Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1852, by BENJ. J. WALLACE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY REVIEW. JUNE, 1856. No. XVII. ARTICLE I. THE TABORITES AND CALIXTINES.* THE importance of those religious movements of the fifteenth century, which gave to thoughtful men of that age significant intimations of the still greater movement of the succeeding century, has scarcely been allowed a due consideration. Something has recently been done in Germany, in the way of bring *The materials of this essay are derived mainly from the History of the Bohemians, by Æneas Sylvius; the History of Heresies, by Natalis Alexander, and the "Diary of the Hussite War;" although other authors have been consulted. The last of these works is by a Calixtine, probably John Rocyzan, the others by Roman Catholic authors. "The Diary of the Hussite War" seems to have escaped the notice of nearly all Church historians. Yet its account of the Taborites is the most full and complete in existence. It is worthy of remark, that our accounts of the Taborites are all derived from their opponents or prejudiced rivals. An unfriendly hand has drawn their portrait, and for this due allowance should be made. VOL. V.-1 ing forward the doctrinal views of such men as John of Goch, John of Wesel, and others, who may be regarded as the immediate theological precursors of the Reformation-men to whom Luther acknowledged himself indebted. But it is a singular and significant fact, that while these men, though scholars, and some of them highly gifted in point of intellect, yet spent their years in a life-long struggle to break loose from educational prejudices and traditionary doctrines, a large body of men in Bohemia, most of them unlearned peasants, without one among them, known as a writer, to give any account of their doctrines or even existence, with the principle bequeathed by Huss for a starting point-the sole authority of the word of God in matters of religion—had long before attained, as at a single bound, a complete independence from the spiritual thraldom of the Church, and had grasped, for the most part in its simplicity and purity, the ideal of an evangelical Christianity. They venerated the memory of Huss; they honored him as a martyr; yet they did not acknowledge, even in him, the authority of a master. In reading the trial and condemnation of John Huss, we are surprised to find in how few and comparatively unimportant respects, he differed from the Church of Rome. His attention was directed more to the ethical than to the doctrinal system of the Bible. Errors. in theology were noticed more for the sake of rebuking the corruptions that resulted from them, than with any view to build up a more correct and positive system antagonistic to the Roman Church. On nearly all the distinctive doctrines of that Church, Huss would be regarded even now as strictly orthodox. Nor did he inveigh against the corruption of the Church, and the vices of the clergy, with greater severity than many of his judges themselves in the presence of the Council. His great heresy was, in maintaining with unyielding pertinacity, the supreme authority of the Word of God. He would not allow the claims of the Council to be paramount to this. Herein was his crime. Had he yielded on this point, he might have escaped the doom that awaited him. It is true that his realistic philosophy made him some powerful adversaries, but these alone were but a small fraction of the Council. In deposing a Pope, his judges had set up the idol of |