"

mutual connexion, and with all the circum-¡ment of 1376, known by the name of "The stance proper to the dialectic method of the Good Parliament," entered with heart and time, and we shall see that Dr. Wycliffe, soul into the vexed question of the Papal about the fiftieth year of his age, must have encroachments. The Commons prepared a felt that he had broken loose at many points petition praying for ecclesiastical reform, from the ordinary faith of the Romish in which they accumulated some startling Church, and also that the fact that he had statistics, and used no measured language of done so had become pretty generally known. complaint-averring, for example, that "the But, though already "a black sheep," he taxes paid out of England to the Court of stood too high not only in the University, Rome were five times larger in amount than but also in the favour of men of mark and all that was paid to the King out of the influence, to be as yet openly taken to task. whole produce of the realm;" that "cardiHe was even selected by the King and his nals and other aliens remaining at the Court ministers for a difficult and delicate mission, of Rome had the best dignities in England, for which he was believed to be peculiarly and had sent over to them yearly two thou qualified. The King and Parliament were sand marks over and above that which Engstill at variance with the Avignon Popes on lish brokers had for themselves;" that "the certain points incidental to the old contro- Pope, to ransom Frenchmen, the King's versy, and particularly on the subject of the enemies, who defend Lombardy for him, Papal "provisions, "provisions," or appointments to did also at his pleasure levy a subsidy from benefices, and interference with the fruits of the whole clergy of England;" that, that benefices within the English kingdom. One very year, the Pope's collector had taken embassy, consisting of two clerical and two to his use the first-fruits of all benefices;" lay commissioners, had been sent to Avig- and that, owing to the simoniacal dealings non in 1373, to remonstrate with Gregory of the Pope, and of the lay-patrons, influ XI. and his advisers; and in 1374, a enced by his example, "many caitiffs altosecond embassy of the same kind was re-gether unlearned and unworthy," "aliens solved on. Wycliffe was one of this and enemies," mere "brutes," worse than second embassy, his fellow commissioner Jews or Saracens," were appointed pastors being Gilbert, Bishop of Bangor. It was of English parishes. The petition demands, not to Avignon, however, but to Bruges, as the only radical cure of the evil, that a that the commissioners repaired to conduct law be passed that "no papal collector or their negotiations, Papal envoys being sent to that city to meet them. Another commission, consisting of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the Earl of Salisbury, and Sudbury, Bishop of London, was at the same time sent to Bruges to treat with the French ambassadors on affairs relating to the two nations. The members of the two commissions were naturally thrown much together; and from this period, if not from an earlier, must date the friendly connexion between Wycliffe and the Duke of Lancaster, then, in consequence of the advanced age of his father, Edward III, and the declining health of his brother, the Black Prince, the most active and powerful man in the English court.

On his return from his diplomatic mission, the result of which was a partial concession by the Pope of the points in dispute, Wycliffe received, by way of royal reward for his services, two new ecclesiastical preferments-the prebend of Aust, in the collegiate church of Westbury in Worcestershire, and the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. IIad matters in England continued to go on in the train in which they then were, it is probable that still higher places in the Church would have been in reserve for Wycliffe. The Parlia

proctor should remain in England upon para of life and limb, and that no Englishman, on the like pain, should become such collector or proctor, or remain at the Court of Rome.”

All this shews that, so far at least as his views respecting Church-polity were concerned, Wycliffe was a man likely at this time to be in popular favour rather than otherwise. It is somewhat difficult, therefore, to understand how it came about that, at the beginning of the very next session of Parliament, he was summoned by the Houses of Convocation then assembled in St. Paul's, London, to appear before them and answer to a charge of heresy. The probability is, that the more conservative of the clergy resolved on this prosecution of Dr. Wyclifle for alleged unsoun 'ness of doctrine, as a better counteractive to the progress of the Church-reform movement than any open attack upon him as a leader of that movement, and that they calculated that Wycliffe's known connexion with the Duke of Lancaster, who was then unpopular for political reasons, would deprive him of such public sympathy as he might otherwise have had. At all events, the Professor of Theology at Oxford, found himself summoned to appear before his brethren and ecclesiastical superiors to give an account of

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"Bishop Courtney. My confidence is not in my parents, nor in any man else, but only in God, in whom I trust, by whose assistance I will be bold to speak the truth.

his opinions and teaching. What followed | gant, I will bring down the pride, not of you is thus graphically related by Dr. Vaughan: alone, but of all the prelacy in England. Bishop Courtney. Do your worst, sir. "The Duke of Lancaster was not left in igno- "Duke of Lancaster. Thou bearest thyself so rance of the proceedings in relation to Wycliffe. brag upon thy parents [his father was Hugh Communications, it appears, took place between Courtney, Earl of Devonshire] which shall not him and the Reformer. On his arrival in Lon-be able to keep thee: they shall have enough don, Wycliffe is encouraged, both by the Duke to do to help themselves. and by Lord Percy, Earl Marshal, to meet his enemies without dismay. These noblemen, indeed, promise to accompany him in person. On the morning of the 19th of February, 1377, you see the priests, the dignitaries, and the prelates, who "Duke of Lancaster. Rather than I will take are to constitute the two houses of this clerical these words at his hands, I will pluck the bishop parliament, streaming along the narrow passes by the hair out of the Church. that lead to St. Paul's. What is afoot is some- "This last expression, as the words indicate, what noised aboad; and you see the depend- was not addressed to the bishop; it was said in ents of these great ones, and others of the popu- an undertone to Lord Percy, but sufficiently loud lace of London, crowding into the sacred build- to be heard by the people near, who, for the most ing. The edifice itself is large-larger than the part, took side with the bishop; and such was structure which now lifts its head so high on the the scene of excitement and confusion that folsame site, and is in the old massive style of lowed, that the meeting dissolved, and Wycliffe, Norman architecture. The space open around who had been a silent witness to this pretty it is also large, if we bear in mind that it stands quarrel,' retired under the protection of his in the midst of a city within whose contracted powerful friends." walls ingenuity in the way of packing has been This somewhat abrupt closing of the contasked to the uttermost. Soon after the prelates have taken their seats, a noise is heard at the Vocation, by what was little better than a row" at the commencement of the proentrance. It approaches nearer, until, amidst much disorder and hubbub, a way is opened ceedings, was probably as good a thing as through the crowd immediately in front of the could have happened for Wycliffe at the assembled clergy--and the man John de Wyc- time, though he was, doubtless, a little liffe, of whom enough had been heard, but whom ashamed of the manner in which his patrons few there present had seen, stands in their had behaved; but it prevents us from knowmidst, and with a presence of his own which

bids fair to be a match for any presence. There ing what the actual charges were that would you can imagine him—a man rising somewhere have been brought against him by the preabove the middle stature. His right hand is lates. It was not long, however, before he raised in the clutch of his tall white staff. His and his adversaries were again brought clothing consists of a dark simple robe, belted together. Primed, doubtless, with infor, about the waist, and dropping in folds from the mations from England, the Papal court shoulders to the waist, and from the waist to itself, then just re-transferred to Rome by the fect: while above that grey and flowing Gregory XI., had taken up the prosecution, beard, you see a set of features which speak and inscribed Wycliffe's name on its black throughout of nobleness, and which a man might do well to travel far even to look upon. books, as that of a man to be hunted down by Behind him you see his servant, bearing books the whole force of the Church. Towards the and paper, especially the book above all books, close of the year 1377, no fewer than five ammunition for the battle, if there is to be a Papal bulls reached England, all directed field day. On his one hand, is John of Gaunt, against Wycliffe and his heresies-three to eldest son of the King; on the other, Lord Percy, Earl Marshal of England. These were bold the Archbishop of Canterbury, one to the men all. But Courtney, the presiding bishop, king, and one to the University of Oxford. was also a bold man. He rose in high displeasure, The result, after some little delay, was that and was the first to speak, when, according to Wycliffe was summoned to appear before a our authority, the following altercation ensued: "Bishop Courtney. Lord Percy, if I had known what masteries you would have kept in the Church, I would have stopped you out from coming hither.

"Duke of Lancaster. He shall keep such masteries, though you say nay.

synod of the clergy to be held at Lambeth in April, 1378. Meanwhile there had been a change in the state of public affairs. The old king was dead, and his young successor, Richard II., sat on the throne. The Duke of Lancaster, though still powerful, no longer ruled the cabinet; and, though the Commons bravely continued the fight against the Papal encroachments, the clerical party had, on the Bishop Courtney. It is unreasonable that whole, gained strength. On the other hand, one cited before his ordinary should sit down the people, and especially the Londoners, during his answer. He must and shall stand. "Duke of Lancaster. Lord Percy's motion for were more enthusiastically than ever on the Wycliffe is but reasonable. And as for you, my side of the reformer, who had also many Lord Bishop, who are grown so proud and arro- friends at Court and in the Universities.

"Lord Percy. Wycliffe, sit down, for you have many things to answer to, and you need to repose yourself on a soft seat.

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Wycliffe returned to Oxford a branded heretic. As was natural, his attitude became more and more aggressive. Both in his chair at Oxford, and in his pulpit in Lutterworth, he vindicated and reiterated the condemned

As the convocation at St. Paul's had been, with forbidding the "conclusions" which had brought to a sudden close by the hot-headed been the subject of discussion, from being zeal of the Duke of Lancaster, so the synod taught any more either in the pulpit or in at Lambeth was paralyzed, though in a more the schools. discreet manner, by a message from the queen-mother, delivered by Sir Lewis Clifford, positively prohibiting the bishops from pronouncing any definite sentence on Wycliffe or his doctrines. This interference probably prevented a riot in the reformer's" conclusions," with other heresies more behalf, as the populace had forced their way into the place of meeting. Some work was, however, done. Wycliffe was furnished with a paper in which his alleged errors and heresies were enumerated; and to this paper he furnished written answers. From the nature of these answers it is to be inferred that the head and front of his offending at this time consisted in certain extreme opinions which he was supposed to hold as to the right of the Church to civil property and dominion, and generally as to the relations of Church and State. Of eighteen "conclu- | sions" which he avowed himself as holding and signified his willingness to "defend even unto death," according to the sense of the Scriptures and the holy doctors," Dr. Vaughan cites the first three and the last three. They are as follows:

"1. All mankind, since Christ's coming, have not power, simply or absolutely, to ordain that Peter and all his successors should rule over the world politically for ever.

"2. God cannot give civil dominion to any man for himself and his heirs for ever.

"3. Charters of human invention concerning civil inheritance for ever are impossible.

16. It is lawful for kings, in cases limited by law, to take away temporalities from churchmen who habitually abuse them.

"17. If the Pope, or temporal lords, or any others, shall have endowed the church with temporalities, it is lawful for them to take them away in certain cases; viz., when the doing so is by way of medicine to cure or prevent sinsand that, notwithstanding excommunication, or any other church censure, since these donations were not given but with a condition implied.

purely theological. In the years 1379 and 1380, he put forth in a more emphatic manner than formerly, his views in antagonism to the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. At length, notwithstanding the strong hold he had in the University, the authorities there were obliged to take steps against him; and, making his views on the eucharist the special ground of their proceedings, the chancellor and twelve doctors, whom he chose as a committee to assist him in the matter, passed a sentence which obliged Wycliffe to shut his class, (1381.)

From this time Wycliffe seems to have lived almost entirely in his rectory at Lutterworth, employed partly in the performance of his duties as parish-priest, partly in writing numerous short treatises expounding his opinions, and partly in that great work, which of itself would have entitled him to the

lasting gratitude of posterity, the translation of the complete Scriptures into the English language. His activity was astonishing. Though in failing health, he seems during the last years of his life to have tasked himself with all the industry of one who, while chargmid-England parish, was also consciously ed with the ministry of a single sequestered and confessedly the chief of a great national, and even more than national, movement. Co-adjutors were not wanting. Among his disciples and most ardent admirers, were Purvey, his curate at Lutterworth; Nicholas Hereford and Philip Reppingdon, doctors of divinity; and John Ashton, master of arts. These and others might have assisted him in his translation of the Bible from the Vulgate. There were moreover, scores of "poor priests" besides, who, maintaining more or less of correspondence with Wycliffe, went about from The first three of these propositions are parish to parish, and from village to village, somewhat hazy as they stand, and it would preaching in market-places, barns, and require a separate dissertation to convey a churches, and disseminating his doctrines. clear impression of the peculiar Wycliffian | So ample, in short, were the means of propdoctrine which is certainly wrapped up in agandism that, in the year 1382, the whole them, and in many other passages of Wyc-public mind of England was pervaded with liffe's writings; the last three, however, are, that essentially Protestant system of docas Dr. Vaughan says, distinct enough, and trines which, under the name of Lollardism, must have roused up the pugnacity of many continued, for a century and a half, to mainof the bishops and priests assembled at Lam-tain an underground existence in the British both. But, being debarred from any strong-Islands, and even to spread through other er form of condemnation, they were content parts of Europe, until it met and was merged

"18. An ecclesiastic, even the Pope of Rome himself, may, on some accounts, be corrected by his subjects, and, for the benefit of the Church, be impleaded by both clergy and laity.”

in the great German Reformation. To under- In a tract on the "Schism," published in stand fully what Lollardism was, we must 1383, he openly calls it a "cleaving of the attend to the catalogue of the doctrines of head of Antichrist."

which it was made up. Even while Wycliffe Of course, the Romanists of England were was still alive and labouring at Lutterworth, not lax in their efforts to arrest the terrible the following doctrines, in addition to those tide of innovation which had set in. Courtalready mentioned as having proceeded from ney, who, in 1381, was elevated to the Archhim were enumerated by the prelates as prev- bishopric of Canterbury, commenced an enalent in England, and were traced by them to ergetic prosecution of the Wycliffites. Some Wycliffe and his associates :-That, since the of the Reformer's followers were very hardtime of Silvester, there had been no truely dealt with, and the Reformer himself was Pope; that the Papacy bore a semblance to more than once dragged from his retirement the reign of Antichrist; that the power of at Lutterworth to be gazed at and questiongranting indulgences, and of absolving from ed as a heresiarch. There was some talk sin, claimed by ecclesiastics, had no authori- even of sending him to Rome. Nor was ty; that confession to a priest was worthless, Court-influence so much in his favour as forthat the bishop of Ronie had no legislative merly. The insurrection of Wat Tyler in right over the Church; that the invocation 1381 had infused into the counsels of the of saints was useless and contrary to Scrip- young King, and into the minds of all courture; that the worship of images and relics tiers, such a horror of disorder of any kind was idolatry, and the miracles attributed to as almost cured them of the anti-prelatic them false; that all priests had a right to principles which had been fashionable in the preach the Gospel without waiting for Epis- time of Edward III.; and there were not copal license; that the excommunications of wanting plausible speakers and writers who the Popes and prelates were illegal and in- could represent the insurrection as nothing ocuous unless when in confirmation of God's more than Lollardism in practice, and Wat own sentence; that the hierarchical system Tyler as nothing more than a mob-edition of of church-government was a human inven- Wyclifie. Still, such was the tone of pubtion and had produced evil; that the celiba-lic sentiment that the open persecution of cy of the clergy was not binding, and that the gibbet and the fagot could not as yet be monasteries and nunneries should be dis- resorted to; and Wycliffe died a natural solved; that prayer for the dead was of death-struck down with paralysis in his doubtful value; that the clergy ought to be own parish church on the 29th of December reduced back to a state more nearly resem-1384, on the last day of which month he bling the primitive poverty of the Apostles; died. He was then sixty years of age. It and that all aggressive war, whether for was not till about twenty years later, when conquest or religious zeal, was contrary to Henry IV. sat on the throne of England, the spirit of Christianity. It is not clear that that the statute for burning heretics was every one of these opinions was formally passed, and the persecution of the Wyclifpropounded by Wycliffe, nor does it seem fites began in earnest. That and the two that they were organized into the regular subsequent reigns were a dreadful time for and harmonious form given to them by later the Lollards. Meanwhile Wyclifle's wriProtestantism; but there can be no doubt tings were spreading on the Continent, and that such substantially was the teaching of particularly in Bohemia, which was then conWycliffe during the last years of his life, nected with England by royal intermarriage. and that, accordingly, the Wycliffian Refor- There, through the mediuin of John Huss, mation, had it succeeded immediately, would they sowed the seeds of a new and, in some have, in some respects, constituted a more respects, independent religious movement, radical revolution in English thought and perpetuated in the sect of the Hussites or English society than the Reformation after- Moravians. This connexion between Huss wards more diplomatically arranged under and Wycliffe was recognised by the great Henry VIII. In some points, the Wycliffian Council of Constance, which sat for the contheory of the Church seems to go to the sideration of the affairs of the Catholic Church, severer length of Presbyterianism, if, indeed, and for the rectification of all that was wrong it does not push even beyond that. Proba- in it, from the year 1414 to the year 1418. bly the great" Papal schism" which began In tinkering up the old institution, the docin 1378, and presented the world for some tors of that council agreed in condemning time with the spectacle of two and sometimes Wycliffism and Hussism as the two great even more than two contemporaneous heresies which must first be absolutely extirPopes helped to divest Wycliffe's mind of pated. Huss and his disciple Jerome of ts last shreds of respect for the Papacy Prague they burnt alive; Wyclife they even as a purely ecclesiastical institution. could only touch in his coffin. In the year

ble pictorial fidelity; and by means of extracts from the actual sermons preached by Wycliffe, we are enabled to judge of the kind of matter administered on Sundays by the great Reformer to the minds and consciences of his simple parishioners. Among the sentences from Dr. Vaughan's own pen intended to delineate more expressly the character of Wycliffe all in all, the following are perhaps the most summary:

1428, the chancel of the old church at Lut- Reformation are treated too shortly, although terworth was dug up; Wycliffe's coffin was with the author's usual vigour of touch, to raised in the presence of some who might enable any such comparison to be made. It have seen it laid down fourty-four years is to Dr. Vaughan that the English reader before; his bones were taken out and burn-must go for a portrait of Wycliffe, and for ed to ashes; and the ashes were tumbled an idea of the movement which he originainto the river Swift. So the world waited, ted. The portrait, we must say, is not an with Lollardism half stifled in England, and easy one to draw. Dr. Vaughan has paintHussism scattered over Bohemia, till Luther ed it fully, and gradually, by telling the arose, and thundered forth words which made story of Wycliffe's life in detail and in its them both leap forth, to mingle with the due sequence; and also by taking care to rushing storm of his own mightier doctrine. present the man to us in his various phases Abundant as is our historical literature, or characters-as professor, as diplomatist, and fond as our ablest writers have recently as reformer, as parish-priest, and as aubecome of attempting careful and vivid ren-thor. In one of the chapters we have the derings of the physiognomies of important old village of Lutterworth, and its venerable historical personages, we are still without a clergyman, brought before us with admiraset of thoroughly good portraits of the modern religious reformers of different nations, painted, as they might be, in series, so that the features of each may be compared with those of all the rest. Wycliffe, Huss, Savonarola, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Knox, and Cramner-all men coming under the same general designation, all heroes of the same general movement, and yet what a contrast of physiognomies! Preeminent in the series will ever be Luther, as the man of the biggest frame, and largest heart; the man "Judging from his (Wycliffe's) portrait, as of richest and most original genius; the transmitted to us by Sir Antonio More. [the great, soft, furious, musical, riant, sociable, original of this portrait, from which Dr. Vaughan's work contains an engraving, is an heirkiss-you, knock-you-down, German. None loom in the rectory of Wycliffe, Yorkshire,] it of them all had such a face; none of them is manifest that Luther had he advantage of all said such things; of none of them all him in respect to physical organization. In the can you have such anecdotes, such a collec- countenance of the Englishman there are indition of ana. Next comes Calvin, indubitably cations of a greater degree of penetration and morose, and indubitably of drier and leaner acuteness, and of a fiser sensibility, than we genius, but whom no one, whether Calvinist discern in the physiognomy of the German. But in the latter there is a massiveness of form, or not, but must admire, if an intellect of a robustness, a leonine force, which are his own, iron and a noble use of it are objects of pro- not only as compared with Wycliffe, but as per admiration. If these two are taken out, compared with nearly all his compeers in the the order in which the others are to be pre- walk to which his might was devoted. ferred may be left to national and individ-is a rare thing to find the recondite and the poual predilection. A Slavonian will prefer Huss; an Italian, Savonarola; a Swiss, Zwingle; a Scotchman, Knox; an English man, Wycliffe or Cramner. Speaking for the Englishman, however, we should find more to admire in Wycliffe than in Cramner or perhaps in any other of the worthies of the later English Reformation. This preference would, we think, be a matter of course with any who should make the greater thoroughness of the earlier theory of Reformation the ground of a favourable decision; but, even if the judgment were to regard solely the comparative personal metal of the two men, we question if any of the later English Reformers would stand to be looked at along with Wycliffe. In the last published volume of D'Auibigné's History of the Reformation, Wycliffe and his

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pular, the abtruse and the practical, the schoolthey manifestly were in the great English reformer. As a schoolman even his enemies have assigned him a place with the most gifted and the most successful. On what this reputation was founded his Lectures at Oxford in part shew; and his English sermons, and tracts, and and treatises bring out the other phase of his power. His battle was with error in all its connexions, and with depravity in all grades. To prove himself equal to the breadth of such a conflict, it became him to task his every capacity, and to avail himself of his every acquisition; and he did so. In his Trialogus' alone we see enough of the subtleties of the schoolman; and in such pieces as The Great Curse mind of the Reformer was the relation between Expounded,' we discern how intimate in the such subtleties and the most momentous practical questions. . . . It is observable in Wyeliffe that, even when treading the most novel

man and the man of the world, so combined, as