nalurali. De inten- 
 tione physica. De materid. et forma. De moteria c&lestium. D* 
 raritate et r/ensiinfe. De inotu locali. De velocitale motus localif. 
 Dialogus de fratribus. Johannes a rure contra fratres. De 
 
 *ii/ win 11 u. i nipios. Responsiones ad arguincnta monachi de Sal- 
 ley. De vnitate Christi. De unico salutis Agno. Christis alius 
 -non expectandns. De humanitate Christi. De dej'ectione a 
 Chrislo. De fide et perfidia. De fide sacramentorum. De fide 
 Evangelii. Constitution es ecclesice-. De censuris ecclesia. De 
 
 sacerdotio Levitico. De sacerdolio Christi. De statuendis pas- 
 toribus ad plebem. De ordine sacerdotali. De won saginandis 
 sacerdolibus. De nrinistrorum conjugio. Cogendi sacerdotes ad 
 honesiatetn. De rilibus sucramentorum. De quidditatehostia con- 
 secrutcE,. De quintnplici Evangelic. De 1 rinilate. De ex&.m- 
 municatis ahsulcendis. Distinctiones rerun Theologicarum. De 
 Jonte errorum. De falsatorihvs legis divintR. De immonalitate 
 aiiinKR. Ceremoniarum chrouicon. De dilectione. Concordan- 
 ti(B doctorum. D? contrarietaie duorum dominorum. De lege 
 divina. De necessitate futnrorum. De optribus spiritualibus. 
 lit operihus curporalibus. Le ordinaria laicorutn. Le purgato- 
 rio piorum. Position es varies. Re.pHcationes et. position es. De 
 prtBscito ad beatitudinem. De quaternariu doctorum. De reli- 
 giosis privatis. Le studio lectionis. De servitute civili. Theo- 
 Jogice, fj/acita. De virtute orandi. De composition e hominis. De 
 homine misero. De Scholia scripturarum Glossa, scripturarum. 
 Glosstz wulgares. Glossca manuales. Glossa novella. Lectiones 
 in Danielem. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 The following works, with the exception of the last, have been im- 
 properly attributed to Wiclif. 
 
 De Tribus Sagittis. Speculum Peccatoris. The Confession of 
 St. Brandoun. Ghostly and Fleshly Love. The two former of these 
 are attributed on better evidence to the Hermit Hampole. 
 
 Commentarii in Psalterium t et Cantica Sacra. This also is 
 evidently the production of Hampole, (Baber, 54.) The writer of a 
 manuscript note to a copy of this work in the library of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, states that this commentary became popular with the disci- 
 ples of Wiclif, and that the latter transcripts of it were accordingly 
 greatly interpolated with the doctrine of the Lollards. The correctness 
 of this statement is hardly questionable, and it will sufficiently account 
 for the circumstance of the entire work being ascribed to our Reformer. 
 There is a ropy in the British Museum. 
 
 Elucidarium Bibliorum. Sometimes described as Prologus ad 
 integram Bibliorwn Versionem, is the work of which the reader will 
 
892 LIFE OF WICLIF. 
 
 find an account in the seventh chapter of this volume. The MS, is in 
 the British Museum, Harl. MSS. 1666. It has been twice printed; first 
 at the press of John Gowghe, in 1536, subsequently by Robert Crowley, 
 in 1550. The title of the first edition is The Dore of Holy Scriptures. 
 In the second, it is thus described. The pathway to perfect know- 
 ledge, the true copye of a prologue, wrytten about two hundred 
 yeares paste by John Wicliffe, (as maye justly be gathered bi that, 
 that John Sale hath wrytten of him in his Boke t intitled the sum- 
 marie of thejamouae writers of the Isle of Great Britaine,) the ori- 
 ginal whereof is found wrytten in an old English Bible, betirixt the 
 Olde Testament and the Newe. Which Bible remaineth now in the 
 Kyn* his majesties chamber. That this work was not the production 
 of Wiclif, but of some zealous disciple after his death, is placed beyond 
 doubt by its contents. See Baber, pp. 52, 53, and Lewis, c. ix. 
 
 Ecclesia Regimen is a work consisting of a series of articles?, expres- 
 sive in almost every sentence of the doctrine of Wiclif. In the copy of 
 these articles in the British Museum, there appears to be a reference to 
 Gerson, the celebrated Parisian divine, which, if so intended, must prove 
 that copy of the work to be of a date subsequent to the time of Wiclif. 
 The piece, however, is evidently a compilation from the writings of our 
 Reformer, whether made by himself or a disciple, as it not only contains 
 a summary of his doctrine, but much of his language. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 SPECIMENS OF WICLIF'S TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 PSALM II. 
 
 WHI gnastiden with teeth hethene men, and pupils thoughten veyn 
 thingis. The knygis of eerthe stpden to gidre, and princes camen to 
 gidre aghens the Lord and aghens his Crist. Breke we the boondis of hem, 
 and cast we away the yock of hem fro us. He that dwelleth in hevenes 
 schal scorne hem : and the Lord schal bemowe hem. Thanne he schal 
 speke to hem in his ire ; and schal distrouble hem in his stronge ven- 
 geaunce. Forsothe I am maad of him a kyng on Sion his hooli hil, pre- 
 chynge his commandementis. The Lord seide to me, thou art my sone : 
 I have gendred thee to day. Axe thou of me and I shall gheve to thee 
 hethene men thine heritage : and t!ii possessioun the teermes of the 
 eerthe. Thou shall governe hem in an yren gherd," and thou shalt breke 
 hem as a vessel of a potter. And now, ye kyngis, understonde : ye that 
 deernen the erthe be lernid. Serve ye to the Lord with dreed : and make 
 ye, ful oute, joie to him with trembling. Take ye lore : leest the Lord 
 be wrooth sumtyme : and leest ye perischen fro the right weye. Whaune 
 his ire brenneth oute in shorte tyme, blessed ben alle thei that tristene in 
 him. Public Lib. Camb. Dd. I. 27. 
 
 PSALM xvm. 
 
 Lord mi strenkthe, I schal love thee. The Lord is my stedfastnesse 
 and my refuyt, and my deliverer. My God is myne helper, and I shall 
 hope into hym : my defender and the home of my heelpe, and myne 
 uptaker. I schall preise and inwardli clepet the Lord, and I schal be 
 saaf fro myne enemies. The sorrowis of deeth cumpassiden me, and 
 the floudis of wickidnesse distroubliden me. The sorowis of hello 
 compassiden, the snaris of dseth bifore occupleden me. In my tribula- 
 cioun I inwarldly clepide the Lord, and I cried to my God ; and he herde 
 my vois fro his hooli temple, and my crie in his sight entride into his 
 eeris. The erthe was movid to gidre, and tremblid to gidre. The fpun- 
 dementisof the hillis weren troublid to gidre, and weren movid to gidre, 
 for he was wroth to hem. Smoke flyede in the ire of him, and fier brent 
 out fro his face : coolis weren kyndlid of him. He bowyide down 
 hevenes and came down, and derkenesse was under hise feet. And ha 
 
 An iron yard, or rod, t Call upon, 
 
394 APPENDIX. 
 
 flyede on Cherubym, and he fleye over the pennis of wyndis. He set- 
 tyde derkenessis his hidyng place, his tabernacle in his cumpass. Derk 
 watir was in the cloudis of the lower eir. Ful cleer cloudis passiden in 
 his sight; hail and the coolis of fier. And the Lord thundride from 
 bevene, and the highest yeve his vnis : hail and the coolis of fier camen 
 down. And he sente his arewis, and distroied tho men. He multiplied 
 leytis,* and distroublide hem. And the wellis of wateris apperiden; and 
 the foundementis of the erthe weren schewid. Lord, of thi blamynge, of 
 Che brething of the spirit of thin ire. Pub. Lib. Camb. Dd. I. 27. 
 
 MATTHEW, CHAP. V. 
 
 And Jhesus seynge the people, went up into an hil ; and whanne he 
 was sett, his disci nlis camen to him. And he openyde his mouthe, and 
 taughte hem ; anu seide, Blessid be pore men in spirit ; for the kyngdom 
 of hevenes is herun.t Blessid ben mylde men : for thei schulenweelde 
 the erthe. Blessid ben thei that mpurnen; for thei schal be coumfortid. 
 Blessid be thei that hungren and thirsten rigtwisnesse :l for thei schal be 
 fulfilled. Blessid ben merciful men : for thei sc.hul gete mercy. Biessid 
 ben thei that ben of clcne herte : for thei schulen se god. Blessid ben 
 pesihle men: for thei schulen be clepidgoddis children. Btessid ben thei 
 that suffren pereecucioun for rightwisnesse : for the knygdom of hevenea 
 is hern. Ye schul be blessid whanne men schul curse you, and schul 
 pursue you : and schul seye al yvel agens you liynge for me. Joie ye 
 and be ye glade : for your meede is plenteous in hevenes : for so thei han 
 pursued also prophetia that weren bifore you. Ye ben salt of the erthe, 
 that if the salt vanishe awey wherynne schal it be salted? to nothing it 
 is worth over, no but it be cast out, and be defoulid of men. Ye ben light 
 of the world, a citee sett on an hill may not be hid. Ne me teendith not 
 a lamerne and puttith it undir a bushel : but on a candilstrk that it give 
 light to alle that ben in the hous. So, schyne your light bifore men, that 
 thei see youre gode workis, and glorifie your fadir that is in hevenes. 
 Nyle ghe deme that I cam to undo the La we or the prophet ie, I cam not 
 to undo the lawe but to fulfille. Forsorhe I sey to you till hevene and 
 erthe pasee, oon lettre, or oon title, schal not passe fro the Lawe til alle 
 thingis be don. Therefore he that brekith oon of these leeste maunde- 
 mentis, and techith thus men, schal be clepid the Leest in the rewme 
 of hevenes : but he that doth, and techith, schal be clepid greet in the 
 kyngdoin of hevenes. Saber's Edit. 
 
 1 CORYNTH, Xia 
 
 If I speke with tungis of men and of aungels and I haue not charite, 
 I am maad as bras sownynge, or a cymbal tynklygrie, and if I haue pro- 
 fecie and knowe alle mysteries and al kynnyng, and if I haue al feith, so 
 that I moue hillis fro her place, and I haue not charite I am nought, and 
 if I departe ulle my goodis into the metis of pore men, and if I bitake 
 my bodi so that I brenne and if I haue not charite it profitith to me no 
 thing, charite is pacieht, it is benynge. charite enuyeth not, it doith 
 not wickidji, it is not blowun,il it is not coueitous, it sekith not tho thingis 
 that ben hise own. it is not stired to wraththe, it thenkith not youel, it 
 ioieth not on wickidnesse, but it ioicth togidre to treuthe, it suffrith alle 
 
 * Lights, or lightnings. t Theirs. 
 
 t .Rigtfulnesse MS. plures. Beijign. I Puffed up. 
 
APPENDIX. 395 
 
 thingis, it bileueth alle thingis, it hopith alle thingis, it susteyneth alle 
 thingis. charite fallith neuere doun. whethir profecies schulen be 
 voided, eithir langagis schulen ceese, eithir science schal be destried. 
 for aparti* we knowen, and aparti we profecien, but whanne that schal 
 come that is parfyt, that thing that is of parti schal be auoidid. whanne 
 I was a litil child I spak as a litil child, I undirstood as a litil child, I 
 thpughte as a litil child ; but whaane I was raaade a man I voidide tho 
 thingis that weren of a litil child, and we seen now by a myrourt in 
 derknesse,} but thanne face to face, now I knowe of parti, but thanne I 
 schal knowe as I am knowuri. and now dwellen feith, hope and charite 
 these thre, but the moost of these is charite. Baber's Edit. 
 
 * ex parte. t speculum. } in asnigmate. 
 
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 style, they are not so exquisite as some that might be cited. Even of this, 
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 IP grace and elegance those of Gray or Lady Mary, if they are not speci- 
 mens of that inimitable, ineffable bavardage which makes those of Madame 
 de Sevigne so entirely unique, they fully rival the best of them in spirit, 
 piquancy, and, we venture to add, wit ; while, like the epistles of Cicero, 
 :hey not unfrequently rise from the most familiar colloquial ease and free- 
 dom into far loftier regions of thought and eloquence. We were particu- 
 larly struck with this peculiarity. We scarcely read one of them without 
 aeing surprised into a srnile occasionally into a broad laugh by some 
 felicitous waggery, some sudden descent from the sublime to the ridicu- 
 lous, while there is many a passage in which the least critical reader will 
 not fail to recognise the hand that drew Childe Harold." South. Review. 
 
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 AN 
 
 DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 NOV 18 1S32 
 
 DEC It 1939 
 
 IN STACKS 
 
 JM- * 7 
 IRN24 
 
 NOV 3 2000 
 | 
 
 DECll 3 2000 
 
 i.-32 
 
04090