England and France under the House of Lancaster.

411

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 two men differed accordingly. Luther gave up all preferment, and indeed surrendered entirely his station in the church which he opposed. Wycliffe retained both his parochial and cathedral benefices to the end of his life.'-Pp. 26, 27.

Now, this is precisely the point which we desire to discuss; and we desire it so much the more with a view to its possible bearing on the present state of religion on the Continent. The question is, whether members of the Catholic Church in Western Europe who may now be dissatisfied with the state of religion amongst them, ought to be exhorted to set up a new religion for themselves, or to endeavour to reform the system in which they are providentially placed. We are not concerned at this moment with Luther's conduct, but with Wycliffe's; and we would invite attention to the question which we propose, whether there was anything in his opinions which rendered it imperative with him to quit the communion to which he belonged, so that we must impute to him anything of cowardice or time-serving in having retained his preferments, and continued to officiate as a priest of the Catholic Church. And it must be observed, that if such were his duty, it would have been the first instance of such a line of conduct in the history of the Christian Church. The conduct of the Donatists, and other sectaries or heretics, in the earlier ages, is not a case in point, since they had bishops with them; and it was a question between them and the Catholics, which party was the true Church. And this is, at least, alleged to have been the case with the Vaudois, if their claim to antiquity be admitted, which also is a point on which we do not enter here.

And, in the first place, it is not surprising that we should find enumerated by M. Merle d'Aubigné, among the points of Wycliffe's doctrine for which he is to be admired, the assertion that in the primitive Church there were but two orders, the priest and the deacon; the presbyter and the bishop were but one.' He refers to the 4th book of Wycliffe's dialogues, where we find, indeed, words to that effect. And although other words in the same passage might not be so acceptable to this writer, we do not pretend to deny that such was Wycliffe's opinion. He says, indeed, as follows:- That which is called

1 Merle d'Aubigné, v. 121.

order is the power given to the cleric by God, through the ' ministry of the bishop, in order to his rightly ministering for the Church. And this order is commonly given at a holy 'time, with solemn fasting, with masses, and other rites, (by him, query) who solemnizes towards or for the Church that episcopal ministry." And although he subsequently expresses the opinion that in the primitive Church, or in the time of Paul, two orders sufficed, viz. priest, "sacerdos," and deacon,' and that in that time presbyter' and bishop was the same, it is sufficiently plain from what has been here quoted, that he had no intention to abolish the office of a bishop, but that he contended, as some in our own Church, and some in primitive times have also held, though we believe erroneously, that the divine office of the priesthood is one, the bishop being merely one of the holy function set over his brethren. He elsewhere defended this opinion, as we know, on the authority of Hugh de St. Victor, a doctor of Paris, two centuries before him; and it was held also by the Anglo-Saxon, Elfric. So that, although we believe the opinion to be wrong, we are not, therefore, bound to conclude that it was such an opinion as was inconsistent with his remaining in the Church, still less is it such as to give countenance to those who would dispense with bishops altogether.

There is, however, another accusation very commonly believed against Wycliffe, which would place his conduct, in this respect, in a different light;-we mean that of having himself presumed to confer holy orders on his followers, and of having thus set the first example of presbyterian ordination. It will not seem very probable to any who have read the above extracts from his writings, that he should have committed this presumption; but whether he did so is a question of fact, and as such we propose to deal with it.

The history of his 'Poor Priests' is one of the most interesting connected with his life and his opinions. They are thus described by the author before us :—

'Nor did Wycliffe and his disciples, the "poor priests," neglect the means best suited to win the confidence and command the respect of the people. They affected the most primitive simplicity of manners; they appeared only in a coarse raiment of a russet hue, usually going about barefooted; they fed on the most frugal and homely fare; they partook of no popular amusements, nor assisted at any of the sports and revels in which the vulgar of the times so greatly delighted. Yet their demeanour was not harsh or repulsive-it was not even severe; their speech was rather winning and bland; and it was observed that they all used the same cast of language, expounding or declaiming in one common style. Though

1 J. Wiclefi Dialogorum 1. iv. c. xv. p. 124. Ed. 1525.

they held that marriage was not merely permitted to ministers of the Gospel, but enjoined to the same extent in their case as in that of all others, yet they abstained from it when the indulgence seemed likely to interfere with their sacred functions. They diligently traversed the country in all directions, exhorting and teaching in private, comforting the sick, sustaining the dying, inveighing, with unprecedented boldness, against the corruptions of the Church, as well as the vices of her clergy; above all, instant in season and out of season, in regularly preaching the word, and openly expounding the Scriptures.'-P. 8.

6

Our Swiss historian goes further, and represents him as reasoning with himself that if the monks (query friars) tra'verse the country, and preach everywhere the legends of the saints and the histories of the Trojan war (!!) it behoves us to do for the glory of God what they do to fill their bags; and to 'form a vast itinerant evangelical society, to convert souls to 'Jesus Christ. Wycliffe then addresses himself (continues this writer) to the more pious of his disciples: "Go," says he, "and preach: it is the sublimest of all employments; but do not imitate the priests whom one sees after their sermon sitting in the pot-houses, around the gaming-table, or squandering their time in the chase. You, after your preaching, visit 'the sick, the aged, the poor, the blind, the lame; and succour 'them according to your power." And he adds,- Such was the new practical theology that Wycliffe introduced: it was that of Jesus Christ.' We believe there is no authority for this speech, and we question if this classical style of imaginary harangues is suited to the genius, at least, of English readers. But we agree in the inference drawn from it; and we also concur in the opinion that this practice of sending out itinerant preachers to spread his opinions-a practice which had been previously adopted also by Berenger in France, in opposing transubstantiation-was probably copied from the practice of the friars, and was therefore the more successful, as being already familiar to the people. And this coincidence had been already pointed out by an English writer, who is quoted in the book before us.'

1

But that to which we propose especially now to address ourselves, is the question whether these preachers were persons in holy orders, assuming, under Wycliffe's advice, the right to exercise their function where and as they would; or whether they were laymen usurping the ministerial office. Even in the latter case, they would have had no lack of example in their great opponents the Franciscans. For when that order was first sanctioned by Innocent III., out of eleven brothers there was

1 Hist. de la Reformation, v. 102.

'Massingberd's Hist. of the Reformation, quoted in England and France,' p. 4.

1

but one who was a priest; and S. Francis was only then admitted to deacon's orders, while the rest were authorised to preach without being either priests or deacons. Nor is it possible, or even pretended, that when five thousand friars assembled at Assisi, twelve years after the institution of the order,' more than a mere fraction of them could have been in holy orders. And these things require to be borne in mind when we consider such questions.

But the assertion of Walsingham, that Wycliffe and his followers took upon them to confer holy orders, has no foundation in any contemporary document, and, as far as it can be so, is contradicted by those documents which exist. It is true that in the Lambeth registers many of those who were tried for heresy are described as 'pretended priests.' But it so happens, that in the case of several of these we are able to shew that they were actually ordained; and we are therefore driven to the conclusion that this was merely an official form of expression, arising from the unwillingness of the Church to recognise wicked men as priests. It is known that Sawtrey and Swinderby, among others, were certainly ordained; and yet this name of pre-' tended priest,' or pseudo presbyter, is given to both of them in' the archbishop's register. It is precisely in the same way that Dr. Wordsworth supposes S. Hippolytus to have spoken of the' popes Zephyrinus and Callistus, of whom he writes, that after the death of Zephyrinus, he (Callistus) imagined that he had gained the object of his ambition. ... which we learn,' he continues, from another part of the narrative, to have been the bishopric of Rome." And he assigns the following reason: he had called the orthodox Victor, Victor of blessed memory, Bishop of the Church.' But according to him, Zephyrinus and Callistus were heretics. They imagined themselves bishops. And so, when speaking of their false teaching, he would not call them bishops. He would not profane the title of bishop, by assigning it to the patrons of heresy,' &c.

If, then, such a practice may be supposed to have existed in primitive times, nothing is more likely than that it should be retained in legal documents, just as the practice of interceding for the life of the heretic, on delivering him over to the secular arm, was retained when he was delivered over in order to his being burnt.

Vita di S. Francisco, dal P. Candide Chalippe Recolletto.

2 Ibid.

3 Walsingham, p. 340, says that a Lollard confessed it to the Bishop of Salisbury.

Wordsworth's S. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome,' p. 82.

Ibid. p. 85.

But Walsingham also says that John Claydon, who was burnt in 1415, had made his own son a priest; and it appears to be on this authority that our author thus concludes his summary of the opinions of the Lollards :

'All indulgences they utterly rejected as corruption; confession and absolution they regarded as sinful, and even impious; pilgrimages, the invocation of saints, the keeping of saints'-days, the use of images in worship, they plainly treated as various forms of idolatry; all Church dignities, from that of the Pope down to the deanery, they considered unlawful innovations upon the primitive simplicity and purity of the Gospel dispensation. Oaths of every kind they held to be sinful. They denied that the clergy could lawfully hold any property; and what appears to have given more offence than all besides, they assumed the right of conferring holy orders, their priests, thus made, taking upon them every clerical function.'-Pp. 28, 29.

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Walsingham is referred to as the authority for this latter statement; and the writer afterwards says, that one William 'Claydon, for giving holy orders to his son, and making him 'celebrate mass on his wife's recovery from childbed, was cited, interrogated, and publicly burnt in London as a heretic.'(P.80.) We observed, in our former article on this book, that this writer appeared to us to have neglected to check Walsingham by the archbishop's registers in the Concilia Anglicana, of which this present instance is a remarkable example. The trial of Claydon took place under Archbishop Chicheley; and there exists in his register a very long record of it. He was a tradesman in London, and was accused, on the evidence of his own apprentices, of having a book read at his house to his servants and one or two friends, called The Lantern of Light, in which it was said that 'the pope is antichrist,' (or rather one form of antichrist,) and that faithful priests may preach in spite of the bishops.' This is just such a case out of which Walsingham might make what he would call holding a conventicle; and if the person who read the book aloud had sometimes been the poor man's son, this might be a ground for accusing him of having made his son a priest. But it is entirely inconceivable that such an accusation should have been overlooked at his trial, if there had been any ground for it; and the evidence, on the contrary, goes to shew that the book which he read merely contended, as Wycliffe had done, for the right of a priest to preach without the bishop's licence. We conclude, therefore, until some further evidence shall be produced, that this accusation of Walsingham's, however commonly received, is not supported by any sufficient testimony.

Wycliffe, therefore, did not deny the divine sanction of holy

1 No. LXXX. p. 486.