n of all ranks and stations. He seems to have been a
man of parts and learning; and has the honor of being the first person
in Europe that publicly called in question those principles which had
universally passed for certain and undisputed during so many ages.
Wickliffe himself, as well as his disciples, who received the name of
Wickliffites, or Lollards, was distinguished by a great austerity
of life and manners; a circumstance common to almost all those who
dogmatize in any new way; both because men who draw to them the
attention of the public, and expose themselves to the odium of great
multitudes, are obliged to be very guarded in their conduct, and because
few who have a strong propensity to pleasure or business, will enter
upon so difficult and laborious an undertaking. The doctrines of
Wickliffe being derived from his search into the Scriptures and into
ecclesiastical antiquity, were nearly the same with those which were
propagated by the reformers in the sixteenth century: he only carried
some of them farther than was done by the more sober part of these
reformers. He denied the doctrine of the real presence, the supremacy of
the church of Rome, the merit of monastic vows: he maintained, that the
Scriptures were the sole rule of faith; that the church was dependent
on the state, and should be reformed by it; that the clergy ought to
possess no estates; that the begging friars were a nuisance, and ought
not to be supported;[*] that the numerous ceremonies of the church
were hurtful to true piety: he asserted that oaths were unlawful, that
dominion was founded in grace, that everything was subject to fate and
destiny, and that all men were preordained either to eternal salvation
or reprobation,[**] From the whole of his doctrines, Wickliffe appears
to have been strongly tinctured with enthusiasm, and to have
been thereby the better qualified to oppose a church whose chief
characteristic is superstition.

* Walsing. p. 191, 208, 283, 284. Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p.
680.

** Harpsfield, p. 668, 673, 674. Waldens. lib. iii. art. i.
cap. 8.

The propagation of these principles gave great alarm to the clergy; and
a bull was issued by Pope Gregory XI. for taking Wickliffe into custody,
and examining into the scope of his opinions.[*] Courteney, bishop of
London, cited him before his tribunal; but the reformer had now
acquired powerful protectors, who screened him from the ecclesiastical
jurisdicti