[937] Trialogi Lib. IV. cap. 15.
[938] A Wickliffite tract (“De Officio Pastorali,” published by Prof. Lechler, Leipzig, 1863) takes strong ground on this point. Speaking of unchaste priests, it says (P. I. cap. viii. pp. 16-17), “Talis sic notorie sustentans curatum dat imprudenter elemosinam contra Christum ... periculosum peccatum est crimini consentire; sed sic faciunt qui taliter curato in temporalibus subministrant.” And again (P. I. cap. xvii.), “Subditi enim non debent audire missam talium sacerdotum, et per consequens non debent dare sibi oblaciones vel decimas, ne videantur consencientes crimini sic notorio in curatis.”
[939] Si Deus est, domini temporales possunt legitime ac meritorie auferre bona fortunæ ab ecclesia delinquente.—Conclus. Magist. Johan. Wycliff. Art. vi. (Wilkins III. 123).
Licet regibus auferre temporalia a viris ecclesiasticis ipsis abutentibus habitualiter. Ibid. Art. xvii.
So in the proceedings conducted by Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, against Wickliffe in 1382, among the articles presented as extracted from his writings were—
Art. 4. Quod si episcopus vel sacerdos existat in peccato mortali, non ordinat, consecrat nec baptizat.
Art. 16. Quod nullus est dominus civilis, nullus est episcopus, nullus est prælatus dum est in peccato mortali (Wilkins III. 157).
Even “verbum otiosum” and “ira quantumlibet levis” were denounced by him as mortal sins according to the University of Oxford.—Litt. de Error. Art. 210, 211 (Wilkins III. 347).
[940] Arnold’s Select English Works of John Wyclif, Vol. II. p. v.—Vol. I. p. 364.
[941] “God ordeyned prestis in the olde lawe to have wyves, and nevere forbede it in the newe lawe, neither bi Crist ne bi his apostlis, but rathere aprovede it. But now, bi ypocrisie of fendis and fals men, manye binden hem to presthod and chastite, and forsaken wifis bi Goddis lawe, and schenden maydenes and wifis and fallen foulest of alle.”—Of Weddid Men and Wifis, cap. i. (Arnold’s Wyclif, III. 190; also in Vaughan’s Tracts of John de Wyckliffe p. 58).—See also The Seven Deadly Sins, cap. xxx. (Arnold, Vol. III. p. 163).