shown in several churches, each church insisting that its own was genuine, and all appealing to miracles as the test. Sometimes the dispute was accomplished in a more satisfactory manner, by asserting a miraculous multiplication, and three whole bodies of one person have been shown; the dead saint having tripled himself to terminate a dispute between three churches at his funeral! The catacombs at Rome were an inexhaustible mine of relics.

With the reverence which was paid to relics, arising thus naturally at first, and converted by crafty priests into a source of lucre, saint worship grew up. If such virtue resided in their earthly and perishable remains, how great must be the power wherewith their beatified spirits were invested in heaven! The Greeks and Romans attributed less to their demigods than the Catholic church has done to those of its members who have received their apotheosis. They were invoked as mediators between God and man; individuals clained the peculiar protection of those whose names they had received in baptism; and towns, and kingdoms, chose each their tutelary saint. But, though every saint was able to avert all dangers and heal all maladies, each was supposed to exert his influence more particularly in some specific one, which was determined by the circumstances of his life or martyrdom, the accidental analogy of a name, or by chance and custom if these shadows of a cause were wanting. The virtue which they possessed they imparted to their images, in which, indeed, it was affirmed that they were really and potentially present, partaking of ubiquity in their beatitude. Church vied with church, and convent with convent, in the reputation of their wonder-working images, some of which were pretended to have been made without hands, and some to have descended from heaven! But the rivalry of the monastic orders was shown in the fictions wherewith they filled the histories of their respective founders and worthies. While the monastic orders contended with each other in exaggerating the fame of their deceased patriarchs, each claimed the Virgin Mary for its especial patroness. Some peculiar favor she had bestowed upon each; she had appointed their rule of life, or devised the pattern of their habits, or enjoined them some new practice of devotion, or granted them some singular privilege. She had espoused their founder with a ring, or fed him like a babe at her breast. All therefore united in elevating her to the highest rank in the mythology of the Romish church--for so, in strict truth, must this enormous system of fable be designated. They traced her in types throughout the Old Testament: She was the tree of life; the ladder which Jacob had seen leading from heaven to earth; the rod which brought forth buds and blossoms, and produced fruit; the ever burning bush; the ark of the covenant; the fleece upon which alone the dew of heaven descended. And though, indeed, being subject to death, she paid the common tribute of mortality; yet, having been born without sin, she expired without suffering, and her most holy body, too pure a thing to see corruption, was translated immediately to heaven, there to be glorified. Her image was to be found in every church through

out Christendom; and she was worshipped under innumerable appellations, * devotees believing that the one which they particularly affected was that to which the object of their adoration most willingly inclined her ear. By such representations and fables, the belief of the people became so entirely corrupted that Christ, instead of being regarded as our mediator and Redeemer, appeared to them in the character of a jealous God, whom it behoved them to propitiate through the mediation of his virgin mother; for through her alone could mercy and salvation be obtained. The pantheon, which Agrippa had dedicated to Jupiter and all the gods, was by the pope, who converted it into a church, inscribed to the blessed Virgin, and all the saints. The consequence of this persuasion brought into full view the weakness and strength of human nature; in some respects they degraded it below the beasts. The dearest and holiest ties of nature and society were set at nought by those who believed that the way to secure their own salvation was to take upon themselves the obligations of a monastic life. They regarded it as a merit to renounce all intercourse with their nearest friends and kin; and, being by profession dead to the world, rendered themselves, by a moral suicide, dead in reality to its duties and affections. For the sake of saving their own souls, or of attaining a higher seat in the kingdom of heaven, they sacrificed, without compunction, the feelings, and, as far as depended upon them, the welfare and happiness of a wife, parent, or child; yet when the conversion of others was to be promoted, these very persons, it is but justice to add, were ready to encounter any danger and to offer up their lives, not in doing good to others, but in inflicting the greatest possible quantity of discomfort and actual suffering upon themselves. It was deemed meritorious to disfigure the body by neglect and filth, to attenuate it by fasting and watchfulness, to lacerate it with stripes, and to fret the wounds with cilices of horse hair. Linen was proscribed among the monastic orders; and the use of the warm bath, which, being not less conducive to health than to cleanliness, had become general in all the Roman provinces, ceased throughout Christendom; because, according to the morality of the monastic school, cleanliness itself was a luxury, and to procure it by pleasurable means was a positive sin. There were some saints who never washed themselves, and made it a point of conscience never to disturb the vermin who were the proper accompaniments of such sanctity; in as far as they occasioned pain while burrowing; or, at pasture, were increasing the stock of the aspirant's merits. The act of eating they made an exercise of penance, by mingling whatever was most nauseous with their food. They bound chains round the body which ate into the flesh; or fastened graters upon the breast and back; or girded themselves with bandages of bristles intermixed with points of wire. Cases of horrid self-mutilation were sometimes discovered; and many perished by a painful and lingering suicide, believing that, in the torments which they inflicted upon themselves, they were offering an acceptable sacrifice to their Creator. Some became famous for the number of their daily ge

nuflections; others for immersing themselves to the neck in cold water during winter while they recited the psalter. Thus there was created a large and accumulating fund of good works, which, though supererogatory in the saints, were nevertheless not to be lost. The redemption which had been purchased for fallen man was held to be from external punishment only; sin was not, therefore, to go unpunished, even in repentant sinners who had confesssed and received absolution. The souls of baptised children, it was held, passed immediately to heaven: but for all others, except the few who attained to eminent holiness in their lives, purgatory was prepared; a place, according to the popular belief, so near the region of everlasting torments, though separated from it, that the same fire pervaded both; acting indeed to a different end, and in different degrees, but even in its mildest effect inflicting sufferings more intense than heart could think or tongue express, and enduring for a length of time which was left fearfully indefinite. Happily for mankind, the authority of the pope extended over this dreadful place. The works of supererogation were at his disposal, and his treasure was inexhaustible, because it contained an immeasurable and infinite store derived from the atonement. One drop of the Redeemer's blood being sufficient to redeem the whole human race, the rest which had been shed during the passion was given as a legacy to be applied in mitigation of purgatory, as the popes in their wisdom might think fit. So they in their infallibility declared, and so the people believed! The popes were liberal of this treasure.

If they wished to promote a new practice of devotion, or encourage a particular shrine, they granted to those who should perform the one or visit the other an indulgence, that is a dispensation for so many years of purgatory; sometimes for shorter terms, but often by centuries, or thousands of years, and in many cases the indulgence was plenary-a toll ticket entitling the soul to pass scot free. All persons, however, could not perform pilgrimages; and even the accommodating device of the church, which promised large indulgences for saying certain prayers before the engraved portrait of a miraculous image, was liable in numerous instances to be frustrated. The picture might not find its way to remote places, the opportunity of acquiring it might be neglected, or it might remain in the possession of its unthinking owner, a forgotten thing. The Romish church, in its infinite benevolence, considered this, and therefore sold indulgences, making the act of purchasing them, and thus contributing to its wants, a merit of itself sufficient to deserve so inestimable a reward. It was taught, also, that merits were transferrible by gift or purchase: under this persuasion large endowments were bestowed upon convents, on condition that the donor should partake in the merits of the community; and few persons, who had any property at their own disposal, went out of the world without bequeathing some of it to the clergy for saying masses, in number proportioned to the amount of the bequest, for the benefit of their souls. The wealthy founded chantries, in which service was to be performed

for ever, to this end. Thus were men taught to put their trust in riches; their wealth, being thus invested, became available to them beyond the grave; and in whatever sins they indulged, provided they went through the proper forms and obtained a discharge, they might purchase a free passage through purgatory, or, at least, an abbreviation of the term and a mitigation of its torments while they lasted. But purgatory was not the only invisible world over which the authority of the church extended; for to the pope, as to the representative of St. Peter, it was pretended that the keys of heaven and hell were given; a portion of this power was delegated to every priest, and they inculcated that the soul which departed without confession and absolution, bore with it the weight of its deadly sins to sink it to perdition.

Of all the practices of the Romish church this is the one which has proved most injurious to religion and morals; and, if it be regarded in connexion with the celibacy of the clergy, the cause will be apparent why the state of morals is generally so much more corrupt in Catholic than in Protestant countries. Tables were actually set forth, by authority, in which the rate of absolution for any imaginable crime was fixed, and the most atrocious might be committed with spiritual impunity for a few shillings. The church of Rome appears to have delighted in in

lting as well as in abusing human credulity, and to have pleased herself with discovering how far it was possible to subdue and degrade the human intellect, as an eastern despot measures his own greatness by the servile prostration of his subjects. If farther proof than has already appeared were needful, it would be found in the prodigious doctrine of transubstantiation, Strange as it may appear, the doctrine had become popular-with the people for its very extravagance— with the clergy because they grounded upon it their loftiest pretensions; for if there were in the sacrament this actual and entire sole presence, which they denoted by the term transubstantiation, it followed that divine worship was something more than a service of prayer and thanksgiving— an actual sacrifice was performed in it, wherein, they affirmed, the Saviour was again offered up, in the same body which had suffered on the cross, by their hands. The priest, when he performed this stupendous function of his ministry, had before his eyes, and held in his hands, the maker of heaven and earth; and the inference which they deduced from so blasphemous an assumption was, that the clergy were not to be subject to any secular authority, seeing that they could create God their Creator! Let it not be supposed that the statement is in the slightest part exaggerated: it is delivered faithfully in their own words. If, then, such were the power of the clergy, even of the meanest priest, what must be attributed to their earthly head, the successor of St. Peter? They claimed for him a plenitude of power; and it has been seen that he exercised it over the princes of Christendom in its fullest meaning. According to the canons the pope was as far above all kings as the sun is greater than the

moon.

He was king of kings and lord of lords. though he subscribed himself the servant of ser

vants.

The immediate and sole rule of the whole world belonged to him, by natural, moral, and divine right; all authority depending upon him. As supreme king, he might impose taxes upon all Christians; and the popes declared it was to be held as a point necessary to salvation, that every human creature is subject to the Roman pontiff. That he might lawfully depose kings was averred to be so certain a doctrine that it could only be denied by madmen, or through the instigation of the devil; it was more pernicious and intolerable to deny it than to err concerning the sacraments. All nations and kingdoms were under the pope's jurisdiction; for to him had God delivered over the power and dominion in heaven and earth. Nay, he might take away kingdoms and empires, with or without cause, and give them to whom he pleased, though the sovereign whom he should depose were, in every respect, not merely blameless but meritorious. It was reason enough for the change that the pope deemed it convenient. The spouse of the church was vice-God: men were commanded to bow at his name, as at the name of Christ; the proudest sovereigns waited upon him like menials, led his horse by the bridle, and held his stirrup while he alighted; and there were ambassadors who prostrated themselves before him, saying, 'O thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us !' The advocates of the papal power proclaimed that any secular laws which might be passed, against a decree of the Roman Pontiff, were in themselves null and void: and that all pontifical decrees ought for ever to be observed, by all men, like the word of God; to be received as if they came from the mouth of St. Peter himself, and held like canonical scripture. Neither the Catholic faith, nor the four evangelists, could avail those who rejected them, this being a sin which was never to be remitted. Christ had bestowed upon the pope, when he spake as such, the same infallibility which resided in himself. And were he utterly to neglect his duty, and by his misconduct draw down innumerable souls to hell with him, there to be eternally tormented, no mortal man might presume to reprove him for his faults.

Even this monstrous proposition was advanced, that, although the Catholic faith teaches all virtue to be good and all vice evil, nevertheless if the pope, through error, should enjoin vices to be committed, and prohibit virtues, the church would be bound to believe that vices were good and virtues evil, and would sin in conscience were it to believe otherwise. He could change the nature of things, and make injustice justice. Nor was it possible that he should be amenable to any secular power; for he had been called God by Constantine, and God was not to be judged by man: under God, the salvation of all the faithful depended on him, and commentators even gave him the blasphemous appellation of our Lord God the pope!' It was disputed in the schools whether he could not abrogate what the apostles had enjoined; determine an opinion contrary to theirs, and add a new article to the creed; whether he did not, as God, participate both natures with Christ: and whether he were

not more merciful than Christ, inasmuch as he delivered souls from the pains of purgatory, whereas we do not read that this was ever done by our Saviour. Lastly, it was affirmed that he might do things unlawful, and thus could do more than God. All this was certain, because the church was infallible. Where this fallibility resided the Romanists have differed among themselves, some vesting it in the pope, others requiring the concurrence of a general council. Infallible, however, it was determined that the Roman Catholic church must be, and thus the keystone was put to this prodigious structure of imposture and wickedness. No one acquainted with ecclesiastical history will consider this view of the morals and conditions of the Roman church as exaggerated or incorrect. We will therefore turn to a more grateful subject, and briefly trace the various efforts which were made to correct this lamentable state of things, and to bring back the church to its original furity and discipline.

II. The early efforts at reform.-As early as the reign of Charlemagne, Paulinus, a royal favorite, and the bishop of Aquilia, employed his voice and his pen to arrest the progress of these and similar corruptions. In the year 804 his honorable career was terminated, and in a few years later it devolved on the celebrated Claude of Turin to check the same abuses, to advocate the same truth, and to scatter more widely the seeds of future opposition and reform. The sovereignty of the Redeemer in his church was so maintained by this prelate as virtually to annihilate the ambitious pretensions of the Roman see. The worship of images he denounced as gross idolatry; the childish veneration of relics he exposed to its deserved contempt: and, discarding prayer for the dead as the device of man, his zeal bowed to no authority in religion, opposed to the obvious meaning of the sacred Scriptures. Explaining the doctrine of justification by faith alone, with a force and perspicuity not unworthy of Luther, the papal scheme of merit was greatly broken and impeded by his labors. More than twenty years of his life were devoted to this warfare against the prevailing superstitions, and to the cause of Christian truth, as embraced by its earliest disciples.

The episcopal authority of Turin extended over the valleys of Piedmont, and that the faith defended by Claude was preserved on that locality through the ninth and tenth centuries is the testimony of Catholic writers. Before the close of this period the fires of persecution were kindled in that favored diocese, in the hope of consigning both the name and the doctrine of its distinguished reformer to oblivion. But in the hour of trial the disciple was often found to be worthy of his master; while the zeal of such as were expelled their home increased by a natural process with the increase of suffering, never failing to convert the fact of their dispersion into the means of imparting a more extended influence to their obnoxious creed. It was in the century commencing with the year following that in which the poem of the Troubadours, entitled La Nobla Leyczon, was completed, that Peter de Brugs, became distinguished in Provence and

Languedoc, as the intrepid advocate of certain reformed opinions; and his zeal, after the labor of twenty years, sustained the trial of martyrdom. On his decease his place was more than supplied by the learning and the invincible ardor of Henry the founder of the sect called Henricians. But, if Henry imbibed the zeal of his predecessor, he had also to share in his reward. The invective in which these preachers indulged on the manners of their age, and especially on the vices of the clergy, was not to be patiently endured. It roused the displeasure of the pontiffs and of their court; and, in the name of Eugenius III., the person of Henry was seized and committed to prison, where, after a brief interval, his life was the sacrifice incurred by his unshaken integrity. Such are the measures which have been long and widely adopted to crush the leaders of reform, and experience has shown how little they are suited to diminish either the number or the ardor of its advocates. But if the Petrobrussians and Henricians were sufficiently numerous to excite the alarm of the church, it is certain they were but few and feeble when compared with their opponents.

It was towards the close of the century, in the former half of which they had flourished, that the ear of Europe became familiar with the name of Arnold of Brescia, as that of a more daring opponent of clerical ambition. This extraordinary man had suddenly risen from the lowest rank in the church, and there are facts included in his history which impart to it an unusual interest. He studied under the famous Abelard, and had probably adopted some of the speculations which exposed the lover of Eloise to the frown of the church. But with the skill of the master the disciple associated an independence and hardihood peculiar to himself. In the garb of a monk, and with a countenance which be spoke his decision and capacity, but which had already become marked with many cares, Arnold commenced his stormy career, as a preacher in the streets of Brescia. Arraigned before the prefect of the city, the reformer was condemned to die; and, deserted (perhaps of necessity) by his more powerful adherents, he perished at the stake, amid the idle gazings of the Roman populace. His ashes were given to the Tiber; but his opinions were not so easily consigned to oblivion. But ten years from that period had scarcely passed, when Peter Waldo, an opulent merchant of Lyons, became known in that city as an opponent of the Romish superstition, and a zealous advocate of what has since been designated the reformed faith. Waldo had witnessed the sudden decease of a friend at his table, and a disposition already favorable to religion was much confirmed by the affecting incident. Often scandalised by the manners of the clergy, his superior education had enabled him to consult the Latin Version of the Scriptures. From that source he derived the instruction which taught him to separate from communion with the papal church. His morals had ever defied the breath of calumny; from this period his wealth ministered largely to the comforts of the poor; and if his opposition to vice and error exposed him to the malice of interested men, his fearless

enforcement of the truths of the Gospel won the applause and the grateful attachment of multitudes. For a season he found his protection in his rank, in the influence of his connexions, and in the number of his followers. But the inroads of his zeal which had thus eluded every hostile purpose of the local authorities were, at length, deemed so serious an innovation as to require the most formal interference of the papacy. In a council convened by Alexander III. Peter Waldo and his numerous disciples were presumed to be convicted of heresy, and until signs should be given of repentance they were cut off from all communion with the faithful. This sentence would probably have been little regarded, had it not, through the ferocity of the times, become no less destructive of civil than of religious communion. The Lyonese, who were not fully prepared to brave the wrath of the church, were constrained to refuse the hated sectaries even the remotest intercourse of social life. That flourishing city was, in consequence, deserted by a large, and by the most valuable, portion of its inhabitants; but like the Hebrew tribes they were not to be lost in their dispersion. Waldo continued to publish his doctrine with great success, through Dauphiny, Picardy, and various of the German states, concluding a labor of twenty years in a province of Bohemia. His disciples, every where harassed by the hand of persecution, are still found associated with almost every continental sect, and by a benevolent arrangement of providence they were preserved as witnesses for the truth until the age of Luther. Aware of the assistance which he had derived from the Scriptures, and of the principles which assert them to be the property of the people no less than of the priest, it had been an object of early solicitude with Waldo to confer upon his followers a vernacular translation of the inspired volume. It was a novelty in modern Europe, and contributed much to his unprecedented success in the work of reformation. The Noble Lesson* had long since supplied the devout with a valuable summary of Scripture history, and of the doctrines and the duties of the Gospel; but such was the impulse given to the mind of multitudes by the possession of the Scriptures, that the numerous sectaries, however poor and despised, were generally capable of vindicating their peculiarities of custom or opinion by an appeal to that authority; it was even their boast that there was scarcely a man or woman among them who was not far better read in the Bible than the doctors of the church. Waldo finished his career in 1179, and it was two years later that the pontiff, Lucian III., issued his memorable decree, condemning all manner of heresy, by whatever name denominated. By the haughty Innocent III. every motive which superstition could supply was employed to arm the princes and the people of Europe against the pacific disciples of the Gospel. To extirpate

La Noble Leyczon, or The Noble Lesson, is a poem in the language of the Troubadours; the depository of opinions, and an expression of feelings, not unworthy of the professors of the Gospel in the most favored period of its history.

them by fire and by the sword was the object distinctly proposed; and the indulgences so impiously connected with the crusades into Asia were now as freely bestowed on such as became devoted to this murderous cause. Under the impulse of such motives towns were taken in succession, and their inhabitants slaughtered with an atrocity which spared neither age nor sex.

A volume might be occupied in detailing these atrocities, but it must be sufficient to observe, in the language of Mr. Gibbon, that pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodore. It was in cruelty alone her soldiers could equal the heroes of the crusades, and the cruelties of her priests were far excelled by the founders of the inquisition, an office more adapted to confirm than to confute the belief of an evil principle.' The interval between the former half of the thirteenth century, with which these crusades were connected, and the middle of the following, in which Wycliffe appeared, is one of unusual gloom in the history of true religion. The efforts of the Waldenses and Albigeois to restore its purity, and which has not been improperly designated the first reformation, appeared as a total failure, and through nearly 300 succeeding years the good which it was designed to confer on the nations of the western empire was effectually resisted. And not only so, the machinery of despotism appeared to become every day more matured, and every struggle of its victims but to place them more completely

beneath it.

III. Rise and progress of Wickliffe's doctrines in England.-The manifold and complicated evils of popery, however, reached their highest pitch about the thirteenth or fourteenth century. That astonishing system of spiritual tyranny, for instance, had now drawn within its vortex almost the whole government of England. The pope's haughty legate, spurning at all law and equity, made even the ministers of justice to tremble at its tribunal; parliaments were overawed, and sovereigns obliged to temporise, while the lawless ecclesiastics, entrenched behind the authority of councils and decrees, set at nought the civil power, and opened an asylum to any, even the most profligate, disturbers of society. In the mean time the taxes collected, under various pretexts, by the agents of the see of Rome, amounted to five times as much as the taxes paid to the king. The insatiable avarice and insupportable tyranny of the court of Rome had given such universal disgust, that a bold attack, made about this time, on the authority of that court, and the doctrine of the church, was, at first, more successful than could have been expected in that dark and superstitious age. This attack was made by the famous John Wickliffe, who was one of the best and most learned men of the age in which he flourished. His reputation for learning, piety, and virtue, was so great, that archbishop Islip appointed him the first warden of Canterbury College, Oxford, in 1365. The lectures in divinity which he read in that university were much admired, though in these lectures he treated the clergy, and particularly the mendicant friars, with no little freedom and severity. A discourse which he published against

the pope's demand of homage and tribute from Edward III., for the kingdom of England, recommended him so much to that prince that he bestowed upon him several benefices, and employed him in several embassies. Edward III. had refused that homage to which king John had subjected his successors, and Urban V. threatened that if it were not performed he would cite him to Rome, there to answer for the default. A sovereign of Edward's ability and renown was not thus to be intimidated; the feeling of the country was with him, and the parliament, affirming that what John had done in this matter was a violation of his coronation oath, declared that, if the pope proceeded in any way against the king, he and all his subjects should with all their power resist him. The papal claims were defended by a monk, who ventured to challenge Wickliffe upon the subject, who coming forward with superior ability, and in a better cause, produced a conclusive reply; in reward for which, when an appeal concerning the wardenship was decided against him, he was appointed professor of divinity, and, as a further mark of favor, the living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire was given him. Two years after his appointment to the divinity chair he was named, with other ambassadors, to meet the pope's representative at Bruges, and resist his pretensions to the presentation of benefices in England, an injurious practice,against which several statutes had been passed. The negociation lasted nearly two years, and it is probable that what he then had opportunities of discovering convinced him that the system of the papal court and its doctrines were equally corrupt. For on his return he attacked it in the boldest manner, maintained that the Scriptures contained all truths necessary to salvation, and that the perfect rule of Christian practice was to be found in them only; denied the authority of the pope in temporal matters; proclaimed that he was that man of sin, the son of perdition, whom St. Paul prophetically describes, sitting as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God;' and denounced him as antichrist. These opinions he openly preached and published, appealing to the Scriptures for their truth; and they were propagated by his disciples, who attacked the friars in their own manner, preaching to the people, and going about, as he himself did, barefoot, and in plain fringe gowns. It was not long before he was accused of heresy, and orders came to Sudbury the primate, and Courtney the bishop of London, to have him arrested, and kept in close custody till they should receive further instructions. But the duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, who was then governing the kingdom during the latter days of his father, protected him with a high hand; and he was still so popular in Oxford that, when a nuncio was sent thither, requiring the university, under pain of the severest penalties, to deliver him up for justice, the threat was disregarded. The archbishop, finding it impossible to proceed in the summary manner which the pope ordered, summoned him to appear within thirty days be fore him and the bishop of London, at a synod held in St. Paul's; and Wickliffe, confident in his cause and in his protectors, hesitated not to