Respecting his gigantic successor, Martin Luther, we are in possession of all that can enable us to form the most distinct conception of the man. We see him in connexion with the wise, and the mighty, and the excellent of the earth.” We behold him in his intercourse with sages and divines, with princes and with potentates. We can trace him through all those bitter agonies of spirit through which he struggled on and on, till at last he seized upon the truth which made him free for ever. But to us, Wycliffe appears almost as a solitary being. He stands before us in a sort of grand and mysterious loneliness. To group him, if we may so speak, with other living men, would require a very strong effort of imagination. And hence it is, that we meditate on his story with emotions of solemn admiration, but without any turbulent agitation of our sympathies.”
[Le Bas, Life of Wiclif, 294, 295.]
part Writings of Wycliffe Still in Manuscript
Book I. On the Writings of Wycliffe Still in Manuscript. Section
IN this section the attention of the reader will be directed in the first place to the pieces written by Wycliffe in English, and which, for the most part, were addressed alike to the clergy, to the opulent among the laity, and to the people at large. Even these pieces, though the most popular of the Reformer’s productions, were they printed entirely and to the letter, would prove wearisome to most readers in our day, partly from the obsoleteness of their language and allusions, and partly from the frequent repetitions of thought and illustration with which they abound. Such iteration of great principles served an important end in the history of the Reformer, but cannot contribute to the agreeableness of his writings as read by men in different circumstances, and in a later age. My impression is, that the attentive reader may form as correct a judgment in respect to the writings of Wycliffe from the present volume, as would be acquired by an immediate perusal of the whole of his works; nothing characteristic of those works, so far as my knowledge extends, being wanting in the descriptions here given of them, and the selections here made from them.
I. Exrosri0 DecaLoar. —Wycliffe wrote several expositions of the Decalogue. One forms a part of the collection of treatises, under the title of “The Poor Caitiff:” another, of much greater extent, in Latin, is preserved in the Bodleian Library. Similar thoughts and passages appear in all these pieces. From internal evidence, I conclude the piece from which the following passages are selected to be one of the Reformer’s ’ earlier productions, of much the same period probably with the several tracts in The Poor Caitiff.
[« British Museum. MSS. Titus D. xix. In the Bodleian is a tract with the following title:—]
[Compendium X. Mandatorum editum a Majestro Jo. Wiclife, Doctore Evangelica veritatis. It is]
[much used by Dr. James, in his ” Apology for John Wickliffe.”]
In the prologue to this exposition, Wycliffe laments that men should be found calling God master, and professing to honour ‘his Son from heaven,” and for “forty, threescore, fourscore years,” be ignorant of his “ten commandments.” He exhorts his reader, accordingly, after this wise, “If thou wilt be God’s servant, begin and think how thou camest first into this world; how thou wast born of thy mother with pain and sorrow, poor, feeble, and unable to help thyself. Think how thou art set here in this wretched world, to sweat and toil for thy sustenance. Think also that thou shalt go out of this wretched world, poor and naked as thou camest in;—and that thou shalt have nothing with thee of thy goods, save thy good deeds or thy wicked.” He then speaks of the “high bliss of heaven,” and of the pains of hell,” as supplying motives to the obedience required. The signs of not being in deadly sin are said to be “when a man will gladly and willingly hear the word of God; when he knoweth himself prepared to do good works; when he is willing to flee sin; when a man can be sorry for his sin.”
The great obligation of man is said to be, that he should honour and love God supremely; but to this end it is necessary that he should hear the commandments of God read, preached, and taught, and do after them as God hath bidden. But what man is there now-a-days that dreadeth to break God’s commandments, or setteth any price by the, sweetest word or the sharpest word in all God’s law? Dear God, it is a wonder of all wonders on earth, that from the beginning of our life even to our last end, we are never weary, either night or day, to labour about worldly goods, pleasing to our wretched body, which shall last here but a little while; but about the learning of God’s commandments, which shall be food and nourishment for our souls that shall ever last in bliss or pain, about such things may we not labour truly to the end even one hour of the day?” This introduction concludes with an expression of regret and sorrow that the conversation of bishops, parsons, priests, and friars,” no less than that of the people generally, had respect everlastingly to trifles and vanities, without a word of God or his commandments.” In the exposition of the first commandment, men are exhorted to obedience to the Divine will, as procuring them “a part in all the good prayers, and good deeds of all saints, from the beginning of the world to the last end, and to the everlasting bliss of heaven.” The precise meaning of this passage is not easily determined, but from the manner in which Wycliffe expresses himself on doctrine of this nature in his undoubted works, and in works belonging no less certainly to the later period of his life, I am disposed to trace this obscurity of language on & point of so much importance, to the partial light which had fallen on the mind of the Reformer when committing it to writing. In the same connexion sanction is given to a worship of images, and to the invocation of