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LITERATURE.
books. The new testament of Wiclirs rersion soldfoT four marks and forty pence, (£2 168.8d.) as appears from the register of W. Alnwick, bishop of Norwich, 1429, as quoted by Fox.
Wiclif says, that in his time, there " were many unable curates, that Icunnen not the Ten Commandments, ne read their Sauter, ne under- stond a verse of it." This great and intrepid reformer died, December 30th, 1384, his body was buried in the chancel of Lutterworth church, Leicestershire, and there lay till 1284, when his bones were disinterred and burnt, and his ashes thrown into the Swift, a neighbouring stream, at the command of Pope Martin V. by Richard Flemyng, bishop of Lincoln, according to a decree of the council of Constance, passeain the year 1415.
After a life wonderfully preserved from the unsparing cruelty of ecclesiastical power, by the protection of Edward III. the duke of Lancaster, and many of the nobility and gentry, his memory was aflectionately revered, and, as printing had not been discovered, his writings were scarce and earnestly sought. The seed of dissent had germinated, and the appearance of dissenters at intervals, was a specimen of the harvest that had not yet come. Nothing more fearfully alarmed the establishment than Wiclifs trans- lation of the New Testament into English. All arts were used to suppress it, and to enliven the slumbering attachment of the people to the ' good old customs' of the church. There is abundant evidence of studious endeavours to both these ends in the Coventry Mysteries. The priests industriously reported that Wiclifs Testament was a false one; that he had distorted the language and concealed facts. There was no printing press to multiply copies of his book; biblica criticism wasscarcely known but by being denounced; the ecclesiastics anathematized scrip- tural inquiry as heresy* from their confessionals and pulpits; andas'thechurchesservedas theatres
for holy farces,' the Franciscan friars of Coventry . — - 1
- Heresy, in Greek, sifcnifles election, or cAojc«, and is
used for any opinion which a man chooseth as best or most profltable. Heresy and licretic are often used by ancient writers as words of Indiirerent meaning , and the several ways of piiilosopliiaing were called tectt or hereties. Dr. Johnson defines heresy.'an opinion of private men different from that of the catholic and orthodox church. Immedi- ately alter the council of Nice, the Emperor Constantine issued a decree, ordering, that if there were any book ex- tant written by Arlus, that it should be burnt to ashes, and the head of any man found hidinj; or concealing: one should be struck off from the shoulders. The church extended the spbHt of this edict to other books, hence it is that we have scarce any book of the ancient heretics existing. It has been questioned by the learned, whether the charge of heresy was any more than a popular charge against men who studied mathematics, and particularly astronomy and astrology with magic, and with using witchrrafl and en- chantment. Heretic is a favourite term of reproach for dlifcrence of opinion. It Im told of one Natalts, who lived before the tiraeofJerome, that having accepted a bishopric among the heretics, he was severely scourged all night by angels, and the next moming repented and returned to the church.
When the order of Knight Templars was abolished, In 1310, to get possession of their vast estates, fifty-nine of them were burnt alive for pretended heresy, at Vienna and Paris. In 1324, Ledred, bishop of Ossory, persecuted to the stake, several persons of high rank, and thoosands have solKred for opinions which at this day are held to be orthodox.
shortly after the meeting of the laymen's parlia. ment in that city, craftily engrafting stories from the pseudo-gospels upon narritives in the New Testament, composed and performed the plavs called the Coventry Mysteries. These fraudfal productions were calculated to postpone the period of illumination, and to stigmatize, by implication, the labours of Wiclif.
The most elaborate Life of Wiclif is that by the Rev. John Lewis; but the most correct list of his works, and one of the best written lives, will be found prefixed by the Rev. H. H. Baber, to his edition of Wiclif t A'<w Tettament.*
The followers of Wiclif were called LoUards,\ from a German term, signifying to ting hymtu to God; and increased so rapidly, that a cotem- porary writer a£Srms, "a man could not meet two people on the road, but one of them was a disciple of Wiclif"
1.380. Part of the cargo of a ship from Genoa to Sluys, in Flanders, which was driven ashore on the coast of England, consisted of twenty-two bales of writing paper.
1384. Died Albert Gerard, or from his general knowledge, and his devout and exemplary life, ailerwards procured for him the distinctive appel- lation of the grral. He instituted a society called " Fratra Vita Communis." " One heart, one soul, one common property," says Lambinet, influenced and supported this illustrious society; whose glory it was that they earned their liveli- hood by their pen." They were distinguished by wearing a grey coat, lined with hair next the skin. A black cowl hung down behind as low as the waist; and whenever they went abroad, they wrapt themselves in a large mantle, which des- cended to their heels. Their hair was closely cropt in a circular manner. Successives popes confirmed and extended their privileges; and in 1402, seven monasteries had admitted their rules, and imitated their example.
This extraordinary character was born at Deventer, in the year 1340. His parents took' the greatest po-ssiblecare of his education; and at the age of fifteen, he was sent to Paris, to perfect himself in philosophical and theological studies. His acquirements procured univereal commen- dation; but in the midst of his intellectual cele- brity, he debased himself by levity, luxury, and dissipation. A private, but faithful reproof, from one of his form erfeilow-students, was the occasion of an entire change in his conduct. He now be- came grave, devout, and exemplary; he clothed himself in a doublet of grey, lined with hair, and retired to a monastery at Munikhuysen, where he devoted himself to prayer and the reformation of immoral characters. Meeting with unexpected success in this pious avocation, he instituted the fraternity before mentioned. Hedied in the44th year of his age, and was buried in the church of the Virgin Mary at Deventer.
- The Rev. Henry Harvey Baber, one of the librai-ians of
the British Museum, edited a beautiful edition of Wiclif* New Testament, printed in 4to. 1810.
+ Walter Lollard the founder of a reU(loas sect in Germany, about 13U was burnt at Cologne, In ists.
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