tury, their influence, either in the form of philosophical speculation, or open blasphemy, or secret mistrust, were most pernicious. In proof, it is only necessary to refer to the extensive circulation of the writings of men like Hobbes, Toland, Collins, Shaftsbury, Chubb, and Bolingbroke; and the incidental testimony of learned and pious divines like Bishop Burnet and Gibson, and Butler and Secker, and Drs. Watts and Guyse, and others of these times, who deplore the dismal effects of the growth of infidelity, and "the imminent ruin hanging over the churches, and by consequence, over the whole Reformation."* Arianism and other deadly heresies, also, found advocates in erudite and skillful ecclesiastics, and though ably exposed, exerted no little influence upon the clergy and the laity. The various Acts of Uniformity, which, perhaps, should have been first mentioned, also operated to paralyze the power of the pulpit. The most famous of these acts became a law in 1662. According to its terms, ministers, who had not been ordained by a bishop must be re-ordained. They must declare their unfeigned consent and assent to all prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. They must swear obedience to the bishops and other ecclesiastic superiors. They must profess the utmost passive subjection, and declare that they would not take up arms against the king "upon any pretense whatever." Otherwise they were to be deprived of their livings, and forbidden to preach. It was a dark day for England. The act impinged upon the consciences of about two thousand clergymen, who were ejected from their pulpits, and silenced, as far as it was in the power of man to do it. The celebrated Mr. Locke says of this oppressive enactment, "it was fatal to our Church and religion, by throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines." The Corporation Act, the preceding year, incapacitated all persons for holding civil office or trust who did not receive the sacrament in the established Church. The Conventicle Acts (1663, 1670) restricted attendance at other than the established churches. The Oxford Act (1665), banished all dissenting ministers five miles from any corporate town. These are but specimens of the intolerance that prevailed, until the pent-up fires broke forth in the Revolution of 1688. It was not until William and Mary came to the throne (1694) that toleration was extended by law. From these and other causes, the ministry became comparatively effete, while men of rank and fashion laughed at religion, and the common people wallowed in sin.

Such was the state of things when Whitfield and Wesley made their appearance upon the stage, about the year 1740; of whom Hall observed, "whatever feelings the severest criticism can discover in their character, they will be hailed by posterity as the second reformers of England." The time of their advent forms a memorable era in the history of preach* Burnet's Pastoral Call, 3d ed. Pref. See also Butler's Pref. to Analogy, Secker's Fight Charges, and Watts' Revival of Religion.

mg. Their souls were inspired with high resolves, and unwonted zeal. The appeals which they uttered, and which were addressed principally to the middle and lower classes, came from the depth of their convic tions, and were aimed at the conscience and the passions of the hearers, with earnestness and affection; and how mightily the Lord wrought through them, it is not needful here to narrate. But their influence was not solely in the direction of the immediate gathering of souls to Christ. It extended beyond the laity to the ranks of the clergy. The Dissenters, as a body, were less influenced by their preaching than the established Church. Besides the fact that they were mainly already es angelical in their bearings, the doctrines of Wesley and his adherents (the remark does not hold true of Whitfield) were not acceptable to this class, since they were not, in their opinion, orthodox. This was no objectionable feature in the view of the Episcopal order, but rather the reverse. Here, therefore, the change was most marked. While the few faithful ones were encouraged, the cold, perfunctory ecclesiastics were roused from their guilty slumbers, and either addressed themselves afresh to the work of the ministry, or, from the force of public opinion, abandoned their profession. It is true the influence was not universal; but, to a great extent, the preaching of the times became less smooth and vapid, and more plain, earnest, and evangelical. And such it has remained, to a good degree, from that day to the present. Thenceforward the number of faithful ministers greatly increased, and the pulpit exerted its legitimate influence upon the national character and life; an influence greatly augmented by the missionary spirit, at the beginning of the present century. If, because of the exclusion of the Dissenters from the seats of learning and the emoluments of the State, the more learned and accurate sermonizers generally have been in the line of the established Church, the more practical, and equally effective preachers have been found in the several independent connections. Taken as it stands, the pulpit of England challenges the admiration of the world. Its venerable antiquity is invested with thrilling historic interest, and vast are the treasures of sacred learning, of acute disquisition, of profound speculation, of powerful controversy, and of able biblical critieism, which it has given forth for the nurture of piety and the defense of the faith. And its present is fraught with prophesies of a future not unworthy of the past. A complete divorce of Church and State would result in a vast augmentation of its power. So would a more direct, persuasive, and energetic manner of public address, such as Aristotle denominates the "agonistical" or wrestling style. For, with many bril hant exceptions, the English preachers are evidently inclining toward the unnatural composure and essayistic style of a former age. But yet who can contemplate with other feelings than those of profound and grateful admiration, the present and prospective influence of the Angli can pulpit upon the destinies of the nation and the world?

DISCOURSE NINTH.

WICKLIFFE.*

JOHN DE WICKLIFFE, the herald of the Reformation, "the star that arose on the brow of a long and gloomy night," was born about the year 1324, at a village of the same name, near Richmond in Yorkshire, England; where his ancestors had resided from the time of the Conquest. He was entered a student at Oxford University-then recently established in the year 1340, and afterward at Merton College, which the name of Duns Scotus rendered so celebrated. In 1361 he became master of Baliol College, and four years later of Canterbury Hall, just founded at Oxford. Displaced by the Pope for advocating offensive opinions, he retired to his living at Lutterworth. In 1377 he was tried for heresy, at the instigation of those who were alarmed at the influence of his writings, but so able was his defense that the charge was dismissed. A second time he was summoned to trial by the Pope, and with the same result.

A third council condemned his doctrines as heretical; but while some of his followers suffered punishment, Wickliffe himself was removed by death at Lutterworth, in the year 1382, Chaucer was his intimate associate; and it is supposed that the fidelity of Wickliffe, as the good minister of Lutterworth, furnished this celebrated writer with the original of his "Village Pastor." The angry Papists branded with infamy the name of the zealous Reformer, and obtained a decree of the Council of Constance by which his bones were dug up and burned, and their ashes cast into a neighboring brook, a branch of the Avc. "And thus this brook did convey his ashes into the Avon; and the Avon into the Severn; and the Severn into the narrow sea, and this into the wide ocean. And so the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine: it is now dispersed all over the world."

The name of the Reformer has been spelled in sixteen different ways. Wiclif is adopted by Lewis and Baber, and is used in the oldest document where the word is found -his appointment to the embassy of the Pope in 1370. Vaughan adopts Wycliffe, and it is supposed by many to be correct. But Neal and other good authorlties use Wick liffe, and we adopt it as the most popular form.

That the mind which Wickliffe possessed was one of the very highest order, is sufficiently evinced in the wide sphere which he filled as lecturer in theology, royal chaplain, popular preacher, faithful pastor, powerful writer, and able defender and translator of the Word of God. He was emphatically in advance of his age; and stands out in solitary grandeur as the Father of the Reformation. He was born a century and a half anterior to Luther; and although the faithful Waldenses, in their mountain fastnesses, had trimmed the flickering lamp through long ages of moral darkness, yet it is doubtful whether Wickliffe borrowed his light from theirs; and certain that he first bore aloft the torch of truth to scatter the impending gloom. To Wickliffe belongs the honor also, of having first translated the Bible into the English language; a work which he completed in 1383. No event in the annals of English history can be compared with this in importance. It was the author's great work, but by no means his sole work. His writings are voluminous and embrace a large variety of subjects. As printing was not yet discovered, copies of his works were at first made in writings and their influence was immense.* Wickliffe's method of preaching was postillating, in distinction from declaring; that is, taking up the various parts of a passage and briefly expounding them, in succession, with a view to some timely application.

Owing to this fact, the Sermons of Wickliffe which have come down to us, are exceedingly brief and imperfect, and discover but little of the excellence and force which undoubtedly marked the Reformer's preaching. The discourse which follows was put forth under the title of "Wickliffe's Wicket" (little door, or gate, in allusion to Christ's "strait gate"), and bore on the first page a quotation from the 6th of John, which is here transcribed literally as a specimen of the English language in the fourteenth century: "I am the lyuynge breade whych came downe from heauen who so etethe of this brede shall lyue for euer. And the brede that I wyll gyue is my flesche, whyche I wyll gyue for the lyfe of the worlde." The modern rendering here used is that adopted by the London Tract Society; and we begin where the author enters upon the discussion of his subject, after an appropriate introduction. It is proper to add that this was one of Wickliffe's most influential productions, and dealt many a heavy blow during the progress of the Reformation. It is often noticed in the articles against the Lollards, and in various proclamations against heretical books. It is written in his usual purity of style, and well adapted to influence the common mind. No subject could

The number of Wickliffe's disciples at his decease is described by Knighton, a canon of Leicester, his cotemporary; and coming from an enemy is the more valuable. H6 ys, "The number of those who believed in Wickliffe's doctrine very much increased, and were multiplied like suckers, growing from the root of a tree. They every where fled the kingdom; so that a man could scarcely meet two people on the same road but one of them was a disciple of Wickliffe."-Twysden, Decem. Scrip. Col. 2663.

have been more important than that here treated; for the "altar” had come to be the shrine of idolatry; and in the discussion of this question, all the Scriptural doctrines of salvation were involved.

CHRIST'S REAL BODY NOT IN THE EUCHARIST.

"This is my body."-MATT. xxvi. 26.

Now understand ye the words of our Saviour Christ, as he spake them one after another-as Christ spake them. For he took bread and blessed, and yet what blessed he? The Scripture saith not that Christ took bread and blessed it, or that he blessed the bread which he had taken. Therefore it seemeth more that he blessed his disciples and apostles, whom he had ordained witnesses of his passion; and in them he left his blessed word, which is the bread of life, as it is written, Not only in bread liveth man, but in every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matt. iv. Also Christ saith, I am the bread of life that came down from heaven. John vi. And Christ saith also in John, The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Therefore it seemeth more that he blessed his disciples, and also his apostles, in whom the bread of life was left more than in material bread, for the material bread hath an end. As it is written in the Gospel of Matthew xv. that Christ said, All things that a man eateth go down into the belly, and are sent down into the draught; but the blessing of Christ kept his disciples and apostles, both bodily and ghostly. As it is written, that none of them perished but the son of perdition, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, John xvii., and often the Scripture saith that Jesus took bread and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take ye, eat ye, this is my body that shall be given for you. But he said not this bread is my body, or that the bread should be given for the life of the world. For Christ saith, What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. John vi. Also Christ saith in the Gospel, Verily, verily I say unto you except the wheat corn fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.

Here men may see by the words of Christ that it behooved that he died in the flesh, and that in his death was made the fruit of everlasting life for all them that believe on him, as it is written.