France, and the French Pope, by virtue of his spiritual office, draining her of money to furnish weapons to her

enemy.

In his reply, Wickliffe, as usual, goes to the root of the matter, by an appeal to the nature and tenure of the apostolic office, as exhibited in the New Testament. "Christ saith to the Apostles: The kings of the nations rule over them, but ye shall not do so.' Here lordship and rule is forbidden to the Apostles, and darest thou [their successor] usurp the same? If thou wilt be a lord, thou shalt lose thy apostleship; or, if thou wilt be an apostle, thou shalt lose thy lordship; for truly thou must depart from one of them. If thou wilt have both, thou shalt lose both, or be of that number of whom God complains: They have reigned, but not through me; they have become princes, and I have not known it.' Now, if it doth suffice thee to rule with the Lord, thou hast thy glory. But if we will keep what is forbidden us, let us hear what he saith: 'He that is greatest among you, shall be made as the least; and he which is highest shall be as the servant;' and for an example, he set a child in the midst of them. So then, this is the true form and institution of the Apostle's trade;

LORDSHIP AND rule is forbIDDEN; MINISTRATION AND SERVICE COMMANDED." Therefore, concludes the Reformer, the temporal goods heretofore bestowed on the Pope were not his by the right apostolical, but simply as alms, given at the pleasure of the lonor. And as the duty of almsgiving is measured by the necessity of the recipient and the ability of the donor, it cannot be the duty of England, in her present impoverished condition, to bestow charity on the Pope, who is already overloaded with riches. Wherefore, England may detain her treasure for her own

defence, even against the direct command of the Pope. With such simplicity and ease did Wickliffe, with the New Testament for his guide, loose a knot which had been tightening for centuries, and was now puzzling the wisest heads of the age.

But it was now his enemies' turn to strike a blow. Three months after this, a special messenger conveyed the papal bull, so long concealed, to Oxford, and delivered it in due form to the Chancellor of the University. In an accompanying letter, the prelates demanded that Wickliffe be sent to St. Paul's, there to make answer to the charges against him. The University authorities, displeased with this papal and episcopal interference in their affairs, showed no haste to comply. But a synod being assembled at Lambeth in April, Wickliffe promptly obeyed a summons to be present.

This time, he faced his enemies alone. A written statement of his imputed errors and heresies being furnished him, he, in turn, replied to the charges in writing, improving the occasion to give a still more full and distinct exposition of his views. Exceptions have been taken to this document as, in some portions, seemingly vague and evasive in its character. But in his perfect clearness in the statement of views most hazardous to express before such an assembly, and in the manner in which the paper was received by his opponents, we have sufficient evidence that all the weapons used by the Reformer on this occasion were worthy of his character, and well chosen for the time and place. The assertion that political dominion, or civil secular government, inheres in the laity, not in Peter or his successors; and that it is lawful for the secular power to take away temporalities from churchmen who habitually

abuse them, "notwithstanding excommunication, or any other church censure," could not have been misunderstood by the tribunal before which he was arraigned. But he took a yet higher and bolder tone. It had come to be understood, that all legislative and judicial competency in religious matters was vested in the clergy; that they, in fact, constituted THE CHURCH; while the part of the laity was simply that of implicit, blind submission. In opposition to this, Wickliffe maintains that ecclesiastics, nay, even the Pope of Rome himself, may, in some cases, be corrected by their subjects, and "for the benefit of the church, be impleaded by both clergy and laity." For the Pope, he argues, being our peccable brother and liable to sin as well as we, is, like us, subject to the law of brotherly reproof. "When, therefore," he proceeds, "the whole college of cardinals is remiss in correcting him for the necessary welfare of the church, it is evident that the rest of the body, which, as it may chance, may chiefly be made up of the laity, may medicinally reprove and implead him, and reduce him to lead a better life."

What would have been the issue of this trial, it is not difficult to conjecture, had it not been averted as unexpected as before at St. Paul's. Deliverance came, however, in this case, from a very different source, and in a manner which testified the spread of Wickliffe's opinions among the common people. A general alarm for his safety prevailed among his friends, increased, no doubt, by the fact that the trial was conducted before a secret tribunal. This feeling burst forth at last into act. The populace began to stream from various quarters towards the place of meeting, and were there joined by many of the first citizens of London. Pressing their way into the building, the excited crowd burst

open the door of the council-room, and rushing in, loudly demanded Wickliffe. And when, in the midst of the tumult, Sir Lewis Clifford entered the assembly, and in the name of the Queen-Mother (widow of the Black Prince) forbade any definitive sentence by the Court, a panic fear seized on the bold churchmen. In the indignant words of one of their own historians,* they became "as a reed shaken by the wind, and grew soft as oil in their speech, to the manifest forfeiture of their dignity and the injury of the whole church. With such fear were they struck, that one would have thought them as a man who hears not, or in whose mouth there are no reproofs." So far from being

detained in custody and sure prison," while awaiting the decision of the Holy See, Wickliffe returned peaceably to Oxford, to lecture, preach, and write against the sins of Popery with more zeal and effect than ever. The expected sentence from Avignon never arrived. The death of Gregory XI. while the matter was still pending, and the distractions incident on the "Schism of the Popes "t which followed, turned the attention of the clergy in another direction, and the Reformer was left for some three years longer, to pursue his career unmolested.

* Walsingham.

† During the next fifty years, the Papal church was blessed with two and sometimes three infallible heads, who mutually accused each other as heretics, Simonists, impostors, and every thing else that is vile and impious"not the worst proof." as Henry quaintly remarks, " of their infallibility."

CHAPTER VI.

THE NEW-TESTAMENT MINISTRY REVIVED.

Nor far from this time, Wickliffe started a movement which, for its vital bearings on the interests of religion and for the perpetuity of its influence, stands second only to his great work of giving the Bible to the people

From the study of the New Testament, he had arrived. at certain conclusions very much at variance with the opinions of the time. Some of these have already been noted in the foregoing narrative; but, for the sake of clearness, the principal points will here be mentioned, in connection with others. He believed

1st. That the primitive church recognized no hierarchy, with its ascending ranks and orders of spiritual princes. "By the ordinance of Christ," says he, "priests and bishops were all one. But afterwards, the Emperor divided them, and made bishops to be lords, and priests their servants." "I boldly assert one thing, viz. that in the primitive church or in the time of Paul, two orders of the clergy were sufficient, that is, a priest and a deacon. In