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IV.

tisfying the people, that they i highly provoked them; and CHAP. that accordingly they frequently railed against them in the open streets, in such expressions as are above mentioned.

Dict. Theol.

MS.

10. Among the grievances now rehearsed, in order to increase the popular discontents, (as it is the point of those, whose business it is to court the favour of the people for unwarrantable ends, to steal upon their blind side, and apply to their affections and vicious inclinations,) it was industriously given out, that the great men at court Gascoigne, were so far from being well affected to the Clergy, as to wish there was not one preacher of the word in England; that since the King's reign there were none preferred in the Church, but ignorant and wicked men; that appro priations, pluralities, and non-residencies were very much multiplied and increased; and that our Universities were so much corrupted, as to grant graces to, and confer degrees on, the most unworthy and vicious men. If these things were generally believed by the people, and they were by them prejudiced and disaffected to the Bishops and Clergy of that time, it is not to be wondered at, if our Bishop's attempts to vindicate them were not well taken, and did not please the populace; since by his Lordship's being an advocate for them, he might be thought to approve these abuses, and be a patron of the grievances, of which so much complaint had been made. But this is very different from the Bishop's being the real cause of these tumults, by his intending to stir up the people, and set them against the government both in Church and State.

11. About this time our Bishop, who still continued his studies and labours to reduce the dissenting Lollards to the communion of the Established Church, published a book in English, which his Lordship called, A Treatise of Faith. It is a dialogue betwixt a father and his son, di

i Pecockii conciones tum alibi passim, tum Londini præsertim, habitæ tantam Episcopis invidiam cumularant, ut eosdem his frequenter verbis proscinderent; Væ Episcopis qui ditantur, qui volunt vocari domini, et ut eis serviatur genibus Alexis, &c.

IV.

CHAP. vided into two books; whereof the first professeth to treat of the most probable means of gaining over the Lollards to the Church, which he assigns to be an entire submission of their judgment to the decrees of the Church, or Clergy, although supposed fallible; or, as his Lordship expresses himself, a following the determinations and the holdings of the Church in mater of feith, unless we can demonstrate their determinations to be wrong or mistaken, or can evidently and plainly without any doubt shew, that the Church hath determined that article untruly, and hath no sufficient ground so to determine. This first book is chiefly taken up with a long digression, shewing that faith in this life is only probable, or opinional, not sciential, which, the Bishop says, is had in the bliss of heaven; or that the truth of the Christian religion cannot be proved by demonstrative, but only by probable arguments. This dispute his Lordship manages in a scholastic way, full of niceties and subtilties of philosophy and school divinity, which makes it very obscure. In the beginning of it his Lordship observes, how fruitlessly many have endeavoured to reduce the Lollards by this principle, that the Clergie, or the Chirche of the Clergie may not erre in matere of faith. Of any further attempt of compassing the thing in that method he utterly disapproves; for which he gives the following reasons. That this principle has too much the appearance of improbability to be taken for granted: that many laymen of strong parts and high reputation will never tamely submit to any such principle: that a colourable opposition may be made against it from the writings of many celebrated Doctorsk: lastly, that this presuppos

k Gerson distinguished betwixt the universal Church and the Church which is called Apostolical, which is a particular Church, and comprehended in the Church universal, viz. the Pope, Cardinals, Archbishops, Prelates, Ecclesiastics, which according to custom was called the Church of Rome. The universal Church, he said, according to tradition, could not err, nor fail, neither deceive nor be deceived; but as for the other, it might err and fail, deceive and be deceived. See Mr. Wharton's Preface to the Bishop's Treatise of Faith, printed 1688.

IV.

ing the infallibility of the Church, or of the Clergy, appears CHAP. exceeding partial on the Clergy's side, and sets the laity against them, as being biassed and not indifferent judges in their own cause. And, therefore, says the Bishop, to allege the seid meene into eeris of the seid laymen is not expedient into her conversioun. After these preliminaries the Bishop proceeds to open his own purpose and design in these words. Wherfore y unworthiest and yongist and lougist of Prelatis- -entende and purpos in this present book for to mete agens suche unobediencers another way and in another maner, and bi meene which the lay-persoonys wole admit and graunte; which meene is this: That we * owen to bileeve and stond to sum seier or techer, * ought. which may faile, while it is not known, that thilk seyer or techer therynne fallith.-The second part of this treatise treateth of the rule of faith. In it the Bishop shews, that holy Writ is the chief and principal ground of all the faith which is contained in it, or the only rule or standard of revealed and supernatural truths.

12. The authority of the Church or Clergy, and infallibility of their determinations, had of late (since Dr. Wiclif's translating the holy Scripture into English, and contending that Christ's law sufficeth by itself to rule Christ's Church) been carried very high, and looked upon as the most successful engine against the prevailing growth of condemned heresy; insomuch that our Bishop assures us, ́ in the first part of this treatise of his, that some divines argued from those words of St. Paul, if we, or an angel Gal. i. 8. from heaven, should teach any other doctrine than that which ye have received, let him be anathema, that if it should happen that the Church militant and the Church triumphant disagreed in an article of faith, the determination of the Church militant was rather to be followed.

1 Of this opinion the Council of Constance seems to have been, which sat Session xxi. but a little before our Bishop's time, viz. 1416, in which was this remarkable decree passed: "That although Christ had instituted the Sacrament of "the Eucharist to be received in both kinds, and the primitive Church re"tained the same manner of administering it; yet notwithstanding the custom

IV.

Wharton,
Pref. p. 35.

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CHAP. Nay, his Lordship shews in the second part of this treatise, that it was maintained, that "holy Scripture is not, nor was not the ground of faith to any persons believ"ing; but that the Clergy of holy Church is worthier, mightier, and of greater authority, than is Scripture, or "at least, of even worthiness, power, might, and authority, "with holy Scripture of the New Testament." But such crude positions as these, though they might raise the wonder and admiration of fools, deserved the contempt and indignation of wiser men. Our Bishop therefore set himself to refute them in this part of his treatise, and to shew, that "holy Writ is such a ground and foundement of oure "Cristen general faith, that noon gretter or bettir or surer "to us ground or foundement is for our Cristen general "faith written in holy Writ."

than.

13. At this time great were the follies, and very gross the superstitions, which had crept by degrees into religion, and at last so much prevailed as quite to supplant it, and establish themselves in its room; and what added to the mischief was, Christians being grown so very insensible of their danger, as on the brink of death to fancy themselves alive and well, and therefore, instead of seeking for a cure, to detest all remedies, and do all they could to continue and propagate the distemper. For this purpose was even the service or common prayers of the Church corrupted, by placing in the breviary uncertain stories, and legends of the saints m. Stories, if we may believe a Cardinal of the Roman Church, and our own eyes, that " were written "with so little care or choice, that they had neither auWharton, thority nor gravity." In the same manner was their Pref. p. 86. preaching so far corrupted and abused, that all the greater and more necessary articles of faith, and all genuine and rational knowledge of Christianity, had gene

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"of the Church, according to which it was to be received by the laity under "the species of bread only, was to be observed."

m Historiæ sanctorum quædam tam incultæ et tam sine delectu scriptæ habentur in eodem, ut nec auctoritatem habere videantur nec gravitatem. Quignonii Breviarium Romanum recogn. Paris. 1548.

IV.

rally given place to fabulous legends and romantic sto- CHAP. ries; fables which in this respect only differed from those of the ancient heathen poets, that they were more incredible and less elegant. The preachers of those times, as has been observed before, were for the most part the Monks and Friars, who never scrupled lying for the honour of their saints and patrons; for which at length they were become so famous, that it was a proverb, among the better sort however,

This man is a Frier,
Therfor he is a lier.

With these fables and romances they constantly stuffed their sermons, which by the credulous multitude were therefore the more admired, since they were now ignorant enough to believe any lie. Our Bishop too well saw the mischievous consequences of these false harangues, not to shew his dislike of them. He therefore arraigned them of error, heresy, and superstition, and did all he could to expose their folly, styling the preachers themselves pulpit- Clamitabawlers.

14. Our Bishop's thus mincing the authority of the Clergy, by granting, though only for argument sake, the fallibility of their determinations; his candour and moderation towards the poor dissenting Lollards, in treating them with so much gentleness and goodness, as patiently to hear their objections and scruples, without either insulting or abusing them; his regard to the laity in affording them the means of better knowledge", by writing in English, a language which they understood; and the contempt and dislike which he shewed of the pious fraud of legends; soon drew upon his Lordship the envy and ha

n The people were so termed from the A. S. lepede, ignorant, as much as to say the ignorant ones. Hence our Bishop Bilson, " I call no man laie in " contempt or derogation either of his gifts, or of that state in which I know "the Church of God hath always had and hath many grave and worthy men, "fit for their wisdom and gravity to bear as great or greater charge than Cler66 gymen." Perpetual Government, &c. p. 144.

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