faith, which they adjudged herefies, but for their feditious and treasonable practices against the state. For though they made heresy capitally criminal, they did not make it treason. So whether John Wickliffe himself had art enough to elude the rigorous jurifdiction of his day, or by a prevaricating recantation of his doctrines, difarmed the feverity of the laws, true it is what Mr. Fox fays of him.

"This martyr was never put to death, nor yet fo much as imprisoned for his religion, but died in his bed at his benefice of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, upon the yeare heere noted." But the nature of his doctrines, more than the example of the teacher, produced after his death the most fatal difafters to the state. Befides the rebellion of Sir John Oldcastle and his adherents in our own country, when John Wickliffe was in Bohemia, he made a profelyte of the noted John Hufs, and he with his colleague Hierom of Prague, fo firmly rivetted these feditious doctrines of their mafter John Wickliffe in their followers, that for upwards of twenty years together they carried on with an army of forty thousand men a rebellious war against their lawful fovereign,

Fox's Calendar, 2 January, 1387, John Wickliffe, Preacher, Martyr.

and

John Hufs, a difciple of Wickliffe, in

open rebellion

against his law

ful fovereign

the emperor.

Anti-bafilican
School of
Geneva.

Fallacious prac the fcriptures.

tice of applying

and that the moft bloody, cruel, and inhuman war, that ever difgraced any nation. So very inveterate was their general Zifca against the emperor, his lawful fovereign, that when he died he directed his fkin to be properly dreffed for covering a drum, that fhould beat his followers for ever against their imperial fovereign.

up

The next fet of fyftematic levellers, who have deluged this unfortunate island with blood, and stained it with inexpiable infamy, appear to have imbibed their levelling principles from the antibafilican school of Geneva. It will be proper to examine the poisonous fcyon, before it be engrafted upon a British stock; thus will the fruit be furely known.

When ignorance has blunted, or artifice has inveigled, or malice has feduced the mind. and heart, the most general propofitions from the highest authority are the conftant weapons both of defence and offence; the fcriptures become tortured into all imaginable shapes like a pliant garment, that every one thinks purpofely fitted to himself. For when religion is made the cloak for covering intereft, pleasure, or ambition, the holy fcripture will always fupply the venerable materials, of which it will be made up. I am

aware,

aware, that the application of the fame text or position even by the fame person at different times, and under different circumstances, may in its tendency and effect, go the whole extent of the difference between loyalty and treason. I fhall not therefore attempt to affix a determined fenfe, intention, and application of treason to any general abstract propofition; but I cannot help confidering fome pofitions or doctrines in the whole context of circumstance, time, and perfon, as the causes of the effects, which I lay before my readers. It is a metaphyfical truth, that an effect cannot exist without a caufe; and it is a moral truth, that every cause of every effect cannot be always known to every perfon. Suffice it for the object of my illustration, that the theory I lay down be likely to have produced the practices I difclofe. I aim not at Conftructive ingenuity in affixing a treasonable import to ftitutional. an innocent propofition, nor do I affect the latitudinarian liberality of acquitting every doctrine of fedition and difloyalty. Conftructive treasons are little congenial with the fpirit of the British constitution.

It becomes a serious obligation upon go vernment to be unusually vigilant over the actions of those, who delight or glory in principles and doctrines, that appear innoxious,

but

treafon uncon

Loyalty open and candid, treafon dark and uncertain.

Zuinglius levelling doctrines.

but by the laboured efforts of constructive lenity. The openness of loyalty is as effentially free from ambiguity and uncertainty, as the defigns and fpirit of the traitor are perplexed with doubt, and masked with plaufibility. Neither rule nor inftruction can be fettled for the fure interpretation of abstract and general pofitions. The most constitutional paffages from Bracton and Fortefcue might admit of a very feditious and difloyal construction if tranfplanted into Buchannan or Milton, and the moft exceptionable propofitions from the latter might wear every appearance of truth and loyalty in the works of the former.

Zuinglius may be properly called the father of this levelling feminary of Geneva, *«Reges (faith he) quando perfidè, & extra regulam Chrifti egerint, poffunt cum Deo deponi, &c.; kings may be depofed where they advance ungodliness. † Permittendum (faith he) eft Cafari officium debitum; we must fuffer ourselves to pay a duty to Cæfar; but upon this condition, fi modo fidem nobis permittat illibatam; fi nos illud negligentes patimur, neglecta religionis rei erimus; if he will fuffer us to enjoy our own religion, as we

Philanax Anglicus, p. 3. & feq.

+ Lib. iv. p. 868.

will have it; otherwife, if we should be fo negligent as to fuffer him, we shall be guilty of abandoning religion itself. Thus they will be pleased to obey Cæfar, if Cæfar will be advised and directed by them; otherwife they have another courfe to take with him, they will talk with him to the purpose; but yet he will explain his meaning further, and more fully to us in his epiftle Ad Ulmenfes, whom he admonisheth, Ut coram auditoribus fuis fenfim incipiant detrahere perfonam imperio Romano, quomodo ftultum fit agnofcere boc impertum in Germaniâ, quod non agnofcitur Romæ, undè nomen habet: and again, Nimis amantes eftis rei Romanæ ; quid Germaniæ cum Roma? Sed prudenter & paulatim agenda funt bujusmodi, atque cum paucis, quibus credere poffis, &c.; that they should by little and little, in their congregations, unmask the ufurpation their lawful of the Roman Empire, and fhew them how ridiculous a thing it is to acknowledge that empire in Germany, which is not acknowledged at Rome itself, from whence it hath its denomination. He tells them further, that they ought not to be fo fond of the Roman government-what had Germany to do with Rome? But yet this kinde of doctrine muft be inftilled by degrees, and the business cunningly carried before a few firft, that may be trufted,

3

Subverfive of

government.