John Wycliffe

Further observations with help of J H Merle d'Aubigne, Reformation in England, Vol.1, 89-100.
1. Scholasticiam buried Scriptures in obscurity and was withheld from the laity. After all, the Scriptures were NOT sufficient or perspicuous, but capable only of interpretation by the then schmismatized Papacy--who were busy hurling thunderbolts at each other, excommunicating one, abusing one another for close to a century. And seeking "rentals" for the privileges of Rome's feudal approbation.

2. Wycliffe did not know Greek and Hebrew. He worked from Jerome's Vulgate and the church fathers.

3. Though involved in his earlier life with politics, the latter stage of his life was driven by a love of Scriptures and the more he understood them, the more the truth shined into the Roman abyss and dark strongholds.

4. In earlier centuries, Bede, scholars from Aelfred's Court, Aelfrick, and Richard Polle had translated portions of the Bible, but in Wycliffe's time, this was forbidden. This scribe well remembers when Romanists were told to steer clear of the Bible and trust the church's view of the Bible. I know some elderly Roman believers who have affirmed this to me. Even still, there is a fear of Roman believers getting to close to those of the True Church. What are the Romanists afraid of?

5. Wycliffe's work exhibited quality leadership even beyond that on the Continent. Never mind Rome--they were busy fighting French prelates and kings and making iron swords and brass sceptres of spiritual keys.

6. Wycliffe's influence is not recorded well, although, in his day, it was said that one could hardly travel any of the English highways and byways and not meet a Wycliffite preacher---distinquishable by a brown overcoat to the feet. To date, we have 170 extant manuscripts from this pre-Gutenberg-printing-press-day, a testimony to the industry and committment to the mission of sola scriptura. Of course, those who write the history books as conquerors get to revise history. However, veritatem dies aperit--time discloses truth.

7. The lower clergy were offended. "Master Wycliffe, by translating the Gospel into English has rendered it more acceptable and more intelligible to laymen and even to women than it has hitherto been to learned and intelligent clerks. It is heresy to speak the Holy Gospels into English." We'll speak of Bishop Courtney's high profile opposition later.

8. Wycliffe's response ought be the same for us today. "Many nations have had the Bible in their own language. The Bible is the faith of the church. Though the pope and all his clerks should disappear from the face of the earth, our faith would not fail, for it is founded on Jesus alone, our Master and our God."

9. Late in life, as he matured in his theological reflections on the Bible, he tossed "transubstantiation" out based upon the plain meaning of the Bible, the plain meaning of the senses (common sense) and as understood throughout the church...circe 1000...perhaps with Berenger of Tours. Transubstantiation---and the inner dynamic for the quest for priestly and papal sovereignty, as usual, which it really is at bottom--was a "blasphemous deceit" and a "veritable abomination of desolation in the holy place." Basic bread- and wine-worshippers.

10. Aelfric of the Anglo-Norman church to the Archbishop of York: "The host is the body of Christ, not bodily but spiritually." Berenger of Tours wrote a defense of the Anglo-Norman view in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury to the same effect.

11. Wycliffe: "Since the year of our Lord 1000, all the doctors have been in erro about the sacrament of the alter--except, perhaps, it may be Berenger of Tours. `How canst thou, O priest, who art but a man, make thy Maker? What! the thing that groweth in the fields--that ear which thou pluckest today, shall be God tomorrow!!...As you cannot make the works which He made, how shall ye make Him who made the works? Woe to the adulterous generation that believeth the testimony of Innocent rather than the Gospel."