with their head Christ, and will teach me, rule me, or chastise me by authority, especially of God's law.

And the archbishop said, I knew well he would not without such additions submit him.

Then I was rebuked, scorned, and menaced on every side; and yet after this divers persons cried upon me to kneel down and submit me; but I stood still, and spake no word. Then there was spoken of me, and to me, many great words, and I stood and heard them menace, curse, and scorn me, but I said nothing.

Then a while after the archbishop said to me, Wilt thou not submit thee to the ordinance of holy church?

I said, Sir, I will full gladly submit me, as I have showed you before.

Then the archbishop bade the constable to have me forth thence in haste.

So then I was led forth, and brought into a foul, unhonest prison, where I came never before. But, thanked be God, when all men were gone forth then from me, and had sparred fast the prison door after them; by and by after, I therein by myself, busied me to think on God, and to thank him for his goodness. And I was then greatly comforted in all my senses, not only for that I was then delivered for a time from the sight, from the hearing, from the presence, from the scorning, and from the menacing of mine enemies; but much more I rejoiced in the Lord, because that through his grace he kept me so, both among the flattering especially, and among the menacing of mine adversaries, that without heaviness and anguish of my conscience, I passed away from them. For, as a tree laid upon another tree, overthwart or cross-wise, so were the archbishop and his three clerks always contrary to me, and I to them.

Now, good God, for thine holy name, and to the praising of thy most blessed name, make us one together, if it be thy will, by authority of thy word, that is true perfect charity, and else not. And that it may thus be, all that read or hear this writing pray heartily to the Lord God, that he for his great goodness, which cannot be expressed with tongue, grant to us, and to all other, who in the same wise, and for the same cause especially, or for any other cause, are at a distance, to be knit and made one in true faith, in stedfast hope, and in perfect charity. Amen.

4

Besides this examination here above described, came another treatise also to our hands of the same William Thorpe, under the name and title of his testament; which rather, by the matter and handling thereof, might seem to be counted a complaint of vicious priests.

The commencement of this testament is as follows.

Matthew an apostle of Christ, and his gospeller, witnesses truly in the holy gospel, the most holy living, and the most wholesome teaching of Christ. He rehearses how that Christ likeneth them that hear his words and keep them, to a wise man that buildeth his house upon a stone, that is, a stable and a sure ground. This house is man's soul, in whom Christ delighteth to dwell, if it be grounded, that is, established faithfully in his living and in his true teaching, adorned or made fair with divers virtues, which Christ used and taught, without any meddling of any error, as are chiefly the conditions of charity.

This aforesaid stone is Christ, upon which every faithful soul must be builded, since upon none other ground, than upon Christ's living and his teaching, any body may make any building or housing wherein Christ will come and dwell. This sentence witnesseth St. Paul to the Corinthians, showing to them that nobody may set any other ground than is set, that is, Christ's living and teaching. And, because that all men and women should give all their business here in this life to build them virtuously upon this sure foundation, St. Paul acknowledging the fervent desire, and the good will of the people of Ephesus, wrote to them comfortably, saying, Now ye are not strangers, guests, nor yet comelings;* but ye are the citizens, and of the household of God, builded above upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. In which foundation, every building that is builded or made through the grace of God, it increaseth or groweth into a holy temple-that is, every body that is grounded or builded faithfully in the teaching and living of Christ, is therethrough made the holy temple of God.

This is the stable ground and stedfast stone, Christ, which is the sure corner stone, fast joining and holding mightily together two walls. For through Christ Jesus, the meau or middle person of the Trinity, the Father of heaven is piteous, or mercifully joined and made one toget er to mankind. And, through dread to offend God, and fervent love to please him, men are inseparably made one to God, and * Foreigners.

defended surely under his protection. Also this aforesaid stone, Christ, was figured by the square stones of which the temple of God was made. For, as a square stone, wheresoever it is cast or laid, it abideth and lieth stably, so Christ and every faithful member of his church by example of him, abideth and dwelleth stably in true faith, and in all other heavenly virtues, in all adversities that they suffer in the valley of tears.

For lo, when these aforesaid square stones were hewn and wrought to be laid in the walls or pillars of God's temple, no noise or stroke of the workman was heard. Certainly, this silence in working of this stone figureth Christ chiefly and his faithful members, who by his example have been, and yet are, and ever to the world's end shall be so meek and patient in every adversity, that no sound, nor yet any grudging shall any time be perceived in them.*

What was the end of this good man and blessed servant of God, William Thorpe, I find in no story specified. By all conjectures it is to be thought that the archbishop Thomas Arundel, being so hard an adversary against those men, would not let him go. Much less is it to be supposed, that he would ever retract his sentence and opinion, which he so valiantly maintained before the bishop; neither doth it seem that he had any such recanting spirit. Again, neither is it found that he was burned, wherefore it remains most likely to be true, that he, being committed to some strait prison, according as the archbishop in his examination before threatened him; there, as Thorpe confesseth himself, was so straitly kept, that either he was secretly made away, or else there he died by sickness.

The like end also I find to happen to John Ashton, another good follower of Wickliff, who, for the same doctrine of the sacrament, was condemned by the bishops, and because he would not recant, he was committed to perpetual prison, wherein the good man continued till his death. Anno 1382.

Thorpe then proceeds to expose the ill life and sinful conduct of the ecclesiastics of that day. He concludes by declaring his readiness to suffer for the truth.

FROM

PROLOGUE TO THE BIBLE.

WRITTEN ABOUT A. D. 1408.

This little work has been incorrectly ascribed to Wickliff: from some references to historical events it evidently was not written till after his decease. The doctrines of the reformer, however, are so explicitly set forth, that it must have been the production of one of his disciples; and from the account given of the English translation of the scriptures, it is supposed to have been written by PURVEY, or some other person closely connected with Wickliff. A brief notice of Purvey has been already given at page 4.

The prologue contains a summary of the books of the old testament, with various doctrinal statements, and was, doubtless, intended by the writer as a prologue to Wickliff's bible, or more probably to a revision of his work. Lewis, in his history of the English translations of the bible, gives some account of a new or revised version, which was not so strictly verbal as that of Wickliff, "but more according to the sense," to a copy of which this prologue has been found appended. He adds, that a manuscript of this version, in the library of Trinity college, Dublin, has the name of Purvey written upon it.

This Prologue was printed in the time of the Reformation, first in 1536, under the title of The Door of Holy Scripture, and afterwards, in 1550, as The Pathway to Perfect Knowledge. From both editions it appears to have been found by the editors affixed or appended to manuscript copies of English bibles; one of them "in the king's chamber." The following pages contain an extract relative to the English version of the scriptures, with some observations respecting the method of translating, which will be interesting to those who value the contents of holy writ.

FORASMUCH as Christ saith that the gospel shall he preached in all the world, and David saith of the apostles and their preaching, The sound of them go out into each land, and the words of them went out into the ends of the world. And, again, David saith, The Lord shall tell, in the scriptures, of peoples, and of these princes that were in it,

that is, in holy church. Holy writ is the scripture of peoples, for it is made that all peoples should know it; and the princes of the church who were therein, are the apostles who had authority to write holy writ, for by that same that the apostles wrote their scriptures by authority, and confirming of the Holy Ghost, it is holy scripture, and faith of christian men. And this dignity hath no man after them, be he ever so holy, ever so wise, as Jerome witnesses on that verse. Also Christ saith of the Jews who cried hosanna to him in the temple, that though they were still, stones should cry; and by stones he understandeth heathen men that worship stones for their gods; and we Englishmen are come of heathen men, therefore we are understood by these stones that should cry after holy writ; and, as Jews interpreted acknowledging, signify clerks that should acknowledge to God by repentance of sins, and by voice of God's commands; so our unlearned men, following the corner-stone, Christ, must be signified by stones that are hard and abiding in the foundation; for though covetous clerks moved by simony, heresy, and many other sins, despise and stop holy writ as much as they may, yet the unlearned people cry after holy writ to know it and keep it, with great cost and peril of their life. For these reasons, and others, with common charity to save all men in our realm, which God will have saved, a simple creature hath translated the BIBLE out of Latin into English.

As Jerome saith in that verse,

First, this simple creature had much travail with divers fellows, and helpers, to gather many old bibles, and other doctors and common glosses, and to make one Latin bible some deal true, and then to study it anew, the text with the gloss, and other doctors as he might get; and especially Lyra on the old testament, that helped full much in his work. The third time, to counsel with old grammarians and old divines, of hard words and hard sentences, how they might best be understood and translated. The fourth time, to translate as clearly as he could to the sentence, and to have many good fellows, and wise, at the correcting of the translation. First, it is to know that the best translating out of Latin into English, is to translate after the sentence, and not only after the words. So that the sentence be as open, or opener, in English as in Latin, and go not far from the letter. And if the letter may not be followed in the translating, let the sentence ever be whole and open.