Who was John Wycliffe?

John Wycliffe has been termed 'the Morning Star of the Reformation.' He advocated some of the same ideas of Scripture as later did Martin Luther and John Calvin, though he died almost one hundred years before Luther was born. Wycliffe, a Roman Catholic priest, was highly educated and served on the faculty at Oxford University in England most of his life. His first attempts at reform were to eliminate immoral clergymen (his associates) and to strip the Roman Catholic Church of its vast property holdings, which Wycliffe believed were a cause of much ecclesiastical evil.

Wycliffe was supported and protected in his views by certain English noblemen who were willing to take control of Church property. But beginning in 1378 Wycliffe, mainly through his continuing study of the Bible, started publicly opposing some of the basic dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. He attacked the authority of the Pope, asserting that Christ is the only head of the Church (during much of Wycliffe's life there were times when more than one man claimed to be pope, one in Avignon in France and one in Rome).[1]

Wycliffe also asserted that the Bible, and not the Roman Church, was the only authority for Christians.

To John Wycliffe, entitled "The Morning Star of the Reformation," belongs the honour of giving to the English-speaking peoples a complete translation of the Sacred Scriptures in the Vernacular tongue, after fifteen years severe labour, and to him we owe more than to any one person, our English language, our English Bible, and our Reformed religion. In reply to the reproaches of his opponents, he gives this solemn assurance: "Let God be my witness, that before everything I have God's glory in my eye, and the good of the Church which springs out of reverence of Holy Scripture, and following the law of Christ."

John Wycliffe was born about 1324, and was an accomplished Latin scholar; but, according to some, ignorant of the original tongues — Hebrew and Greek. His translation, a close rendering from the Vulgate, was completed in 1380, after nearly 15 years' severe labour, about 70 years before the invention of printing. It has never, we believe, been wholly printed, although his New Testament has been more than once. There are several copies of Wycliffe's Bible in the principal libraries — one in the British Museum is believed to have been written by Wycliffe himself; about 300 of his sermons in manuscript are also extant.

In his controversies with the Romish hierarchy, and sweeping exposure of the morals and doctrines of that most corrupt of all systems, Wycliffe earnestly and constantly appealed to the Word of God — the sole source of all authority. The Popish monks were baffled, and so they pronounced judgment upon the Bible which was being rapidly disseminated throughout the land. "Master John Wycliffe," said they, "by translating the Gospel into English hath rendered it, more acceptable and more intelligent to laymen and to women than it hath hitherto been to learned and intelligent clerks. The Gospel pearl is everywhere cast out and trodden under foot of swine. It is heresy to speak of holy Scriptures in English. Let the people learn to believe in the Church rather than the Gospel."

Wycliffe was feared and cordially hated by the Pope and the entire college of cardinals for his unsparing attacks upon their whole system — root and branch; while, on the other hand, he was almost idolized by the common people, to whom he regularly preached the pure Gospel in their own tongue and with power and eloquence. The Papal party sought again and again his life, but he was protected from their malice by the powerful intervention of the court and several of the nobles, as the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Percy, both in high position in the government.

Wiclif.

During the reign of Edward III. lived also the pious Wiclif who strongly opposed the assumptions of the pope, translated the Bible into English, and preached the gospel faithfully. A short account of this early reformer has been given elsewhere.*

Before considering the Lord's message to Sardis, it will be helpful to us if we contemplate for a little some of the features of the work of the Spirit of God in the Reformation and the instruments which He used. In our previous study we spoke of John Wycliffe, born in England around 1320, who first translated the Bible into English. He was called "The Morning Star of the Reformation." John Huss, born about 1373, and Jerome (1363-1416), both of Bohemia, carried on the torch of truth from Wycliffe. Then there were the Moravian brethren who were distinguished by missionary zeal and labours. They published in the Bohemian language a translation of the Bible around 1470.

In England John Wycliffe (1360), one of the very earliest of Reformers, called “The Morning Star of the Reformation,” raised a powerful protest against the worldliness, superstitions and corruptions of the Romish system. Had not God raised up for him powerful and influential friends, such as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, he would have been swallowed up by his enemies. The Spirit of God was at work. Men’s minds were inquiring into spiritual matters, and seeking a true foundation for their faith.

Wycliffe was now the acknowledged champion of a great party in the university and in the church; and dignities and honours were conferred upon him. But if he had gained many friends, he had many enemies whose wrath it was dangerous to provoke. His troubles and changes now began. The friars supplied the pope with information as to all that was going on. In 1361 he was advanced to the mastership of Balliol college and rectory of Fillingham. Four years after he was chosen warder of Canterbury hall. His knowledge of scripture, the purity of his life, his unbending courage, his eloquence as a preacher, his mastery of the language of the common people, rendered him the object of general admiration. He maintained that salvation was by faith, through grace, without human merit in any way. This was striking, not at the outward evils merely, but at the very foundations of the whole system of popery. Led by divine wisdom he commenced his great work at the right place and in the right way. He preached the gospel and explained the word of God to the people in vernacular English. In this way, he planted deep in the popular mind those great truths and principles which eventually led to the emancipation of England from the yoke and tyranny of Rome.

Wycliffe and the Government

In 1382, Wycliffe completed his translation of the New Testament into English, believing the Bible should be in the people's own language. In 1384, a friend of Wycliffe's completed the Old Testament. Also in 1382, Wycliffe publicly rejected the dogma of trans-substantiation, the teaching that during the Mass, the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Christ (this still is Roman Catholic dogma).

One consequence of Wycliffe's view was that salvation was no longer in the hands of the priests as they dispensed the elements. A local church council in London condemned Wycliffe's view on transubstantiation in 1382, and he was forced to leave Oxford and move to a parish in Lutterworth, England. But by then his ideas were being spread by his former students at Oxford and by lay-preachers called Lollards.

In 1401, it became punishable by death to preach Wycliffe's ideas in England. Wycliffe died in 1384, so it was too late to punish him directly. However, the Roman Church claims it can reach beyond the grave. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) condemned Wycliffe, and ordered his bones exhumed from their grave in the Lutterworth churchyard, and cast at a distance from the sepulchre of the church. They were burned and cast into a nearby river.

Although it was now well known that Wycliffe held many anti-papal opinions, he was not yet committed to direct opposition to Rome. But in the year 1374 he was employed in an embassy to the pope, Gregory XI., whose residence was at Avignon. The object of this mission was to represent and have removed the flagrant abuses of the papal reservation of benefices in the English church. But we doubt not the Lord allowed this, that Wycliffe might see, what strangers were slow to believe, namely, that the papal court was the fountainhead of all iniquity. On his return from that mission he became the open, direct, and dreaded antagonist of Rome. The experience of Avignon and Bruges added to the results of his previous thought and inquiry, and satisfied his mind that the pretensions of the papacy were without foundation in truth. He published indefatigably the deep convictions of his soul, in learned lectures and disputations at Oxford, in pastoral addresses in his parish, and in spirited tracts written in clear English prose, which reached the humbler and less educated classes. He denounced with a burning and long-treasured indignation the whole papal system. "The gospel of Jesus Christ," he said, "is the only source of true religion. The pope is Antichrist, the proud worldly priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers and purse-carvers." The pride, the pomp, the luxury, the loose morals of the prelates, fell under his withering rebuke. And being a man of unimpeachable morals himself, of profound devotion, undoubted sincerity, and original eloquence, numbers gathered around the dauntless professor.*

Wycliffe a Heresiarch

Wycliffe had now risen to high distinction, and had received many marks of the royal favour. In the end of the year 1375, he was presented by the crown to the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which was his home throughout the remainder of his life, although he frequently visited Oxford. But dangers were gathering around him from other quarters: he had incurred the displeasure of the pope, and the prelates. At Lutterworth and in the villages around, he was the plain, bold, vernacular preacher; at Oxford, he was the great master. But whether in town or country, he raised his voice against the discipline of the church, the scandalous lives of churchmen, their ignorance, their neglect of preaching and the abuse of their privileges as ecclesiastics to shelter notorious criminals. It was only natural that such plain speaking should give offence. The professor was accused of heresy, and summoned to appear before the convocation which commenced its sittings in February, 1377.

John Wycliffe, both in his controversies with the priests, and in his preaching to the people, ever appealed to the Holy Scriptures as the sole source of authority.

The ignorant and dissolute priests and monks both hated and feared him, while by the common people he was loved and honoured because he taught them in their own tongue the pure Gospel of the grace of God.