Next to the exclusive supremacy of Scripture, the truth which is set forth with perhaps the most marked prominency in the teaching of Wycliffe, is the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ as the one Mediator between God and man. Christ is not only revealed in the Word; he is Himself the Mediating Word—the way, and the truth, and the life. And what Wycliffe says of the Apostle Paul, that he lifts the banner of his Captain, in that he glories only in the cross of Christ, admits, as Dr. Lechler remarks, of being justly applied to Wycliffe himself; for his text is the evangel, and his theme is Christ. Like Luther afterwards, Wycliffe lived through the truth which he proclaimed. In his case the order was, first the Word, then Christ. In Luther‘s it was, first the Word, then justification by faith. The German‘s experience implied the logical order of the Englishman‘s experience. For the logic of this faith is the Word of grace, the Christ of grace, the righteousness of grace. Luther‘s work implies, develops, and completes the work of Wycliffe, so that it holds true that the one without the other is not made perfect.
In the year 1380, after recovery from a severe illness, Wycliffe published a tract in which he formulated his charges against the friars under fifty distinct heads, accusing them of fifty heresies; and many more, as he said, if their tenets and practices be searched out. “Friars,” says he, towards the conclusion of this tract, “are the cause, beginning, and maintaining of perturbation in Christendom, and of all the evils of this world; nor shall these errors be removed until friars be brought to the freedom of the Gospel and the clean religion of Jesus Christ.”
Wycliffe did not indulge in mere denunciation. His invectives were with a view to the work of reformation. Accordingly, at the time when he published the fifty charges against the friars he was actively training, organising, and sending out agents—“poor priests” to instruct the people in the knowledge of the Gospel, and by so doing undo the works of the friars, and promote evangelical religion and social virtue. At first these itinerant preachers were employed in some places, as in the immense diocese of Lincoln, under episcopal sanction.[22] But so effectively and extensively did they propagate the evangelical doctrines of Wycliffe, that in Archbishop Courtenay‘s mandate to the Bishop of London in 1382, they are denounced as “unauthorised itinerant preachers, who set forth erroneous, yea, heretical, assertions in public sermons, not only in churches, but also in public squares, and other profane places; and who do this under the guise of great holiness, but without having obtained any episcopal or papal authorisation.” It was against Wycliffe‘s “poor priests” or itinerant preachers that the first royal proclamation in 1382 (statute it cannot be called), at the instance of Courtenay, for the punishment of heresy in England, was issued. The unprecedented measures taken against the “poor priests” bear most significant testimony to the effect produced by their teachings throughout the kingdom. It would be interesting to know how far, if at all, Wesley‘s idea of itinerant preachers was founded on, or proceeded from, the idea and the experiment of Wycliffe. At any rate, these poor priests were not organised, nor was their action modelled, according to any of the guilds, fraternities, or orders that had been formed or that had been in operation before the time of Wycliffe. The idea was truly original, and “the simplicity of the institution was itself a stroke of consummate genius.”[23]
Having acted out his own principles that the student who would attain to the knowledge of the meaning of Scripture must cultivate humility of disposition and holiness of life, putting away from him all prejudicate opinions, and all merely curious and speculative theories and casuistical principles of interpretation, Wycliffe opened and studied the Bible with the desire simply to know and to do the will of God. It is no wonder if, with these sentiments, Wycliffe in his later years, when engaged continually in reading, studying, expounding, and translating the Scriptures, should come to perceive the contrariety of the papal or mediæval doctrine concerning the Eucharist to the doctrine of Scripture.
Wycliffe‘s views respecting transubstantiation having undergone a great change between the years 1378 and 1381, he felt bound in conscience to make known what he now came to believe to be the true doctrine concerning the Eucharist. For, as he says in the “Trialogus,” “I maintain that among all the heresies which have ever appeared in the Church, there was never one which was more cunningly smuggled in by hypocrites than this, or which in more ways deceives the people; for it plunders the people, leads them astray into idolatry, denies the teaching of Scripture, and by this unbelief provokes the Truth Himself often-times to anger.”[24] In accordance with all this, Wycliffe in the spring of 1381 published twelve short theses or conclusions respecting the Eucharist and against transubstantiation.”[25]
All Oxford was moved by these conclusions. By the unanimous judgment of a court called and presided over by William de Bertram, the Chancellor, they were declared to be contradictory to the orthodox doctrine of the Church, and as such were prohibited from being set forth and defended in the university, on pain of suspension from every function of teaching, of the greater excommunication, and of imprisonment. By the same mandate all members of the university were prohibited, on pain of the greater excommunication, from being present at the delivery of these theses in the university. When this mandate was served on Wycliffe, he was in the act of expounding the doctrine of Scripture concerning the Lord‘s Supper. The condemnation of his doctrine came upon him as a surprise; but he is reported to have said that neither the Chancellor nor any of his assessors could refute his arguments or alter his convictions. Subsequently he appealed from the Chancellor to the King. In the meantime, finding himself “tongue-tied by authority,” he wrote a treatise on this subject in Latin,[26] and also a tract in English entitled “The Wicket,” for the use of the people. Wycliffe‘s doctrinal system may be said to have attained to its completeness when, rejecting the idea of transubstantiation, he accepted those simple and Scriptural views of the Eucharist which, apart from papalism or medievalism, have in all ages prevailed within the Catholic Church— that is, within the society or congregation of believers in Christ, irrespectively of name, place, time, ceremony, or circumstance. While this is so, “it is impossible,” as Dr. Lechler truly says, “not to be impressed with the intellectual labor, the conscientiousness, and the force of will, all equally extraordinary, which Wycliffe applied to the solution of this problem. His attack on the dogma of transubstantiation was so concentrated, and delivered (with so much force and skill) from so many sides, that the scholastic conception was shaken to its very foundations.”[27] He anticipated in his argument against the medieval dogma, and in favor of the primitive and catholic faith concerning the Eucharist, the views of the greatest and best of the Reformers, leaving to them little more to do than to gather up, expound, develop, and apply his principles.
Soon after the proceedings which we have noted were taken against Wycliffe, the country was threatened with anarchy by what is known as the Wat Tyler and Jack Straw insurrection. It is enough to say that Wycliffe had nothing whatever to do with the exciting of that reckless uprising. All his studies, meditations, and labors were designed to promote righteousness and peace, truth and goodwill, order and liberty, in England and all over the earth.
In the tract, “A Short Rule of Life, for each man in general, for priests and lords and laborers in special, How each shall be saved in his degree,” addressing the “laborer,” he says:—
“If thou art a laborer, live in meekness, and truly and willingly, so thy lord or thy master, if he be a heathen man, by thy meekness, willing and true service, may not have to grudge against thee, nor slander thy God, nor thy Christian profession, but rather be stirred to come to Christianity, and serve not Christian lords with grudgings, not only in their presence, but truly and willingly, and in absence; not only for worldly dread, or worldly reward, but for dread of conscience, and for reward in heaven. For God that putteth thee in such service knoweth what state is best for thee, and will reward thee more than all earthly lords may if thou dost it truly and willingly for His ordinance. And in all things beware of grudging against God and His visitation in great labor, in long or great sickness, and other adversities. And beware of wrath, of cursing, of speaking evil, of banning man or beast, and ever keep patience, meekness, and charity, both to God and man.”
As we cannot afford space to give what is said to “lords,” whom he counsels to