impugn one and another of his perverse judgments. At the very outset we must lift up our voice against his placing the entire history of Wycliffe under the rubric, 'History of Theology and Doctrine.' In the ideas scattered by Matthias of Janow,' says Neander, 'we have all that was wanted to produce the Bohemian revolt, and that out of these ideas, without the superadded influence of Wycliffe, a struggle, pushed continually farther and farther through the opposition of the great anti-reforming party, might have developed itself."" On which Jaeger pertinently remarks, that it is idle to ask what might have happened apart from Wycliffe's influence. That influence was there, and had wrought far more powerfully than that of Matthias of Janow on Huss himself at any rate, and still more on Jerome of Prague, who is doubtless of more importance than Huss so far as regards the beginning of the Bohemian commotions. He then proceeds : The true state of the case was in general as follows:---Already, before the time of Huss, the practical opposition to the prevailing abuses, just as it showed itself sporadically everywhere, so also was it carried on with particular vigour here in Bohemia by Janow and his compeers, and this path was followed up by Huss with equal zeal. Wycliffe's writings were already known there, at least in part, but without as yet having attracted special attention. But in the year 1398, Jerome of Prague brought home with him from Oxford other writings of Wycliffe, dispersed them with the greatest enthusiasm, and became inspired with zeal on behalf of the English doctrines. It was this newly-kindled interest in the doctrines of the English heretic which led to the condemnation of his forty-five articles in 1403, with which event the controversy begins to gain in real significance. For now, for the first time, Wycliffe's general attack upon the entire foundations of the ancient Church, which, moreover, had been particularly warm against the ecclesiastical doctrine, coalesced with the opposition against abuses in practice and life, and imparted to this latter its own radical character. In this way Huss was forced into a position which he by no means occupied in the beginning, and which he was even constantly at pains to decline. Huss was anxious about nothing so much as to purge himself from the charge of heresy. The accusation of being puffed up with a sense of his own importance was painful to his susceptible and humble mind, and whilst Wycliffe in his daring self-reliance hurled against the Church herself the charge of heresyeven in reference to articles of faith, such as transubstantiation, Huss even from his prison writes with touching earnestness to the Knight of Chlum, to be sure and not forget to impress on the queen, that she need not be under any apprehension of scandal on his part as though he were a heretic. Moreover, he repudiated every sort of intimate connexion and partnership with Wycliffe. Already at Prague, in 1403, he would not allow it to be asserted to his prejudice that he had said that all Wycliffe's forty-five articles were true, although by ascribing what was false in them, with the exception of the article, German Works on Wycliffe-Dr. Jaeger. 405 De corpore Christi, to the falsification of a certain Dr. Hübner, he, nevertheless, evinces his inward leaning towards Wycliffe. The same is expressed in his well-known touching and beautiful wish: Would I might reach the place where the soul of Wycliffe is!''-Jaeger, pp. 92, 93. In Jaeger's opinion Huss deceived himself as to the extent to which he had been influenced by Wycliffe. It was not mainly the philosophical writings of Wycliffe, as he said before the Council, which had first and especially attracted him. He had not merely imbibed and defended this or that particular doctrine of the English Reformer, but he held the fundamental principle in common with Wycliffe, and that, as our author thinks, in a still more profound, immediate, and living way than Wycliffe himself. His reasoning is as follows: In support of this conclusion we cannot do better than appeal to his adversaries, to the Catholic Church, which in such questions has ever judged with all the keenness of a natural instinct. The Church had recognised in Wycliffe her most dangerous enemy, the man who had laid the axe to the root of her proud but corrupt tree. The Synod at Rome had ordered the writings of Wycliffe to be burnt, and had fulminated against him the curse of the Church. The Council of Constance, in its eighth session, in May, 1415, solemnly pronounced him a heretic, condemned his doctrine, and in its fanatical zeal ordained that his accursed bones should be dug up out of consecrated ground, and his earthly remains scattered upon the river. Again, that the Council were for classing Huss altogether with Wycliffe, is particularly shown by its eagerness to fasten on Huss the heresies of Wycliffe, to which point his accusers always came back. The same thing appears in many of the speeches of the most eminent men in the Council, but especially in the sentence, in which the doctrines and the person of Wycliffe fill the foreground, and Huss is treated simply as an adherent and disciple of Wycliffe, and condemned to be burnt accordingly. 'Paletz, then, was quite right when he said to Huss, Since the birth of Christ no heretic has written more dangerously against the Church than thou and Wycliffe.' For it is just this phenomenon, that what had found in Wycliffe clear dogmatic expression, had at once assumed in Huss a direct practical shape-one-sidedly practical, it may be, but probably for that very reason all the more truly popular-it is just this fact, I say, which proves that in the Bohemian Reformer the new principle had already become life and reality, and had gained in depth and earnestness. This has been already pointed out in detail. The evangelical conception of the Church at once attains with Huss its practical application in what he says of the universal priesthood, and, if Gerson is to be believed in the articles of accusation which he drew up, the Reformer himself went so far as to maintain that every pious man has a right and is bound to teach and to preach (quod omnis bene vivens secundam vitam Christi potest et debet docere palam et prædicare). The refusal to bow to the papal authority, which he is unable theoretically to carry through, he maintains simply by implication, in that he revolts against being hindered by the papal excommunication from the fulfilment of his duty as a preacher imposed on him immediately by God. So, too, if when he asserts the authority of Scripture he glances wistfully at tradition, and the holy doctores, nevertheless the study of his practical writings in particular, and of his whole personality, shows that with him the authority of Scripture had become a living power. They breathe throughout, and that far more than Wycliffe's, a spirit inwardly akin to the Gospel, and based on it alone. In Huss we meet with a really living and personal relationship to Christ, after which we see Wycliffe earnestly striving only. In this respect the reforming principle in Huss rises to a higher level than in Wycliffe, to whom he is decidedly inferior in importance, power, and clearness of intellect, and approaches in a marked degree the full pitch which it attains in Luther. A deeper study of history will not reproach us with a leaning to the magical and superstitious if we here mention also the marvellous insight and the prophetical element in Huss. It proves how full his mind was of the weal and woe of the Church; how this one thought swayed his soul. As an example of this trait, which is everywhere discernible, especially in his last peril, we adduce only that dream, of which he writes so touchingly from his prison:-'I saw how in Bethlehem* men endeavoured to deface all the pictures of Christ, and they succeeded in doing so. Then on the next day I arose and saw a number of painters, who had painted many more and much finer ones. In like manner, I too hope,' he proceeds to say, that the life of Christ which by my ministry in Bethlehem has been painted by means of His word in the hearts of men, will be better painted and by more and better preachers than I; and with this prospect will I comfort myself.''-Jaeger, pp. 93-95. Space will not be left us to enter into the particulars of the scarcely less interesting parallel between Wycliffe and the reforming Hollander, Wessel, the scholar of Thomas à Kempis and the teacher of Reuchlin. Until the Messrs. Clark, of Edinburgh, gave us, in our own language, Ullmann's masterly work, The Reformers before the Reformation, Wessel was to English readers a great unknown. We wish we could here afford to do more than merely allow Jaeger to indicate the point of view whence he compares Wessel with Wycliffe. It now came to the turn of the second of the two tendencies which we have found united in Wycliffe to develop itself; I refer to the opposition against the hierarchical science, against scholasticism. This was the problem of that period of seeming repose and lassitude which succeeded to the exciting times of the great Councils of Basle and Constance. The representative of this second tendency is John * The chapel of that name at Prague in which he was wont to preach. German Works on Wycliffe-Dr. Jaeger. 407 Wessel, and it is remarkable enough that he exhibits in his person this side of Wycliffe with the same one-sidedness as Huss the other. When great ideas make shipwreck for the moment, and the opposing forces triumph, it is in accordance with a natural law that an impulse develops itself, to gain by means of a reform from within outwards, and step by step, that which has not been yielded in the lump to stormy and revolutionary assaults. In such cases the new element has to be brought to full maturity, and to be carefully elaborated in the noiseless workshop of calm scientific retirement. In the time of which we speak this process was precipitated by the revival of the humanistic studies which were going on at that very cpoch. This quietly creative spirit, which blended a tranquil, practical life with contemplative science-the Inner Mission, as it may be styled, of the fifteenth century-had its head-quarters in the Netherlands. In this country, in the societies of the Brethren of the Common Lot, we find a more peaceful renovation of the Lollards. Like Wycliffe's disciples, they lived according to the Gospel by the labour of their hands; they had introduced amongst themselves the community of goods in use amongst the first Christians, and studied in retirement the Gospel of love and science. Whilst Wycliffe's fiery nature infinitely preferred energetic action to slothful contemplation, and had zealously opposed everything like conventual life within stone walls, it was precisely this habit of retreating into the quiet of their cells, to which these brethren were indebted for the powerful spirit which animated their modest works of charity. No better illustration can be given of the contrast between Wycliffe's heroic struggles, and this love of retirement produced by intoxication of feeling, than the words of Florentius Raderius, one of the successors of the founder of the brotherhood, Gerhard Groot. Accustom thyself,' says he, to abide in thy chamber, and to read in a book until it is disagreeable and irksome to thee to quit it, but delightful to enter it.' And again: It is dangerous to converse with worldly dignitaries and spiritual lords; rather avoid the people of the world and great men.' Out of this brotherhood proceeded John Wessel, born 1419 at Gröningen, and to this cloistered retreat, furnished by his native land, did he return after having lived at Cologne, Paris, Rome, and Heidelberg, in contact with the most eminent scientific minds and ecclesiastical notabilities, everywhere doing good in the way of communicating instruction, and by means of friendly controversy, whenever it was possible without a deeper breach with the established order of things. Here in his own home he wrote most of his works, which, keeping the middle path between simple edification and science, bear throughout the same uniform character of mild and moderate opposition, free from all excitement, and of humble self-mistrust and genuine piety. It must be added that they bear also the stamp of an age wanting in the highest kind of productive power.'-Jaeger, pp. 102-104. The general scope of the parallel with Luther may be gathered from the following brief retrospective survey of the whole subject: 'We have seen the reforming principle complete a sort of cycle. Wycliffe shook from without the prison-house in which men's spirits lay bound, and toiled in rolling the first stones towards the new building. But though this blow made the whole edifice totter, yet it was not repeated, and it was not effectual on a grand scale. There was wanting to the new principle that inward power of life, which it was destined to discover in itself in a course of slow development, and as it became more deeply rooted, and that by means of a separate unfolding of each particular germ. This process took place in Huss and Wessel and their compeers. Luther united anew, as in a focus, the different diverging tendencies and reforming energies, and led them up to a higher stage; and in him the reforming principle has not simply reached its culmination in its doctrinal form, as he himself thought, but rather out of the teeming fulness of a great man, and of a wholly new view of life, it has shed the seeds of new impulses and new progressive instincts. Again, not as though the whole truth were now found out, in whose shadow we might comfortably repose, and perhaps in German fashion spin disputes about trifles, as did that great abortive century which followed the sixteenth with its mighty movements. Luther and the German Reformation have left a great portion of the problem unsolved, and, such being the case, we ought not in the feeling of our weakness to be above learning from the beginners of the Reformation things for which the great consummator of the work found neither himself nor his age ripe, and things of whose importance the present time seems to admonish us with loud voice. We mean the carrying out of the reforming principle on the arena of national life and of the State; a carrying out of the work, not, as our adversaries say with their wonted blindness in historical matters, identical with the French Revolution and French anarchy, but one which, both in Church and State, like to nothing save itself, means only legal, temperate, manly freedom and reformation from within outwards.' Dr. Lechler, an able contributor to this department of literature in Germany, was first brought into notice by his prize work on The Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Age, and by his History of English Deism. Of late he seems to have cherished a growing predilection for Wycliffe as his special subject. Hence his selection by Herzog (whose editorial tact in these matters is beyond all praise) to write the Lollard articles in the great Protestant Theological and Ecclesiastical Encyclopædia, now in course of publication at Stuttgardt. Hence, too, his own choice of Wycliffe as his theme in his inaugural discourse delivered on the occasion of his taking possession of the Theological Chair at Leipzig a few weeks ago. The foundation of all these minor labours, however, is to be found in his series of papers in Niedner's Zeitschrift für die Historische Theologie, the years 1853 and 1854. These interesting papers are now before us, and afford ample testimony to the spirit of patient and conscientious research with which |