by St. Peter and St. Paul, if it were not for the gentleness of his disposition, he would so confound this doting old man, make him such a prodigy of a wretch, that all Christendom should stand amazed at his punishment. One of the cardinals lowered his tone, by entreating him not to precipitate, say some, that revolt and separation from Rome, which must one day take place. We must confess, said the cardinal, that he is a holy man, of more religious life than any of us; yea, Christendom hath not his equal; a great philosopher; skilled in Latin and Greek; a constant preacher; a lover of chastity; and a loather of simony. His illustrious friend, Roger Bacon, pronounces him and Adam de Marisco, the two most learned men in the world, who excelled all the rest of mankind, both in divine and human knowledge. Greathead is said to have written two hundred volumes: he died in the year one thousand two hundred and fifty-three*. Lampe mentions an English knight, Peter Cassiadore, who wrote an epistle to the British church, on shaking off the tyranny of the Roman pontiff†, Walter Mapez, archdeacon of Oxford, opposed the church of Rome, and to secure himself, craftily employed a silly buffoon to repeat the satyrical Latin rhymes which he composed against his holiness+. The commencement of the fourteenth century was the golden age of popery; and had the accustomed march of affairs continued uninterrupted to its close, our isle had been one vast monastry, and the English a nation of monks. But the greedy insolent * Warner, Lampe, Mosheim. + Lampe Synopsis, 281, avarice of the court of Rome, and the pride of the priesthood, which was now become proverbial, prepared the nation for the auspicious events which shortly happened. For, as the Roman historian has observed, when empires have arrived at their acme, they become stationary, fall into decrepitude, and rush to ruin. In the state, as well as the church, this was an age of portentous agitations: two kings were deposed and murdered; on which Fuller remarks," that the clergy were the first to lead this dance of disloyalty, and that, in all state alterations, be they never so bad, the pulpit will be of the same wood as the council-board*." While, however, the pope strove to profit in this scramble for power, by untoward circumstances, he was greatly theloser. Edward III. emboldened, as well by his own heroic temper, as by his splendid victories in France, and favoured by a long and prosperous reign, clipped the wings of the Roman eagle, by forbidding the clergy to send to Italy the money which he needed for his armies. The statutes of Mortmain and Premunire opposed an effectual check to the aggrandisement of the clergy, by preventing the misguided contrition of the dying from lavishing their estates on the monks, and by prohibing the pope to nominate his Italians to benefices before they became vacant. Now, as the Arabian traveller rejoices to arrive at an island of verdant fertility amidst desarts of sand, we congratulate ourselves, and our readers, on our arrival at the period when we are relieved from the melancholy disgusts of gross dkness, and contemptible superstitions, by the re-appearance of true reli* Fuller's Church History, book IV. p. 153. gion. We account it the glory of our Isle, that over its bosom hovered the morning star, which led the benighted nations to the Saviour. Germany has lately been roused to erect a monument to its brightest ornament Luther; and it is the pleasing duty of a British ecclesiastical historian to rear a grateful tribute to the memory of Wickliffe. That there was some real religion in our isle before his time we doubt not; for in the course of our researches, we have sometimes felt that "we trode on concealed fires." The persecuted Germans, who were led by Gerrard to seek an asylum here, we have already noticed; and as the Waldenses and Bohemians preserved a holy seed pure from the papal corruption*, so they maintained some connexion with this country, though their first colony perished by the fury of persecution. We shall shortly have occasion to notice the intercourse which Wickliffe maintained with them, from whom indeed it seems that he derived that light of pure religion which shone so clearly in his writings: though when it is asserted, that he received his first knowledge of the truth from one friar Lollard, who brought the doctrine of the Waldenses into England †, it is difficult to determine whether this were a proper name, or only a title of reproach, given to one who maintained the principles of the Lollards. John de Wickliffe was born in the year one thousand three hundred and twenty-four, in the parish of Wickliffe, in Yorkshire. Having been educated at Oxford, he took the degree of doctor in divinity there, *Lampe's Historia Ecclesia Reformate in Hungaria, et passim. † Clarke's Lives, quoted by Gillies Histo. Col. vol. I. p. 34. and read public lectures, which were much admired; doubtless, not the less for being seasoned with warm invectives against the begging friars. A sentence of the pope, excluding him from the office of warden of Canterbury college, contributed to sharpen his opposion to the papacy, which he had before declared in his writings. He then published a defence of the kingdom against the pope's demand of homage, which introduced him to court, where he was appointed to an important embassy. He was presented by the king, in one thousand three hundred and seventy-four, to the rectory of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, and in the year following, to a prebend in the church of Westbury. After he had, for some time, opposed the tyranny and superstitions of the church of Rome, without much serious resistance, a bull was sent to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, to seize the heretic, and throw him in irons, as a complete answer to all his arguments. The pope also wrote to the king to favour the bishops in the prosecution, and to the university of Oxford, to expel this pestilential doctor. But in the meanwhile Edward III. died, and Richard II. being a minor, his uncle John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the queen mother, protected Wickliffe, who seems to have been also the popular favourite. The reformer was called, in one thousand three hundred and seventysix, before a synod in St. Paul's cathedral; but being accompanied by the Duke of Lancaster, Lord Percy, and other powerful supporters, Wickliffe was a mere silent spectator of the rude quarrel between the prelates and nobles, which ended in a riot, and left him to depart unhurt, and uncensured*. He had the intrepidity to present to the parliament, in one thousand three hundred and seventy-nine, a severe philippic against the tyrrany of the church of Rome, and to write against the supremacy and infallibility of the pope. He wisely prepared the way for his translation of the Bible, on which he was labouring, by a book on the truth of the Scriptures, entitled, The Path to perfect Knowledge; in which he urges Christian men and women, young and old, to study the Scriptures diligently, especially the New Testament, which, say he, "is full of authority, and gives understanding to the simple, especially in all points necdful to salvation." He boldly asserts, that as Elijah had the truth of God against King Ahab and eight hundred and fifty priests of Baal, so a few poor men and idiots, in comparison of learned clerks, may have the truth now, in opposition to all the prelates and clergy. If a man, says he, abstain from swearing, and out of charity reprove sin, he is branded and persecuted as a heretic and a Lollard; but if any one determine to defend himself against the persecution of the prelates, he has only to swear boldly by Christ's bones, nails, and limbs, and be proud, lecherous and profanet. Having published sixteen conclusions, in the first of which he openly denied the doctrine of transubstantiation, they were condemned by the chancellor of Oxford. He appealed to the king and parliament; but perceiving the friendship of the court, which was rather political finesse, than pious zeal, growing cold, he withdrew from the storm, and, according to some, made a confession of error at * Fuller, book IV. p. 135. Petrie, p. 502. |