Should a man be pronounced great and admirable, some of whose opinions are admitted to have been "erroneous," ," some to have been "fantastic," and some to have been "most dangerous?" Should it be done in this age, where liberty and equality, in the disorganizing sense of those words, are so louldly called for, and the loudness of the call increases every day? In respect to the tenets of the Lollards, I beg leave to ask, if contemporary writers do not unanimously declare, that they originated with Wickliffe? Should you not have mentioned with praise, the christian spirit and forbearance of the clergy of those times, who, although he had so vehemently attacked both their doctrines and their possessions, permitted him to spend his last days in peace and privacy?

I have shortly mentioned the dreadful effects produced by these dangerous opinions. To prevent them from spreading, the legislature, in the reign of Henry IV. had passed the statute de Hæretico comburendo: It authorized the bishop to proceed against heretics, and to punish them by imprisonment, and fine to the king; and enacted, that, if they should refuse to abjure their heretical pravity, or, after their abjuration, should relapse into it, they should be delivered to the sheriff, and burned on a high place, before the people. This statute was succeeded by others. You cannot condemn these legislative proceedings more than I do they were an infraction of the rights of conscience; they made religious opinion a test of

political principle; and thus confounded principle, with which the legislature has no concern, with action, its only proper object.

Under these statutes many suffered. Your account of their sufferings is drawn with admirable eloquence and feeling.

I sympathize in what you write; and trust that, when I shall hereafter mention the sufferings of the roman-catholics, under the reigns of Henry VIII. Edward VI. Elizabeth, and the three first princes of the Stuart line, you will read those pages with equal sympathy.

Before I conclude my letter, I beg leave to express some surprise at the tenderness with which you treat Sir John Oldcastle, often called Lord Cobham. You describe him as a victim; and, when you come to his final catastrophe, you tell us, that "the remainder of his history is perplexed by "contradictory statements, from which nothing "certain can be collected, but the last results." Is this so? Had not his practices with the Lollards, in their most revolutionary designs, and his encouragement of them, been discovered? Had he not defied the process of the spiritual courts? Had not Henry V. declared in his proclamation, that the Lollards meant to destroy him, his brothers, and several of the spiritual and temporal lords? to confiscate the possessions of the church; to secularize the religious orders; to divide the realm into confederate districts; and to appoint Sir John Oldcastle president of the commonwealth?

L

On his arraignment, did he venture to assert his innocence? Did he not deny the king's title to the crown? Did not the sentence pronounced upon him, declare, that he should both be hanged as a traitor, and burned as a heretic? It is almost ridiculous to ask,-did he not impiously prophecy, that he should rise on the third day? Surely you do not concur with a notorious writer, whom you often praise, John Fox, the martyrologist, who ranks several of these convicted rebels among his saints!

If it were allowed by the proper limits of these Letters, I should have offered you some considerations on the Waldenses, Albigenses, and the Hussites; on some decrees of the council of Constance; and on the inquisition, with which the subject is connected. I have expressed myself fully on all these topics, in the chapter of my Historical Memoirs on the Preliminaries of the Reformation*. It was written with care, and I trust with impartiality: I beg leave to refer you to it.

In one part of your present chapter, you inform us, "that indignation against spiritual tyranny, un"compromising sincerity, and intrepid zeal, made "the Lollards formidable to the hierarchy." Most protestant writers describe them in the same tone of lofty eulogy; but do they convey the whole truth? How do you yourself afterwards describe them in this very chapter?

"Undoubtedly the Lollards," say you,

* Vol. 1, c. 10.

were

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highly dangerous at this time: if there were some among them, whose view and wishes did not go beyond a just and salutary reformation, the greater number were eager for havoc, and held opinions which were incompatible with the peace "of society. They would have stript the monas"teries; confiscated the church lands; and pro"claimed the principle, that the saints should possess the earth.' The public safety required, "that such opinions should be repressed; and,

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founded, as they were, in gross error, and leading to direct and enormous evil, the church would "have deserved the approbation of impartial pos"terity, if it had proceeded temperately and justly "in repressing them. But the course which the "church pursued, was equally impolitic and iniquitous, by making transubstantiation the test of

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heresy; and insisting, on pain of the stake, upon "the belief of a proposition, which no man could "believe, unless he disregarded the evidence of his "senses; they gave the Lollards all the advantage, "which men derive from the reputation and the "merit of suffering in the cause of truth."

In this sentence, I cannot but dislike the manner in which you mention transubstantiation; and believing, that, on the occasions of which you are speaking, the judges frequently acted from errors of judgment, or in moments of exaltation, I wish you had substituted some other word for “iniqui"tous:"-With these exceptions, I subscribe to it in all parts.

But permit me to observe, that you cannot criminate the judges, who condemned the Lollards for not believing transubstantiation, without condemning the laws, which, in subsequent times, condemned the catholics for believing it, or conforming to those religious rites, which they found established, and which had made a part of the constitution, both of the church and state, of England, from the earliest introduction of christianity till their own time. I shall advert to this circumstance in a future letter. When When you read it, you will, I hope, join me in a tear of sympathy on the sufferings, both of the priests and their flocks, for their belief of transubstantiation. Even now, do you not sympathize with the roman-catholic peers, the Howards, the Talbots, the Stourtons, the Arundells, the Cliffords, and the Petres, who, in consequence of their belief of transubstantiation, are deprived of their hereditary seats in Parlia

ment ?

XI. 2.

The Mendicant and other Religious Orders of the Roman-catholic Church.

IN In your perusal of the gospel, you must have remarked the words, "If thou desire to be perfect,

go, and sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor*."-" If any man come after me, let him "deny himself t."-"It is a good thing not to + Matt. xvi.

* Matt. xix.