them by fire and by the sword was the object distinctly proposed; and the indulgences so impiously connected with the crusades into Asia were now as freely bestowed on such as became devoted to this murderous cause. Under the impulse of such motives towns were taken in succession, and their inhabitants slaughtered with an atrocity which spared neither age nor sex.

A volume might be occupied in detailing these atrocities, but it must be sufficient to observe, in the language of Mr. Gibbon, that pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodore. It was in cruelty alone her soldiers could equal the heroes of the crusades, and the cruelties of her priests were far excelled by the founders of the inquisition, an office more adapted to confirm than to confute the belief of an evil principle.' The interval between the former half of the thirteenth century, with which these crusades were connected, and the middle of the following, in which Wycliffe appeared, is one of unusual gloom in the history of true religion. The efforts of the Waldenses and Albigeois to restore its purity, and which has not been improperly designated the first reformation, appeared as a total failure, and through nearly 300 succeeding years the good which it was designed to confer on the nations of the western empire was effectually resisted. And not only so, the machinery of despotism appeared to become every day more matured, and every struggle of its victims but to place them more completely beneath it.

III. Rise and progress of Wickliffe's doctrines in England.-The manifold and complicated evils of popery, however, reached their highest pitch about the thirteenth or fourteenth century. That astonishing system of spiritual tyranny, for instance, had now drawn within its vortex almost the whole government of England. The pope's haughty legate, spurning at all law and equity, made even the ministers of justice to tremble at its tribunal; parliaments were overawed, and sovereigns obliged to temporise, while the lawless ecclesiastics, entrenched behind the authority of councils and decrees, set at nought the civil power, and opened an asylum to any, even the most profligate, disturbers of society. In the mean time the taxes collected, under various pretexts, by the agents of the see of Rome, amounted to five times as much as the taxes paid to the king. The insatiable avarice and insupportable tyranny of the court of Rome had given such universal disgust, that a bold attack, made about this time, on the authority of that court, and the doctrine of the church, was, at first, more successful than could have been expected in that dark and superstitious age. This attack was made by the famous John Wickliffe, who was one of the best and most learned men of the age in which he flourished. His reputation for learning, piety, and virtue, was so great, that archbishop Islip appointed him the first warden of Canterbury College, Oxford, in 1365. The lectures in divinity which he read in that university were much admired, though in these lectures he treated the clergy, and particularly the mendicant friars, with no little freedom and severity. A discourse which he published against

the pope's demand of homage and tribute from Edward III., for the kingdom of England, recommended him so much to that prince that he bestowed upon him several benefices, and employed him in several embassies. Edward III. had refused that homage to which king John had subjected his successors, and Urban V. threatened that if it were not performed he would cite him to Rome, there to answer for the default. A sovereign of Edward's ability and renown was not thus to be intimidated; the feeling of the country was with him, and the parliament, affirming that what John had done in this matter was a violation of his coronation oath, declared that, if the pope proceeded in any way against the king, he and all his subjects should with all their power resist him. The papal claims were defended by a monk, who ventured to challenge Wickliffe upon the subject, who coming forward with superior ability, and in a better cause, produced a conclusive reply; in reward for which, when an appeal concerning the wardenship was decided against him, he was appointed professor of divinity, and, as a further mark of favor, the living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire was given him. Two years after his appointment to the divinity chair he was named, with other ambassadors, to meet the pope's representative at Bruges, and resist his pretensions to the presentation of benefices in England, an injurious practice,against which several statutes had been passed. The negociation lasted nearly two years, and it is probable that what he then had opportunities of discovering convinced him that the system of the papal court and its doctrines were equally corrupt. For on his return he attacked it in the boldest manner, maintained that the Scriptures contained all truths necessary to salvation, and that the perfect rule of Christian practice was to be found in them only; denied the authority of the pope in temporal matters; proclaimed that he was that man of sin, the son of perdition, whom St. Paul prophetically describes, sitting as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God; and denounced him as antichrist. These opinions he openly preached and published, appealing to the Scriptures for their truth; and they were propagated by his disciples, who attacked the friars in their own manner, preaching to the people, and going about, as he himself did, barefoot, and in plain fringe gowns. It was not long before he was accused of heresy, and orders came to Sudbury the primate, and Courtney the bishop of London, to have him arrested, and kept in close custody till they should receive further instructions. But the duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, who was then governing the kingdom during the latter days of his father, protected him with a high hand; and he was still so popular in Oxford that, when a nuncio was sent thither, requiring the university, under pain of the severest penalties, to deliver him up for justice, the threat was disregarded. The archbishop, finding it impossible to proceed in the summary manner which the pope ordered, summoned him to appear within thirty days be fore him and the bishop of London, at a synod held in St. Paul's; and Wickliffe, confident in his cause and in his protectors, hesitated not to

obey. It is not, however, likely that any protection could long have upheld him against the ecclesiastical authority, if a schism had not at this juncture occurred to weaken the papal power, and shake its very foundations. Wickliffe seized the advantage which was thus afforded him, and set forth a tract upon the schism, exposing the absurdity of ascribing infallibility to a divided church. While the doctrines of Wickliffe were propagated and opposed with much zeal at Oxford, and at other places, he being in a declining state of health resided, during the two last years of his life, at his living of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, employed in finishing his translation of the Bible and other works. Being seized with a stroke of the palsy, which deprived him of his speech December 28th, 1384, he expired on the last day of that year.

The invention of printing had, at this time, created facilities for the diffusion of knowledge, unknown before; and the struggle between the elements of darkness and the principles of light resembled, for a while, the smothering vapor which precedes the burst and the radiance of a clear and steady flame. Thousands were prepared by these antecedent causes to receive the truth in all its holy purity, and sacred influence. Already the rays of truth were emanating from the sacred volume in all directions; and men were beginning to start as from the slumbers of a dream, or the reveries of a distempered imagination. It must not, however, be supposed that this change of opinion escaped the notice of the dominant church; or that it was negligent of that strong arm of power which it possessed, in order to suppress the growing heresy. Henry IV., at the instigation of the clergy, passed a statute, forbidding the propagation of the new doctrine by preaching, writing, teaching, or discourse; and demanding of all persons the renunciation of their errors, on pain of being condemned for heresy, and burnt alive.

William Sautre, the parish priest of St. Osithes, in London, and formerly of St. Margaret's, at Lynn, in Norfolk, was the first victim under this new statute, and the first martyr for the reform ation in England. The single question with which he was pressed was, whether the sacrament of the altar, after the pronouncing of the sacramental words, remained material bread or not. It was not sufficient for him to declare a firm belief that it was the bread of life which came down from heaven;' he was required to acknowledge that it ceased to be bread. Finding it in vain to protest that he attempted not to explain what is inexplicable, his final answer was that the bread, after consecration, remained very bread as it was before. He was then pronounced to be judicially and lawfully convicted as a heretic, and as a heretic to be punished; and being, moreover, a relapsed heretic, to be degraded, deposed, and delivered over to the secular arm.

This being the first condemnation of the kind in England, Arundel was punctual in all its forms, that they might serve for an exact precedent in future. They were, probably, derived from the practice of the accursed inquisitors in Languedoc; and they were well devised for pro

longing an impression of horror upon the expectant and awed spectators. Sautre was brought before the primate and six other bishops, in the cathedral of St. Paul's; they were in their pontifical attire, and he appeared in priestly vestments with the paten and chalice in his hands. Arundel stood up, and, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (thus profaned in this inhuman progress), degraded him, first from his priestly order, and, in sign of that degradation, took from him the paten and chalice, and plucked the priestly casule from his back. The New Testament was then put into his hands, and taken from him; the stole being at the same time pulled off, to degrade him from the office of deacon. By depriving him of the alb and maniple, his deprivation from the order of subdeacon was effected. The candlestick, taper, and urceole, were taken from him as an acolyte; the book of exorcisms, as exorcist; the lectionary, as reader; he then remained in a surplice as sexton, and, with the ley of the church door: these also were taken from him; the priest's cap was then to be laid aside, the tonsure rased away, so that no outward mark whatever of his orders might remain; the cap of a layman was placed upon his head, and Arundel then delivered him, as a secular person, to the secular court of the high constable and marshal of England, there present, beseeching the court to receive favorably the said William Sautre, unto them thus committed! For with this hypocritical recommendation to mercy the Romish church always delivered over its victims to be burnt alive. Sautre accordingly suffered martyrdom at the stake; leaving a name which is still slandered by the Romanists, but which the church of England will ever hold in deserved respect.

At this time twelve inquisitors of heresy, for this dreadful name had been introduced in England, were appointed at Oxford, to search out heretics and heretical books. They presented as heresies 246 conclusions, deduced, some truly and some falsely, from the writings of Wickliffe's followers, and of the Lollards; and they represented that Christ's vesture without seam could not be made whole again, unless certain great men, who supported the disciples of Wickliffe, were removed; particularising Sir John Oldcastle, who, in right of his wife, was lord Cobham, a man of high birth, and at that time in favor with Henry V. Him they accused to the king of holding heretical opinions concerning the sacrament, penance, pilgrimages, the adoration of images, and the authority of the Romish church, declaring their intention of proceeding against him as a most pernicious heretic.

In better reliance upon a good cause than upon popular favor and his own means of resistance, he wrote a paper, which he entitled the Christian belief of the lord Cobham; and with this he went to the king, trusting, it is said, to find mercy and favor at his hand. The writing began with the Apostle's creed, to which a larger declaration of his faith was added. Like Wickliffe, he expressed an opinion that the church was divided into three parts, the saints in heaven, the souls in purgatory, and the faithful on earth;

but he qualified this admission of a purgatory, by saying if any such place be in the Scriptures: the duty of the priests was that, secluded from all worldliness, they should conform their lives to the examples of Christ and his apostles, evermore occupied in preaching and teaching the Scriptures purely, and in giving wholesome examples of good living to the other degrees; more modest also, more loving, gentle, and lowly in spirit should they be than any other people. The duty of the people was, 'to bear their good minds and true obedience to the foresaid ministers of God, their king, civil governors, and priests; justly to occupy every man his faculty, be it merchandise, handicraft, or the tilth of the ground, and so one to be helper to another. He then professed his full belief that the body and blood of Christ were verily and indeed contained in the sacrament of the altar under the similitudes of bread and wine; that the law of God was most true and perfect, and that they which did not so follow it in their faith and works (at one time or other) could not be saved; whereas he that seeketh it in faith, accepteth it, learneth it, delighteth therein, and performeth it in love, shall taste for it the felicity of everlasting innocency. Finally, that God will ask no more of a Christian believer, in this life, than to obey the precepts of this most blessed law. If any prelate require more, or any other kind of obedience than this, he contemneth Christ, exalteth himself above God, and so becometh an open antichrist.' He required that the king would cause this his confession of faith to be justly examined by the wisest and most learned men in the realm; and that, if it were found in all parts agreeing to the truth, it might be so allowed, and he himself thereupon holden for none other than a true Christian; or that it might be utterly condemned if it were found otherwise, provided always that he were taught a better belief by the word of God, which word he would, at all times, most reverently obey.

When the king allowed him in his presence to be personally cited, lord Cobham perceived that his destruction was determined on, and, rejecting the archbishop as his judge, appealed from him to the pope; this appeal being disallowed he was immediately committed to the tower, till the day appointed for his examination. On that day at the Dominican convent within Ludgate, many canonists and friars, the heads and leading persons of their respective orders, were convened to sit in judgment on him; while a number of priests, monks, canons, and friars, with a rabble of underlings, who were collected as spectators, insulted him as he came, for a horrible heretic, and a man accursed before God. These preparations, and the certainty of what was to ensue, could not shake the constancy of his resolved mind. But the taunts and mockery of the brutal audience who came there as to a spectacle, and anticipated with exultation the inhuman catastrophe, disturbed that equanimity which he had hitherto preserved; and moved him, not to an unseemly anger, nor to aught unworthy of himself, but to an emotion than which nothing nobler in its kind hath been imagined in fiction, or recorded in history. For when Arundel began the

tragedy, by offering him absolution and mercy, if he would humbly desire it, in due form and manner, as the church ordained.-Nay, forsooth, will I not,' he replied, for I never trespassed against you, and therefore I will not do it!' Then kneeling on the pavement, and holding up his hands toward heaven, he exclaimed, 'I shrive me here unto Thee, my eternal, living God, that in my youth I offended thee, O Lord, most grievously in pride, wrath, and gluttony; in covetousness, and in lechery! Many men have I hurt in mine anger, and done many other horrible sins! Good Lord, I ask Thee mercy!' He wept while he uttered this passionate prayer; then, standing up, said with a mighty voice, Lo, good people, lo! for the breaking of God's law and his commandments, they never yet cursed me! but for thine own laws and traditions most cruelly do they handle both me and other men. And, therefore, both they and their laws, by the promise of God, shall utterly be destroyed!'

When they had recovered from the surprise which this awful appeal produced, they began to examine him concerning his belief. He replied with the same intrepid spirit, I believe fully and faithfully in the universal laws of God. I believe that all is true which is contained in the Holy Scriptures of the Bible. Finally, I believe all that my Lord God would I should believe.' They pressed him with the murderous question concerning material bread. He made answer, The Scriptures make no mention of this word material, and therefore my faith hath nothing to do therewith. But this I say, and believe, that it is Christ's body and bread.' They exclaimed against this with one voice; and one of the bishops stood up and said, 'It was a heresy manifest, to say that it is bread after the sacramental words were spoken.' The noble martyr replied, St. Paul was, I am sure, as wise as you, and more godly learned, and he called it bread, 'the bread that we break,' saith he, is it not the partaking of the body of Christ?' And as for that virtuous man, Wickliffe, I shall say here, both before God and man, that before I knew that despised doctrine of his I never abstained from sin. But, since I learned therein to fear my Lord God, it hath otherwise, I trust, been with me, so much grace could I never find in all your glorious instructions! One pope hath put down another, one hath poisoned another, one hath cursed another, and one hath slain another, and done much more mischief, as all the chronicles tell. Let all men consider well this, that Christ was meek and merciful; the pope is proud and a tyrant-Christ was poor and forgave; the pope is rich, and a malicious manslayer, as his daily acts do prove him. Rome is the very nest of antichrist, and out of that nest cometh all the disciples of him, of whom prelates, priests, and monks are the body, and these piled friars are the tail! Though he judge my body, which is but a wretched thing, yet am I certain and sure that he can do no harm to my soul, no more than could Satan upon the soul of Job. He who created that, will, of his infinite will and promise, save it; I have therein no manner of doubt. And, as concerning these articles before rehearsed, I will stand to them, even to the very death, by the

grace of my eternal God! Turning to the spectators then, he spread his hands, and spake with a louder voice, 'Good Christian people, for God's love be well ware of these men! for they will else beguile you, and lead you blinding into hell with themselves. For Christ saith plainly unto you, If one blind man leadeth another, they are like both to fall into the ditch!' Then, kneeling down before them, he prayed for his enemies: 'Lord God eternal! I beseech thee, of thy great mercy's sake to forgive my pursuers, if it be thy blessed will!' Being committed to the Tower, whence he escaped, a large reward was offered for taking lord Cobham, alive or dead; so faithfully, however, was he sheltered, notwithstanding all who harboured him incurred the same danger with himself, that he eluded his persecutors for four years, until he was discovered, by means of lord Powis, in Wales. He now stood resolutely upon his defence, and would probably not have been taken alive, if a woman had not broken his legs with a stool. In this condition he was carried to London in a horse litter; and there, being hung by the middle in chains, was consumed in the flames praising God.

IV. The Bohemian reformers.-The historians of the Reformation too generally represent that great revolution to originate exclusively with Luther and his friends; in Germany, however, as well as in England, the pure sentiments, the holy lives, and the triumphant deaths of the martyrs, from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, paved the way for their successors of the sixteenth. Before we enter on the history of the rupture between the German princes and the papacy, we shall briefly notice that of the Bohemian reformers. Bohemia partook of the general corruption, and was immersed in darkness and superstition, when Waldo and his friends sought an asylum in that kingdom, and in the year 1176 formed a colony at Saltz and Laun, on the river Eger. These Waldenses found the Bohemians scarcely less superstitious than the members of the church of Rome; but subsequently introduced among them the knowledge of the Christian faith in its purity, according to the word of God. On the introduction, however, of popery, through the influence of Charles IV., ignorance, profigacy, and corruption of manners, began to prevail among all orders of the people; the inquisition was introduced for the purpose of enforcing despotism in the civil government, and uniformity of opinion in matters of religion. The consequence was, that multitudes withdrew themselves from the public places of worship, and followed the dictates of their own consciences, by worshipping God in private houses, woods, and caves. Here they were persecuted, dragooned, drowned and killed; and thus matters went on until the appearance of John Huss and Jerome of Prague. John Huss, who had been a student in the university of Prague, where he had taken his degrees, and become a zealous disciple of Wickliff, was born in the village of Hussinetz, in 1373, of parents not in affluent circumstances. He was a person of eminent abilities, and of still more eminent zeal; his talents were popular, his life irreproachable, and his manners the most affable and engaging. He was the idol of the

populace; but, in proportion as he attracted their esteem and regard, he drew upon himself the execration of the priests. The introduction of Wickliff's writings into the university of Prague gave great offence to the archbishop of Prague, who issued a decree that every person who was in possession of them should bring the books to him, in order that such as contained any thing heretical might be burnt. Huss, and the members of the university, entered a protest against these proceedings, and on the 25th of June, 1410, appealed from the sentence of the archbishop to the court of Rome. The affair was carried before pope John XXIII., who granted a commission to cardinal Colonna to cite Huss to appear personally before him at Rome, there to answer the accusations laid against him of preaching both errors and heresies. Huss desired to be excused a personal appearance, and so greatly was he favored in Bohemia, that king Wenceslaus, his queen, the nobility, and the university at large, joined in a request to the pope that he would dispense with such an appearance; and, moreover, that he would not suffer the kingdom of Bohemia to be subject to the imputation of heresy, but permit them to preach the gospel with freedom in their places of worship, and that he would send legates to Prague to correct any presumed abuses, the expense of which should be defrayed by the Bohemians. Three proctors were despatched to Rome to tender Huss's apology to his holiness; but the excuses alleged were deemed insufficient, and Huss, being declared contumacious, was accordingly excommunicated. This excommunication extended also to his disciples and friends; he himself was declared a promoter of heresy, and an interdict was pronounced against him. Urban VI., who had succeeded to the pontificate on the death of Gregory XI., A. D. 1378, having rendered himself odious in the eyes of his subjects, the cardinals so resented his conduct that they set aside his election, and chose Clement VII. in his room. The adherents of both pontiffs were indefatigable in their exertions to support their respective pretensions, and much human blood was spilt in the contest. To terminate this disgraceful schism, a third pope, Alexander V., was elected, in the hope of inducing the resignation of the others. Neither of them, however, would give up his power; and the world now saw three popes ruling at one and the same time. With a view to heal the fatal schisms, and repair the disorders that had sprung up during their continuance, as well as to bring about a reformation of the clergy, which was now loudly and generally called for, in the year 1414 the emperor Sigismund convened the council of Constance.

Hither, from all parts, princes and prelates, clergy and laity, regulars and seculars, flocked together (November 16th, 1414), to determine the dispute between the three contending factions for the papacy; and thither Huss was cited to appear, in order to justify his conduct and writings. The emperor Sigismund, brother of Wenceslaus, encouraged Huss to obey the summons, and, as an inducement to his compliance sent him a passport with assurance of safe conduct, permitting him to come freely to the council, and pledging himself for his safe return.

Huss consented; but no sooner had he arrived within the pope's jurisdiction, than, regardless of the emperor's passport, he was arrested and committed close prisoner to a chamber in the palace. This violation of common law and justice was noticed by the friends of Huss, who had, out of the respect they bore his character, accompanied him to Constance. They urged the imperial safe conduct; but the pope replied that he never granted any safe conduct, nor was he bound by that of the emperor.

Jerome of Prague was the intimate friend and companion of Huss; inferior to him in age, experience, and authority, but his superior in all liberal endowments. He was born at Prague, and educated in that university. Having finished his studies he travelled into many countries of Europe. The universities of Prague, of Paris, of Cologne, and of Heidelberg, conferred upon him the degree of M. A.; and, having made the tour of the continent, he visited England, where he obtained access to the writings of Wickliffe, which he copied out, and returned with them to Prague. As Jerome had distinguished himself by an active co-operation with Huss in all his opposition to the abominations of the times, he was cited before the council of Constance on the 17th April 1415, at the time his friend Huss was confined in a castle near that city. Arriving shortly afterwards in Constance, or the neighbourhood, he learned how his friend had been treated, and what he himself had to expect; on which he prudently returned to Iberlingen, an imperial city, whence he wrote to the emperor and council, requesting a safe conduct; but, not obtaining one to his satisfaction, he was preparing to return into Bohemia, when he was arrested at Kirschaw, and conveyed to Constance. Every one knows the fate of these two eminent men. They were both condemned by the council to be burnt alive, and the sentence was carried into effect. Huss was executed on the 7th July 1415; and Jerome on the 20th of May 1416.

V. The reformation in Germany.-If, in the following sketch of the circumstances which preceded and produced the Reformation we seem to look principally to the efforts of the German reformer, it must be remembered that the great work, then generally designated, was begun in Germany, and that, although political and personal circumstances apparently produced the rupture between England and Rome, the minds of men had been previously prepared for a thankful embrace of it, by the writings of Luther; that the political causes were only accidental ones, providentially concurring with those of a moral nature; and that, so far from being considered as independent and isolated events, the Reformation both in England and Germany was one and the same event under different appearances and modifications.

With this caution we now proceed to state what to us appear to have been the more proximate causes of the Reformation, first begun in the early part of the sixteenth century.

In the first instance it was not against the Catholic dogmata, but against the abuses and the corruption of the papal court, as in the case of

indulgences,' that Luther and others directed their zeal. Our intrepid reformer does not appear at all to have originally contemplated an attack against transubstantiation, purgatory, praying for the dead, the use of images and pictures, the veneration of relics, tradition as a rule of faith, the invocation of saints, or even against the use and sale of indulgences. It was not against all or any of these Catholic tenets that the reformers, in the first instance, protested. The extreme laxity and even profligacy of the clergy had long been the source of painful regret to the wise and good, and of sarcasm, impious pleasure, and contempt, to the wicked and the vain. Cardinal Bellarmine, a writer, as all the world knows, but seldom disposed to say a syllable in disparagement of the church or the Roman court, confesses that, for some years before the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresies,' as he expresses it, were published, there was not, as contemporary authors testify, any severity in ecclesiastical judicatories, any knowledge of sacred literature, any reverence for divine things; there was not almost any religion remaining." Had the moral conduct of the head, and ministers of religion, been such as became their holy office, it is more than probable that no particular outcry would have been raised against the Catholic doctrines at that time. No, it was the base conduct of the clergy that first sounded the tocsin of religious war. This depravity had, naturally enough, become the subject of public ridicule, of reproach, and at last of contempt and open opposition. The universal cry was 'Reform!' and when this cry was rejected another still more powerful and dreadful was raised of Destruction!'

The holiness of the church became the first object of general attack; and, unfortunately for herself, that which should have been her strongest hold was the most vulnerable part in the whole fortress. The outcry was not against the host, but against him by whom it was elevated. Holy images, pictures, relics, and shrines, were never despised till they were abused and profaned by those to whose custody they had been previously consigned. The growing pride of the church of Rome, naturally engendered by the union of the spiritual and temporal power, was one of the strong symptoms of approaching revolt. Every prince bore the insolence and ambition of the Roman pontiff with a greater or less degree of impatience. Some of them dared to oppose it openly, and the university of Paris had more than once been made the organ of sovereign power to answer the menaces of Rome, they had the courage to appeal to a future council, which they, without ambiguity, deemed superior to the pope. The eyes of men began to open. The impolitic violence of some popes; the scandalous lives of others; the seventy years captivity at Avignon; the schism of forty other years which followed it, in which two and sometimes three popes appeared, each having a party, abusing and excommunicating each other, loading each other with the most revolting insults, and reproaching each other with the lowest vices-unexpected discoveries which covered both rivals with ignominy at the same time; all these will