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inferior in experience, age, and authority; but he was esteemed his superior in all polite and liberal endowments. He was born at Prague, and educated in that university, where he was admitted master of arts; and promoted the doctrine of Wickliffe in conjunction with Huss, He travelled into most of the states of Europe, and was every where esteemed for his elocution, which gave him great advantages in the schools, where he promoted what Huss advanced. The universities of Paris, Cologne, and Heidelberg, conferred the degree of master of arts upon him. He is said also to have had the degree of master of arts conferred upon him at Oxford; but it is certain, that he commenced doctor in divinity, in 1396. He began to publish the same doctrine with Dr. Huss in 1408, and it is averred, that he had a greater share of learning and subtilty than his excellent friend. However that may be, the council of Constance kept a very watchful eye upon him, and esteemed him to be a dangerous person to the interests of Rome. While he was in England, and most probably at Oxford, he copied out the books of Wickliffe, and returned with them to Prague. By that great man's evangelical writings, it pleased God to work upon him, and upon his friend Dr. Huss, to the acknowledgement of his truth. England, therefore may claim the honour of beginning the Reformaation; and may it be the last country upon earth to lose it! Jerom was cited before the council of Constance, on April 17, 1415, when his friend Dr. Huss was confined in a castle near that city. He arrived at Constance in the same month, when he was informed how his friend had been treated, and that he also would be seized upon which, Jerom retired to Iberlingen, an imperial city, from whence he wrote to the emperor and council to desire a safe conduct; and one was presented to him, which gave him permission to come, but not to return. He then caused a protestation to be fixed up, wherein he declared, that be would appear before the council to justify himself, if a proper safe conduct was granted: and he demanded of the Bohemian lords an act of his declaration. After this, he began his journey to return into Bohemia: but he was stopped at Hirschau, by the officers of John the son of prince Clement, count Palatine, who had the government of Sultzbach: and Lewis, another son of the same prince, carried Jerom to Constance, where he was to answer the

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accusation as had been exhibited against Dr. Huss, who martyred on the 7th of July. Jerom had many friends e council, who bore him great affection, and tried all could to bring him to a recantation; as they were sinced he had no prospect of escaping if he too! his , because the emperor had declared that he should be plarily punished. His friends prevailed, and he was ught before the council, in the nineteenth session, held pt. 23, when he read a public abjuration of his doctrines, inking thereby to elude his prosecution.

Poggius, the Florentine secretary, who was a spectator all he relates, and gave a full account of the matter to retin the pope's secretary, tells us, that as Jerom was turning to Bohemia, he was brought back to Constance y the duke of Bavaria; and, the next day, carried as a risoner before the council, where it soon appeared, that is abjuration had slipped from him in an unguarded hour hrough the weakness of the flesh. Poggius, who was one of the best judges of the age, asserts, that Jerom spoke with such a quickness of sentiment, such a dignity of expression, and such strength of argument, that he seemed to equal the noblest of the ancient compositions. When some members of the council called out to him to put in his answers, he told the assembly, that the objections against him were the effects of prepossession and prejudice: that, therefore, in justice, they should permit him to lay open the whole tenor of his doctrine, life, and conversation, whereby he could indubitably weaken and invalidate all the prepossessions, which ignorant zeal and open malice had rendered too strong against him in his unhappy condition. He was told, he could not expect indulgence. This exhausted his patience, and he exclaimed to the whole assembly in these terms, "What barbarity is this! For three hundred and forty days have I been through all the variety of prisons. There is not a misery, there is not a want, that I have not experienced. To my enemies you have allowed the fullest scope of accusation: to me you deny the least opportunity of defence. Not an hour will yon indulge me in preparing my trial. You have swallowed the blackest calumnies against me. You have represented me as a heretic, without, knowing what is my doctrine; as an enemy to the faith, before you knew what faith I professed; and as a persecutor of priests, before you could have any opportunity of understanding

derstanding my sentiments on that head. You are a ge, neral council: in you center all that this world can communicate of gravity, wisdom, and sanctity; but still you are men, and men are seducible by appearances. The higher your character is for wisdom, the greater ought your care to be not to deviate into folly. The cause I now plead is not my own cause; it is the cause of men; it is the cause of Christians; it is the cause which is to affect the rights of posterity, however the experiment is to be made in my person." The bigotted part of the assembly considered this speech as poison to the ears of the auditors: but many of the members were men of taste and learning, who were favourably inclined to the prisoner, and pitied him in their hearts, though a restraint was on their tongues. Jerom was obliged to give way to their authority, and to hear his charge read, which was reduced under these heads; "That he was a derider of the papal dignity, an opposer of the pope, an enemy of the cardinals, a persecutor of the prelates, and a hater of the Christian religion." He answered this charge with an amazing force of elocution, and strength of argument. "Now, says he, wretch that I am! whither shall I turn me? To my accusers! My accuser are as deaf as adders. To you my judges! You are prepossessed by the arts of my accusers.' We are told by Poggius, that Jerom, in all he spoke, said nothing unbecoming a great and wise man: and he candidly asserts, that, if what Jerom said was true, he was not only free from capital guilt, but from the smallest blame.

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The trial of Jerom was brought on the third day after his accusation, and witnesses were examined in support of the charge. The prisoner was prepared for his defence; which will appear almost incredible, when it is considered that he had been three hundred and forty days shup up in a dark offensive dungeon, deprived of day-light, food, and sleep. His spirit soared above these disadvantages, under which a man less enabled, must have sunk; nor was he inore at a loss for quotations from fathers and ancient authors, than if he had been furnished with the finest library in Europe. Many of the zealots and bigots of the assembly were against his being heard, as they knew what effect eloquence is apt to have on the minds even of the most prejudiced. However, it was carried by the majority that he should have liberty to proceed in his defence, which he

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began in such an exalted strain of moving elocution, that the heart of obdurate zeal was seen to melt, and the mind of superstition seemed to admit a ray of conviction. He made an admirable distinction between evidence as resting on facts, and as supported by malice and calumny. He laid before the assembly the whole tenor of his life and conduct, which he owned had been always open and unreserved. He justly observed, that the greatest and most holy men have been known to differ in points of speculation, with a view to distinguish truth, not to keep it concealed. And he then expressed a noble contempt of all his enemies, who would have induced him to retract the cause of religion and truth. He next entered on a high encomium upon Dr. John Huss; and declared he was ready to follow him in the glorious tract of martyrdom. He was (said Jerom) a good, just, and holy man, and very unworthy of the death which he suffered. He knew him, from his youth upward, to be neither fornicator, drunkard, nor addicted to any kind of vice; on the contrary, he was a chaste and sober man, and a faithful and true preacher of the blessed Gospel. That, with respect to himself, whatsoever things Wickliffe and Huss had written, and especially against the pomp and pride of the the clergy, he would affirm to his latest breath, that they were holy and blessed men, and that nothing so much troubled his conscience as the sin, which he committed by his recantation in speaking against them, which recantation he utterly abjured and abhorred from the bottom of his heast. He added, that he could not help saying, with his dying breath, it was certainly impious that the patrimony of the church, which was originally intended for the purpose of charity and universal benevolence, should be prostituted to the lust of the flesh, and the pride of the eye, in whores, feasts, foppish vestments, and other reproaches to the name and profession of Christianity. The prisoner received many interruptions from the impertinence of some, and the inveteracy of others but he answered every one with so much readiness, and vivacity of thought, that, at last, they were ashamed, and he was permitted to finish his defence. His voice was sweet, clear, and sonorous; pliable to captivate every passion, and able to conciliate every affection, which he knew how to do with wonderful address. He was admired by his enemies, and compassionated by his friends: but he received

received the same sentence that had been passed upon his martyred friend; and Poggius says, the assembly condemned him with great reluctance.

The same author tells us, that Jerom had two days allowed for his recantation; and that the cardinal of Florence used all the arguments he could for that effect, which were ineffectual. The divine was resolved to seal his doctrine with his blood; he could not be seduced to make another retractation; and he suffered death on May 30, 1416, with all the magnanimity of Huss. He embraced the stake to which he was fastened, with the peculiar malice of wet cords. When the executioner went behind him to set fire to the pile, "Come here, said the martyr, and kindle it before my eyes; for if I dreaded such a sight, I should never have come to this place, when I had a free opportunity to escape." The fire was kindled, and he then sung a hymn, which was soon finished by the encircling flames. He cried out several times, "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum;" i. e. "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.' His last words, which which could be heard were, "O Lord God, the Father Almighty, have mercy upon me, and forgive all my sins: thou knowest, with what sincerity, I have loved thy truth." He appeared to endure much by the fire for the space of a quarter of an hour, all the while seeming, by the motion of his lips, to pray within himself. After he was dead, his bed, cloaths, and other things which he had with him in prison, were thrown into the fire and consumed with him. Finally, the ashes were gathered together, and cast into the river Rhine, which runs close by the city.

JESSEY, HENRY, was born at West Rowton, near Cleveland, in Yorkshire, Sept. 3, 1601, where his father was minister. He was carefully educated by his parents till he was seventeen years of age, when he went to St John's College, Cambridge; where after four years di ligent study, it pleased God to work a renewing chang upon his heart, by the ministry of the word, whereby h was fitted for the employment for which God designe him, and to which he himself was greatly inclined. Upo the death of his father, who had supplied him according his ability, he was so straitened as not to have above three pence a day; and yet so did he manage that small pittance

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