caused much excitement among the students. Wyckliffe has already gained for himself renown. They throng to hear the new professor, of whom already so much had been said, not only at Oxford, but throughout England. His lectures are in an unusual strain. There is a freshness and a power about them which lays hold of the deepest sympathies of his youthful auditors. They could not but admire the brave-hearted teacher, who dared to think for himself, and to give such earnest, eloquent utterance to his great thoughts. Wyckliffe's opinions are freely discussed among the students, by whom they were generally embraced, and are much talked about at Oxford. A new era had dawned upon Oxford. It was a new era to Christendom. From a work he afterwards published, it appears that the course of lectures delivered by him was very extensive. That work is styled "Trialogus," a name descriptive of its form. It consists of a series of colloquies, carried on between three speakers, called respectively Truth, Falsehood, and Wisdom. Truth and Falsehood just discuss the points between them, and then Wisdom, representing Wyckliffe, speaks, giving judgment on the matter at issue, assigning such reasons as tend to confirm and sustain the views of Truth. In his first course of lectures, which treat of God, he vindicates the claims of the Scriptures to be the only and infallible rule of faith and practice. In the third course, where he opens up the system of doctrine and morality contained in Scripture, he explains the nature of sin, and condemns the current notions about the distinction between mortal and venial sin, declaring all sin to be an infinite evil. He sets forth also the doctrine of the atonement as the only ground of hope for fallen man. He condemns unsparingly the sins and immoralities prevalent in every grade of society, and particularly the vices of the clergy and the monks and friars. These things will sufficiently indicate the tendency of the lectures this new professor delivered at Oxford.

The old affair of the Pope's "Provisors' had never yet been settled. It was resolved, therefore, to send royal commissioners to the Pope, to represent the matter to him personally. These commissioners were admitted to an audience with Gregory XI. at Avignon. They told him frankly the grievance against which the whole English nation complained. Nothing, however, came of it. The Parliament were resolved not to be baffled, and therefore they sent a second embassy. In this crisis all eyes were turned to Wyckliffe, as the most distinguished scholar of his age, and most fit to take part in such an embassy. He had already given to the whole nation abundant evidence of his learning and patriotism and courage. He had now entered on his third session, as a professor at Oxford. His bold assaults against, not only the ambition and avarice of the mendicant orders, but against many of the most cardinal points of the Popish faith, were filling all England with excitement. At the summons of the Parliament, Wyckliffe consented to become one of the commissioners to the Pope.

In August 1374, Wyckliffe and his four companions reached Bruges, in the Netherlands, whither commissioners from the Papal Court at Avignon were sent to meet them. While at Bruges, Wyckliffe formed an intimate acquaintance with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a younger son of Edward III. John of Gaunt and Wyckliffe were, to a large extent, men of kindred spirit, and of the same mind as to the social and national evils, at least, which resulted from the oppressive domination of the clergy: they therefore entertained a warm friendship toward each other-a friendship which afterwards proved so beneficial to Wyckliffe.

This embassy to Bruges resulted in no immediate advantage to the cause of freedom. In 1376 the Parliament drew up a petition, which they presented to the king, praying him to enact it as a law, that the Pope's · Provisors' should in all cases be null and void; that no Papal collector

should be permitted to remain in England, under pain of life and limb; and that no Englishman should, under a like pain, become such collector, or should remain at the Papal Court. In this remarkable document it is stated, that within the memory of those then living, England had lost no less than two-thirds of its wealth and its population; that the taxes paid to the Court of Rome for ecclesiastical dignities, amounted to five times more than was paid to the king from the whole produce of the realm; that the Pope's collector kept a house in London, with clerks and offices thereto belonging, as if it were one of the government offices, transporting yearly to the Pope 20,000 marks, and most commonly more-a sum equivalent to about £270,000 of the present day. Further, they say, "That the Pope's collector hath this year taken to his use the first fruits of all the benefices; that the Pope hath within this year created twelve new cardinals, so that now there are thirty, whereas there were wont to be but twelve in all; and now all the said thirty, except two or three, are the king's enemies," ie, they were Frenchmen.

On his return from Bruges, Wyckliffe resumed his duties as a professor. His visit to Bruges, like Luther's to Rome, had given a powerful impulse to his reforming tendencies. His lecture-room at Oxford was crowded with enthusiastic hearers. Wyckliffe became a great favourite, not only with the youthful students, but also with the leading men of the kingdom. He gave eloquent utterance to the thoughts that were in many a heart. The Papal authorities became alarmed at his popularity, and determined that something must be done, done promptly and vigorously, to arrest the rising flood of heresy that was threatening to deluge the land. They accordingly summoned him to appear before a convocation of the clergy, held in London (February 1377). Wyckliffe obeyed the summons. John of Gaunt, and Lord Percy, the Earl Marshal of England, took him by the hand on his arrival in London, and encouraged him to appear before the convocation, then sitting in St Paul's. On the day appointed for hearing Wyckliffe a vast concourse thronged the cathedral and its approaches, all eager to catch a sight of this wonderful man, of whom they heard so much. Bishop Courtenay presided at this meeting of Popish dignitaries. As Wyckliffe, tall of stature, thin, and venerable in his appearance, walked slowly up the aisle, with John of Gaunt and Earl Percy on either side of him, and his servant following behind him, bearing under his arms a Bible and a bundle of books and papers, which his master might need during the trial, Courtenay was greatly disconcerted. He expressed his surprise that a man accused of heresy should be accompanied on such an occasion by men of such eminence as those who now stood beside Wyckliffe. Percy nobly replied to the words of Courtenay. There is much altercation between them. At length John of Gaunt breaks in, and exclaims, "As for you, my Lord Bishop, who are grown so proud and arrogant, I will bring down, not the pride of you alone, but of all the prelacy in England." "Do your worst," haughtily replies Courtenay. A scene of great excitement and confusion followed, which put an end, in the meantime, to the ecclesiastical proceedings against Wyckliffe, who retired, accompanied by his two valiant friends.

King Edward III. was succeeded by Richard II. (1377), son of the Black Prince, a youth of twelve years of age. The first Parliament of this new reign was engaged, as the preceding one had been, in endeavouring to place some check upon the Papal authorities, to prevent them from draining the land of its treasures under religious pretences. The Commons of England were not disposed to look on silently while Frenchmen were preferred to all the best livings, and to the highest dignities in the Church, and while the wealth of the country flowed into hands through which it served, directly or indirectly, to replenish the treasury of France, with which Eng

land was then at war. They accordingly passed an Act banishing all foreigners whatever out of the country, and appropriating their lands and goods to the public treasury while the war with France lasted. This same Parliament also consulted Wyckliffe on the question, whether they might lawfully retain the treasure of the kingdom for its own defence, so that it might not be carried away to a strange and foreign nation, even though the Pope should demand it under the pain of censure. This question Wyckliffe answered unhesitatingly in the affirmative. His answer, with the reasons of it, were published, and exerted powerful influence on the public mind, preparing it for yet further progress.

The Pope and his cardinals now became afraid of Wyckliffe. They sent five separate bulls to England regarding him. "By the report," says the Pope, in one of these, "of persons truly worthy of credit, it hath become known that John Wyckliffe, professor of divinity, more properly a master in error, hath proceeded to a degree of madness so detestable as not to fear to assert, dogmatise, and publicly to teach, propositions the most false and erroneous, contrary to the faith, and tending to weaken and subvert the whole Church." The bull sent to the prelates enjoins that proceedings be forthwith com menced against Wyckliffe, so that, if found guilty, he might be committed to prison, and retained there in sure custody; requiring them also, should they fail to apprehend him, to affix, in some public place, a summons enjoining him to appear before the Pope in three months. They are also commanded to use all diligence, that the king and his councillors may not be defiled by the errors so widely prevalent. The bull sent to the king acquaints him with the tenor of that sent to the bishops, and requires him, as an obedient son of the Church, to give them his countenance and assistance in the discharge of the duties he had imposed on them. The bull to the university calls upon the authorities, under pain of losing all graces, indulgences, and privileges that had been granted to the university by the Holy See, to prevent the diffusion of such errors as it was alleged Wyckliffe taught, and to deliver up the person of the heretic to the bishops.

In April 1378 a Synod was summoned to meet in the Archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth, before which Wyckliffe was required to appear. Wyckliffe complied, and proceeded at once to Lambeth.

While the bishops were deliberating what sentence they should pass against him, Sir Lewis Clifford entered the Court, and, in the name of the Queen, forbade them to proceed to any definite sentence against Wyckliffe, or his doctrine or conduct, Whereupon," says Walsingham, the Roman Catholic historian of Wyckliffe's age, "the bishops, though vested with all the authority of the Apostolic See, shaken as a reed with the wind, became soft as oil in their speech, to the open forfeiture of their own dignity, and the injury of the whole Church." The Synod only admonished Wyckliffe not again to publish, either from the pulpit or in the schools, the "conclusions" that had come under their review.

The paper which the Reformer had prepared, in answer to the accusation laid against him, and which he read before the Lambeth Synod, produced a powerful impression in his favour in the minds of the people who were assembled to hear the proceedings. He gained, on this occasion, a decided victory. His persecutors saw, from the popularity with which he and his doctrines were regarded, that they must temporise.

Shortly after the Lambeth Synod Wyckliffe was attacked by a pamphlet, written in defence of the Papal system in its integrity, by an anonymous writer. The Reformer answers this "motley theologian," as he styles him, and enters at length into a vindication of his views, at the same time launching out into a vehement denunciation of what he calls the heretical and blasphemous doctrines of Rome. To be continued.

HOURS WITH HOLY SCRIPTURE.

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied."-I PETER i. 1, 2.

THE contrariety that too often exists between the judgment of God and the judgment of man-between the light in which things are looked upon by Heaven, and the light in which they are looked upon on earth-might be largely and strikingly illustrated out of the materials contained in the inscription of this first Epistle of

Peter.

Carried back by it, some 1800 years, to the times when the Gospel was just entering upon its grand mission, we are made to look upon a number of singular individuals, scattered throughout several provinces that lay to the south of the Black Sea, as they must have been viewed by their contemporaries generally, and as they were viewed by an apostle of Christ. By the mass of the population among whom they were dispersed, these peculiar persons would not be reckoned the wise, the mighty, the noble, the thoughtful, the good, the truly pious of their age, but the foolish, the weak, the wrong-headed, unworthy of no treatment but that of derision and scorn, and unnecessarily exposing themselves to the loss of liberty, of property, of citizenship, yea, even of life.

It is certainly known, that not long after the time when this epistle was sent to these " pilgrims and strangers," one of the provinces throughout which they were "scattered" was governed by a pro-consul, distinguished alike for his learning and humanity. In writing to the Emperor Trajan about the Christians who came under his cognizance as a provincial ruler, he confesses he does not know what to make of them-chargeable, as they were, with the crime of deserting the time-honoured temples of their fathers, and forsaking their ancestral worship. It seems, however, that this estimable and mild ruler entertained no doubt that if these obstinate Christians clung pertinaciously to their faith, and refused to disown Jesus and acknowledge the gods, they deserved torture and death.

How altogether different the light in which the same class of persons appear to the eye of an apostle, who, so to speak, has been admitted within the vail, and has been led to look upon such in the light of the Divine counsels,-in the resplendent light of heaven. The contrast between Pliny and Peter, between the Roman proconsul and the apostle of Christ, as to the light in which they respectively look on the same persons, is very striking. However they may be viewed by the eloquent and learned Roman, in the eye of the apostle, feeling warmly towards them "in the bowels of Jesus Christ," they are God's elect, adopted children of their heavenly Father, heirs of an eternal inheritance, consecrated to God by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and the sprinkling of the

precious blood of Christ; whereby they were marked out as persons who would be preserved and saved, when those who had not been sprinkled with this Divine blood would perish under the avenging stroke of Divine justice.

This inscription, however, is remarkable as not only revealing the sacred dignity with which Christians were beheld by an apostolic eye-so different from the light in which they were looked upon by the world-but as containing a recognition of a good many of the profoundest doctrines of godliness. This inscription is rich in doctrinal value. Looking at it with a theological eye, we have a recognition of the deep doctrines of election-of the mysteries of the Divine prescience of the agency and work of the Spirit in our sanctification, together with the fundamental doctrine of the atonement, in its bearing upon the conscience of the sinner, as well as in its bearing upon the holiness and justice of God.

This inscription, moreover, has a practical aspect that is surely calculated to arrest one. The attitude of the Christian on whom the eye of the apostle rests with such heavenly interest is, as here exhibited, that of obedience. The Christian is one who obeys God. This is the end of his election, of God's foreknowledge concerning him, of his consecration with the Spirit, of his sprinkling with the blood of Christ.

The obedience here pointed to has in it the various elements that enter into the dutifulness of the child, the fidelity of the servant, the sincerity of the friend, the loyalty of the subject, the gratitude of the recipient of favours.

What an exalted position he occupies who has become thoroughly obedient to God! In one sense it is a lowly position; the false sentiment that self-will produces may even tempt us to regard it as a degrading one; but it is not so. It is a high and a lofty position. Man was made to obey God. Even in those spheres in which he legitimately rules, his rule is to be regulated by the law of God, otherwise it becomes tyranny; as, on the other hand, in those spheres where his province is to obey, his obedience is to be in subordination to the will of God, otherwise it becomes slavery. It is in obeying God, through Jesus Christ, and by the strength of the Holy Spirit, that we will all find at once our dignity, our liberty, our happiness. When obeying God we feel as if we were fellowworkers with Himself, or rather as if He were working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure; and the feeling of this has in it an enjoyment and an elevation altogether divine. We are thereby brought into communion with all those holy beings throughout the universe in whom God is working, and through whom He is executing His high and most blessed will. It is in the believer being brought to obey God, that the electing love of the Father, and the redeeming work of the Son, and the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost, have their accomplishment.