HISTORY

OF

THE PURITAN S.

CHAP. I.

REIGN OF HENRY VIII.

KING William the Conqueror, having got possession of the crown of England, by the assistance of the see of Rome; and king John, having afterward sold it, in his wars with the barons; the rights and privileges of the English clergy were delivered up into the hands of the pope, who taxed them at his pleasure, and in process of time drained the kingdom of immense treasures; for, besides all his other dues, arising from annates, first-fruits, Peter-pence, &c. he extorted large sums of money from the clergy for their preferments in the church. He advanced foreigners to the richest bishopricks, who never resided in their diocesses, nor so much as set foot upon English ground, but sent for all their profits to a foreign country; nay, so covetous was his holiness, that before livings became void, he sold them provisionally among his Italians, insomuch, that neither the king nor the clergy had any thing to dispose of, but every thing was bargained for beforehand at Rome. This awakened the resentments of the legislature, who in the twenty-fifth year of Edward III. passed an act, called the statute of provisors, to establish, "that the king, and other lords, shall present unto benefices of their own, or their ancestors' foundation, and not the bishop of Rome." This act enacted," that all forestalling of benefices to foreigners shall cease; and that the free elections, presentments, and collations, of benefices, shall stand in right of the crown, or of any of his majesty's subjects, as they had formerly enjoyed them, notwithstanding any provisions from Rome."

But still the power of the court of Rome ran very high, for they brought all the trials of titles to advowsons into their own courts beyond sea; and though by the seventh of Richard II. the power of nomination to benefices, without the king's licence, was taken from them, they still claimed the benefit of confirmations, of translations of bishops, and of excommunications; the archbishops of Canterbury and York might, still, by virtue of bulls from Rome, assemble the clergy of their several provinces, at what time and place they thought fit, without leave obtained from the crown; and all the canons and constitutions concluded upon in those synods were binding, without any farther ratification from the king; so that the power of the church was independent ⚫ of the civil government. This being represented to the parliament of the sixteenth of Richard II. they passed the statute commonly called præmunire, by which it was enacted, "that if any did purchase translations to benefices, processes, sentences of excommunication, bulls, or any other instruments from the court of Rome, against the king or his crown; or whoever brought them into England, or did receive or execute them, they were declared to be out of the king's protection, and should forfeit their goods and chattels to the king, and should be attached by their bodies, if they may be found, and brought before the king and council, to answer to the cases aforesaid; or that process should be made against them, by præmunire facias, in manner as it is ordained in other statutes of provisors; and other which do sue in any other court in derogation of the regality of the king."* From this time the archbishops called no more convocations by their sole authority, but by licence from the king; their synods being formed by writ or precept from the crown, directed to the archbishops, to assemble their clergy, in order to consult upon such affairs as his majesty should lay before them. But still their canons were binding, though confirmed by no authority but their own, till the act of submission of the clergy took place.

About this time flourished the famous John Wickliffe, the morning-star of the Reformation. He was born at Wickliffe, near Richmond in Yorkshire,† about the year 1324,

*Fuller's Church History, book 4. p. 145-148.

See the very valuable Life of Wickliffe, published by the Rev. Mr. Lewis of Margate, which begins thus: "John de Wickliffe was born, very probably, about

and was educated in Queen's college, Oxford, where he was divinity professor, and afterward parson of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. He flourished in the latter end of the reign of king Edward III. and the beginning of Richard II. about one hundred and thirty years before the Reformation of Luther. The university gave this testimonial of him after his death, "that from his youth to the time of his death, his conversation was so praiseworthy, that there was never any spot or suspicion noised of him; that in his reading and preaching he behaved like a stout and valiant champion of the faith; and that he had written in logic, philosophy, divinity, morality, and the speculative arts, without an equal." While he was divinity-professor at Oxford, he published certain conclusions against transubtantiation, and against the infallibility of the pope; that the church of Rome was not the head of all other churches; nor had St. Peter the power of the keys, any more than the rest of the apostles; that the New Testament, or Gospel, is a perfect rule of life and manners, and ought to be read by the people.*-He maintained, farther, most of those points by which the Puritans were afterward distinguished; as, that in the sacrament of orders there ought to be but two degrees, presbyters, or bishops, and deacons: that all

the year 1324, in the parish of Wickliffe, near Richmond in Yorkshire, and was first admitted commoner of Queen's college, Oxford, then newly founded by Robert Egglesfield, S. T. B. but was soon after removed to Merton-college, where he was first probationer, and afterward fellow. He was advanced to the professor's chair 1372. It appears by this ingenious writer, as well as by the Catalogus Testium, that Wickliffe was for rejecting all human rites, and new shadows or traditions in religion :— and with regard to the idenity of the order of bishops and priests in the apostolic age,' he is very positive. Unum audacter assero,—one thing I boldly assert, that in the primitive church, or in the time of the apostle Paul, two orders of clergy were thought sufficient, viz. priest and deacon; and I do also say, that in the time of Paul, fuit idem presbyter atque episcopus, a priest and a bishop were one and the same; for in those times the distinct orders of pope, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, officials, and deans, were not invented."

Mr. Neal's review of the first volume of the History of the Puritans, subjoined to the quarto edition of this history, vol. 1. p. 890. ED.

To Mr. Neal's account of Wickliffe's sentiments, it may be added, that he advanced some tenets which not only symbolize with, but directly led to, the peculiar opinions of those who, called Baptists, have in subsequent ages formed a large body of dissenters, viz. "that wise men leave that as impertinent, which is not plainly expressed in Scripture; that those are fools and presumptuous which affirm such infants not to be saved which die without baptisin; that baptism doth not confer, but only signify grace, which was given before. He also denied, that all sins are abolished in baptism; and asserted, that children may be saved without baptism; and that the baptism of water profiteth not, without the baptism of the Spirit." Fuller's Church History, b. 4. p. 130. Trialogus, lib. 4. cap. 1. ED.

Fox's Martyrol. Pierce's Vindicat. p. 4, 5.

1382

human traditions are superfluous and sinful; that we must practise, and teach only, the laws of Christ; that mystical and significant ceremonies in religious worship are unlawful; and that to restrain men to a prescribed form of prayer, is contrary to the liberty granted them by God. These, with some other of Wickliffe's doctrines, against the temporal grandeur of the prelates and their usurped authority, were sent to Rome and condemned by pope Gregory XI. in a consistory of twenty-three cardinals, in the year 1378. But the pope dying soon after put a stop to the process. Urban, his successor, writ to young king Richard II. and to the archbishop of Canterbury and the university of Oxford, to put a stop to the progress of Wickliffism; accordingly, Wickliffe was cited before the archbishop of Canterbury, and his brethren the prelates, several times, but was always dismissed, either by the interest of the citizens of London, or the powerful interposition of some great lords at court, or some other uncommon providence, which terrified the bishops from passing a peremptory sentence against him for a considerable time; but at length his new doctrines, as they were called, were condemned in a convocation of bishops, doctors, and bachelors, held at London by the commandment of the archbishop of Canterbury 1312, and he was deprived of his professorship, his books and writings were ordered to be burned, and himself to be imprisoned; but he kept out of the way, and in the time of his retirement writ a confession of his faith to the pope, in which he declares himself willing to maintain his opinions at Rome, if God had not otherwise visited him with sickness, and other infirmities: but it was well for this good man that there were two antipopes at this time at war with each other, one at Rome, and the other at Avignon. In England also there was a minority, which was favourable to Wickliffe, insomuch that he ventured out of his retirement, and returned to his parish at Lutterworth, where he quietly departed this life in the year 1384. This Wickliffe was a wonderful man for the times in which he lived, which were overspread with the thickest darkness of antichristian idolatry; he was the first that translated the New Testament into English; but the art of printing not being then found out, it hardly escaped the inquisition of the prelates, at least it was very scarce when Tyndal translated it a second time in 1527. He

preached and published the very same doctrines for substance that afterward obtained at the Reformation; he writ near two hundred volumes, all which were called in, condemned, and ordered to be burned, together with his bones, by the council of Constance, in the year 1425, forty-one years after his death; but his doctrine remained, and the number of his disciples, who were distinguished by the name of Lollards, increased after his decease, which gave occasion to the making sundry other severe laws against heretics.

The clergy made their advantage of the contentions between the houses of York and Lancaster; both parties courting their assistance, which they did not fail to make use of for the support of the Catholic faith, as they called it, and the advancement of their spiritual tyranny over the consciences of men. In the primitive times there were no capital proceedings against heretics, the weapons of the church being only spiritual; but when it was found that ecclesiastical censures were not sufficient to keep men in a blind subjection to the pope, a decree was obtained in the fourth council of Lateran, A. D. 1215, "that all heretics should be delivered over to the civil magistrate to be burned." Here was the spring of that antichristian tyranny and oppression of the consciences of men, which has since been attended with a sea of Christian blood: the Papists learned it from the Heathen emperors; and the most zealous Protestants of all nations have taken it up from them. Conscience cannot be convinced by fines and imprisonments, or by fire and faggot; all attempts of this kind serve only to make men hypocrites, and are deservedly branded with the name of persecution. There was no occasion for putting these sanguinary laws in execution among us till the latter end of the fourteenth century; but when the Lollards, or followers of Wickliffe, threatened the Papal power, the clergy brought this Italian drug from Rome, and planted it in the church of England.

In the fifth year of Richard II. it was enacted, " that all that preached without licence against the Catholic faith, or against the laws of the land, should be arrested, and kept in prison, till they justified themselves according to the law and reason of holy church. Their commitment was to be by writ from the chancellor, who was to issue forth commissions to the sheriffs and other the king's ministers, after