СНАР. Such, reader, is the clumsy tale related by Walsingham, on this subject, who is nevertheless the best authority to be adduced on this matter by the enemies of the lollards. Mr. Turner's observations on the passage are as follows. "On "this account we may remark, that it is a series "of supposition, rumour, private information, 'apprehension, and anticipation. That the king "was acted upon by some secret agents is clear, "that the plots asserted, were really formed, "there is no evidence. The probability is, that Henry's generous and lofty mind was found "to start at the violences which the bigotry of "the papal clergy had resolved upon, and that "artful measures were taken to alarm it into anger "and cruelty by charges of treason, rebellion, and "meditated assassination." It was important to render the lollards odious, both to the government and to the nation, before proceeding to those desperate measures which afforded the only hope of subduing them; and by this artifice, stale as it was in all its parts, the end proposed was too nearly obtained. An act was now passed, which identified heresy with 28 Hist. ii. 453. Such also is the judgment of Rapin. It is to the men who have most corrupted Christianity, and to those who treat it as a lie, that the rumours opposed to the reputation of the christian reformers have always been most acceptable. By this holy alliance much has been done, and is still doing, to put down the religion of the gospels. A comparison of the pages of David Hume, and those of our contemporary Dr. Lingard, as far as they relate to the character of Sir John Oldcastle, will confirm this assertion. The same will apply also to their accounts of Wycliffe. But I cannot forbear to remark, that the censure considered due to such writers, is feeble, when compared with that which is merited by the Milners. (Church History, Art. Wickliffe.) Their querelous abuse of our reformer must occur to every candid man as strangely childish and contradictory. IX. treason; and lord Cobham, who was apprehended CHAP. about three years later, was sentenced to die, according to the penalties of this frightful statute. At the place of execution, he renewed his exhortations to the people to follow their priests, but as their life and doctrine should be conformable to the word of God. The proffered service of a confessor, he rejected, affirming that the duty of confession was one to be performed to God only; and while the surrounding clergy warned the spectators against praying for the sufferer, because evidently condemned of heaven, the object of their enmity, in the spirit of a better faith, was heard to pray aloud for the salvation of his persecutors. To be hung in chains, as a traitor; and at the same time, slowly consumed to ashes as a heretic, was the appaling sentence pronounced on Sir John Oldcastle. And thus he perished, attributing the formation of his religious character, to the labours of Wycliffe, evincing a spirit of fortitude which none of his adversaries could have surpassed, and a generosity of temper which formed no part of their nature.29 The men who knew the innocence and the worth of this illustrious sufferer, would reflect on this deed of blood, and become more confirmed in their abhorrence of the usurpation from which 29 Rot. Parl. 107-110. State Trials, i. 50. Stowe, 335. Holin. 561. Hall, 58. Godwin's Henry V. Walsingham states that his defence before the parliament was a lecture on the duty of forgiveness, and that he concluded by asserting his allegiance to Richard, whom he declared to be alive in Scotland. It is highly probable that the opportunity of reiterating his doctrines before that assembly would not be unimproved, and that he should avow himself a traitor in the hope of escaping the penalties of treason, would hardly occur as a difficulty to the genius of Walsingham, IX. CHAP. it had proceeded. Their children, too would be taught to imbibe a deeper, and a holier hatred, of that worldly hierarchy which could descend to such atrocities to preserve its power. We may remark, also, that in England, the principles of the reformation had never been peculiar to the mind of the poor; and that from this period, to perish in their cause, was to become allied to the privileged and the noble. Nor would it be proper to conclude a work of this description, without reminding the reader, that if the corruption of christianity has proceeded to so painful an extent from the unfaithfulness of its accredited ministers, it is to the same order of men that we are chiefly indebted for the restoration of its purity. Let it never be forgotten, that in its earlier history, it was announced to the world by men in whose character, its better tendencies were all beautifully exhibited; and that if that apostacy of which Rome has long been the centre, arose from the lust and perfidy of priests, it is with that class of men that we must associate the names of Wycliffe, and Latimer, Luther, and Melancthon, Zuingluis, and Knox. If it was reserved to the evil passions of that order to impose on men the heaviest yoke, that has oppressed them; to the generosity, and enterprise of priests, the noblest deliverance achieved for human nature must be mainly attributed. In these later times, there are quarters, in which if priestcraft has slain its thousands, laycraft had slain its tens of thousands. From the eighth century to the sixteenth, the principles of the protestant reformation were all really advancing, notwithstanding the retrogade IX. appearance of things at certain intervals. The CHAP. stand made by the Paulicians, was surpassed by that of the Waldenses. By the labours of Wycliffe, a still more sensible movement toward the renovation of Christendom was effected; and a man needed not the spirit of prophecy to anticipate the rise of Zuingluis and Luther, from the ashes of Huss and Jerome. Each swell in the coming tide, retreated apparently quite to the point from which it had commenced, but each was more powerful than the former, and bespoke the certain influx of the mighty waters. CHAPTER X. CHAP. X. ON THE WRITINGS OF JOHN WYCLIFFE, D. D. THE writings of Wycliffe are most of them well known, from the notices which occur in the numerous documents relating to the measures which were designed to suppress them. Where this kind of evidence fails; their contents, and the freedom with which certain parts of any popular treatise were repeated in others, affords the necessary aid. Such pieces as have been improperly attributed to him, and such as rest on suspicious evidence, are placed together, and noticed accordingly. It was affirmed by an english prelate, soon after the decease of Wycliffe, that his works were quite as voluminous, as those of Augustine.1 A similar statement was made, and as the result of personally inspecting them, by the learned Henry Warton. Accordingly we find that in Bohemia, they were so numerous, that more than two hundred volumes, many of them richly decorated, were committed to the flames by Subinco Lepus, bishop of Prague. Among these, 2 1 Cochleus. Hist. Huss. lib. i. Antho. Har. Specimen, &c. 16. |