pope necessarily tended to abridge the general influence of the clergy. A measure of this description was almost unknown in the history of Europe at that day. Such claims were not lightly relinquished by the papacy, and shortly after this decision of the parliament, a monk wrote in defence of the papal usurpations, asserting that the sovereignty of England was forfeited by withholding the tribute, and that the clergy, whether as individuals or as a general body, were exempted from all jurisdiction of the civil power, a claim which had already excited considerable discussions in the preceding reigns. Wickliff was personally called upon by this writer to prove, if he were able, the fallacy of these opinions; nor should it be forgotten that this work did not proceed from any of the mendicant orders, but from one of those monks who were directly opposed to them. Thus it is evident that Wickliff's former conduct was rightly estimated to proceed, not from one who merely opposed the mendicants, as such, but from one who would oppose the leading errors of the church of Rome, under whatever guise they might appear.

In Wickliff's reply, wherein he has preserved the arguments of the monk, he styles himself one of the royal chaplains. He combats the assumptions of the church of Rome, confirming his sentiments by giving the substance of several speeches delivered by certain of the lay nobility in the recent debate relative to the claims of the pontiff. We need not enter into the contents of this tract further than to quote the following declaration attributed to one of the speakers, that, "Christ is the supreme Lord, while the pope is a man, and liable to mortal sin, and who while in mortal sin, according to divines, is unfitted for dominion." The extent to which such a principle might be applied, is evident from the well-known wicked lives of the pontiffs, which had led to the monstrous assertion of Romish divines, that the pope, though guilty of the most heinous sins, still was to be obeyed and respected in his mandates; even those which concerned religion !*

The treatise concludes with a view of the future, taken by Wickliff, which has long since been fulfilled. If I mistake not, the day will come in which all exactions shall cease, before the pope will prove such a condition to be reasonable and honest." Who now in England ventures to assert that the temporal autho

*Bellarmine goes further he says: "Though the pope should err in enjoining vices, and prohibiting virtues, yet would the church be bound to believe the vices to be virtues, and the virtues vices, if it would avoid sinning against its own conscience." De Pontif. iv. 5.

One of the popes says, "The pope, who represents on earth not mere man, but true God, has a heavenly power; and therefore changes the nature of things.-Nor is there any one that can say unto him, Why dost thou so? For he can dispense laws; he can make justice injustice by altering and amending laws, and he has a fulness of power." Innocent III. Glos. A contemporary of Wickliff openly maintained that the pope was incapable of mortal sin!

rity of the pope is supreme? or that his ecclesiastics are exempted from the laws of God and their country? yet such doctrines were openly maintained in those ages, and still are asserted in some parts of Europe! The parliament in 1366 also directed regulations to be observed, by which the power and influence of the mendicants were limited. In the part taken by the university of Oxford, during these proceedings, Wickliff doubtless was concerned, and the attention given to his arguments on these subjects, which then so deeply agitated the public mind, must have brought his opinions concerning the scriptures, and other points more immediately connected with divine truths, into general notice. Thus attention was called to those doctrines which he now began publicly to advocate. One circumstance which promoted this opposition to the papal claims, was the national animosity then existing between England and France. Many of the popes being natives of France, evinced their partiality for their own country, in which they then resided, on all occasions. All these concurring circumstances led Edward III. to pursue a line of conduct, which certainly characterises him as a promoter of the reformation, at least as to its outward concerns.

John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, claims notice as conspicuous among the court and family of the British monarch, for the countenance and support he afforded to Wickliff. Under his influence an attempt appears to have been made in 1371, by authority of parliament, to exclude ecclesiastics from all offices of state.* Wickliff, in his writings, has so fully shown his deep sense of the necessity for the clergy being exclusively devoted to the duties of their spiritual functions, that we cannot doubt of his intimate connexion with the prince from whom such a proposition originated. The views of Wickliff as to the proper method of discharging the office of minister to the church, will appear by the following extract from one of his early pieces, entitled, "A short rule of life." He says, If thou art a priest, and by name a curate, live thou a holy life. Pass other men in holy prayer, holy desire, and holy speaking; in counselling and teaching the truth. Ever keep the commandments of God, and let his gospel and his praises be ever in thy mouth. Ever despise sin, that men may be drawn therefrom, and that thy deeds may be so far rightful, that no man shall blame them with reason. Let thy open life be thus a true book, in which the soldier and the layman may learn how to serve God, and keep his commandments. For the example of a good life, if it be open and continued, striketh rude men much more than open preaching with the word alone. And waste not thy goods in great feasts for rich men, but live a

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* Almost every office of importance or profit was filled by ecclesiastics, from that of lord chancellor, to the surveyor of the king's buildings and the superintendent of his wardrobe. About this time the chancellor was bishop of Ely; the two latter offices were filled by the parsons of Oundle and Harwich.

frugal life on poor men's alms and goods. Have both meat, and drink, and clothing, but the remnant give truly to the poor; to those who have freely wrought, but who now may not labour from feebleness and sickness; and thus shalt thou be a true priest both to God and to man." These are sentiments which remind us of the early ages of the church, and Wickliff was not one who set forth precepts for others, which he did not practise himself. Similar passages will be found in the following pages. Nor was he less earnest to enforce due respect for the ministers of religion, as will appear from the following extract. "Thy second father is thy spiritual father, who has special care of thy soul, and thus shalt thou worship (reverence) him. Thou shalt love him especially before other men, and obey his teaching as far as he teaches God's will. And help according to thy power, that he have a reasonable sustenance when he doeth well his office. And if he fail in his office, by giving evil example, and in ceasing from teaching God's law, thou art bound to have great sorrow on that account, and to tell meekly and charitably his default to him, between thee and him alone."

*

In 1370, the papal court decided against the continuance of Wickliff in the wardenship of Canterbury-hall. It was decrced that the inmates should all be monks, notwithstanding the express declarations of the founder, and the terms of the royal license to the contrary. The royal sanction to this sentence was obtained two years afterwards. Among the means employed by his opponents, bribery appears to have been the principal. Wickliff was neither surprised nor troubled by this decision; he does not refer to it in any part of his writings, nor was any inputation cast upon him thereby.

In 1373, Wickliff was admitted to the degree of doctor in divinity. As this rank was at that time unfrequent, and conferred a considerable degree of influence, it must have facilitated the diffusion of the doctrines he advocated throughout the kingdom. Many of his scholastic pieces doubtless were lectures delivered by him as professor of divinity, to which office he was appointed in 1372. His early English writings also show both the doctrinal views, and the religious feelings with which he proceeded in his new office. He was skilful in the use of the artificial logic then in vogue, and by accustoming his hearers to enter into logical and metaphysical distinctions, he taught them to exercise their minds upon inquiries, which he gradually directed to more important subjects than those usually introduced into such lec

=

tures.

Among these early pieces, the Exposition of the Decalogue,

* Vaughan observes upon this extract: "If Wycliffe ever sanctioned any less mild or scriptural methods of reform, it was because the state of the malady was found to require a severer treatment." In his tracts, For the Order of Priesthood, and the Office of Curates, Wickliff enters very fully into this subject.

now in the Cotton library, may be included.* As that exposition differs from the one in the present volume, a brief extract or two may be given. Urging that love to God be shown by keeping his commands, Wickliff says, "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." He admonishes that the sabbath not only commemorates the work of creation, but also the resurrection of Christ, and the gift of the Spirit, adding, "Bethink thee heartily of the wonderful kindness of God, who was so high and so worshipful in heaven, that he should come down so low and be born of the maiden, and become our brother, to buy us again by his hard passion, from our thraldom to Satan." After describing the sufferings of Christ, he adds, "All this he did and suffered of his own kindness, without any sin of himself, that he might deliver us from sin and pain, and bring us to everlasting bliss. Thou shouldest also think constantly, how, when he had made thee 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 us. And thus, see the great kindness, and all other goodness, which God hath shown for thee, and thereby learn thy own great unkindness; and thus thou shalt see that man is the most fallen of creatures, and the unkindest of all 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!" Vaughan observes of this exposition, "We find Wycliffe zealously inculcating the lessons of inspiration, on the fall of man and the consequent depravity of human nature; on the excellence and perpetual obligation of the moral law; on the exclusive dependence of every child of Adam on the atonement of Christ for the remission of his sins; and for victory over temptation, and the possession of holiness, on the aids of divine grace. It appears also that these momentous tenets were very far from being regarded by Wycliffe with the coldness of mere speculation."

The aid which the labours of Wickliff received from the disputes then existing between the popes and the English government, has been already noticed; these differences were again renewed in 1373, on the subject of" provisors." The papal see had been accustomed to grant anticipated vacancies in the English church among its foreign dependents, by which ministers were appointed who were neither able nor willing to discharge the duties of their office. Various legal enactments had been previously made to meet these encroachments, and a law was passed whereby the election of bishops was rendered entirely independent of the papal sanction.

* See Vaughan's Life of Wickliff, vol. i. p. 303,

In the year 1360, during the pestilence, seven English bishoprics had become vacant, all of which were filled by aliens, under papal provisions, and the result of inquiry in 1376, showed that a very large number of the English benefices were in the hands of foreigners. An embassy was despatched to the continent in 1374, to remonstrate with the papal see on this subject; Wickliff was one of the delegates. Bruges was the place appointed for meeting the commissioners of the papal see: the proceedings, as usual in all matters of a similar nature, were protracted by every species of evasion; they continued nearly two years, while the concessions obtained were few and unsatisfactory. Wickliff saw enough during his visit to the continent, to satisfy him fully of the antichristian character of the papacy. He returned from this treaty, like Cranmer and Luther from Rome, more than ever convinced of the necessity of a thorough reformation in ecclesiastical affairs. He now styled the pope, antichrist, the proud, worldly priest of Rome, the most cursed of clippers and purse kervers."` We find strong expressions in his subsequent writings, but when we refer to the corruptions of the church of Rome, and to the treatment Wickliff received from the Romish ecclesiastics, it may truly be said, "Was there not a cause ?"

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The public attention was now awakened to the intolerable exactions of the popedom. A parliamentary remonstrance in 1376 states, that the taxes paid to the pope yearly out of England, were five times the amount paid to the king; also that the richest prince in Christendom had not the fourth part of the income received by the pope out of England. These calculations might well call forth the emphatic expression contained in the same document," that God had committed his sheep to the pope to be pastured, and not to be shorn or shaven.”

In November 1375, Wickliff was presented by the king to a prebend in the collegiate church of Westbury, and shortly after to the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, at that time in the royal gift by the minority of lord de Ferrars, the patron. He was speedily called to take a still more prominent part in public affairs.

At that period a severe political struggle existed between the duke of Lancaster and the leading ecclesiastics, among whom Courtney, bishop of London, and Wykeham of Winchester, were most distinguished. The particulars need not be detailed; it is sufficient to say that the transactions were of a complicated nature. It is only to the unbounded influence of the Romish priesthood over the consciences of men, that we can attribute the popular excitement against the reformer and his friends, which the prelates succeeded in raising. Perhaps it is less easy to explain how the parliament, which assembled in 1376 and 1377, should have been opposed both to the encroachments of the papacy and to the administration of the duke of Lancaster.

The clergy were highly displeased at proceedings against some of their number, and at this period, for the first time, we