Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies. Volume I

by Anonymous

From this time it may be said that he left the consideration of the political bearings of the papal usurpation, and directed his attention to the religious aspect of it. Henceforth, indeed, his writings and teaching were almost entirely religious. Very much of the confusion respecting Wiclif's opinions at various periods, and the support they gained for him from different parties of influence in the country, has arisen from inattention to the ground on which he received that support. The commencement of his career was signalized by his attacks on the mendicant friars. At that time they were opposed, as they had long been, as interlopers by the secular clergy, and Wiclif was hailed as a powerful champion by them and by the University of Oxford. Their admiration of him arose from party considerations, though his dislike to the friars rested on a far wider basis. During the greater part of the reign of Edward III. the king and the parliament were engaged in a determined struggle against papal encroachments. It was prolonged through the whole of his reign and the greater part of the reign of his successor, before it terminated successfully for the English monarch. When so learned and able a clergyman stepped forth as an opponent of the pope's supremacy, it is not surprising that he should be received with welcome, and be firmly upheld by the sovereign and his advisers, so long as he confined himself to the political bearings of the subject; and if he exceeded those limits a little, it would not in such an age be taken much heed of. Again, when with a more earnest zeal he set his face against the corruptions of the clergy of all ranks—when he denounced as hirelings such as sought after "filthy lucre" and neglected the spiritual advancement of their charges, and pronounced them the most desperate of sinners, backed as his animadversions were by the purity and even austerity of his own life—he would be sure to obtain the suffrages of serious men of all classes, who would bitterly regret the contradiction between the lives and the profession of such priests. Nor is this an imaginary sketch. It appears to have been exactly the course of events in his life and teaching. His doctrinal views were either not propagated, or they did not attract much attention till the latter part of his life. Then a devoted band rallied round him, and, when those who had used him for temporary purposes had cast him off, they clung to him with an ever growing intensity of affection.

Nothing is more manifest in tracing his opinions than the increasing attention he gave to the Scriptures. In his last years they were the test to which he brought every doctrine, almost every opinion, or matter of practice. As his regard for the Scriptures increased, his anxiety to impart a knowledge of them to others increased also. At this time, of course, the version used in the church was the Latin Vulgate. There had been at various times portions of the Old and New Testament translated into the Saxon and English languages, but no complete translation had, it is probable, been made. Wiclif resolved to enable his countrymen to read the Word of God in their own tongue—a noble resolution nobly performed. Aided no doubt by some of the learned disciples who now surrounded him, he diligently commenced his undertaking, and in due time completed it. Before the invention of printing the publication of a book was a very different matter to what it now is. The only mode of making known the contents of a work then was by transcribing and circulating many copies, and this was the way in which Wiclif published his Bible. That it was diligently circulated there can be no question—from the number of copies of it remaining; and from the certainty that he would be anxious to diffuse as widely as possible the authority to which he so constantly appealed, and on the acknowledgment of which the acceptance of his views depended.[22]

Wiclif's version was not made from the original Greek, but from the Vulgate, of which it is a faithful representation. The language is firm and nervous, and was no doubt perfectly intelligible at the time it was written. But nearly five centuries have passed since then, and many changes have taken place in our English. There is however, even now, little difficulty in understanding it, if the uncouth spelling be disregarded, and it is read with the pronunciation of the northern counties, as we have ascertained in several trials with different listeners. The New Testament has been three times printed: by the Rev. J. Lewis, the author of his Life, in 1731; by the Rev. H. H. Baber, in 1810; and again, and more carefully, in Bagster's 'Hexapla,' 1841. This last work contains the six principal English translations from that of Wiclif to the Authorized Version; and it is interesting to trace the influence of Wiclif's on all the succeeding versions. Most who examine them in this work, as they stand side by side, will agree with Professor Blunt, that "on comparing it with the authorized version of King James, it will be found that the latter was hammered on Wiclif's anvil." Besides its vast importance in a higher point of view, there can be no doubt that Wiclif's translation of the Scriptures did very much to fix our language. Except Mandeville's 'Travels,' it was the first English prose work of any importance. Wiclif's Old Testament has never been printed—it has been spoken of for some years as in preparation for printing at the Clarendon Press.

But the translation and publication of the Scriptures was not the only object that occupied his thoughts. Among the plans he had devised for spreading abroad his views of truth, was the formation of a band of what he termed his "poor priests." Wiclif had assumed a plain coarse garb, and they were clad like him. Their duty was to go about instructing the poor in the truths of the Gospel. They were to be unencumbered by worldly goods themselves, and they were not to acquire wealth for their order. They had no benefices, and the reasons for it he explained in a tract he promulgated, entitled 'Why poor priests have no benefices.' His principal reasons are—1. The fear of simony. 2. The danger of misspending the money of the poor. 3. The hope of doing more good by moving from place to place. Allowing for the difference of the times, they bear a strong resemblance to John Wesley's original "preachers;" and they were as effective. Wiclif was untiring in his labours; the amount of tracts he wrote is surprising, even allowing that he was much assisted in preparing them. His position and employment at this time were very similar to Luther's the years preceding his death. His pen was ever employed, and ever ready for fresh employment. But, important as were his own labours, it is probable that his poor priests did even more to diffuse his doctrines; and how widely they were diffused may be guessed from Knighton's angry assertion—taken as it may and ought to be with considerable abatement—that "his followers so increased that they everywhere filled the compass of the kingdom; insomuch that a man could not meet two people on the road, but one of them was a disciple of Wiclif." This, he affirms, arose from "the respect they always pretended for what they call 'Goddis Law,' to which they profess themselves to be in their opinions and actions strictly conformable."

While thus zealously employed in furthering the great purpose to which he had devoted himself, his life was an example of what he upheld as the character of a true priest. His conduct was unblameable, his attention to his pastoral duties unremitting. Three hundred of his sermons are said to be still remaining, and they fully prove his energy, fervour, and devotion—he was no idle, careless priest. Like Milton—who in many respects greatly resembled him—he believed that he who attempts a great work must live a life worthy of his undertaking; and the whole of his own conduct, and the judgment he formed of others, were moulded by his exalted notion of the dignity of the priestly office.[23]

So long as Wiclif confined himself, in his attacks on the popes and their agents, to their political claims or their immoral conduct, he met with the support of the secular authorities; and also of the people, whose dislike of the papal supremacy was a national far more than a religious feeling. They could not endure that an Italian or a French priest should domineer over their country and their king, and they little liked that his representatives, though Englishmen, should usurp such power. They would not have a priest to rule over them. When Wiclif preached against the doctrinal errors of the popes, he was regarded with suspicion by those who had before most strenuously supported him, and soon indeed encountered from them strong opposition. In 1381 he published at Oxford his twelve "conclusions," in which he appears for the first time to have questioned the doctrine of transubstantiation. His view of it much resembled that of Luther, and which is still that of the Lutheran church. The Chancellor of Oxford immediately summoned a meeting of twelve doctors, who condemned the "conclusions" as heterodox, and adjudged that all who should teach them in the University should be placed under the ban of the greater excommunication, suspended from all their offices and privileges, and imprisoned—and, that the chance of such errors spreading might be at once cut off, they condemned those who listened to them to a similar punishment. Wiclif was lecturing in the school of the Augustinians when their sentence was communicated to him. He appealed from them to the civil magistrate. Until the parliament, to which the matter was now referred, should meet, which was not till the next year, it is probable that Wiclif abstained from teaching his views at the University, but he developed them more clearly and fully in some tracts which he now published: one of them, entitled the 'Wicket,' has been three or four times printed, and is a powerful piece of controversial writing.

The year 1381 was signalized by the revolt of the commons under Wat Tyler, and many of Wiclif's enemies have with small success endeavoured to connect his name with that affair. It arose from causes sufficiently known to all acquainted with our history, and Wiclif is as little responsible for it, as Luther for the famous rise of the peasants after the publication of his doctrines. In May, 1382, Courtney, now Archbishop of Canterbury, summoned a council to consider the doctrines attributed to Wiclif. Eight bishops and fourteen doctors, with other learned persons, met on the 17th of May, at Grey Friars in London. The proceedings had scarcely commenced when the place in which they were assembled was shaken by an earthquake, to the great alarm of the doctors, who were disposed to attribute it to the Divine displeasure—an opinion in which Wiclif coincided. The archbishop, however, explained it differently, and the doctors, reassured, proceeded with their deliberations.[24] After three days' careful consideration they pronounced ten of the "conclusions" to be heretical, and the remaining fourteen to be erroneous. The heretical notions being those on the eucharist, his denial of the need of priestly absolution, his declaration that clerical endowments were unlawful, and his condemnation of the papal infallibility. Everything was done that appeared likely to impart force and solemnity to this decision. After an imposing procession through London, a friar was appointed to explain to the people from St. Paul's the enormity of the heresy. Copies of the sentence were forwarded to the leading bishops; and even to the clergy about Lutterworth. Messengers were dispatched to the king, and to the University of Oxford. Wiclif again appealed to the secular power. This appeal has been complained of as opposed to his principles: after all, it has been said, "the new apostle was in no haste to grasp the crown of martyrdom."[25] But Wiclif did not depart from his own principles. He held and taught that the secular power ought to preserve the lives and liberties of the subjects, and it does not seem that he asked the parliament to affirm the truth of his doctrines. The archbishop called on the king to put down by force the growing heresy; and the monarch readily answered the call, by issuing a writ to the Chancellor of Oxford, directing him to search out such as were suspected of holding these opinions, and to seize and imprison any who harboured Wiclif or his followers. In his appeal to the parliament Wiclif had somewhat more success. The king, at the instigation of the bishop, had promulgated an ordinance in the form of an act of parliament, directing all sheriffs, &c. to arrest any persons found preaching any of the doctrines condemned at the convocation; but on the meeting of parliament this ordinance was declared to be illegal, the parliament itself having had no share in framing it—and they would not, they said, subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the prelates in a manner unknown to their fathers. It was, in fact, a bold attempt of the bishop to introduce something very like the Holy Office into England.

But Wiclif's success ended here. He was now left to sustain the unequal conflict alone. His principal supporters at Oxford had been summoned before a synod to answer for their own delinquencies, and had been compelled to retract or explain away their obnoxious sentiments. John of Gaunt no longer stood by him. Perhaps sincerely shocked at his venturing to question so sacred a doctrine as transubstantiation was then generally believed to be, he earnestly recommended Wiclif to submit to his diocesan—and left him to his fate. Wiclif was soon summoned to appear before a convocation at Oxford, at which the archbishop presided, and several bishops were present. He delivered in two statements of his sentiments on the eucharist; one in Latin, the other in English. The former is declared to be unintelligible—it is fenced about with all the forms of scholastic dialectics, and may be passed by; the other, as it is in English, was probably meant for the unlearned, and is plain and perfectly comprehensible. It is evident that his matured and deliberate views were the same as we have already stated them to be. His bearing before the assembly was firm and manly—his enemies say haughty and obstinate. He did not retract. The result was that his opinions were again condemned, and himself deprived of his professorship of divinity, and banished from the University.

He was not further molested,—at least for the next two years. This interval was busily employed. A host of opponents sprung up against him after the adjudication at Oxford, and he was not of a temper to let them pass unanswered. His intense energy was little impaired by age or anxiety, and his opponents still found him a ready antagonist. Bowed down by persecution, his life by illness made a living death, he wavered not, nor ceased from his labours. During his last years Wiclif suffered much from paralysis—the effect, no doubt, of his anxious and stormy life. His first attack was in 1379. Perhaps the knowledge of his weak state prevented his enemies from pressing for the infliction of physical punishment. But a few months before his death he was cited by Urban II. to appear before him at Rome, to answer for his heresies. Wiclif was unable from illness to go, but he addressed a letter to his holiness in which he "tells his belief." The main points of it are his declaration of his entire dependence on Christ as the Son of God, and of his assurance of the supreme authority of Scripture. He acknowledges the pope to be Christ's chief vicar on earth—but adds, that he ought to follow the example of his master, who was the poorest of men when in this world. "This I take as wholesome counsel that the pope leave his worldly lordship to worldly lords, as Christ gave (charged) him, and move speedily all his clerks (clergy) to do so: for thus did Christ, and taught thus his disciples, till the fiend had blinded this world." He declares that if he were able he would go to the pope; but as he cannot, he supposes the pope will not show himself open anti-Christ by commanding him again to do that which God had rendered him unable to do. If his opinions can be prayed to be wrong, he is ready to recant; if it be necessary to die for them, he is willing, "for that I hope were good for me."

As he was assisting at the celebration of mass by his curate in his parish church of Lutterworth, on the 29th of December, 1384, another and more fatal stroke of paralysis deprived him of the use of speech and of motion. He lingered two days, when his spirit ascended to that world where misapprehension and strife are alike unknown. His corpse was buried in the church; and there it rested, till forty years afterwards the Council of Constance, at the same time that it crowned itself with eternal infamy by its treacherous murder of John Huss and of Jerome, condemned Wiclif's doctrines, and directed that his corpse should be exhumed and burnt, "if it could be discerned from those of the faithful." The order was obeyed. Richard Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese Lutterworth was situated, directed the process. The reformer's remains were taken up, burnt, and the ashes cast into the Swift, a little stream that runs at the foot of the hill on which the town is built. "Thus this brook," says Fuller, "hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."