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John Aston affirms the subject to be one which passes his comprehension; and it is quite impossible that Nicolas of Hertford can have made the abjuration set down for him, because he immediately, according to the same author, hastened to Rome and laid his tenets before the Pope, who, with the advice of the conclave, condemned them as heretical, and declared him deserving of death, but only cast him into prison because he was an English subject, and his country had taken Urban's part against Clement. In that confinement Nicolas lingered, till, in the course of a popular tumult, his prison was broken open, and he made his escape; but, returning to England, he was condemned by the Primate to perpetual imprisonment.' So that nothing can be more clear than the total impossibility of the account being true which Knighton gives of his abjuration. We may further bear in mind that Wycliffe himself did not escape punishment by his explanations; for he was expelled from Oxford, and never more suffered to lecture nor even reside there.

The charge, then, of having abjured their opinions, appears in no sense to be justly made against those pious men and when Knighton taunts them with escaping death by their recantation, he forgets that up to the period in question no one had ever suffered capitally for heresy, nor was there, until the beginning of the following reign, any law passed to punish it capitally.

H. Knighton, 2657.

Upon leaving Oxford, Wycliffe retired to his living at Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where he remained during the rest of his days; but he was not put to silence by anything that had passed. His health, indeed, suffered from the trouble into which he had been thrown, and a paralytic affection seized him. some time before his last illness, which was a more serious attack of the same disorder. He continued, however, to preach, and to labour, both by his writings and his instructions, until visited with the seizure which proved fatal to his life. stricken with apoplexy on St.

He was

Thomas's

1384.

Day, while preparing to preach in his church: and, after lying paralyzed for a week, he expired on the last day of the year.

When we consider the early period at which he appeared, and how strong a hold the doctrines which he assailed had universally obtained over the minds of men, Wycliffe must be ranked among the most remarkable of those who are entitled to the highest of all fame, that of being greatly in advance of their age. The tenets of the Waldenses in the eleventh century, and their persecutions in the twelfth, had neither shaken the general belief in the errors of Rome, nor lessened the homage yielded to the Pope; and indeed those well meaning enthusiasts rather differed in their practice than in their opinions from the surrounding nations. Lolhard some time after had suffered for heresy in Bohemia, and had many followers who dissented from the orthodox faith, making no

stand, however, against the abuses of Rome. But when Wycliffe began his spiritual and political warfare, he found the successor of St. Peter universally acknowledged as the delegate of Heaven, with absolute dominion over the opinions and consciences of mankind; endowed by common consent with ample prerogatives, even of a secular description; and exercising no very limited jurisdiction over the temporal princes of the world. The dogmas most cherished by the Holy See, those most connected with its political usurpation, and those most conducive to the power of its priesthood, had never been assailed, or even questioned, unless by recluse men of learning, who ventured not to communicate their doubts; or, if one had attacked the abuses of the mendicant friars, another the imposition of indulgences, the stride was prodigious from such unconnected inroads to that general invasion of the whole system, its doctrines and its practice, its authority and its hierarchy, the title of its chief and the life of its ministers, which has made the name of Wycliffe so illustrious among the teachers of mankind.

Even if we compare him with Luther, in one only particular can he be said to fall short of that great Reformer-his success was more limited. But this only renders his merit the more signal; for he failed, because he lived in a comparatively dark age; while Luther, coming later by a century and a half, had for his allies the general cultivators of learning, and the powerful agency of the press, beside profiting

by the previous labours of Wycliffe and his followers. It is indeed to be borne in mind, that Zuinglius had planted the Reformation in Switzerland before Luther began his work in Germany; and had at this early period even shaken off many Romish errors, which clung by Luther to the end of his life.

If in other respects we compare Wycliffe with his illustrious successor, we shall find in both the same fixed determination to suffer no intrusion of any human authority between man and his Maker. This is the grand principle of the Reformation, the distinguishing mark of dissent from the Romish church; and it at once emancipates from all religious thraldom, severs the clerical from the political office, confines the priest within the natural limits of his functions, and, by introducing Scripture as sole arbiter in religious controversy, secures the entire system from theological error. But in following this great doctrine into its consequences, the two Reformers so far differed, that Luther chiefly attacked the polity of Rome and the various devices of her priestcraft; while Wycliffe, without neglecting that branch of the subject, carried his inquiries more largely into the corruptions of the faith. In discharging the duty of preaching, and in furthering the study of the Scriptures, both were alike exemplary; but Wycliffe composed more discourses, and he completed himself the translation of the Bible, parts only of which Luther attempted.' In their possession of great

I Note XIV.

learning, in their acquaintance with polemical divinity, in their skilful management of all controversial weapons, these great men were equally eminent; but it is remarkable, that he who lived in the earlier age, and in the ruder state of society, was the less coarse and vulgar in the language of his invective, and the more guarded and dignified in his demeanour as a disputant. He also showed less intolerance of any difference in theological opinion. Luther even made up his mind to risk the failure of his whole enterprise rather than receive into his fellowship Zuinglius, who had cast off errors of Romanism, to which himself still adhered.

The courage that inspired both Reformers to break loose from the papacy, supported them in sustaining long continued conflicts with the secular arm. But Wycliffe, though he never made any recantation, yet showed a disposition to reconcile his doctrines with those of orthodox believers, when he was abandoned by his patron, Lancaster; whereas Luther never betrayed the least desire to soften the shades of his dissent a merit of the highest order, though rendered somewhat easier by the advantage which he enjoyed above his predecessor, of steady support from the Elector of Saxony. The temporal lot of the

Robertson (ch. v. 11) excuses the coarseness of Luther by referring to the unpolished age he lived in. But clearly the chivalrous spirit, then more powerful and more general than in our day, would rather have tended to restrain the licence of abuse in controversy, unless we suppose that churchmen were without the pale of those rules; and if so, they were, more than even in later times, within the pale of a peaceful and self-denying rule.

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