from meagre abridgments, and imperfectly understood, did not make their way among the people, who were treated, with regard to literature, as exclusively as with respect to religion; learning being deemed too sacred for their acquisition, and the charity of the times being consistent with the exclusion of the largest portion of society, the churls or villains, from all hope of Paradise.* To the people the Scriptures were unknown; and no attempt was made to confer on them mental cultivation-all intellectual exertions being directed to the attention of those whose information could appreciate, and whose approbation could reward, such labours. As Mr. Vaughan justly observes,

"In the present age, the capacity of reading, the art of printing, and the easy possession of books, are all annexed to certain public expositions of christian truth which return with the sabbath, or if in some instances with less, in others with greater frequency. Still, how partially informed, and how slow to perceive the beauty of religion, is the larger number of our present population! Reasoning from their case to that of their ancestors, we shrink from the sense of religious ignorance, which must have been exhibited by a vast community, in which with very few exceptions, oral communication was the only source of knowledge, and where the extent of that consisted in a brief address repeated at the close of each quarter of the year."+ Vol. I. pp. 191-2.

Such was the moral and intellectual state of England when Wycliffe arose, and by his penetrating and powerful genius gave an impulse to improvement, and an energy to mind, that they had long wanted: but it was not to the higher orders he went;laying aside the cumbrous armour of the schools, he addressed himself to the mass of living mind, that could not appreciate, or value, or understand those implements; he addressed them, not as scholastics, but as men; he directed to the spiritual despotism of Rome, the dissatisfaction that was generally felt at her temporal aggressions; while, by opening to the perusal of his countrymen. the page of inspiration, he enabled them to judge for themselves, and to bring to the standard of God's word, with an intellectual power and energy, all that had been handed down as sacred by the ignorance or the policy of preceding ages.

Wycliffe's life is best traced in his writings; and notwithstanding Mr. Vaughan's industry, we do not think that, with the exception of correcting some dates, he has materially added to the incidents previously collected by his predecessor, the indefatigable and laborious Lewis. In truth, Wycliffe, except as a sufferer, had but little to do with the conduct of public affairs, except so far as

* Vaughan I. 189,

+ Mr. Vaughan alludes in this passage to the Constitution of Archbishop Pecham, published at the end of the 13th century, in which, complaining of the deficiency of preaching, he commands that four sermons shall be annually delivered by every parish minister, and delineates the topics on which his instruction shall turn-viz. the decalogue, the fourteen articles of faith, the seven deadly sins, the seven principal virtues, the seven works of mercy, the seven sacraments. When admonitions of such a nature were necesssary for the clergy, what must the laity have been!

his writings acted on them. He was born at Wycliffe, in Yorkshire, about 1324, and about sixteen years afterwards entered Queen's College, Oxford, whence he soon transferred himself to Merton, a college that had been rendered conspicuous by being the scene of the scholastic labours of Duns Scotus and Ockham, and whose Divinity chair had recently been filled by the celebrated Brad wardine. That Wycliffe's attention to the studies fashionable at that period was remarkable, may be conjectured from the high tone of panegyric used even by his enemies, when they describe his intellectual endowments; and that he was able to penetrate and cast aside the cumbrous mantle of scholastic acquirements, with a power infinitely beyond that of his most distinguished contemporaries, is equally undoubted. To obtain the character that would render him important in the eyes of his countrymen, he was obliged to submit to the drudgery of the schools; but to come forth from this chilling influence with the zeal and vehemence of a reformer-to seize the scattered rays of religious truth, which were to be found in the writings of the popular Divines to examine for himself the Sacred Volume-and to cast aside all reliance upon human authority, and all fear of human power-to do all this, exhibits him possessed of a force and power of mind, which throw the Statesmen and Divines of the fourteenth century immeasurably behind the Reformer. In 1356, his first publication, on the awful plague that ravaged England, in common with many parts of Europe, appeared, and bears marks of his zeal against the corruption of the Church, to which he attributes the wrath of God. Four years afterwards he commenced his dispute with the mendicant orders, taking the place of the celebrated Fitzralph, or Richard Armachanus,* who this year closed his career of fearless opposition to these innovators. So high did Wycliffe stand in the opinion of the University, that in 1361 he was made Warder of Baliol College, and, four years later, of CanterburyHall, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the exclusion of Woodhall, a monk of restless and turbulent spirit, who afterwards was restored by the successor of Islip, and his restoration finally approved of by the Pope. About this time, his character was so high, as a fearless opponent of Papal claims, that he was called on by name to defend, if he could, the contumacious refusal of the King and Parliament to pay the disgraceful tribute that the arrogance of the Pope had wrested from King John, an invitation to which he readily acceded; and subsequently, on the dissensions that arose about the statutes of Provisors and Premunire, we find Wycliffe among those who are deputed to meet the Papal emissaries at Bruges. That his conduct there was pleasing to his royal patron, is obvious from his presentation to the living of Lutterworth; and that his undisguised hostility to Papal aggression had

* In the Library of our University are many interesting letters that passed between Wycliffe and Armachanus, which seem to have escaped Mr. Vaughan's re

searches.

become popular, would appear from the bold remonstrance on the subject, presented by the Parliament, on whose proceedings the people conferred the title of "the good Parliament." The adherents of the Pope seem to have felt the necessity of a check to these proceedings-and Wycliffe was summoned before the Bishop of London, at St. Paul's, to answer for his heretical opinions, but escaped through the bold and uncompromising patronage of John of Gaunt, and his friend the Earl Marshal; nor does his popularity seem to have been at all shaken, as, shortly after, in the name of the King, the question of the legality of the Legislature detaining, in case of necessity, the treasures of the country from being carried abroad on the demand of the Pope, was referred to Wycliffe-an enquiry on which the reformer's opinion may be easily conjectured. But the clergy were not to be induced to follow his independent example; the Pope was the power to which they naturally looked; and the Pontiff, on the same day, issued Bulls to the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, to the King and the University of Oxford, denouncing Wycliffe and his doctrine, and while they commanded inquisition to be made into his errors, by the admonition conveyed to the Court, the dangerous extent to which those errors had spread is implicitly allowed. Wycliffe appeared before the Synod at Lambeth, and gave in a justification of his opinions, which would have proved any thing but satisfactory to the Prelates; but the indignation which the persecution excited in the minds of the people, and the positive commands of the Queen-Mother, prevented any sentence being pronounced. Another opportunity will occur, of examining the articles of accusation, when we speak of the reformer's creed.

Subsequently to this period, we find Wycliffe busily employed in the business of his parish—of the discharge of the duties of which he has left an unequivocal proof in the 300 sermons now remaining—and in that of his professional chair, in which he was partially silenced, from the freedom of his opinions respecting transubstantiation. Courtney, his bitter enemy, was now Archbishop of Canterbury, and, exasperated by his continued invectives against the Church, his free opinions on the subject of the sacrament, and, above all, by his vernacular translation of the Scriptures, procured a condemnation of sentiments, some really those of the reformer, and others acribed to him-carried on a sharp persecution against all suspected of Lollardism (a new name imported from the Continent, in order to stigmatise Wycliffe's followers)and finally, summoned the reformer before a Synod in Oxford, to answer for his heresy. Popish misrepresentation has endeavoured to detect a recantation in Wycliffe's defence of his opinions; but we think Mr. Vaughan has fully and finally refuted this calumny, and, by quoting Wycliffe's own words, has left no room for the cavils of the aspersers of his name. The result of this Synod was his removal from Oxford; and, in the retirement of Lutterworth, the reformer passed the remaining years of his life, solaced by the reflections of a well-spent and active career, and by the antici

*

pation of a period in which his opinions would be finally triumphant. That he was suffered to live, may rather be ascribed to the weakness, than to the charity of his enemies: he possessed to the very last the favour and protection of John of Gaunt; and the distresses of the country, and the schism in the Papal See, probably occupied the attention of his foes, to the exclusion of any active hostility against his life. On the last day of the year 1384, this great man was removed from the scene of his labours, having effected more for the cause of true religion, and left in the history and character of England a deeper impression than perhaps it has ever been the fortune of an individual to cause. He was taken (as his biographer justly observes) "from the evil to come," and taken while occupied in the most solemn office of religion, being assailed by paralysis while employed in administering the bread of the Eucharist; and his enemies, with the ingenuity of bigotry,+ remarked that he was seized on the day dedicated to Thomas a Becket, and died on that sacred to Sylvester, against which saints he had often directed his blasphemies;-in the 19th century, such sentiments need only to be recorded in order to be stigmatized. The violence which circumstances prevented the person of the reformer experiencing, was liberally bestowed on his opinions; and the anathema of the Council of Constance, declaring his memory infamous, and ordering the violation of his last sanctuary, the grave, only spoke the inveterate hatred of the Church of Rome, against the bold and fearless innovator who first in England dared to rend the veil with which ignorance and corruption had covered true religion. His ashes (in the quaint, but sublime, imagery of Fuller) became the emblem of his doctrine, being borne from the little stream into which they were cast, into the Severn, and thence to the narrow seas and the ocean-as his sentiments will assuredly one day extend "from the river to the ends of the earth."

The anathema with which the Church pursued Wycliffe was grounded on the knowledge of the extent of his opinions, and the power of his writings. On the Continent they formed the characters, and directed the conduct of Huss and Jerome; and in England so prevalent had they become, that a few years had scarcely elapsed until the Lollards dared to print a petition to Parliament, calling for a reformation of the Church in all essentials,

* He was summoned to Rome by Pope Urban, but declined the journey, under the plea of the infirm state of his health.

†The same spirit of ruthless bigotry has attempted to fasten the imputation of forgery on the testimonial from the University of Oxford to Wycliffe's piety and character, drawn up in the year 1406; and, in order to condemn the reformer's tenets through his patron, has adopted the most infamous calumnies regarding the death of John of Gaunt.-See Godwin's Chaucer. IV. 126, 129.

"The clerical historian, Walsingham, accompanies his notice of the Reformer's death with the following mild description of his charactes. The devil's instrument, church's enemy, people's confusion, heretic's idol, hypocrite's mirror, schism's broacher, hatred's sore, lies' forger, flatteries' sink, who at his death despaired like Cain, and stricken by the horrible judgments of God, breathed forth his wicked soul to the dark mansion of the black devil.'" Vol. 11. p, 369.

and grounding their opinion on the sentiments of the evangelical Doctor. An equally honourable testimony was borne to the influence of his writings from another source; they are peculiarly stigmatized in the detestable constitutions of Arundel, and it was to check their influence that that disgrace to English literature, the act "de comburendo heretico"* was passed.

Notwithstanding this severity, the power of truth was felt; the labours of Wycliffe were not without fruit, and the extremest exertions of the House of Lancaster only delayed the event, to which even a less vigorous hand than that of the Eighth Henry would have given birth. The tyranny of the Papal See had roused the indignation of every friend to his country-and if the attribute of infallibility be once tarnished, the "glamourie" that has been thrown about the Church disappears; and they who examined with freedom the tomporal claim and grasping cupidity of the See of Rome, were likely to be patient listeners, when her spiritual power was the object of attack. Internal dissentions, and the necessity of courting the clergy, contributed to keep the Papal fetters a little longer on the people-or, rather, the providential arrangements of the Great Head of the Church protracted the day of emancipation until the people could, from a comparative knowledge of its importance, take a comparative interest in its progress-but the first impetus was given by Wycliffe; that impetus was preserved by the circulation of his works, until the people of England, nourished by the spiritual bread that Wycliffe's labours had procured, and favoured by circumstances, threw off, as one man, the spiritual and temporal domination of Rome.

"From the eighth century to the sixteenth, the principles of the protestant reformation were all really advancing, notwithstanding the retrogade appearance of things at certain intervals. The stand made by the Paulicians, was surpassed by that of the Waldenses. By the labours of Wycliffe, a still more sensible movement toward the renovation of Christendom was effected; and it needed not the spirit of prophecy to anticipate the rise of Zuinglius and Luther, from the ashes of Huss and Jerome. Each swell in the coming tide, retreated apparently quite to the point from which it had commenced, but each was more powerful than the former, and bespoke the certain influx of the mighty waters." pp. 412-13.

Misrepresentation is the weapon of Popery: unable to answer Protestant arguments, they have recourse to two experiments to bolster up a desperate cause-either to disguise the real sentiments and opinions of their adversaries, until they cease to appear tenable, and then with great triumph to confute them-or to calumniate the characters of the reformers, expecting that prejudice will attach to their writings the stains which calumny flings upon their conduct. To the second of these Wycliffe is impregnable; his conduct and

* Mr. Vaughan justly remarks that the clerical origin of this merciless law is clearly pointed out, by its framers founding it, not on the common law of Europe, but on the canons of the Church.