Respecting his gigantic successor, Martin Luther, we are in possession of all that can enable us to form the most distinct conception of the man. We see him in connexion with the wise, and the mighty, and the excellent of the earth.” We behold him in his intercourse with sages and divines, with princes and with potentates. We can trace him through all those bitter agonies of spirit through which he struggled on and on, till at last he seized upon the truth which made him free for ever. But to us, Wycliffe appears almost as a solitary being. He stands before us in a sort of grand and mysterious loneliness. To group him, if we may so speak, with other living men, would require a very strong effort of imagination. And hence it is, that we meditate on his story with emotions of solemn admiration, but without any turbulent agitation of our sympathies.”
[Le Bas, Life of Wiclif, 294, 295.]
part Writings of Wycliffe Still in Manuscript
Book I. On the Writings of Wycliffe Still in Manuscript. Section
IN this section the attention of the reader will be directed in the first place to the pieces written by Wycliffe in English, and which, for the most part, were addressed alike to the clergy, to the opulent among the laity, and to the people at large. Even these pieces, though the most popular of the Reformer’s productions, were they printed entirely and to the letter, would prove wearisome to most readers in our day, partly from the obsoleteness of their language and allusions, and partly from the frequent repetitions of thought and illustration with which they abound. Such iteration of great principles served an important end in the history of the Reformer, but cannot contribute to the agreeableness of his writings as read by men in different circumstances, and in a later age. My impression is, that the attentive reader may form as correct a judgment in respect to the writings of Wycliffe from the present volume, as would be acquired by an immediate perusal of the whole of his works; nothing characteristic of those works, so far as my knowledge extends, being wanting in the descriptions here given of them, and the selections here made from them.
I. Exrosri0 DecaLoar. —Wycliffe wrote several expositions of the Decalogue. One forms a part of the collection of treatises, under the title of “The Poor Caitiff:” another, of much greater extent, in Latin, is preserved in the Bodleian Library. Similar thoughts and passages appear in all these pieces. From internal evidence, I conclude the piece from which the following passages are selected to be one of the Reformer’s ’ earlier productions, of much the same period probably with the several tracts in The Poor Caitiff.
[« British Museum. MSS. Titus D. xix. In the Bodleian is a tract with the following title:—]
[Compendium X. Mandatorum editum a Majestro Jo. Wiclife, Doctore Evangelica veritatis. It is]
[much used by Dr. James, in his ” Apology for John Wickliffe.”]
In the prologue to this exposition, Wycliffe laments that men should be found calling God master, and professing to honour ‘his Son from heaven,” and for “forty, threescore, fourscore years,” be ignorant of his “ten commandments.” He exhorts his reader, accordingly, after this wise, “If thou wilt be God’s servant, begin and think how thou camest first into this world; how thou wast born of thy mother with pain and sorrow, poor, feeble, and unable to help thyself. Think how thou art set here in this wretched world, to sweat and toil for thy sustenance. Think also that thou shalt go out of this wretched world, poor and naked as thou camest in;—and that thou shalt have nothing with thee of thy goods, save thy good deeds or thy wicked.” He then speaks of the “high bliss of heaven,” and of the pains of hell,” as supplying motives to the obedience required. The signs of not being in deadly sin are said to be “when a man will gladly and willingly hear the word of God; when he knoweth himself prepared to do good works; when he is willing to flee sin; when a man can be sorry for his sin.”
The great obligation of man is said to be, that he should honour and love God supremely; but to this end it is necessary that he should hear the commandments of God read, preached, and taught, and do after them as God hath bidden. But what man is there now-a-days that dreadeth to break God’s commandments, or setteth any price by the, sweetest word or the sharpest word in all God’s law? Dear God, it is a wonder of all wonders on earth, that from the beginning of our life even to our last end, we are never weary, either night or day, to labour about worldly goods, pleasing to our wretched body, which shall last here but a little while; but about the learning of God’s commandments, which shall be food and nourishment for our souls that shall ever last in bliss or pain, about such things may we not labour truly to the end even one hour of the day?” This introduction concludes with an expression of regret and sorrow that the conversation of bishops, parsons, priests, and friars,” no less than that of the people generally, had respect everlastingly to trifles and vanities, without a word of God or his commandments.” In the exposition of the first commandment, men are exhorted to obedience to the Divine will, as procuring them “a part in all the good prayers, and good deeds of all saints, from the beginning of the world to the last end, and to the everlasting bliss of heaven.” The precise meaning of this passage is not easily determined, but from the manner in which Wycliffe expresses himself on doctrine of this nature in his undoubted works, and in works belonging no less certainly to the later period of his life, I am disposed to trace this obscurity of language on & point of so much importance, to the partial light which had fallen on the mind of the Reformer when committing it to writing. In the same connexion sanction is given to a worship of images, and to the invocation of
saints. By these dead images,” the laity, and the more ignorant especially, are said to learn how they should worship the saints in heaven, after whom those images are shapen.” We know that the term worship was commonly used in the age of Wycliffe to denote nothing more than & decent reverence or homage, and had no necessary connexion with the idea of worship in a religious sense. But the following passage, from the same connexion, while it points to these different uses of the term worship, leaves the word applicable in its higher sense to the regard which should be paid to saints: the man is said to have ’ a false god” who ‘“worshippeth or prayeth to an image made of man, with that worship and prayer that is due only to God, and his saints.” This piece bears internal marks of being from the pen of Wycliffe, its thoughts, illustrations, and language, being in many instances strictly such as we find in his other writings: but, for the reason stated, the above passages oblige us to attribute it to a comparatively early period in his history. This circumstance, however, adds to the interest of the work, in place of detracting from it, inasmuch as we possess ample means of illustrating the opinions of the Reformer in his later years, while the lights relating to his doctrine at an earlier period are few and feeble. In the present treatise we may trace many of the seeds of his ultimate principles, and, above all, the eminently devout spirit in which he prosecuted his inquiries.
Thus the man who would be obedient to the command which requires him duly to honour God, is reminded that “he must steadily believe, that Almighty God in Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, three persons in one God, are the noblest object that may be, so that all power, all knowledge, all wisdom, all goodness, all charity, all mercy, is in him, and cometh of him. Also, thou must fear God before all things in this world, and break his commandments for no worldly good. Also, thou must love God before all things, and labour earnestly to understand and know his will; that thy will may be so ruled and set that it may ever accord with God’s will. Have a mind also of the goodness of God, how he made thee in his own likeness, and how Jesus Christ, both God and man, died so painful a death on the cross, to buy man’s soul out of hell and to the bliss of heaven, with his own heart’s blood!” All trust in amulets, or the devices of magic, is described as so much weakness and impiety: and the question is asked—” Since men dread so much the pope’s cursing, the bishop’s cursing, and other priests’ cursing, why do not men fear the rightful, the dreadful, and the terrible cursing that God giveth to those who will not keep his commandments?”
In regard to the second commandment, all men and women who would be called Christians, and who live contrary to the living and
teaching of Christ and of his apostles, take God’s name in vain; for it is in vain for a man to say that he is a Christian, when he doeth not the works of Christ Men are further chargeable with taking God’s name in vain when they indulge in profane or unlawful swearing. He then cites certain canons which menace profane swearers, if ecclesiastics, with ’ degradation,” and if laymen, with excommunication;” and adding to that authority the authority of our Lord in his sermon on the mount, he remarks—” These are Christ’s own words in his Gospel, and therefore for love of him who for you shed his blood, beware henceforward night and day of your oathes swearing, and always that you swear not in vain, and much more, that you swear not falsely, for a great clerk hath said, he that sweareth falsely maketh God false, for he maketh God the author of falsehood.”
Four excuses urged by profane swearers are then mentioned and refuted. It was pretended that even such mention of the name of God tended to keep him in the thoughts of men, and was so far good. In the same manner, it is replied, it must be good that a conspirator should make mention of the name of his sovereign, though it should be only to betray him. The force of custom was pleaded:— So the thief might say, I have had so long a custom of theft, that I cannot cease to steal other men’s goods.” The third excuse was, “that God is merciful, and will hardly damn men for a light oath.” But the parties making this excuse are reminded— Since God is so great a Lord, and commandeth his liege men on pain of hell without end, to keep so easy a commandment as refraining his tongue from vain and false swearing, he is worthy to be damned the deeper if he breaketh it. It was little in Adam to eat an apple in paradise without the forbidding of God: nevertheless for the eating it against the forbidding of God he and all mankind were justly condemned, till Christ bought them again with his precious blood and hard death upon the cross.” The fourth excuse of the profane is—that they swear in order to be believed. But such swearing is described as treachery towards God, and as poor evidence of trustworthiness toward man. Adverting to the prevalence of this vice, even among the servants and retainers of the clergy, he exclaims— Surely it is wonder, apart from the endless mercy of God, that the earth openeth not and swalloweth them quick into hell for this treason and others beside!”
On the precept concerning the Sabbath-day, it is observed that this day should be kept hy “three manners of occupation.” First, it should be kept in thinking— thinking how God is Almighty. Why? because he made all this world of nought. He is All-knowing. Why? because he governs all things most wisely. He is All-good. Why? because he maketh all things turn to the profit of good men who faithfully love him. He is All-just. Why? because he rewardeth all good deeds, and
EXPOSITION OF THE DECALOGUE. $ punishes all trespasses, in due time, and in due measure, both secret and open, and no creature may withstand his punishing, neither in earth, in purgatory, nor in hell He is All-merciful. Why? because he is readier to receive sinful men to grace, that would truly leave their sins, than they are to ask mercy.”.
On Sunday it should be matter for our meditation, that creation was completed on that day, that Christ rose from the dead on that day, that knowledge and wisdom came to the earth by the descent of the Holy Spirit on that day, and that on that day, “as many clerks say, shall be doomsday—for Sunday was the first day, and Sunday shall be the last day.”
And bethink thee heartily of the wonderful kindness of God, who was so high and worshipful in heaven, that he should come down so low, and be born of the maiden, and become our brother to buy us again by his hard passion, from our thraldom of the devil. He was beaten, buffeted, and scourged. He was crowned with a crown of thorns for despite, and when the crown, as clerks say, could not sit fast, and close down to his head, for the long and stiff thorns, they took staves and beat them down, till the thorns pierced the place of the brain. He was nailed hand and foot, and with nails sharp and rugged, that his pain should be the more, and so at last he suffered a painful death, hanging full shamefully on the hard tree. And all this he did and suffered of his own kindness, without any sin of his own, to deliver us from sin and pain, and to bring us to everlasting bliss. Thou shouldst also think constantly, how, when he had made thee of nought, thou hadst forsaken him, and all his kindness through sin, and hadst taken thee to the devil and his service, world without end, had not Christ, God and Man, suffered this hard death to save us. And thus shouldst thou see the great kindness, and all other goodness that God hath done for thee, and learn thereby thy own great unkindness, and thou shalt thus see that man is the most fallen of creatures, and the unkindest of all the creatures that ever God made. It should be full sweet and delightful to us to think thus on this great kindness and this great love of Jesus Christ.”
The second occupation proper to the Sabbath, is said to consist in speaking. This should be first in confession of sin, made immediately to God——confession of having lived a false, sensual, and unnatural life, neglecting the study and the observance of his will, after the manner of the brute. This confession being made, Wycliffe’s counsel to the penitent is, that he should “cry heartily to God for grace and power to leave all sin, and ever after to live in virtue. And after this be about with thy speaking to bring thy neighbours to better living. And if they are at debate, bring them by thy power to love and charity and
concord. If thou be a priest, be a true lanthorn to the people, both in speaking, and in doing truly all things that belong to a priest. And: seek wisely the ground, and the true office of priesthood, and be thou not led blindly by the lewd customs of the world; but read God’s law, and the exposition of holy doctors thereupon—study it, learn it, and keep it; and when thou knowest it, preach it to them that are unknowing, and look evermore that thy deeds be so rightful, that no man may blame thee with reason.”
The third manner of occupying the Sabbath-day, was to be careful to attend public worship; to endeavour to bring pure motives to the service of God; and that the mind may be in its best state for attending to the duties of that day, it is urged that there be little indulgence in the pleasures of the table. After public worship, says the Reformer, “visit such as are sick or in mischief, especially those whom God hath made needy by age, or by other sicknesses—the feeble, the crooked, the lame: these thou shalt relieve with thy goods after thy power and after their need, for thus biddeth the Gospel. But thou shalt not do so to strong and mighty beggars well arrayed, whether they be laymen, priests, or friars. And so men should not be idle, but busy on the Sabbath-day about. the soul, as men are on the week-day about the body”
On the precept concerning the honour to be rendered to parents, it is remarked, that we have three fathers—our natural father; the priest by whose means we become the spiritual children ef the church; and our Father in heaven.
The mutual obligations of children and parents, are judiciously explained and earnestly enforced. Thy second father,” says Wycliffe, js thy ghostly father, that hath special care of thy soul, and thus thou shalt worship him—thou shalt love him before other men, and obey his teaching, in so far as he teaches God’s law, and shalt help, according to thy power, that he may have a reasonable maintenance, when he doth well his office. And if he fail in his office, by giving evil example, and in ceasing from teaching God’s law, thou owest to have great sorrow on that account, and to tell meekly and charitably his default to him, between thee and him alone.”
It will be seen from this extract, that Wycliffe had not proceeded so far at the time when this treatise was written, as to counsel, and even to urge strongly, as he did afterwards, the withholding of maintenance from priests habitually delinquent.
Concerning our third Father, the Reformer writes, ’ He is best of all,” and for his sake his true children are prepared to meet all suffering, and even death itself..
On the remaining precepts the observations are of a general nature,
and present little remarkable. But it is thus the Reformer expresses himself at the close of the work:—
“Many think if they give a penny to a pardoner, they shall be absolved of breaking all the commandments of God, and therefore they take no heed to keep them. I say thee for certain, though thou hire priests and friars to pray for thee, and though thou hear every day many masses, and found chauntries and colleges, and go on pilgrimage all thy life, and give all thy goods to pardoners, all this shall not bring thy soul to heaven. But if thou keep the commandments of God to thy life’s end, though thou have neither penny nor halfpenny, thou shalt have everlasting pardon, and the bliss of heaven!” Christ, it is added, said, Suffer for me as I have suffered for thee, for it behoveth the members to follow the head. Jesus Christ is our head,.and we are his members, if we do well. What apostle, martyr, confessor, or virgin, or saint, ever came to God without suffering? Then what shall we wretches say, that herein read the lives of saints, which through many torments went to God joying and singing. We wretches that bear falsely the name of Christian men, when only touched by a little short breath of our neighbour’s tongue, we lose charity and patience, and mindfulness of our death, of the quaking judgment, of the day of doom, of the everlasting pains of hell, of the everlasting joys of heaven!”
II. In a manuscript volume in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, including a series of the most interesting of the tracts and treatises published by Wycliffe in English, the first in order is a piece intitled, De HrrocmrrARUM DwPosrumis. It consists of a commentary on the text, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,” and is meant to identify the mendicant orders with that sect of ancient religionists, in respect to their want of sincerity. It begins with the words, Christ commandeth to his disciples, and to all Christian men, to understand and flee the sour dow of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.^ The volume has been injured by damp,
[The passage following, on the precept, Thou shalt not kill, resembles the extracts on the same]
[subject, given in a subsequent page, from the work under the title of the Seven Deadly Sins.]
[’ Therefore, each man beware that he do no manslaughter, for we are all brethren, and the sons of]
[God. But how shall he be hardy to stand before God, who has slain the son of God? It is a wonder]
[how any man dare destroy that creature which God made in his own likeness. If a man of craft]
[hath so great love to his work, that he may not sufferit to be harmed, how much guess you that God]
[loveth that creature he made to his likeness?” The deed is further described as a “despising and]
[scorníng of the passion and the painful death of Jesus Christ, who died to save men’s lives unto the]
[bliss of heaven.” The following glance at the common life of the fourteenth century, is perhaps]
[worth transcribing. ‘But, alas for sorrow, if a man sit among men or women now-a-days, and speak]
[of such things, or warn them of their oaths, many and fell, of their cursing and swearing, and of their]
[false leasings that they make of their neighbours, and so of other sins, anon they will begin to wax]
[heavy, and sorry, and evil essayed if they might for shame, and be full weary of his fellowship.”]
[4 MS. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. pp. 1—22. Trinity College, Dublin. Class C. Tab. iii.]
[No. 12. pp. 1—17.]
and nearly the whole of the first page is illegible. In a portion of that page remaining, the Reformer speaks of the importance of bringing men cleanly to the Gospel, and the peace and freedom of Christ’s order, that being the most perfect, and the most easy to win heaven by.” The treatise extends to twenty-two pages, double columns, in quarto, and from its reference to the papal schism, and to the disputes concerning the eucharist, it manifestly belongs to the later period of the Reformer’s life.
See now,” he writes, where these friars break falsely all the commandments of God. If they choose to be ruled more after the ordinance of sinful men and idiots, than after the clean ordinance of Christ; and say that sinful man’s ordinance is better, and truer for man, and more perfect than is the clean ordinance of Christ—then they worship false gods, and are heretics and blasphemers, and so they break the first commandment of God. If they dread more, and punish more for breaking of sinful man’s traditions, than for breaking the commandments of God; and study and love more their private rules, than the hests^ of God, then they worship, love, and dread sinful man, and, it may be damned devils, more than God Almighty—for as Austin saith, a man maketh that thing his God the which he dreadeth most and loveth most.”
“If they hinder curates and poor priests from teaching man God’s law, by hypocrisy and help of Antichrist’s laws, for dread lest their hypocrisy be perceived, and their winning and worldly pride laid down, they are cursed manquellers,^ and the cause of the damnation of all the souls that perish through their default in not knowing and keeping God’s commandments. If they preach principally for worldly muck and vainglory, and so preach to be praised of men, and not simply and plainly the Gospel of Christ for his glory, and gaining of men’s souls, they are corruptors of God’s word, as Paul saith.”
Of the clergy generally, he remarks, that a schism having grown up in the papacy—
One part holdeth with one pope, and the other with another pope, and each party saith, and teacheth as belief, that this pope is true, and none other, and that all who believe not so are accursed heretics, and out of belief, and are bringing all others out of belief. And yet they in eommon judge both parties as Christian men; and so they say one thing and do the contrary.”
[On the death of Gregory the Eleventh in 1378, commenced a memorable schism in the papacy,]
[the church having during the next half century two or three heads at the same time, each of the]
[contending popes forming plots, and thundering out anathemas against his rival. See Mosheim, iii.]
[125—128. This it will be remembered was about six years before the death of Wycliffe, and from]
[the reference to this event in the M8., as well as from its allusions to the disputes concerning]
[the eucharist, the date of this production, as written sometime during the above interval, is detec.]
[ined Commandments. Man-killers.]
It is in the following terms that he exhorts men to Christian fidelity: It is cowardice in Christ’s disciples if they spare for bodily pain and death to tell openly the truth of God’s law. And therefore telleth Christ afterwards to his disciples, that they should dread God and nothing else sovereignly. Sothely,? saith Christ, I say to you, my friends, Be ye not afraid of them that slay the body, and after these things have no more which they shall do. But I shall show to you whom you shall dread: dread ye him who after he hath slain, he hath power to send into hell; and so I say to you, Dread him.” Here Christ will that men dread no thing principally, but God and his offence. For, if men dread bodily pains and death, and therefore cease to tell openly the truth, they are with this unable to regain the bliss of heaven, and if they say openly and sadly the truth of God, nothing may harm them, so that they keep patience and charity.”
He then remarks, that what our Lord spoke concerning the sparrows, was to comfort his disciples” under suffering and persecution; and adds, that “nothing may come without his knowing and his ordinance, and that it is all for the best.” Christ, he writes, maketh us willing to die for his law by reward of the bliss of heaven, when he saith thus, that such as acknowledge me before men, man’s Son shall acknowledge him before the angels of God.” Towards the close of the treatise, the Reformer indulges in much lamentation over the sale of benefices, said to. be common everywhere, but most common at Rome, where he who can bring most gold shall soonest be opened to great benefices.” The men so introduced are described as setting an example of pride, lechery, and other sins, hindering other true priests from teaching God’s law. And this is one way of greatest vengeance which God taketh on sinful men, to suffer such hypocrites to rule the people, and draw them to hell by withdrawing from them God’s law.” In common speech, such men were described as ” able curates, and great men of holy church;” but such language the Reformer denounces as ’ Antichrist’s blasphemy.” Having censured the vices, not only of the mendicants, but of the regular clergy, he extends his rebuke to “secular lords.” These also are said to “fail foul in charity.” In maintenance of their worldly dignity they will labour much, and fight valiantly; “but to maintain God’s law, and to stand for the worship to which they are bound upon pain of losing their lordship, and body and soul in hell without end, who is that lord will truly speak, labour, and suffer meekly, despite of persecution, in time of need? Those lords ought to quake against doomsday, and against the time of their death, that travail more largely to maintain their little worldly lordship, and to seek their own worship, than they travail to maintain the rightful ordinance of Jesus Christ in Supremely. ^ Truly. Steadily—firmly.
his church, and to nourish and maintain Christian souls in good governance and holy life.” Merchants, and all classes, are said to be affected by this insincere and worldly temper, ’ but. the hypocrisy of the Pharisees is the most accursed and poisonous of all.”
III. The next treatise in this collection is intitled, DE OBEDIENTIA PRE-LATORUM. The English title is, How men owe Obedience to Prelates, dc. It begins with the words, Prelates slander poor priests, and other Christian men, that they will not obey to their sovereigns, nor fear the curse, nor dread nor keep the law, but despise all things that are against their liking. On this account they are said to be worse than Jews and Pagans, and all lords, and prelates, and mighty men should destroy them, for else they will destroy holy church, and make each man to live as him liketh, that so they may the more destroy Christendom.”
But here poor priests and true men say they would meekly and willingly obey to God and holy church, and to each man in earth, inasmuch as he teacheth truly God’s commandments, and profitable truth for their souls. And no more oweth any man to obey to Christ, God and man, nor to any apostle. And if any worldly prelate axeth more obedience, he surely is Antichrist,‘and Lucifer’s master, for Jesus Christ is the God of righteousness and truth, and peace and charity, and may not do against righteousness and truth, nor against the health of man’s soul, nor against charity, since he may not lie nor deny himself. How then should any sinful prelate charge and constrain men to do against righteousness, and the health of their souls in good conscience? For Christ saith in the Gospel of John, that the Son may not do but that thing which he seeth the Father do; and therefore Christ commanded all men that they should not believe in him, but as he did the works of the Father in heaven. Why then should Christian men be constrained by Antichrist’s clerks to do after their commandments, when they do no works of God, but works of the fiend? And thus Christ speaketh to the Jews, and axeth why they believe not to him, if he saith truth. Therefore, also, Christ saith to the Jews, Who of you shall reprove me of sin? and he would that each man had so done, if he might have done so truly. Therefore in the time of his passion he said to the bishop’s servant who smote him in the face, If I have spoken evil, bear thou witness of the evil” And thus, if prelates are vicars of Christ, they ought to follow him in this obedience, and axe no more of any man.”
[MS. C.C.C. Cambridge. Trin. Coll. Dub. Class. C. Tab. iii. No. 12. pp. 17—23. It does not]
[appear that the itinerant labours of the persons so often mentioned in the writings of Wycliffe under]
[the title of poor priests,” had become such as to attract much attention from the ruling clergy]
[until within some five or six years of the Reformer’s death: and throughout this work, On Obe-]
[dience,” there is so much said concerning the manner in which the bishops employed their authority]
[to silence this new and irregular class of teachers, as to place it beyond doubt that this plece was]
[written by the Reformer sometime within the space above-mentioned.]
Wycliffe then complains that prelates should thus demand greater reverence and submission than had been claimed by the apostles, or by Christ himself, while their life commonly bore so little resemblance to that of the Redeemer. He bids them remember that Christ, God and Man, sought man’s soul, lost through sin, thirty years and more, with great travail, and weariness, and many pains, by many thousand miles upon his feet, in great cold, and storm, and tempests!” To this example, it is contended, his vicars should be, at least in some good measure, conformed: and it is demanded with some warmth, “Why should a sinful idiot claim more obedience than did Christ and his apostles?”
It is maintained further, that no man should leave the greater duty in favour of the less, and the duty to continue to preach the Gospel must be more manifest, than the obligation to obey any summoning from prelates who would gladly prevent such preaching. This summoning of prelates, he insists, “is not grounded in Christ’s life, nor in the life of his apostles, nor in reason, but in Antichrist’s power, through the endowing of the church with secular lordship contrary to Holy Writ. Thus, instead of Christ’s meekness, and poverty, and charity, and true teaching of the Gospel, is brought in.the worldly pride of priests, and simony, and covetousness, and dissension among Christ’s people, and bodily tormenting of them by priests, as though they were worldly lords of the king’s liege men.” Concerning such men, as putting forth such claims, he demands—’ Where are more false Antichrists, more poisonous heretics, or more accursed blasphemers?” The maxim expounded in the next section is, that “no man oweth to put God’s biddings behind, and the biddings of sinful man before;” and since God biddeth every man to discharge his natural obligation to wife and children, all contrary bidding notwithstanding, much more is every priest bound to the discharge of his spiritual duties toward the flock committed to him, and not to “leave his sheep unkept among the wolves of hell” Prelates may enjoin the contrary, but in such case no prelate is to be obeyed. Christ, also, saith in the Gospel, that if the blind lead the blind, they fall both into the lake. These worldly prelates are blind in God’s law, both in the knowing thereof and in life, and accordingly no man should be led by them, for dread lest they both fall into hell-ward, for ignorance of Holy Writ.
By reason, also, and by man’s law, if a man be summoned together by the higher judge and a less, he shall be excused from the less by virtue of the higher. But each man is summoned first of God to worship him with all his wit, and with all his might—and by virtue of this chief dominion, he oweth to be excused from the less.
Men of law say, and reason also, that it is worst of all to take doom under a suspected doomsman. But these worldly prelates are suspected
doomsmen against God’s servants, for they are enemies to the persons of Christ’s servants, and also to the cause of God. And the new religious assessors of these worldly prelates are more to be suspected than any other, for they put the decrees of the church and of their founders before the law of God, and thus charge deficiency and evil on the author of Holy Writ, deceiving lords and ladies in matters of faith and charity, and making them to trust that it is alms to destroy true men, that stand fast for God’s law and true living. And thus the damnable ignorance of God’s law, and the accursed life of these worldly prelates, and the strong maintaining of their own sin, and the sins of other men, is the cause. why poor priests and Christian men have been suspected of heresy, and counted enemies both of God’s cause and of his servants.
But let prelates study busily and truly Holy Writ, and live openly well thereafter, and destroy open sin of other men, and poor priests and Christian men, without any summoning, would with great travail, and cost, and willingness, by land and by water, meekly come to them, and do them obedience and reverence, as they would to Peter and Paul. Let the world judge whether these divisions come from worldly prelates, ignorant, and cursed in life, or from poor priests and true men that fain desire night and day to know God’s will and worship, and to do it before all things.
As to cursing,” Christian men say truly, that they dread it so much, that they would not willingly, or knowingly, deserve God’s curse for any good in earth or in heaven: nor man’s curse, in so far as it accordeth with the rightful curse of God. But they will, with great joy of soul, rather suffer man’s wrongful curse, than knowingly or willingly break any commandment of God, for to win thereby all the worshiping of this world, and to keep their body in all good never so long, and rather to suffer slandering, and backbiting, and imprisoning, and exile, hanging, drawing, quartering, and burning, with the help and grace of God, than to forsake the truth of Holy Writ, and the life of Christ.
As to law, true men say, that they will meekly and wilfully dread and keep God’s law, up to their knowledge and might; and each law of man’s making, in so far as they know that it accordeth with God’s law, and reason, and good conscience. Christian men know well from the faith of Scripture, that neither Peter nor Paul, nor any creature, may do aught lawfully against the truth of Holy Writ, nor against the edification of holy church—that is, against the good teaching, governing, and amending of Christian souls. What power have these worldly prelates to make so many wicked laws, since God curseth those who make wicked laws, and commandeth that no man shall add to his words, nor take
[This term is commonly used by Wycliffe to denote church censures.]
from them, on pain of the great curse of God?—that is to say, let no man add a false interpretation,” or a false gloss to Holy Writ,—for then, as Jerome saith, he is a heretic; and let no man draw any truth away from God’s words, for they include all needful truth, all truth profitable for man’s soul. And to this intent saith Paul in his epistle, if even an apostle, or an angel from heaven, preach other thing than is taught of Christ and his apostles, we must not obey.”
Having insisted in such terms on the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, and the right of private judgment, as opposed to all church pretensions, he concludes this treatise by saying, ” Let worldly prelates cease to slander poor priests, saying that they will not obey their sovereigns, nor dread the curse, but despise the law—for in these three things they are clear before God and man, if right, and reason, and charity, be well sought.”
IV. The next treatise in this series is intitled, DE CoNvERSATIONE EccLEsiasTICORUM. Its purport is indicated in the words with which it commences—- Here it telleth of prelates, that prelates leave preaching of the Gospel, and are ghostly manquellers of men’s souls. The former treatise related to the obedience which prelates were wont to demand; the present relates to the duties devolving on that order of persons, and to their negligence in the matter of those duties. It is in this respect that this piece “On Prelates” is distinguishable from the piece “On Obedience to Prelates.” The strictures of the Reformer on this subject extend to forty-three chapters.
In the first chapter it is shown that our Lord and his apostles were devoted to the work of preaching, and were studious that their lives might be commendatory of their doctrine. = Christ,” it is said, “ordained all his apostles and disciples, both before his death and after his rising from the dead, to preach the Gospel to all men; and since prelates and priests, ordained of God, come in the stead of apostles and disciples, they are all bound by Jesus Christ, both God and man, thus to preach the Gospel.” Three things are said to be included in feeding the church after the manner intended by Christ in his injunction to Peter:
[Sentence.]
[+ M8. C.C.C. Cambridge. Trin. Coll. Dub. Class C. Tab. fii. No. 12. pp. 32—54. This work]
[contains repeated allusions, in common with the preceding, to the conduct of the prelates, in]
[persecuting the ‘poor priests” who went about preaching to the people. (Chap. vi, xvi, xxiii,]
[xxviL) In the thirteenth chapter there is a reference to the crusade carried on in Flanders under]
[the command of Spencer, bishop of Norwich, in favour of Pope Urban. The bishop embarked on]
[that enterprise in April, 1383, having raised a force for the purpose chiefly by means of papal]
[pardons and indulgences. All who should die at this time,” says Froissart, and who had given]
[their money, were absolved from every fault, and by the tenure of the bull, happy were they who]
[could now die, in order to obtain so noble an absolution.” Hist. wbi supra. Wycliffe maintains]
[indignantly that the spiritual weapons of religion should be used ‘“to make peace,” and not, after]
[this manner, to make dissensions and war.”]
the example of a good life; the true preaching of the Gospel; and a willingness to suffer death, if need be, to render men stable in the truth, and in the hope of bliss. The case of Eli and his sons is cited, as showing the domestic and national evils which follow naturally in the train of an unholy priesthood. The language of Ezekiel also, on the responsibility of the minister of truth, is adduced, as holding forth the same- warning. Hence also the language of the apostle— woe is me if I preach not the Gospel:” and as Peter was called Satan, when opposing himself to the death of Christ, so may prelates be thus designated, if they interpose to prevent that salvation from coming to men, which the death of Christ has brought near to us. “Christ,” says Wycliffe, purged the temple with his own hands, as the Gospel telleth, in token that, if the priests were good, the people would soon be amended. And for this reason, true men say, that prelates are more bound to preach truly the Gospel, than their subjects are bound to pay them dymes; for God chargeth that more, and that is more profitable to both parties. Therefore prelates are more accursed if they cease from their preaching, than the people are if they cease to pay tithes, even while prelates do their office well.” Matins, masses, and chantings, are all described as man’s ordinances,” but the preaching of the Gospel is of Divine obligation, as having been enjoined by Christ, both before and after his passion.
In the beginning of the second chapter, the authority of the venerable Bede, of Gregory L, of Augustine, and others, is cited in support of the importance which the Reformer ascribes to preaching. Prelates who do not preach themselves, and who prevent others from doing so, are described as monsters who refuse to feed their own offspring, and who will not suffer others to feed them: and they are denounced accordingly, as procurators to the fiend, enemies of Christ, and traitors to his people!”
In the third chapter, Wycliffe censures, with great freedom, the gay equipage, the profanity, the gluttony, and drunkenness, of many among the prelates, and speaks of their establishments, and their general manners, as proclaiming them members of the “devil’s church,” rather than of holy church.” Prelates, he writes, rob the poor liege men of the king by false excommunications, put forth under colour of holy correction, but giving men leave to dwell in sin from year to year, and from one seven years to another seven years, and commonly all their life long, if they pay by year twenty shillings, or something more or less.” It is then calculated, that should certain bishops live as vendors of this art of merchandise through twenty years, they must amass not
[Tithes.]
less than sixty thousand marks, “all robbed from the king’s liege men.” In this manner, “these wicked prelates sell Christian men’s souls to Satan for money, for which souls Christ shed his precions heart’s-blood upon the cross;” and if secular lords endeavour to amend this state of things, then they are slandered, accursed, and their lands are laid under an interdict; and thus almost all men are conquered to the fiend, and these prelates show themselves very Antichrists, procurators of Satan, and traitors to Jesus Christ and his people.” One prolific source of this corruption, is said to be the prevalence of simony. Most of these dignitaries enter upon their office by such means, and it is said to cleave to them “as a leprosy all through”—a depraved priesthood everywhere producing a depraved people. Lords and ladies who confer benefices on such men, and after such fashion, are admonished, that however plausibly such things may be done, the guilt of simony is upon them, and such proceedings will remain “to be judged in respect to both parties” in the last day.
In the fourth chapter, Wycliffe says, Lords and ladies who hold curates in worldly offices, from the souls of which they have the care, are traitors. For God giveth them lordship and presentation of churches, that they should maintain his law, and help true priests in the preaching of his Gospel; and if they withhold curates, who are God’s treasure, in their worldly services, or prevent them from keeping Christian souls, the which Christ bought with his precious blood, they are foul traitors to Jesus Christ, and to the people whom they thus destroy.” But if it is a great sin in the laity thus to bind the clergy to secular things, it is a greater sin in the clergy to consent to be thus bound, and a greater sin still, when a clerk descends to add craft to worldliness, and to play the false confessor for gain. These three treasons” are said to be frightfully prevalent. “But the simony of the court of Rome doth most harm, for it is most common, and done most under the colour of holiness, and robbeth most our land, both of men and treasure.” The customary exactions of the Roman see are then described and censured, especially because those exactions, and the money spent in journeying to Rome, and during the delays which kept men there, were all so much wealth lost to the kingdom. “When a lord hath the gold for presentation, then the gold dwelleth still in the land. But when the pope hath the first-fruits, then the gold goeth out, and cometh never again.”
But the purchase of benefices with money was only one form of simony. “Pardons, if they are aught worth, must be free, and to take money for them, is to sell God’s grace, and so simony.” Hence masses, and other services, “for which money is taken,” are spoken of as so much fraudulent invention, meant to give the priesthood the power of spoiling the people. The history of Jeroboam, and the fall of Gehazi,
and of Simon Magus, are cited as showing the displeasure with which simoniacal preachers are regarded by the Almighty. “The king and lords,” says the Reformer, ’ are charged of God to destroy this sin and others, and if they do it not, they are consenters to it, and fauterers thereof.”
The following passage is from the seventh chapter of this work:—
“Worldly prelates command that no man shall preach the Gospel, but at their will and limitation, and forbid men to hear the Gospel on pain of the great curse. But Satan in his own person never dared do so much despite to Christ or his Gospel, for he applied Holy Writ to Christ, and would have pursued his intent thereby. And since it is Christ’s counsel and commandment to priests generally to preach the Gospel, and this thing they must not do without leave of their prelates, who, in some cases, may be fiends of hell, then it follows that priests may not do Christ’s counsels and commandments without the leave of fiends! Ah! Lord Jesus, are these sinful fools, and, it may be, fiends of hell, more knowing and mighty than thou, that true men must not do thy will without leave from such? Ah! Lord God, all-mighty, all-knowing, and all full of charity, how long wilt thou suffer these Antichrists to despise thee and thy holy Gospel, and to let the health of Christian men’s souls? Endless, rightful Lord! this thou sufferest for sin reigning generally among the people; but, endless, merciful, and good Lord, help thy poor wretched priests and servants to have love and reverence to thy Gospel, that they be not let from doing thy worship and will through the false feignings of Antichrist and his fiends. Almighty Lord God, merciful, and in knowledge endless, since thou sufferedst Peter and all the apostles to have so great dread and cowardice in the time of thy passion, that they fled all away through fear of death, and for a little poor woman’s voice, and afterwards by comfort of the Holy Ghost thou madest them so strong that they were afraid of no man, nor of pain, nor of death, help now by gifts of the same Holy Ghost, thy poor servants, who all their life have been cowards, and make them strong and bold in thy cause, to maintain the Gospel against Antichrist, and against all the tyrants of the world!”
In the two following chapters, the same subject is continued. Prelates are rebuked as men deriving their chief revenue from the sins of the people. It is because there are so many sins to be confessed, that ’ the rotten penny” is demanded continually: and by such means “a proud name in the world, and great householding,” are sustained. Clerical example, which should conduce to the edification of the people, contributes, in such case, to their destruction. Many of the sins of such
[Favourers.]
men ’ are so open, that it needeth no man to declare them; but of sin against chastity, men say that many prelates are full thereof, and of the most cursed species thereof, such as it would be a shame to write; and so curates take example from them, and subjects take example from curates, both wedded men and single.”
In the ninth and tenth chapters are the following passages:—
“These prelates charge more their own cursing, that is many times false, than the most rightful curse of God Almighty. And hereby they mean, and show indeed, but falsely, that they are more than Almighty God in Trinity, For if a man be accursed of prelates, though wrongfully, anon all men are taught by them to flee him as a Jew or a Saracen. And if he dwell forty days under their curse, he shall be taken to prison, But they who are cursed of God for breaking his commandments, as proud men, envious, covetous, gluttons, the unchaste, are not punished thus, but holden virtuous and manly. So God’s curse is set at nought, while the wrongful ourse of man is charged above the clouds. And yet, though a man be accursed of God, and of a prelate also, if he will give gold he shall be assoiled,” though he dwell in his ’ sin, and so under God’s curse.
“But see now the sinfulness of man’s curse. If a true man shall displease a worldly prelate by teaching and maintaining God’s law, he shall be slandered for an evil man, and forbidden to teach Christ’s Gospel, and the people shall be charged upon pain of the greater curse, to flee, and not to hear such a man, for to save their own souls. And this shall be done under the colour of holiness; for they will say that such a man teacheth heresy, and bring many false witnesses and notaries against him in his absence, and in his presence speak no word. And they pretend, by means of this invented and false law, that if three or four false witnesses, hired by money, say each a thing against a true man, that then he shall not be heard, though he could prove the contrary by two hundred.”
In this manner did the Reformer plead for natural right, and liberty of conscience, against the abuses of power on the part of a worldly and vicious clergy. To concede that such methods of proceeding are just, he remarks, would be to concede the justice of the death inflicted on the martyrs, and on Christ himself, against whom it must, of course, have been easy to produce three such witnesses, By such means, indeed, it were easy to prove each king of Christendom foresworn, and therefore no king.” But as the judgment of Elijah prevailed against that of eight hundred false priests, so shall the judgment of one true man prevail against that of a host of prelates; and if the clerks of
Absolved
Antichrist curse the soul into hell, as they pretend, surely they are evil fathers, who thus violently curse their own children into hell—not for rebellion against God, nor against his law, but because Christian men withstand the prelates’ covetousness or pride, or because they teach and maintain the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
In the next chapter Wycliffe touches on the subject of prayer, on its nature, and its supposed efficacy. Prayer,” he remarks, ”standeth principally in good life, and of this prayer speaketh Christ, when he saith in the Gospel that we must ever pray. For Augustine and other saints say, that so long as a man dwelleth in charity, so long he prayeth well” Prayer is also said to “stand in holy desire,” and “in word;” but prayer in word “is nought worth, unless it be done with devotion, and cleanness, and holiness of life. Ah! Lord, since prelates are so far from God’s law, that they will not preach the Gospel themselves, nor suffer other men to preach it, how abominable is their prayer before God Almighty! Lord, since prelates know not whether their prayer be acceptable or abominable, why do they magnify it so much, and sell it so dear? For the prayer of a lewd man who shall be saved, is without measure better than the prayer of a prelate who shall be damned.” Vicious priests, it is observed, need to have new laws, made of sinful fools, to colour their sin by, and to gather greedily tithes, when they do not their office; for God’s law helpeth them not thereto, but condemns their pride, covetousness, and other sins.” He then combats the notion that such men are heard “not for their own holiness,” but “in virtue of holy church;” and replies to this dreaming,” that it is not grounded in Holy Writ, for God saith generally that such prayer is abominable.” The offering of strange fire on the ancient altar, betokened the offering of prayer without charity.
In the twelfth chapter Wycliffe resumes his censure of the prelates who fine, curse, and imprison men, for preaching the Gospel, and who grant absolutions to the most guilty, on payment of the required rent to Antichrist.” Coercion, he maintains, “belongs to lord’s office, as Peter and Paul teacheth,” and all punishing of the body, and loss of goods, should come from the secular power only.
The thirteenth chapter exposes the frauds practised in the matter of indulgences. Prelates are said to destroy foully Christian men by these feigned? indulgences or pardons.” Such men are described as holding out this promise of indulgence as procured by virtue of Christ’s passion and martyrdom, and holy merits of saints, which they did more than was needful for their own bliss.” But this doctrine, it is replied, “Christ taught never in all the Gospel, and never used it, neither Peter
[A layman, or an ignorant man. LI Counterfeited —invented.]
nor Paul” Some of these indulgences, it seems, were granted in terms extending over a thousand years, and Wycliffe ridicules such grants by reminding those who value them, that after the day of doom there will be no purgatory, and no man knoweth how soon that doom may come.” But the Reformer pushes his argument on this subject to a length which his opponents must have felt to be not a little inconvenient. It seemeth that the pope and his are all out of charity, if there dwell any soul in purgatory. For he may with full heart, and without any other cost deliver them out of purgatory.” To confess the want of inclination in this particular, Wycliffe argues, must be to confess a gross want of charity; and to confess the want of power must be to confess the hypocrisy which makes pretension to such power. Allusion is made to the manner in which these indulgences were dispensed in favour of the recent crusade in Flanders, conducted by Spencer, bishop of Norwich, when it was seen that their use was “not to make peace, but dissensions and wars.” The whole system of indulgences, and pardons, is denounced as “a subtle merchandise of Antichrist’s clerks, to magnify their counterfeit power, and to get worldly goods, and to cause men not to dread sin.” Marvellous it is that any sinful fool dare grant anything on the merit of saints, for all that ever any saint did may not bring a soul to heaven without the grace and might of Christ’s passion.” In that passion, it is maintained “all merits that are needful” will be found, and the judgment of God hereafter will not be found to have been influenced by the caprice or the biddings of man. Wycliffe concludes this instructive chapter by praying that God would of his endless mercy “destroy the pride, covetousness, hypocrisy, and heresy of this feigned pardoning, and make men busy to keep his commandments, and to set fully their trust in Jesus Christ.” From prelates at home, Wycliffe proceeds to touch on the pretensions of the great prelate abroad—this he does in the following terms: Also prelates make many new points of belief, and say it is not enough to believe in Jesus Christ, and to be christened, as Christ saith in the Gospel of Mark, unless a man also believe that the bishop of Rome is head of holy church. And certainly the apostles of Jesus Christ never constrained any man to believe thus concerning himself. And yet they were certain of their salvation in heaven. How then should any sinful wretch, who knows not whether he shall be damned or saved, constrain men to believe that he is head of holy church? Certainly, in such case, they must sometimes constrain men to believe that a devil of hell is head of holy church, when the bishop of Rome shall be a man damned for his sins.” In this bold manner did the genius of our Reformer separate between the institutional and the moral, the political and the spiritual, in the
See pages 2, 3
religion of Christ, inculcating that no reverence should be evinced towards mere office, if not allied with the spirit propar to it—the irreligious man who assumes a religious office, becoming only so much the more guilty, and the more despicable in so doing. It is not difficult to see that this one principle included the germ of all subsequent revolution in religious usage and opinion. Heavily does the Reformer complain of the arrogance which required that the people should not presume to judge in respect to the life or doctrine of the clergy, while Paul from the third heavens, and Jesus Christ, God and man, challenged such scrutiny from friends and foes. But the intention of this doctrine is said to be, that men “may not reprove such persons for any sin whatsoever which they may do;” and that good men may not presume to preach the Gospel except as bad men shall give them permission, which, according to the right of private judgment, as held in fact, though not in terms, by Wycliffe, was to place the authority of Satan before the authority of Christ,
Nor was it enough that this description of clergymen should claim exemption from all popular censure,—they affected the same independence of the highest authorities, and in respect to civil matters no less than the religious, Prelates most destroy obedience to the law of God, for they say that they are not to be subject to secular lords, to pay them taxes, or to help the commons; and are not to be amended by their subjects (people) of their open sins, but only by the pope who is their sovereign, and he by no man on earth, because he is the greatest of all.” But the men who avow this doctrine are reminded that Christ paid tribute to a heathen emperor, and to his religion or church, when it was demanded of him, though he had no secular lordship, nor plenty of tithes, and much more therefore should these rich priests” be made to comply with such demands,
In the twenty-second chapter the Reformer resumes his strictures on the pretensions of the sovereign pontiff. It is said openly, he observes, that there is nothing lawful among Christian men without leave of the bishop of Rome, though he be Antichrist, full of simony and heresy. For commonly, of all priests he is the most contrary to Christ, both in life and teaching; and he maintaineth more sin, by privileges, excommunications, and long pleas; and he is most proud against Christ’s meekness, and most covetous of worldly goods and lordships.” He is described as the head and representative of all the corruptions by which the ecclesiastical system was disfigured; and to subject the church to such a sovereignty, it is added, must be assuredly to subject her to the power of Antichrist.
In the two subsequent chapters Wycliffe rebukes those martial prelates whose passions tended to destroy the men, body and soul, whom they
should have saved; and renews his lamentations that simony should be -allowed so greatly to deprave both priest and people, and to transfer the wealth of the country to the coffers of its enemies. In the twenty-sixth chapter he writes, “Prelates say, that Holy Writ is not sufficient to rule holy church, and that the teachers thereof are not profitable to the people.” But to this, it is replied, that “it is the pride of Lucifer, and even greater pride than his, to say that the teachers of man’s traditiens, made of sinful fools, are more profitable and needful to Christian people than the preachers of the Gospel.” If Christ has not made his law complete, it is argued that this must be either because he could not or would not. But to say either of these things, would it not be to put a foul heresy on Christ?” This nevertheless is done—done “secretly to maintain their own covetousness and pride.” In the two following chapters, it is lamented that notwithstanding the clearness of such arguments, men are found “leaving Holy Writ and reason, fer feigned dreams and miracles— and sinful man’s traditions full of error:” while prelates convert secular lords into destroyers of men’s souls, by converting them into the persecutors of men who preach the Gospel.
In the thirtieth chapter Wycliffe remarks, ’ Worldly prelates say, that sinee the people should worship Gregory, and Peter and Paul and other true apostles of Christ, and as they themselves come into the place of apostles, then the people should worship them after the same manner. But they take no aecount how those apostles came to their state by choosing and ordaining of God, and by holy life and true service which they did to Christian people, in true teaching of the holy Gospel, both in word and deed.” Adverting to the reasonable claims of the clergy on their people, the Reformer observes, “It is good that Christian priests should have worldly goods for their necessary livelihood, and clothing, as Paul teacheth, and reason.” But the inordinate wealth of the clergy is said to have filled them with pride, to have rendered them the victims of lust, and to have raised a Bible made up of man’s traditions, into the place ef the true Bible..
In the remaining portion of this work, Wycliffe insists that it is just and scriptural thus to rebuke a vicious clergy. ’ Christ and his apostles reproved Pharisees, and Herod, and heretics, in their absence and before the people, as the Gospels and Epistles witness, and this was for our example, to be followed with charity and discretion.” Were it not so, a depraved priesthood might be left to ’ wax rotten in their lusts, rob the people, and destroy Christendom:” and however agreeable such exemption may be to such men, it does not comport with the sense of public duty in some other men that they should be left in the enjoyment of it. Masses, pardons, and pilgrimages, all are described as “novelties,” the effect of which is, “to make people believe that if a priest say a certain
mass for a soul, it shall anon be out of purgatory, though God in his righteousness ordain that soul to abide there forty year or more, and though the priest himself be accursed for simony and pride, for, as they falsely pretend, the mass may not be impaired by the priest’s sin. —Prelates blaspheme against God, the Father of heaven, by taking to themselves the power which belongs only and especially to God—that is, the power of absolving sins, and the full remission of them. For they take on them principally to absolve, and make the people to believe so, when they have only absolved as vicars, or messengers, to witness for the people that God absolveth on contrition, or else neither angel, nor man, nor God himself absolveth—unless the sinner is contrite, that is, fully have sorrow for his sin.”
The treatise concludes thus—^ In these three and forty errors and heresies, men may see how evil prelates destroy Christendom—for of them and no other is this speech—and how they are the cause of wars, and of evil life in the people, and of their damnation. God of his might and mercy amend these errors, and others, if it be his will I”
v. 1. The next piece in the collection under review is intitled, Specu-LUM DE ANTICHRISTO. Its title in English is, How Antichrist and his clerkes Jeren treue priests from preaching of Christ’s Gospel by four deceits. It begins with the words, First they say that preaching of the Gospel maketh dissensions and enmity..
In answer to this first deceit,” it is said, that ’ Christ came not to make peace for sinful men, by leaving them to live in their fleshly lusts, and worldly joy, at their liking.” Christ means his people to be in peace only as they are holy.
The second deceit” is, that many men will be damned notwithstanding the hearing of the Gospel, and the more damned because they hear God’s word, and do not thereafter.” The reasoning cited on this point is of the true Antinomian complexion, neutralising precept by speculations about necessity. But it is contended that men should continue to pray and preach, even to enemies, assured that as they so do “fewer will be lost, and more will be saved.” Even concerning the reprobate it is observed, that sometimes they have compunction, and leave their sins for a long while, and that to them is better than all this world. And
[+ MS. C.C.C. Cambridge. Trin. Coll. Dub. Class C. Tab. fii. No. 12. Our only evidence in]
[preaching, charges the friars with doing their utmost to deceive the people, and to stop poor]
[priests” from endeavouring to bring them out of their ignorance and irreligion; and it is altogether]
[marked by the opinions, feeling, and language observable in such of the Reformer’s works as are]
[known to be the production of his later years. We know of no work strictly of this complexion,]
[that can be shown to have been written by Wycliffe in the early period of his history; but every-]
[thing known to be from his pen during the last five or seven years of his life carries this impress.]
God giveth to each man free will to choose good or evil, and God is ready to give them grace if they will receive it. And in this life they do many good deeds of kind, and because of them they shall have much reward in this world, and at the last a less pain in hell. And it is a great vengeance from God when he withdraweth preaching from a community, accounting them not worthy to hear his word; and wherever a gathering of people is, there is commonly some good done,.and for those who will receive the word principally men preach it.” But if none will hear, it is admitted that from such a people, after apostolic example, the preacher should turn away. The reader will not fail to mark the moral discrimination which is blended with this treatment of a subtle theological question. It has been too much the practice of divines to estimate the moral and immoral in the unregenerate by the same rule.
The third deceit” is, that good men shall be saved though there be no preaching, for God saith they may not perish; while some wicked men shall never come to bliss for any preaching on earth. Here true men. say that as God hath ordained good men to come to bliss, so he hath ordained them to come to bliss by preaching, and by keeping his word. So as they must needs come to bliss, they must needs hear and keep God’s commandments, and to this end serveth preaching with them. And some wicked men shall now be convinced by God’s grace and hearing of his word; and who knoweth the measure of God’s mercy, or to whom the hearing of God’s word shall be thus profitable? Each man should hope to come to heaven, and should enforce himself to hear and to fulfil the word of God. For since each man hath a free will, and chooseth good or evil, no man shall be saved except he that readily heareth and steadily keepeth the commandments of God, and no man shall be damned except he that wilfully and endlessly breaketh God’s commands.” It is very difficult to ascertain the real opinions of the Reformer on topics of this nature as set forth in the Latin of his more. scholastic pieces. The preceding observations furnish one of the most explicit expositions of his views that I have met with.
The fourth ’ deceit” is, when it is said, that men should cease from preaching, and give themselves to holy prayers and contemplations, because that helpeth Christian men more, and is better.” But in answer, ‘ true men say boldly that true preaching is better than prayer by the mouth, or though it should come from the heart and from pure devotion, and that it edifieth more the people. Therefore Christ especially commanded his apostles and disciples to preach the Gospel, and not to shut themselves up in cloisters or churches to pray as some men. Hence Isaiah cried, Woe is me that I was still;’ and Paul says, Woe
Nature—they discharge many natural duties without being religious
is me if I preach not the Gospel.’ Devout prayer in men of good life is good in certain time; but it is against charity for priests to pray evermore, and at no time to preach, since Christ chargeth priests to preach the Gospel, more than to say mass and matins.” These enlightened views concerning the paramount importance of preaching, exhibit the mind of Wycliffe as some two centuries in advance of his age; but he cites Gregory and Jerome in support of these opinions, and as censuring customs which deprived society of the benefit of good examples, and led to much sin in the way of omission.
v. 1. We next come to the treatise intitled, Or CLERKS PossksstoNEns. Its object is to expose the irreligion which, in the view of the Reformer, had resulted from the inordinate wealth, and the secular jurisdiction of the clergy. It consists of forty chapters.”
In the commencement, St. Augustine, St. Gregory, and St. Bernard, are introduced as censuring the secular lordship of the clergy, declaring it to be opposed to the design and precepts of the Gospel. Clerks who live “a lustful and worldly life,” are said to declare, that “the life and example of Christ are not a sufficient rule,” and in so doing proclaim them as “strong heretics.” Such men are “traitors to God, to lords and to the cominon people.” To God they show themselves traitors by deserting his law; to lords by cursing them unless they are prepared t maintain what is called holy church; and to the people by deceiving them, teaching them openly, that they shall have God’s blessing, and bliss in heaven, if they pay truly their tithes and offerings to them.” These persons are described as preferring the smiles of sinful man, to the smiles of Christ, God and man;” as coming in under colour of saints,” and as living a life contrary to that of their professed patrons; and this fact is said to account for, the attempts made by pretended devotees to falsify the lives of their founders.
Some men of this class are said to attempt a justification of their assuming a secular lordship by appealing to the example of Christ; “But Christ saith in the Gospel of St. John, that his kingdom is not of this world. And by worldly lordship he had not once where to rest his head. Therefore it is heresy to put this secular lordship on Christ.” Worldly jurisdiction, it is argued, must bring with it worldly and distracting duties, which Christ and his disciples knew not~—such as
[MS. C.C.C. Cambridge. Trin. Coll. Dub. Class C. Tab. iil. No. 12. This treatise speaks of]
[priests as living poorly and justly, and going about teaching freely God’s law,” (chap. xvi.) and]
[abounds in complaint that men should be persecuted for so doing. Its condemnation of all kinds of]
[endow ent, exceptiug the form of tithes and offerings, and its doctrine even concerning such rev-]
[nues in the case of ecclesiastics who trespass by long custom,” leave no room to doubt as to the]
[Jate date of this remarkable production.]
must unfit men “for studying and teaching Holy Writ,” and be unfriendly to devotion, and prayer, and meditation, and heavenly sweetness.” Such occupations, indeed, cannot fail to ensnare men to simony, covetousness, gluttony, and idolatry;” disposing persons professing deadness to the world to a life the most worldly; converting men who should be preachers of the Gospel into preachers of fables; and teaching them to fight against the truth, and not for the truth.
It will be seen from these remarks, that under the title of clerks possessioners, Wycliffe included not only the beneficed and higher clergy, but also the opulent religious orders. But while monks and canons profess to take their model from the community of goods in the church at Jerusalem, they are described as destitute of the well-regulated temperance, and the Christian piety, in which that usage originated. Much complaint is made that the private rules of religious sects are made to be of more binding authority than the most manifest precepts of Christ; and that the delinquents who thus place the authority of man before the authority of God, should so commonly betray the nature of the training they receive in their secular offices by becoming persecutors of good men following the example of Holy Writ, and living poorly and justly, and going about teaching freely God’s law.” Some fraternities among the religious orders are said to possess ’ many books,” and some copies of Holy Writ, which have come to them by gift or testament; but they hide them from secular clerks,” and suffer their noble books to rot in their libraries, and neither will profit themselves by studying in them, nor leave them to other clerks that would; 80 that seculars and clerks may scarcely have a book of value.”
The men who thus subordinate legrning, as well as religion, to their love of pomp and indulgence, are reminded that they cannot fail to know from their own laws, as well as from Holy Scripture, that whatever they possess as more than necessary to decent “livelihood,” is not their own, but poor men’s goods;” and they are admonished, accordingly, to cease their visitings of the great, and to become visitors of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow. The claim of the clergy to be exempt from the loss of their goods by any judgment from the civil power, even “though they should be trespassers by long custom,” is treated as arrogant and unjust, otherwise ’ God’s law is false, which giveth power to kings and secular lords to punish generally, out-taking no man.”
In the remaining chapters of this treatise the Reformer exposes the folly of supposing that the existing race of clergymen would be found equal to the duties of two lordships,” the secular and the spiritual, while By secular clerks, the regular clergy are meant, as distinguished from the religious orders.
Christ and his apostles were so careful to avoid such a weight and mixture of obligation. He laments, also, the many instances in which the laws of God are put aback,” and the laws of men advanced to their place; and all this that priests may be sustained in pleading exemption from the authority of the civil power, and from the usual burdens of the state, and persecuting all good men, who, by living a holy life and preaching truly the Gospel, reprove them for their sins. He concludes the piece, as was his custom, by a prayer. “God. Almighty, stir up priests, lords, and commons, to know the hypocrisy, and treason, of Antichrists worldly clerks, and to know and maintain the rightful ordinance of Christ, and the profit and freedom of the Gospel. Amen.”
v. 11. The work intitled DE XXXIII. ERroriBUS CURATORUM, has for its English title, How the Office of Curates is ordained of God; and begins thus— For the office of curates is ordained of God, and few do it well, and many full evil.^ In the Cambridge Collection this piece follows that On Clerks Possessioners.” The term curate in this tract is used to denote the regular parochial clergy. This piece, accordingly, relates to the faults of the inferior clergy, as the three preceding pieces related to the faults of their superiors. As may be expected, the same errors come again under review, and much of the same kind of reasoning is employed to expose and correct them. It will be sufficient, in consequence, to cite a few passages. The following extract includes the whole of the first chapter:—
For the office of curates is ordained of God, and few do it well, and many full evil. Therefore, tell we some of their defaults, to amend them with God’s help.
First, they are more busy about worldly goods, than about virtues, and the keeping of men’s souls. For he who can best get the riches of this world together, and hold great household and worldly array, he is holden a worthy man of holy church, though he know not the least point of the Gospel. And such a one is up in full favour of the bishop &nd of his officers. But the curate who giveth himself to study Holy Writ, and teach his parishioners to save their souls, and who liveth in meekness, penance,^ and busy travail about ghostly things, and seeketh nought of worldly worship and riches, is holden a fool, and a disturber
[» MS. C.C.C. Cambridge. Trin. Coll. Dub. Clas C. Tab. fii. No. 12. pp. 103—116. The reference]
[in the twenty-sixth chapter of this work to the objections made against the reading of the Scriptures]
[by the laity in the mother tongue, fixes the date of the tract as written by the Reformer not more]
[than two or three years before his death. The passage will be found in the text. The greater part]
[of this work has been printed in the work intitled, The British Reformers, i. 123—141, published by]
[the Religious Tract Society.]
[The word penance” is used by Wycliffe in the sense of contrition, penitence, or humility.]
of holy church, and is despised and persecuted of high priests, and prelates, and their officers, and hated of other curates in the country. And this maketh many curates to be negligent in their ghostly cures, and to give themselves to occupation and business about worldly goods. But these negligent curates think full little how dearly Christ bought man’s soul with his precious blood and death, and how hard a reckoning he will make for those souls at doomsday. Certainly, it seemeth that they are out of the faith of Christian men. For they make themselves not ready to come and answer how they came into their benefices; and how they lived, and taught, and spent poor men’s goods. For if they had this faith ready in their mind, they would begin a better life, and continue therein.”
The following passage is from the twenty-sixth chapter:—
‘They (the worldly clergy) are Antichrists, forbidding Christian men to know their belief, and to speak of Holy Writ. For they say openly that secular men should not intermeddle themselves with the Gospel to read it in the mother tongue, but attend to a holy father’s preaching, and do after such in all things. But this is expressly against God’s teaching. For God commandeth generally to each layman, that he should have God’s commandments before him, and teach them to his children. And the wise man biddeth every Christian man, that all his telling be in the commandments of God, and that he have them evermore in his mind. And St. Peter biddeth us, as Christians, be ready to give a reason for our faith and hope to each man that asketh it. And God commands his priests to preach the Gospel to each man, and the reason is, because all men should know it, and rule their life according to it. Lord! why should worldly priests forbid secular men to speak of the Gospel, and of God’s commandments, since God giveth them great wit of kind, and great desire to know God, and love him? For the more goodness they shall know of God, the more they shall love him; while worldly priests, from their own ignorance, sloth, idleness, and pride, stop Christian men from knowing God, and shut up from them the gifts which God hath given to them. Since the beginning of the world, none have heard higher craft of Antichrist, whereby to destroy Christian men’s belief and charity, than is this blasphemous heresy—that laymen should not intermeddle with the Gospel.”.
The next passage is from the thirtieth chapter:—
They take not tithes and offerings by form of the Old Testament,
[Strong natural discernment.]
[5 The fourth error is, that they think more of statutes of sinful men, than of the most reasonable]
[law of Almighty God. For they dread the pope’s law, and statutes made by bishops, and other]
[officers, more than the noble law of the Gospel. Therefore they have many great and costly books]
[of man’s law, and study them much; but few curates have the Bible and good expositions on the]
[Gospel: they study them but little, and do them less. But would to God that every parish church]
parting them in common to all priests and ministers of the church. Nor according to the form of the Gospel, taking a simple livelihood, given of free devotion of the people, without constraining, as Christ and his apostles did. But by the new law of sinful men, one priest challengeth to himself all the tithes of a great country, by a worldly plea, and by new censures; while he neither liveth as a good priest, nor teacheth as a curate, nor giveth the residue to poor men, but wasteth it in pomp, and gluttony, and other sins, and hindereth true prieste from doing the office laid on them by God Almighty. Surely it seemeth that these priests are not after God’s law, but after some ordinance of sinful men, and would be masters of God, and lords over Christian people, since they never hold the law of God. And as to tithes, them they take by violence, and by strong curses, against men’s good will, and make the people out of patience and charity by their pleading, and do not well their ghostly office.”
v. 111. It will be seen from these extracts, that the work on the Office of Curates breathes a spirit of earnest piety, and that it gives prominence to the soundest Protestant principle. The piece which is next in succession, intitled, OF THE ORDER or PRIESTHOOD,? is of the same complexion, touching vigorously on the same evils, and pointing to the same remedy. The matter of this treatise is divided into twenty-nine sections, or chapters, but, as in the preceding work, with more of the appearance of order than of the reality. It eoncludes with the following devout appeal:—
But good priests, who live well, in pureness of thought and speech and deed, and in good example to the people, and who teach God’s law up to their knowledge, and who travail fast night and day to learn it better and teach it openly and constantly, are very prophets of God, and holy angels of God, and spiritual lights of the world, as God saith by his prophets, and Jesus Christ in the Gospel, and saints declare it well by Buthority and reason. Ye priests, think on this noble and worthy office, and do it readily according to your knowledge and power. Think also,
[in this land had a good Bible, and good expositions on the Gospel, and that the priests studied them]
[well, and taught truly the Gospel and God’s commandments to the people! Then should good life]
[prevail, and rest, and peace, and charity; sip and falseness should be put back—God bring this end]
[to his people! ”— British Reformers, i. 125.]
[This subject has been touched upon in a preceding section of the treatise. The ninth error is,]
[that they waste poor men’s goods on rich furs and costly clothes, and worldly array, and feasts of]
[rich men, and in gluttony, drunkenness, and lechery. For they sometimes pass great men in their]
[gay furs, and precious clothes, fat horses, with gay saddles and bridles. St. Bernard crieth,]
[Whatever curates hold of the altar more than simple livelihood and clothing, is not theirs, but other]
[men’s.”— Ibid. i. 127.]
[MS. C.C.C. Cambridge. Trin. Coll. Dub. Class C. Tab. iii. No. 12. pp. 116—125. The]
[doctrine of this work, concerning the duty of lords in regard to the wealth of the delinquent or]
[indolent among the clergy, and the manner in which it sets forth preaching as compared with]
[other priestly services, seem to determine its date as contemporaneous with the works imme-]
[Hately preceding.]
ye lords and mighty men who support priests, how dreadful it is to maintain worldly priests in their lusts, who neither know God, nor will learn, nor live holily in this noble order. For ye may easily amend them, without cost or travail, only telling them that ye will not support them, but as they do their duty, live well, and preach the Gospel. And certainly they would then do so. And think, ye great men, were not this a thousand-fold better than to conquer all the world? Hereby there should be no great cost to you nor travail, but honour to God, and endless good to your ownselves, to priests, and to all Christendom. God, for his endless mercy and charity, bring this holy end! Amen.”
IX. The piece which concludes thus, is followed by a tract intitled, Or Goop-PnEACcHING Priests. It begins in the following terms:— The first general point of poor priests that preach in England is thisthat the law of God be well known, taught, maintained, magnified. The second is—that great open sin that reigneth in divers states be destroyed, and also the heresy and hypocrisy of Antichrist and his followers. The third is, —that true peace and prosperity, and burning charity, be increased in Christendom, and especially in the realm of England, for to bring men readily to the bliss of heaven.”
Then follows a series of articles which expose and reprove existing abuses, and various means are dwelt upon, which, if duly applied, might, with the Divine blessing, go far towards restoring to the Christian religion its primitive simplicity, purity, and devout feeling. Thus it is urged that “the accursed heresy of simony,” so inwrought with all the usages of the clergy, should be destroyed—destroyed alike “in benefices, orders, sacraments, and pardons;” and that “the ravening and extortion of prelates and their officers, which they do under colour of jurisdiction and alms, in the maintaining of sin for an annual rent, and the like, be wisely and truly stopped, and that they be well chastised for thus robbing the king’s liege men.” It is demanded also, “that clerks should be meek and obedient to worldly lords, as Christ and his apostles were, and that they be not nourished in great sin by exemption from the clerks of Antichrist, lest Christian kingdoms be destroyed because of the suffering and maintaining of accursed sin.” The next principle of the needed reformation laid down is— that Christian men fear more the rightful curse of God, for breaking his commandments, than the wrongful curse of sinful men, who curse men for the true preaching of
[MS. C.C.C. Cambridge. The first sentence of this work shows that it was written in behalf of a]
[class of men, who, as we have before observed, do not become known to us until near the close of the]
[life of the Reformer. Its doctrine throughout is that of Wycliffe when his views were most matured.]
[If this and similar pieces be compared with the Pore Caitif,” or the Last Age of the Church,” the]
[reader will be sensible to the force of this kind of evidence.]
the Gospel, and the fulfilling of the works of mercy; for God blesseth where they curse.”
It is argued further—” that Christian men of the realm should not be robbed by simony, of the first fruits to go to the bishop of Rome; nor by the bishops at home for the hallowing of churches, altars, and such things; that Christian men should give more heed to Christ’s Gospel and his life, than to any bulls from the sinful bishops of this world, or else they forsake Christ, and take Antichrist and Satan for their chief governor:—that no liege man of the king should be imprisoned for the wrongful cursing of the prelates, while he is ready to justify himself by Holy Writ, and while he does truly his office:—and that whosoever doth most simony, and maintaineth most sin, should be judged, known, and treated, as in the most degree a heretic, as most the adversary of Jesus Christ, and as Antichrist.” Wycliffe then adds, ’ If any man can prove by Holy Writ or reason that these points are false, poor priests will meekly amend them, and heartily pray all good men to help them in the true cause, for the honour of God, the health of their souls, and the salvation of Christian nations.”
But the Reformer has not concluded his intended series of innovations, —he moves further, That the alms of lords, given to prelates and the religious upon certain conditions, namely, to feed certain poor men, and to other hospitalities, and to maintain a certain number of good priests, be wisely amended by the king and the lords, whenever those goods are turned into means of pomp, gluttony, lechery, and maintaining of sin:— That the poor commoners be not charged with taxes, while clerks, and mainly the religious, have a superfluity of gold and silver, and such vessels, and other jewels, since all these goods are poor men’s goods, and clerks are not lords of them, but merely procurators to spend them faithfully, according to poor men’s need, as God’s law and man’s law witnesseth:—That the wasted treasure hanging on stocks and stones be wisely spent in defence of the kingdom, and relieving ofthe poor commons, that the people of our land be not brought to theft nor lechery under the colour of pilgrimage, nor alms be drawn from poor needy men, bought with Christ’s precious blood:—That the clergy of our land be restrained from pride, glorious array, and worldly occupation, and especially that our prelates and curates be charged by the king and lords to teach well their subjects by example of good life, and open and true preaching of the Gospel, as busily and readily as they ask their tithes:— That none of the clergy be hindered from keeping truly and freely the Gospel of Christ in good living and true teaching on account of any feigned privilege or tradition, founded by sinful wretches:—”hat no priest or religious man in our land be imprisoned without open doom, and true cause fully known to our king, or to his true council; else worldly priests and
feigned religious may stop true men from preaching of Holy Writ and magnifying of the king’s regalia, and may condemn the king’s liege men without answer:—That fairs be not allowed on holidays, never on Sundays: —That adultery and open impurity be not suffered in great places in our realm, nor maintained for an annual rent, as that is utterly against God’s bidding:—That worldly clerks, and the feigned religious, usurp not the king’s regalia, nor steal from him his holy power, granted to him of God, for no cursing or hypocrisy, since they are bound to be true to the king, and to forward his worship and the profit of his land: — and that the king and lords govern themselves in their state as God ordained it, in great wisdom, might of men, and sufficient riches, to againstand wrong and misdoers, and in their lordships to help poor men, the fatherless and motherless, and widows and aliens, and to honour and reward true men, and clerks living in meekness, willing poverty, and busy spiritual labour for the help of man’s soul, as Christ and his apostles did.”
X. The next piece, under the title of THE GREAT SENTENCE oF THE CURSE EXPOUNDED, is much more extended than the one preceding it, and throughout is in the same degree pregnant with the seeds of reformation. It begins with the words— First, all heretics againstanding the faith of Holy Writ be cursed solemnly four times in the year, and also maintainers or consenters to heresy or heretics in their errors.” The matter of this treatise is distributed into seventy-nine chapters, and extends to nearly a hundred quarto pages. The reference in the sixteenth chapter to the war then going on in Flanders “for the love of two false priests, who are open Antichrists,” and some other allusions to contemporary events, show that this piece was written by the Reformer not more than two or three years before his death.^ The points in this treatise, which engage the attention of the writer, are those which came before the people from quarter to quarter as this periodical anathema was pronounced in their heuring.
The Reformer begins by defining heresy, on the authority of Augustine and other clerks, as “error maintained against Holy Writ.” But our worldly prelates, he remarks, maintain error against Holy Writ in the matter of preaching the Gospel of Christ, and therefore they are themselves cursed heretics. For when Paul asks how men should preach but as they are sent, they understand that of such men only as are sent by the pope, and other worldly prelates.” On this plea, it is observed, they not only silence many good men, causing the servants of God to
[MS. C.C.C. Cambridge. 5^ The further evidence ín respect to date is in chapters lii. xv. xvi. xix. xxvi.]
depend for liberty to preach on approval from the children of the fiend, but even an angel from heaven would not dare deliver the message of the Almighty to save men’s souls, because some worldly priest has presumed to contravene the commandment of God. But whatever may be the doctrine or practice of the rulers of the church in this respect, sending by those worldly prelates is not enough, without a sending of God, as Paul saith.” Nevertheless, it is so, that poor priests are slandered as heretics, accursed, and imprisoned, without answer, forasmuch as they stand up for Christ’s life and teaching, and the maintenance of the king’s regalia.”
According to the “Great Sentence,” all persons were accursed, who should “spoil, or take away any right from holy church, or defraud holy church of any endowment.” On this point, it is remarked, that ^ Christian men, taught in God’s law, call holy church, the congregation of just men, for whom Jesus Christ shed his blood, and they do not so call stones, and timber, and earthly rubbish, which Antichrist’s clerks magnify more than God’s righteousness, and the souls of Christian men. True teaching is most due to holy church, and is most charged of God, and most profitable to Christian souls. Insomuch therefore as God’s word, and the bliss of heaven in the souls of men, are better than earthly goods, insomuch are those worldly priests who withdraw the great debt of holy teaching worse than thieves, and more accursedly sacrilegious than the ordinary thief who breaks into churches and steals thence chalices, and vestments, and never so much gold,” The fault, and the just doom of such men, are illustrated by an allusion to feudal relationships, They hold their office to certain ends, such as Christ and the apostles had set before them; and inasmuch as they not only fail to perform the duties of that office, but prevent others who are able and willing to perform them from so doing, they are pronounced traitors to the said lord, and their place is said to be a forfeiture.
The third chapter commences with the often-repeated complaint, that the clergy should so commonly apply the revenues of the church to the purposes of luxury, and neglect the poor. But the heaviest censure in this connexion is directed against the pontiff. Certainly some men understand that the cruel manslayer of Rome is not Peter’s successor, but Christ’s enemy, and the emperor’s master, and poison under colour of holiness, and that he maketh most unable curates,” Again— This evil manslayer, poisoner, and burner of Christ’s servants, is made by evil clerks to be the ground and root of all the misgovernance of the church: and yet they make blind men believe that he is head of holy church, and the most holy father, who may not sin!” Grosstete is
[The celebrated Bishop of Lincoln.]
mentioned as having been of a different judgment concerning the papacy in his day, and as having expressed that judgment to the pontiff himself with an integrity and fearlessness ever to be admired. The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters treat of the simony connected with admission to orders, the obtaining of benefices, and the administration of the sacraments, The ecclesiastical system is said to be so constructed in all respects as to fuvour the enriching of the priesthood, and the plunder of the people. But while the exercise of every priestly function carried its tax along with it, some of its acts imposed a heavier burden than others. “If men foolishly make a vow to go to Rome, or Jerusalem, or Canterbury, or on any other pilgrimage, that we deem of greater weight than the vow made at our christening to keep God’s commandments, to forsake the fiend and all his works. But though men break the highest commandments of God, the rudest parish priest shall anon absolve him. But of the vows made of our own head, though many times against ’ God’s will, no man shall absolve but some great worldly bishop, or the most worldly priest of Rome—the master of the emperor, the fellow of God, and the deity on earth!”
On the sale of masses Wycliffe writes—’ Ah Lord! how much is our king and our realm helped by the masses and the prayers of simonists and heretics, full of pride, and envy, and who so much hate poor priests for teaching Christ’s life and the Gospel.” But the following passage shows that until within a year or two of his death Wycliffe believed in the existence of an intermediate state, and that the devout intercessions of theliving might be in some sense beneficial to the dead who had not passed beyond that state. ’ Saying of mass, with cleanness of holy life, and burning devotion, pleaseth God Almighty, and is profitable to Christian souls in purgatory, and to men living on earth that they may withstand temptations to sins.” The following passage shows also that he still thought highly of the functions of the priest as exercised in consecrating the elements of the eucharist. Think, therefore, ye pure priests, how much ye are beholden to God who gave you power to sacred^ his own precious body and blood of bread and wine, a power which he never granted to his own mother or to the angels, Therefore with all your desire, and reverence, and devotion, do your office in the sacrament I”
The eighth chapter commences with passages from St. Gregory, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, and others, concerning the duties of the pastoral office. On these passages suitable comment is made; and it is especially remarked, that the men who have filled this office with the greatest success have generally been men on whom it has been forced. It is said that
[Consecrate.]
no man should seek it, inasmuch as that would be to forget the admonition of Scripture—’ No man taketh this honour upon himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” When bishoprics were poor, and to become a bishop was to be exposed to martyrdom, it might have been well to aspire to such distinction; but in these later times, when the office is connected with much temptation to indulge in every sort of worldliness, a devout man may with good reason avoid, rather than seek such an elevation.
Such persons are said to calumniate Christ and his disciples, as having failed to present a true pattern of life to their followers, so long as their own life presents an example so widely different from that which has been thus placed before them. It is a great sin to witness falsely against a poor man; itis a greater sin so to witness against a holy man; but most of all to do so with the name of Christ, the Head of all saints, and the Lord of all lords. Also it is a great sin to lie, and to defraud men of their temporal goods; much more to deprive them of spiritual goods, of virtues, and good life, and most of all to deprive them of faith, and of the mirror of Christ’s life, which is the ground of all well-being hereafter.”
The following passage expresses Wycliffe’s opinion respecting the middle-age usage well known by the name of “the rights of sanctuary,” which consisted in extending the. privilege of the Hebrew cities of refuge to certain ecclesiastical edifices, and that not merely in respect to manslaying, but to offences of all descriptions. The communities of such places are said to “challenge franchise and privilege, that wicked men, open thieves, and manslayers, and those who have borrowed their neighbours’ goods, and are in power to pay and make restitution, shall there dwell in sanctuary, and no man impeach them by process of law, nor oath sworn on God’s body; and they maintain stiffly that the king must confirm this privilege, and such nests of thieves and robbery in his kingdom!” In rude states of society, some usage of this nature has generally obtained; but in the age of the Reformer, its abuses had become greater than its uses. Wycliffe regarded all such obtrusions of the authority of the priest on the province of the civil magistrate with suspicion, and remarks in this treatise, that a man has better prospect of justice if cited before the king or the emperor,” than if obliged to appear before any tribunal called court Christian.”
← 4. Facts and Observations Concerning the · Contents · 6. On the Writings of Wycliffe Still in →