Wicliffe reached Lutterworth in safety. His remaining days were passed in peace, undisturbed by his enemies. Their enmity was unabated, but God in a marvelous manner protected His servant. The schism of the Popes, the political troubles of England, the favor with which the Duke of Lancaster still regarded him, all combined to form a rampart around the reformer.
“His very courage, in the hand of God, was his shield; for, while weaker men were apprehended and compelled to recant, Wicliffe, who would burn but not recant, was left at liberty.” He himself expected nothing but imprisonment and death.
In his “Trialogus,” written about this time, he said, “We have no need to go among the heathen in order to die a martyr’s death; we have only to preach persistently the law of Christ in the hearing of Caesar’s prelates, and instantly we shall have a flourishing martyrdom, if we hold out in faith and patience.”
In this work, Truth, Falsehood, and Wisdom were personified, and between them they discussed all the principal religious topics of the day. Truth proposed questions, Falsehood raised objections, and Wisdom declared sound doctrine.
As Wicliffe’s weakness increased, he was assisted in his pastoral duties by one of his followers, named John Horn, while another, named John Purvey, became his constant attendant, his diligent coworker and his confidential friend. Purvey wrote out and collected many of the reformer’s discourses, which have in consequence been preserved, and a few years after Wicliffe’s death he revised his translation of the Bible.
During the two years which intervened between his appearance at the Oxford Synod and his death, Wicliffe continued zealously at work. Portions of the Scriptures in the English language, tracts on prayer, on the Catechism, on the doctrines of the Church, on preaching, on pastoral work, on the life and conversation which should characterize priests — all issued from the Rectory at Lutterworth.
It has generally been stated that, one day during this period, while the reformer was quietly toiling with his pen, he received a summons from the Pontiff to appear at Rome; and that while declining to obey the command on account of his age and infirmities, he wrote a letter to Pope Urban VI firmly upholding the truth of the doctrines he had taught. This story, however, seems, upon careful examination, to rest on no basis of authority, and Lechler states that “this alleged citation to Rome must be relegated to the category of groundless traditions.”
In 1382 a crusade set forth from England to fight for the cause of Urban VI. against the supporters of the rival Pope, Clement VII. Every effort was made to induce as many as possible to join in this crusade, either personally or by donations. Indulgences were granted, available for both the living and the dead, to all who should assist; while those who opposed this sacred enterprise were anathematized.
Wicliffe viewed these proceedings with shame and displeasure. In the summer of 1383 he published a tract Against the War of the Clergy, in which he severely condemned the crusade and all connected with it.
The end now drew near. Towards the close of 1382 the reformer had been stricken with paralysis, but from this he partially recovered. He was in his church at Lutterworth, in the midst of his beloved flock, on the last Sunday in 1384, engaged in the administration of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. As he was in the act of consecrating the bread and wine, he was again stricken with paralysis; and fell to the ground. His friends affectionately carried him from the church to the rectory, and laid him upon his bed. He continued speechless until December 31st, when he was called up higher, his life and the year 1384 ending together.
His enemies saw in the circumstances of his death the terrible judgment of God, but his friends looked upon this as the glorious conclusion of a noble life. “None of its years, scarcely any of its days, were passed unprofitably on the bed of sickness. The moment his great work was finished, that moment the voice spake to him, which said, ‘Come up hither!’”
Then, with no throbs of fiery pain,
No cold gradation of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain
And freed his soul the nearest way.
Of the character and opinions of John Wicliffe we have space to say but little. He possessed that combination of opposite qualities which marks the great man. With a keenness that enabled him to follow all the intricacies and subtleties of scholastic argument, he united a temper eminently practical. He penetrated with intuitive insight to the root of all the evils that afflicted England, and with rare practical sagacity he devised and set in motion the true remedies for those evils. The evil he saw was ignorance, the remedy with which he sought to cure it was light. He therefore translated the Bible, and organized a body of pious earnest teachers to spread the truths of the Gospel throughout the land.
As a patriot, he strove to deliver his country from the tyranny of the papacy. He pointed out its true character, and by his influence he led the Parliament of England to resist the claims of Rome, and to assert the independence of the nation.
As a scholar, he was unquestionably the most extraordinary man of his age. He occupied the chair of theology in the first seminary of the kingdom, a fact proving his proficiency in the science of the schoolmen; additional evidence of which is afforded by his writings, and also by the reluctant testimony of his enemies. “Not only his adherents, but even his opponents looked upon him as having no living equal in learning and scientific ability; to all eyes he shone as a star of the first magnitude.”
As a preacher he was earnest, devout, and faithful. His sermons which have been preserved are of two kinds, those written in Latin, preached before the university, and those written in English, preached to his congregation at Lutterworth and to assemblies of the common people elsewhere. These latter are free from the phraseology of the schools, and are full of intellectual strength, but plain in language, and fresh and vitalizing in power.
Above all his other knowledge, Wicliffe possessed a profound acquaintance with the Scriptures. He studied the Bible; he venerated it as the Word of God. He held that it contained a perfect revelation of the Divine will — a full, plain and infallible rule of both what man is to believe, and what he is to do. He fully received its truths into his heart and governed his actions by its teachings. Turning away from all human guides, he prayerfully and diligently searched the Scriptures to know the will of God, and then bowed to that will with the docility of a child.
Bowing himself to the authority of the Divine Word he endeavored to get all men to submit to it. His great aim was to bring men back to the Bible. He exalted it as the one great authority before which all should bow, the law which infinitely exceeded all other laws, the book above all other books, for “other writings,” he declared, “can have worth or authority only so far as their sentiment is derived from the Scriptures.”
Of Wicliffe’s personal piety there can be no doubt. It is true that scarcely any memorials of his private life remain, but his public history is an enduring monument of his personal Christianity. Tradition describes him as a most exemplary pastor, devoting a portion of each morning to relieving the needy, and consoling the aged, the sick and the dying. In his manuscript for the order of priesthood, he states, “Good priests, who live well in purity of thought, speech, and deeds, and in good example to the people, who teach the law of God up to their knowledge, and labor fast, night and day to learn it better, and teach it openly and constantly, these are very prophets of God, and the spiritual lights of the world!” This was his ideal, and his writings and public actions prove that his life agreed thereto.
As an author he was most industrious. Soon after his death it was affirmed that his writings were as numerous as those of Augustine. Like his sermons, his works were written some in Latin, and others in English. Notwithstanding all the efforts made to destroy them, large numbers are yet in existence. The libraries of the British Museum, of Trinity College, Dublin, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the library at Lambeth Palace, the Imperial Library at Vienna, and others, are enriched by the writings of the reformer. His most important work was his translation of the Scriptures, but the Poor Caitiff, a collection of tracts on practical Christianity, written in English for the instruction of the poorer people, and The Wicket, before alluded to, became very popular, and produced a profound impression.
Of Wicliffe’s doctrines we can give but a very brief summary. He denied the temporal power of the Pope, as well as his claim to be the spiritual head of the Church. He upheld the right of private judgment, when prayerfully and carefully exercised, in the interpretation of Scripture; and declared free remission of sins through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification by the aid of the Holy Spirit he taught in the following, as well as in other passages: “All our sufficiency is of God, through the mediation of Jesus Christ, thus of sinful and ungrateful men God maketh good men, and all the goodness in this cometh of God. Nor trouble we about the first cause, since God Himself is certainly the first cause.”
While preaching a free salvation through a crucified Saviour he insisted on the necessity for self-denial and holiness, “Christ not compelling,” said he, “but freely counseling every man to seek a perfect life, saith, ‘Let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.’ Let us then deny ourselves in whatever we have made ourselves by sin, and such as we are made by grace let us continue.”
The belief in an intermediate state appears in some of the writings of the reformer, but he denounced with severity the representations that were made of suffering souls in purgatory, and the lucrative trade that was carried on by the priests “inventing new pains, horrible and shameful, to make men pay a great ransom.”
The doctrine of the invocation of saints he opposed, and he condemned the worship of images. He held that “confession made to those who are true priests, and who understand the will of God, doth much good to sinful men, so long as contrition for past sins comes therewith;” but his parting advice on this subject was, “confess thyself to God, with constancy and contrition, and He may not fail, He will absolve thee.”
The falseness of the doctrine of indulgences he freely exposed. “Prelates,” said he, “foully deceive Christian men by their pretended indulgences or pardons and rob them wickedly of their money.” Transubstantiation as taught by the Church of Rome, we have already seen, he declared to be contrary to the teaching of Scripture.
Wicliffe foretold that from the bosom of monkery would some day proceed the regeneration of the Church. “If the friars whom God condescends to teach shall be converted to the primitive religion of Christ,” said he, “we shall see them abandoning their unbelief and returning freely, with or without the permission of antichrist, to the religion of the Lord, and building up the Church as did St. Paul.” Thus did his piercing glance discover at the distance of nearly a century and a half, the young monk, Luther, in the Augustine convent at Erfurt, converted by the Epistle to the Romans, and returning to the spirit of St. Paul and the religion of Jesus Christ.
The Lollards, as the followers of Wicliffe were called, probably from their singing in a low or hushed voice, suffered cruel persecution after his death. Some were burnt, others imprisoned, till at last it seemed as though the leaven of the reformer had been eradicated from England, and that the morning star of the Reformation had shone in vain; but as the wind wafts the seed from one place to another, so the doctrines of John Wicliffe were wafted from Britain to the continent of Europe, and being carried into Bohemia by Jerome of Prague, they were embraced by John Huss, and afterward took deep root and prepared the minds of the people for the great Reformation of the sixteenth century.
Thirty years had passed since the reformer’s death, when the Council of Constance condemned a number of propositions which were said to have been extracted from his writings, and, as it appeared that he died an obstinate heretic, his memory was pronounced infamous. It was decreed “that his body and bones should be taken from the ground and thrown away from the burial of any church, according to the canon laws and decrees!” In pursuance of this decree, a few years afterward his grave at Lutterworth was opened, and his remains removed. These were then burnt, and the ashes cast into the adjoining brook named the Swift, and Fuller, describing the scene, quaintly but truly says, “This brook conveyed them into Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wicliffe were the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over.”
As thou these ashes, little brook! will bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main ocean they, this deed accursed,
An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
How the bold Teacher’s doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.