03.03. Chapter 03 - Conversion and Conflict

Chapter 03 Conversion and Conflict

Let us now return to the early days of Wycliffe, and see how he was prepared for his great work of reformer before the Reformation. As we have seen, he was born in a Yorkshire village in 1324, where his family had been lords of the manor since the Conquest. No records of his childhood or youth have come down to us; so we cannot tell how his boyhood days were spent, but, as youth is the formative period of life, we may conclude from what we know of his later years that he made the best of whatever opportunities he had.

Character is built up step by step. Single actions repeated, form habits, and habits form character. At an early age his parents sent him to Oxford. In those days boys of fifteen years of age were entered as students, so it is likely that Wycliffe began his career at Oxford about the year 1340. His habits of diligence and application served him well at the University, for even his enemies bear witness to his proficiency and abilities. One of his bitterest opponents says, "He came to be reckoned inferior to none of his time in philosophy, and incomparable in the performance of school exercises, a man of profound wit, and very strong and powerful in disputation, and who was by the common sort of divines esteemed little less than a god." In later years, after he had taken his degree of doctor of divinity, he came to be known as the "Evangelical Doctor," and he required all his "profound wit," learning, and ability to meet the assaults of his enemies. Doubtless, in the providence of God, he was being prepared in those early years for the service he would be called upon to perform in later life. So the early years of his scholastic life passed on, and while he was still a young man an event happened — the most important event in the life of any man — Wycliffe was converted to God. About this time Europe was visited by the dreadful pestilence known in history as the "Black Death." Such an awful scourge may well have brought all thinking men to face seriously the issues of life, death, and eternity. Many were led to true repentance towards God. Many others became callously indifferent to all the sorrow and suffering around, or saw in it only the means of enriching themselves at the expense of others. Crossing from Asia to Constantinople, then to Italy, its ravages swept away half of the population. The filthy condition of European cities in those days provided a fruitful soil for contagion, and all suffered alike. It has been estimated that in Europe 25,000,000 human beings perished, though this number is no doubt greatly exaggerated. London had a comparatively small population, but 100,000 of its citizens died. Huge pits were dug to hold the bodies. Rivers were "consecrated" by the priests for the same purpose. Everywhere death stared men in the face. Even ships at sea were attacked, and when all their crews had died, drifted aimlessly until stranded on some shore to spread still further the infection. In the midst of this convulsion of society the young and learned Oxford student was driven to study the Scriptures, and, like Luther later, in them he found the words of eternal life. At this time he wrote his Commentary on the Apocalypse. With other pious men of his time, he seemed to think that the dreadful woes overspreading the earth, coupled with the moral and spiritual corruption of the Church, pointed to the time of tribulation spoken of in the Apocalypse.

Now we know that this was not so, but Wycliffe used the circumstance as a call to the unconverted, and from this time we can trace his closer application to its study. When in later years he became a professor or lecturer to Oxford students he insisted on the authority of the Scriptures.

It has been said that pagan Greece or Rome never had so many "Gods" and "Goddesses" as had the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. Wycliffe had learned much when he boldly announced that "Whosoever entreats a ’saint’ should direct his prayer to Christ as God, not to the saint but to Christ. Nor does the celebration or festival of a saint avail anything, except so far as it may tend to the magnifying of Christ. Hence not a few think that it would be well for the Church if all festivals of that nature were abolished. For the Scriptures assure us that Christ is the mediator between God and man. Hence many are of opinion that when prayer was directed only to Him for spiritual help the Church was more flourishing than it is now, when many new intercessors have been found out and introduced."

Words like these were something new to men of that time, but they were also true, and truth was not wanted by the priestly authorities. When warned of his danger Wycliffe replied: "I have learned from experience the truth of what you say. The chief cause beyond doubt of the existing state of things is our want of faith in Holy Scripture. We do not sincerely believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or we should abide by the authority of His word . . . which is of greater weight than any other. . . . It is His pleasure that the books of the Old and New Law (Old and New Testaments) should be both read and studied, and that men should not be taken up with other books, which, true as they may be, and containing even Scripture truth, are not to be confided in without caution and limitation. If we follow this rule the Scriptures will be held in becoming reverence. The papal Bulls will be superseded as they ought to be."

These were bold words to speak in 1372 and were enough if reported to Pope Gregory XI. at Avignon to cause the poor man to gnash his teeth. That Wycliffe recognised what they might entail we learn from another sermon: "For the believer," says he, "in maintaining the law of Christ should be prepared as His soldier to endure all things at the hands of the satraps of this world; declaring boldly to pope and cardinals, to bishops and prelates how unjustly, according to the teaching of the Gospel, they serve God in their offices; subjecting those committed to their care to great injury and peril, such as must bring on them a speedy destruction one way or another. All this applies indeed to temporal lords, but not in so great a degree as to the clergy, for as the abomination begins with a perverted clergy, so the consolation begins with a converted clergy. Hence we Christians need not visit pagans to convert them by enduring martyrdom on their behalf, we have only to declare with constancy the law of God before Caesarian prelates, and straightway the flower of martyrdom will be at hand."

Loving the book with all the depth of his powerful nature and finding in it truth to meet the conscience and satisfy the heart, he determined to translate it into the common language of the people, so that all might hear the word and understand the message. But this, he felt, would be a matter of time, and while it was important to translate the Scriptures, his busy mind formed another plan for spreading the truth until his great work of Bible translation could be accomplished. This plan was no less than to send out men whom we should now call home missionaries, who, travelling from town to town and village to village, would preach to the people in simple language the Gospel of God’s free Salvation through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

These men came to be known as Wycliffe’s "Poor Priests," and we shall learn more about them in a later chapter.