about his parish, staff in hand, and bare-footed; so that, in truth, he rather exceeded his principles in the rigidity of his life, than fell short of them; for he insisted that the laborer was worthy of his hire; that the preacher of the gospel ought to be comfortably supported, but not luxuriously.*

* Wickliffe was the contemporary and personal friend of "the father of English poetry, and the brightest ornament of Edward's [1II.] court."-Geoffrey Chaucer. The poet is said to have been a Wickliffite, and to have suffered for his principles. "A recent intelligent writer," says the London and Westminister Review, "recognizes Wickliffe in the character drawn by the poet, of the parish priest."

"A good man there was of religion,

He was a poor parson of a town,

But rich he was of holy thought and werk
He was also a learned man, a clerk,
That Criste's gospel trewely wolde preche;
His parishens devoutly wolde he tech.
Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversitie full patient;

And swiche he was yproved often sithes,
Ful loth were him to cursen for his tithes,
But rather wolde he geven out of doute
Of his offring and eke of his substance.
He could in letle thing have suffisance;
Wide was his parish and houses far asonder,
But he ne left nought for no rain ne thunder.
In sickeness and in mischeefe to visite
The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite,
Upon his fete and in his hand a staff.
But it [if?] were any person obstinat,
What so he were of highe or low estat,

Him wolde he snibben sharply for the nones."

See Hippisley's Chapters on Early Eng. Literature.' See also, Le Bas, p. 198. I have followed Hippisley in the orthography except in the first two lines, that the reader may have a specimen of the English of the fourteenth century.

What has now been said of Wickliffe, will enable the reader to estimate the character and opinions of this great Reformer. He exerted a powerful influence in preparing the way for the Reformation, which took place in England some ages after he had been gathered to his fathers. His writings, many of which were small tracts, were exceedingly voluminous, and were scattered by hundreds-yea thousands-all over the kingdom. These breathed into the nation a spirit as adverse to popery, as it was favorable to thorough Protestantism.

It cannot be questioned, that, had Wickliffe been permit. ted to reform the English church as he wished, he would have laid the axe at the root of the tree. He would never have been contented with rejecting the mother, and adopting the daughter. Had his brawny arm been employed in cleaning the Augean stable of the English prelates, he would have made clean-riddance of all the filth of popery. There would have been none of that timid, temporizing, trimming work which was seen in later reformers. He would, undoubtedly, have taken the beautifully simple model of an apostolic church for his pattern; and have constructed the outward order, as well as the religious faith of the church, after the same divine pattern. Milner's estimate of the Reformer's notions of "external reformation," seem clearly to intimate his belief of this. He tells us, that he would have "erred in the extreme of excess," had he been permitted to carry out his notions of church reform. Le Bas evidently rejoices with trembling to think what the church of England escaped, by not having been reformed by the strong arm of Wickliffe. He says: he 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

"Had

the ruins." And the ground of these "awful misgivings" of the good churchman are very clearly exhibited, when he says:-"If the reformation of our church had been conducted by Wickliffe, his work, in all probability, would nearly have anticipated the labors of Calvin; and the Protestantism of England might have pretty closely resembled the Protestantism of Geneva."

And when he adds, that, as one fruit of this reformation "Episcopal government might have been discarded;" one who has contemplated the manifold evils of that "Episcopal government" which the Reformation has entailed upon England, can hardly refrain from exclaiming, O that Wickliffe had succeeded in his scriptural labors !

And when the professor speaks of another of the evils which might have resulted from the execution of Wickliffe's plan of reformation-" the clergy might have been consigned to a degrading [!] dependence on their flocks". no good Congregationalist can sympathize at all, with his "awful misgivings." Least of all, can any of the thousands, who for centuries have groaned under the oppressive burden of the English national church establishment.

As a confirmation of this general train of remark respecting the reformatory principles of Wickliffe, and as a good specimen of the style in which the lovers of" The Establish ment" allow themselves to speak, I will quote one paragraph more from Le Bas: "Had Wickliffe flourished in the sixteenth century, it can hardly be imagined that he would have been found under the banners of Cranmer and of Ridley. Their caution, their patience, their moderation, would scarcely have been intelligible to him; and rather than conform to it, he might, perhaps, have been ready, if needful, to perish, in the gainsaying [!!] of such men as At all events, it must plainly be con

Knox or Cartwright.

fessed, 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 [our Jezebel] 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 church of England must rejoice with trembling, that the work of her final deliverance was not consigned to him.”*

The almost contemptuous style in which this writer is pleased to speak of the Puritans of the sixteenth century, deserves special notice. These men who are sneered at as gainsayers, by an English churchman of the nineteenth century, are the very men whom an infidel historian is constrained to honor as the preservers of the precious spark of English liberty!-Yes, and of English Protestantism too.But more of this anon.

Such was John Wickliffe-in character and in principle -a great man, and a good man. A reformer of the purest intentions, and of the soundest general principles. The Bible was the lamp by which he sought for truth. The Bible was the rod by which he would have measured everything pertaining to the church; this was the standard to which he would have reduced the outward form and order, and indeed, the entire polity of the church. He would not have exposed the church of England to the taunt of one of her most eloquent statesment-of having “an Arminian clergy and a popish liturgy." He would have left none of the elements of popery in the constitution and ceremonies of the church; he would have purged out thoroughly all that leaven of impurity, which, to this very day, is working death in the English church. The Oxfordism which

* Le Bas "Life of Wiclif, p. 325.

+ Chatham.

It has recently been asserted in the public prints, that it is no

now threatens her peace-yea, her very Protestantism,would have found no hiding places in the plain, and simple, and scriptural building which Wickliffe would have reared.

The time, however, had not then arrived-when the English nation were fully prepared for so great a deliverance. Neither indeed, has it yet fully come. But the day of her redemption is, we trust, drawing on—yea, beginning to dawn.

The manner in which the principles of Wickliffe were treated, and his followers persecuted, must receive attention before we enter upon other scenes to which the labors of the Reformer were a prelude.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LOLLARDS.*— PERSECUTION.

It has been repeatedly intimated in the course of the preceding pages-that Wickliffe was not alone in the reception of the principles which have been ascribed to him.

uncommon thing to find crucifixes and pictures of the Virgin Mary, in the rooms of the students of Oxford University.

* The term Lollard, or Lollhard, appears to have been a title of contempt, affixed to such dissenters as were specially averse to the impositions of popery. In other words, it was a nickname given the friends of God, by the worshippers of the pope.

Mosheim supposes that the name was derived from the German "lullen, lollen, or lallen, and the well known termination-hard, which is subjoined to so many German words." The word lollen, or lullen, signifies in German, to sing with a low voice; hence our English word lull; as to lull asleep. A Lullen, therefore, was a