INTRODUCTION.

HE first of the subjects of the biographical sketches included in this division of our work carries us back to the times of John Wickliffe. The others lived in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary,

and Queen Elizabeth. We shall therefore, in intro43g them to the reader, touch upon the instrumentality of We in the advancement of Divine truth, and then advert to me of the prominent features of the reigns of these sovereigns,

dered particularly in their relation to the struggles of the frmation in England, with the history of which the lives of these rs are more or less connected, and a cause which all of them had red or supported from conviction, though not with equal zeal and intelligence, nor with the same spirit of self-sacrifice.

The Reformation in England in the sixteenth century was not an rst for which there had been no previous preparation. RevoluSins generally seem to the superficial observer to happen abruptly, they are always the effect of causes which, though hidden and ed, have been previously in operation, preparing the way for great catastrophe. These causes, like those in operation in the pal world, may work slowly and by insensible degrees, and there

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may, from our ignorance of the counteracting influences which m spring up in the course of events, be much uncertainty, even to tl mind which sees their operation, whether they will issue in the cata trophe to which they naturally tend. But when the catastrophe do take place, and when we philosophically trace back and investiga the causes, it will be found that the remote and general causes hav had such influence, that without them the direct and immediat causes could not have produced the result. In looking at the imme diate causes, there will often appear such a disproportion betwee them and the effects produced, as to excite our surprise that so grea events should be brought to pass by so small causes, but when w examine the subject more minutely, we will discover that the imme diate causes have been indebted for their efficacy to a long chain o preceding causes. It was so in regard to the Reformation in Englan

as well as in Germany.

To go no farther back than the fourteenth century in tracing the influences set at work by Providence in preparing the way for the Reformation which signalized the reign of Henry VIII., a brie glance at the labours of John Wickliffe, will show that they were intended by Providence to have something like the same relation to the Reformation as the seed-time to the harvest. Before he came into public view, his predecessors in the same cause, Fitzralph, Bradwardine, and others, had gone to their rest. Into their labours he entered. The work they had left he took up with increased energy and success. From the theological chair, when professor of divinity at Oxford, and from the pulpit, on his becoming rector of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, he boldly denounced the arrogant pretensions of the Pope and the Papal priesthood, attacked the doctrines of Popery, and proclaimed the pure doctrines of the gospel. He did the same thing by his numerous writings, of which the most important was his translation of the entire Scriptures, which he executed from the Vulgate, being ignorant of Hebrew and Greek. To disseminate the sacred volume in English among the people, his object in this undertaking, was quite a novel idea, and

was in itself an important step in the cause of the Reformation. Many portions of the Bible had been translated into English before is time, but to translate them for general circulation appears never to have been contemplated by the translators, and the translations were generally buried in the library of some man of wealth, or in some mastery. It was Wickliffe who first took down the Bible from the beif, and shook off the dust with which it had been covered for ages, that it might become common property. Was it not Heaven's great gift to the whole human family? Why then should it be sealed up in an unknown tongue? Why should it not be translated into Eash, that his countrymen might be able to read in their own anage the wonderful works of God? To do this would be doing

ething worth living for, something for his generation, and something for posterity. Such were the thoughts which filled his mind, and he diligently set himself to the task, which, after the labour of many years, he completed about 1380. These combined labours produced great effects. His opinions infected not a few of the parochal clergy, the University of Oxford, many of the aristocracy, and maitales of the common people. So numerous were his converts, even in his own day, that, according to the testimony of a popish

porary," starting like saplings from the root of a tree, they were multiplied, and filled every place within the compass of the and After his death his doctrines continued to spread throughout Easad, notwithstanding the efforts of the adversaries to suppress

His various writings, and especially his translation of the Spares, both the whole of it and copies of particular parts, were

Led by transcription, as they had been during his lifetime, the expenses being defrayed by persons of rank and wealth, and they were the means of making many converts. A single copy of the Scriptures, tached portions, would serve the inquirers of a whole district, in times of persecution would assemble in some friendly house where the manuscript was secreted, and where, drawn from its place of realment, it was read by one of their number to the company,

atened with eager and devout attention. This continued even

down to the reign of Henry VIII., when the disciples of Wickli were so widely diffused throughout the country, that Sir Thom More, mainly, it would appear, upon this ground, predicted the spee ascendency of heresy in England.1 Thus did the humble rector Lutterworth mightily contribute-more perhaps than any oth individual—to prepare the way for the great revolution which sho and overthrew the Papal system in England in the sixteenth centur He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye way of the Lord." He was "the morning star of the Reformation Had circumstances been as favourable in England in the fourteen century as they were in Germany in the beginning of the sixteent this great man would have achieved for the former country wh Luther did for the latter.

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That step by which Henry VIII. separated England from the Pap jurisdiction, is, from its important influence on the Reformation England, deserving of special attention, though we can only gland at some of the leading facts connected with it.

In the beginning of the year 1527, if not at an earlier period, Henr began seriously to contemplate a divorce from his queen, Katharin of Aragon, the widow of his brother Arthur, on the alleged groun of scruples of conscience as to the lawfulness of a marriage contracte with a sister-in-law; but his real motives, it was generally believed were his decayed affection for Katharine, in consequence of her fade beauty and declining health, and his passionate desire to have a so to succeed him, a felicity he could not expect without a new marriage as he was hopeless of more issue by his present queen. The idea c the divorce originated with Cardinal Wolsey. This is agreed upo by all contemporary writers. Katharine uniformly ascribed it to him never to her husband, and affirmed, probably with truth, that hi motives were to be revenged on her because she had censured hi profligate life, and on her nephew Charles V., because he had no raised him to the Pontifical chair. Wolsey himself confessed tha

1 See Vaughan's Life of Wickliffe, passim.