The Popish emissaries boast that Popery is as ancient as Christianity. So far is this from being true, that during the first six hundred years after Christ there was no such thing as Popery in the world. Nay, Doctor Wickliffe maintained, that it had no being until after the loosing of Satan in the second millenary. JOHN LEWIS. As for JOHN WICKLIFFE, JOHN HUSS, VALDO, and the rest, for aught I know, and I believe, setting malice aside, for aught you know, they were godly men. Their greatest heresie was this, that they complained of the dissolute and vicious lives of the clergy, of worshipping images, of fained miracles, of the tyrannical pride of the pope, of monks, friers, pardons, pilgrimages, and purgatory, and other like deceiving and mocking of the people; and that they wished a reformation of the church. BISHOP JEWEL. JOHN WICKLIFFE'. AFTER al these heretofore recited', by whom (as ye have heard) it pleased the Lord something to worke against the bishop of Rome, and to weaken the pernicious superstition of the friers; it now remaineth consequently, following the course of yeares, orderly to enter into the storie and tractation of John Wickliffe our countriman, and other more of his time, and same countrie, whom the Lord (with the like zeale and power of spirit) raised up here in England, to detect more fully and amplie the poison of the pope's doctrine, and false religion set up by the friers. In whose opinions and assertions, albeit some blemishes perhaps may be noted; yet such blemishes they be which rather declare him to be a man that might erre, than which directly did fight against Christ our saviour, as the pope's proceedings and the friers did. -And what doctor or learned man hath been from the prime age of the church, so perfect, so absolutely sure, in whom no opinion hath sometime swerved awrie? And yet be the said articles of his, neither in number so many, nor yet so grosse in themselves and so cardinall, as those cardinall enemies of Christ perchance do give them out to be; if his books, which they 1 John Wickliffe.] On the history of Wickliffe, and his opinions, the reader may consult Harpsfield's Historia Hæresis Wiclevianæ, fol. 1622. James's Apologie for John Wickliffe, shewing his conformitie with the now Church of England, 4to. 1608; Tanner's Bibliotheca, p. 767-772; Wharton's Appendix to Cave's Historia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 60–65; Lewis's History of the Life and Sufferings of John Wickliffe, 8vo. 1723, and 1820: and the Life of Reynold Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph, 8vo. 1744, and 1820, by the same author. 2 Heretofore recited.] Robert Grosthed, bishop of Lincoln; Richard Fitzralph, archbishop of Armagh; Nicolas Orem; the author of the Prayer and Complaint of the Plowman and others. abolished, were remaining to be conferred with those blemishes, which they have wrested to the worst, as evil will never said the best. This is certaine, that he being the publike reader of divinitie* in the universitie of Oxford, was for the rude time wherein he 3 His books, which they abolished.] These endeavours to abolish were by a constitution of archbishop Arundel (A.D. 1408), and by other expedients of a like nature, of which we shall hear more in the course of this life. Bishop Burnet having, in his History of the Reformation, made a reflection similar to this of Fox, is animadverted upon by the severe pen of Henry Wharton, in the following terms: "It seeins the historian knew not any certain means of gaining information of Wickliffe's true opinions; but when he would include all others in the same ignorance of them, we must desire to be excused. We have as many of the works of Wickliffe yet extant, as, if printed together, would make four or five volumes in folio. And whether so many books be not sufficient to teach us his opinions, let the reader judge."-Specimen of Errors and Defects in the History of the Reformation, by Anth. Harmer. P. 16. Nor is there indeed now much occasion that we should have recourse even to manuscripts, to enable us to distinguish the real from the imputed doctrines of Wickliffe. The following works have been printed: Dialogorum, lib. 4. 1525 and 1753; Wickliffe's Wicket, 1546, &c.; Prologue to the Bible, under the title, Pathway to perfect Knowledge (if this be indeed Wickliffe's), 1550; Aphorismi Wicleviani, 1554; Complaint to the King and Parliament, with a Treatise against the Friars, 1608; Translation of the New Testament, 1731, fol. These, with the addition of the books mentioned in note (1), p. 167, and the third volume of Wilkins's Concilia, leave no longer much room to complain of deficiency of materials for information respecting the sentiments which he entertained in the principal heads of religion. Still, it is greatly to be wished, that much more of works, at once both so extraordinarily valuable and so curious, might be given to the world, carefully printed, from manuscripts still extant: and that, from among his Latin works, particularly the extensive treatise, "De Veritate Scripturæ," so often referred to by Dr. Thomas James in his Apology for Wickliffe, might be one of the first. Of this work, a copy, perhaps the only perfect one, exists in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. A full account of the famous MS. of Wicliffe in Trinity College, which once belonged to Sir Robert Cotton, has been given by Dr. J. H. Todd, Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, in the preface to Wicliffe's "Apology for Lollard Doctrines," printed for the Camden Society, in 1842. Dr. Todd had previously printed, in 1840, "The Last Age of the Church," and has recently printed, in 1851, "Three Treatises: I. Of the Church and her Members: II. Of the Apostacy of the Church: III. Of Antichrist and his Meynee." Dublin. sm. 4to. All of these are taken from the same MS. A complete edition of the Wicliffite version of the Old and New Testament was published by the University of Oxford in 1850, 4 vols. 4to. 4 Reader of divinitie.] Wickliffe was born, probably, about the year 1324; and he began to deliver Theological Lectures in 1372, in the reign of Edward III. Lewis's History, p. 1 and 18. |