VII. HISTORY OF RELI GION IN BOOK known, against all that is unknown; of our limited experience against boundless possibility. The truths of religion are objects of inference, sensibility, faith, and hope- but not of sight and touch. Those indiENGLAND. viduals who prefer to be sceptical, tend to believe only what they know by sense, and forget that as all the numerous facts of nature that are now known to the enlightened, were once a part of the unknown; and as all our present knowlege is but a small portion of actually existing nature; so nothing can be more inconsistent, even with our past experience, than to withhold from reason its power of just inference; to confine it to the material world or to visible objects, and to believe only as far as the sight has reached. But every age has had this tendency; and wherever it prevails, disbelief of religion, social unquietude and individual discomfort, will attend it. And yet, in degraded countries, where tyrannous and illiberal superstition reigns, even infidelity becomes an instrument of good. It has often burst those bonds, which the fear of doing wrong made others submit to. It has operated like a pioneer, to clear the way for better regulated reason to follow. And as superstition ever tends to revive, and will always find many worldly interests and passions, as well as much credulous simplicity, to support it, it is not clear that unbelief has yet ceased to be serviceable. Indeed it cannot fail to continue while superstition lasts. In every age, superstition has been the chief parent of infidelity, and is peculiarly prolific of producing it in the more enlightened periods. The awakened mind spurns imposture, and is indignant at trick, tyranny, ignorance and imbecility, in its rulers or teachers. Infidelity and superstition are therefore natural com batants; coeval in birth, always contemporary, and CHAP. destined to expire together. III. ATTACKS We find from Lucas Tudensis,53 that a philosophical book was in circulation in the thirteenth century, CHRISTIintituled, "Perpendiculam Scientiarum," which, from ANITY. his anxiety expressed about it, had obviously made much impression. He says, that the heretics, who boast of the name of natural philosophers, ascribe to nature the daily course of things; and that God had conferred on nature the power of making all things; and that prayers are vain, because nothing can happen but what is determined by nature, therefore nature, not Divine Providence, made them. The object of these doctrines cannot be mistaken; nor of another, derived from more ancient times, that there was an evil power, who had made all visible things." He remarks, that the Jews were then encouraged by the princes and judges to express their opposing opinions.55 In the curious little book of Alanus, against Heretics and Waldenses,56 we find that the new opinions of his day were taking a range so unbounded, that if their circulation had not ceased, religion might have been expunged from the mind of Europe. He says, that formerly, various heresies appeared at different periods, and were successively condemned; but that in his time the new heretics, as he calls them, were combining and consolidating the old and new errors 53 He flourished in 1230. 54 Lucas Tud. advers. Albig. 1. 3. c. 1 & 2, printed in Mag. Bib. Pat. t. 4. pars 2. pp. 691, 692. 55 Luc. Tudi. c. 3. p. 693.-He adds, And if any one, led by zeal, happens to exasperate one of these Jews, he is punished for it as if he had touched the eye of the judge of the city.' Ib. 56 It is a scarce tract. He addresses it to his lord the bishop of Montpellier. VII. HISTORY GION IN BOOK together, making one vast idol out of many idols; one monster from several. He recapitulates these new opinions, and adds his answers: they embrace all the circuit, and go to the very depths of sceptiENGLAND. cism.57 We have the same fact in the philosophical opinions repeatedly enumerated and condemned, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by the university of Paris.58 We find a nobleman accused by a Troubadour, of being affected by some of these opinions; 50 and we know the sentiments expressed by Alphonso, the king of Spain, and by Frederic II. the emperor of Germany, tho this latter chose to be also a persecutor. 59 60 These opinions were confounded with those of the Waldenses, who may have maintained some. Indeed, 57 As, That there are two authors of nature; That the evil Being is the sovereign of the world, and the creator of our bodies, and of all animal and visible things; That there are no spiritual beings in heaven; That the soul perishes with the body; That there will be no resurrection; That the Jewish law was given by the malignant Being, &c. &c. Alanus adversus Heret. pp. 1-83. Reiner mentions others, who taught, That the world was eternal; That it was not created; That they themselves deny the Trinity, &c.; That there would be no future judgment, &c. 753–755. 58 See those condemned in 1227, in Mag. Bib. Pat. vol. 4. p. 917-in 1240 and 1270, p. 926-in 1318, p. 930-in 1340 to 1369, pp. 931-956. 59 Hugues St. Cyr, who lived 1220, mentions of him, 'He has neither faith in God, nor in the law; he neither believes in Paradise, nor in another life; he says, that nothing remains of a man after he is dead.' Hist. Troub. vol. 2. p. 182. 6 60 This Emperor's edicts against those he persecuted, are curious for the long catalogues of the names of the prescribed sects, which they enumerate. He calls them in one edict, Gazaros, Patarenos, Leonistas, Speronistas, Arnaldistas, Circumcisos;' in another, Patarenos, Speronistas, Leonistas, Arianistas, Circumcisos, Passaginos, Joseppinos, Carracenses, Albanenses, Franciscos, Bannaroles, Comistas, Waldenses, Burgaros, Commincellos, Barrinos, et Ortolevos, et cum illis de aqua nigra;' in another he names them, 'Catharos, Patarenos, Pauperes de Lugduno, Passaginos,' &c. Gretzer Prolog. Mag. Bib. t. 4. pars 2. p. 722. By the Burgaros, he meant Bulgaros. Ib. 726. The king of Arragon, Alphonso, in his edict dated 1194, calls them, Waldenses sive Insabbatatos; qui alio nomine se vocant Pauperes de Lugduno, et omnes alias hereticos quorum non est numerus.'—Mariana Pref. in Luc. Tud. p. 582. III. ON PAPAL CHRISTI as Reiner in the thirteenth century reckons seventy CHAP. sects of heretics, whom he chuses to confound and rank with the Albigenses, and as all the clergy of that ATTACKS day massed them indiscriminately together, it is impossible now to distinguish the different classes. It ANITY. is sufficient to remark, that from 1200 to 1300, a full century before Wicliffe appeared, men, with new feelings and views of reasoning, either as to the religion in general or to the prevailing hierarchy, were in the most civilized countries of Europe industriously circulating their opinions; sometimes in the church itself; frequently patronized by the great; persecuted wherever the clergy had power; moving from place to place, as danger pressed; and so planting their opinions, from the fury of the hostilities against them, more actively and more extensively. Thus, at the very time that the political mechanism of the papal government was the most complete, the mind of society was almost every where affected by counteracting principles, whose increasing operation could not fail to overthrow it. Religion was in this crisis, as the age of Wicliffe approached.—But before we state the nature and direction of his exertions, it will elucidate the fall of one of the most powerful and sagacious hierarchies that ever swayed mankind, if we review the more worldly incidents, which in our own island contributed to accomplish the wish and crown the efforts of the good and wise, who labored to separate faith from superstition, and piety from imposture. VII. CHA P. IV. Progress of England to the Reformation of Papal BOOK OUR Norman princes had never submitted to the temporal sovereignty of the Roman see. The Conqueror had refused to do fealty to the lofty Gregory VII. Both Rufus and his brother Henry had contested with the Pope the question of investitures; and Henry II. in his struggle with Becket,2 had evinced the determined system of the English government to reduce the spiritual authorities to a due subordination to the civil powers of the state, instead of allowing them either the superiority or the independence which they projected to establish. The fierce and sturdy character of Richard I. allowed no increase of an ecclesiastical power, for which he had little reverence. John, after teaching the nation to defy the papacy, unexpectedly threw his kingdom into its hands. But this event, instead of consummating the papal power over England, kindled a sense of national dishonor, which diminished even its former influence. The chain of superstition was, however, not yet broken. The clergy continued it with unanimous co-operation, and it was obvious, that unless the emancipation began with them, neither king nor people could effect it. The English clergy have always comprized within their body, some of the most conscientious, upright, 2 Ib. p. 242. 1 Hist. Eng. vol. i. p. 131. |