Let us turn from this digression. While Wickliffe turned his artillery against the mendicant monks, his university, the regular clergy, and the people applauded. While he stood forth the champion of his country against the exactions of the Pope, his king and the parliament sustained him. The Pope, indeed, thundered out his anathemas, and denounced his death. But Wickliffe found those who were able, first to delay his trial, and afterwards to protect him. But when Wickliffe translated the Bible into the English tongue; when he poured the light of heaven upon the thick darkness that reigned around him; when the Romish clergy saw their superstitions likely to be undermined by a scheme of doctrine whose necessary result was to set the consciences of men free from the domination of ghostly power; and when in addition to all this, the prelates saw that the very basis of their prerogatives was likely to be overthrown and destroyed; then the life of Wickliffe was indeed in danger. The wrath of his enemies was extreme; the English prelates, the Pope, the priesthood, and the civil arm, were leagued for his destruction. But, with a series of remarkable providences, the Lord watched over him, till on the last day of A.D. 1384, he died in peace.

It is the rejoicing of High Churchmen, that England was delivered from the arm of Wickliffe, even though it was only to be thrown, for more than another hundred years, into the jaws of the Pope. Says one of them, "Had Wickliffe succeeded in shaking the established system to pieces, one can scarcely think, without some awful misgivings, of the fabric, which, under his hand, might have risen out of the ruins. If the reformation of our Church had been conducted by Wickliffe, his work, in all probability, would have nearly anticipated the labors of Calvin, and the Protestantism of England might have pretty closely resembled the Protestantism of Geneva; Episcopal government might have been discarded; *** the clergy might have been consigned to a degrading dependence on their flocks." "Had Wickliffe flourished in the 16th century, he might have been ready to perish in the gainsayings of such men as Knox and Cartwright; at all events, it must be confessed that there is a marvellous resemblance between the Reformer with his poor itinerant priests, and at least the better part of the Puritans who troubled our Israel in the days of Elizabeth and her successors. The likeness is sufficiently striking, almost to mark him out as their prototype and progenitor; and therefore it is, that every faithful son of the

submit to martyrdom, than to the prevalence of the dogmas which they oppose. But the General Convention has met, and Puseyism triumphs. After a feeble struggle the contest is hushed. So much is settled; that no effectual resistance to Puseyism is to be expected in that communion.

Church must rejoice with trembling, that the work of her final deliverance was consigned to him."

We accept the resemblance; we receive Wickliffe with open arms, and gladly enrol him among the ranks of our ever honored fathers, the Puritans of old England.

At Wickliffe's death the art of printing was not invented; nor was it yet to be revealed to the world till after the lapse of half a century. Wickliffe's translation existed only in copies written out by hand; and yet, in his lifetime, they multiplied and spread rapidly. With great zeal, the Reformer had preached and published his doctrines; having sent out, besides his translation of the Bible, nearly two hundred volumes from his indefatigable pen.

These were now condemned as heretical, and as many as could be found were committed to the flames. His translation of the Word of God, so far as copies could be discovered, was also consumed. But the seed was sown, and would continue to spring up. Even before Wickliffe's death, a law was passed, aimed at him and his followers, ordaining "That all who preached without license, or against the Catholic faith, should be arrested and kept in prison till they justified themselves according to the law and reason of holy Church;" and that law and reason of holy Church was the good pleasure of the bishop.

Forty years after the death of Wickliffe, his bones were, by order of the council of Constance, taken from the grave, and publicly committed to the flames. Still the seed of the Reformation would continue to spring up. Taught by the writings of Wickliffe, many embraced the true Gospel in England. Copies of his writings found their way to the continent, and became the seeds of a rising Reformation there; which Rome vainly endeavored to overwhelm in fire and blood.

The law of Richard II., though rigorously enforced, proved insufficient to suppress the rising Reformation. When Richard was deposed, the usurper, Henry IV., was willing to do the enraged ecclesiastics a further pleasure. In the second year of his reign, A.D. 1401, it was enacted, "That if any person was suspected of heresy, the ordinary [the bishop, or the one having jurisdiction in his stead] might detain them in prison, till they were canonically purged, or did abjure their errors; provided that the proceedings against them were publicly and judicially ended in three months. If they were convicted, the diocesan or his commissary might imprison or fine them at discretion. Those that refused to abjure their errors, or after abjuration relapsed, were to be delivered over to the secular power; and the mayors, sheriffs, or bailiffs, were to be present, if required, when

*Le Bas.

the bishop or his commissary passed sentence; and after sentence they were to receive them, and in some high place, burn them to death before the people."—(Neale.)

"By this law," says Neale," the king's subjects were put from under his protection, and left to the mercy of the bishops in their spiritual courts; and might, upon suspicion of heresy, be imprisoned and put to death, without presentment or trial by a jury, as is the practice in all criminal cases." The Bishop's suspicion stood instead of an indictment; the bishop's suspicion was instead of proof, unless the suspected person could purge himself; the bishop's judgment was the sole test of what constituted heresy; he was accuser, jury, and judge; and who could stand against the suspicious displeasure of a brutish and incensed bishop?

Nor was this law sufficient; for in the beginning of the reign of Henry V. who ascended the throne A.D. 1413, it was further enacted, "That whosoever they were, that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs for ever, and be considered heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land."

Such was the state of religious liberty in England, in the glorious conquering times of Henry V. Nor were these laws left to be a mere terror. By law it was made a part of the sheriff's oath," that he would seek to repress all errors and heresies, commonly called Lollards:" " and it is," says Toulmin, "a striking instance of the permanent footing which error and iniquity gain when once established by law, that this clause was preserved in the oath long after the Reformation, even to the 1st of Charles I., when Sir Edward Coke, on being appointed sheriff of the county of Buckingham, objected to it, and ever since, it has been left out."

The wrongs inflicted, the sufferings endured under these laws can never be told. There were no historians among the poor victims of these oppressions to register their tears and to chronicle the months of their imprisonment. From the beginning of these persecutions to the accession of Henry VIII., a century rolled away. The witnesses were slain. The rising light was quenched in blood. Darkness, almost unbroken, reigned once more over the land. Rome and the Romish clergy of England rejoiced once more in a reign unbroken and undisturbed.

But if there were no historians to chronicle the sufferings of them who loved the Word of God, the public records tell what public records may disclose, of their afflictions even unto death. Hundreds of examples are on record in which men and women were, on suspicion of heresy, seized, imprisoned, tortured, buried in their dungeons, or given to the flames.

We pass now over the reign of five kings, occupying the space of more than a century; a century of darkness, superstition, commotions, and blood: but days of fatness and rejoicing for the bishops and the Pope. We come to the times of Henry VIII., and to the occurrences of his eventful reign:-we come to the time when the morning star of the Reformation was rising in Germany, in the beginning of the 16th century. The art of printing had now been invented; and letters were reviving. A new world had just been discovered; and the old began to awake from its long and leaden slumbers. Men began to think, to inquire, and to enter upon fields of new and startling enterprise : sad omens for the reign of popish superstition and intolerance. It needed only that the Gospel should once more spring to light; and the contest must commence in which Rome could no longer prove victorious. The causes of that long night of ignorance and superstition were sure to be investigated. The sources of spiritual despotism were to be explored. Lordly prelates, whose dominion stood in usurpation and superstition, would be sure to resist the progress of popular liberty; till, in the course of that struggle, their own claims should be canvassed, their authority questioned and thrown aside.

Such was the progress of light and freedom. The Reformers cast off the doctrinal errors of Popery. Another struggle between prelatical oppressions and usurpations on the one hand and the rights of conscience on the other, raised up the Puritans. The progress of their principles gave to England whatever of freedom it possesses that is worthy of the name; and crossing the Atlantic, originated the institutions of our own happy Republic.

III.

REIGN OF KING HENRY VIII.

The King and Martin Luther. The King's Bible. Articles. dition of a Christian man." Only two orders of the ministry recognized as of Divine right, in the days of Henry, or in the succeeding age. Evidence collected by Stillingfleet. The Bloody Statute. Bible forbidden. Estimate of the Reformation under Henry.

He assumes the Supremacy of the Church "Institution of a Christian man." "Eru

THERE was still subsisting in England, much of the leaven of the Reformation infused by Wickliffe, when news came of similar truths breaking forth and spreading under the labors of the Reformers in Germany.

To the spread of the new heresy, or rather to the revival of the old doctrine of Wickliffe, King Henry VIII. opposed the whole weight of his absolute power. But why should not the king,who had been bred a scholar, and who had already been flattered into the conceit of unequalled abilities and learning;-why should not the king reap also some glory in the field of literature and theology? He descended into the arena to break a lance with the great Reformer of Wittemberg; whose onset no learning of the doctors, nor even the thunders of the Vatican, had been able to withstand.

The drama of the Reformation in England opened by a book from King Henry VIII. in defence of the Seven Sacraments of the Church, against the heresies of Martin Luther. What was to be expected? The book was lauded as the perfection of wisdom, and the end of disputation. "Nor was it a performance," says Hume, “which, if allowance be made for the age, does discredit to his capacity." The king sent a copy to the Pope, "who received so magnificent a present with great testimony of regard," and conferred on the king the title of "Defender of the faith;" a title which even down to the present century, the Protestant sovereigns of England continued to wear.

But what cared Luther for kingly arguments? The might of monarchs lies in their power to command,-in their armies and fleets. When a sovereign descends into the arena of intellectual strife, he comes single-handed, in the simple strength of