ological inquiries, or to write a history of
the church. Considered in its effects upon manners, the sole point which
these pages have in view, the preaching of this new sect certainly
produced an extensive reformation. But their virtues were by no means
free from some unsocial qualities, in which, as well as in their
superior attributes, the Lollards bear a very close resemblance to the
Puritans of Elizabeth's reign; a moroseness that proscribed all cheerful
amusements, an uncharitable malignity that made no distinction in
condemning the established clergy, and a narrow prejudice that applied
the rules of the Jewish law to modern institutions.[755] Some of their
principles were far more dangerous to the good order of society, and
cannot justly be ascribed to the Puritans, though they grew afterwards
out of the same soil. Such was the notion, which is imputed also to the
Albigenses, that civil magistrates lose their right to govern by
committing sin, or, as it was quaintly expressed in the seventeenth
century, that dominion is founded in grace. These extravagances,
however, do not belong to the learned and politic Wicliffe, however they
might be adopted by some of his enthusiastic disciples.[756] Fostered by
the general ill-will towards the church, his principles made vast
progress in England, and, unlike those of earlier sectaries, were
embraced by men of rank and civil influence. Notwithstanding the check
they sustained by the sanguinary law of Henry IV., it is highly probable
that multitudes secretly cherished them down to the era of the
Reformation.

[Sidenote: Hussites of Bohemia.]

From England the spirit of religious innovation was propagated into
Bohemia; for though John Huss was very far from embracing all the
doctrinal system of Wicliffe, it is manifest that his zeal had been
quickened by the writings of that reformer.[757] Inferior to the
Englishman in ability, but exciting greater attention by his constancy
and sufferings, as well as by the memorable war which his ashes kindled,
the Bohemian martyr was even more eminently the precursor of the
Reformation. But still regarding these dissensions merely in a temporal
light, I cannot assign any beneficial effect to the schism of the
Hussites, at least in its immediate results, and in the country where it
appeared. Though some degree of sympathy with their cause is inspired by
resentment at the ill faith of their adversaries, and by the
associations of civil and