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Untitled Article
" It is at the same time due to its votaries to state / that in the writings of schoolmen , amid much that is sceptical in its tendency , and more that is useless or puerile , the truths of the gospel are not unfrequently to be discovered ; and that they are sometimes exhibited on a scale of correctness , and marked by a purity of application , which would have done honour to men of any later period . That the mind of Wycliffe derived a portion of its light from
this source is certain ; and it is equally evident that others were thus in some degree prepared to receive his more peculiar doctrine . From his writings we learn that he never wholly abandoned the scholastic topics of discussion , nor its methods of reasoning . From the same source , however , we also learn , that in the art of wisely separating the precious from the vile , he far surpassed the most enlightened of his countrymen . To remove the errors which treachery or ignorance has been long employed in interweaving with the truth , and to preserve the latter uninjured , must ever be a work of difficulty . In the age of Wycliffe , when the false had acquired so complete an
ascendancy over the true , it was a task of eminent peril . His ardent attachment to the Sacred Scriptures , which at length procured him the appellation of the ' Gospel Doctor / could not have been disclosed without considerable hazard to his reputation as a scholar . For such was the prevailing contempt of the sacred writings , or the mistakes of men induced by the papal doctrine of infallibility as to the uses to which they should be applied , that an adherence to that volume , even as a text book , was sufficient to induce the leading
universities of Europe to exclude the " offender from their walls . Friar Bacon , and Grossteste , the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln , honoured the cause of these persecuted teachers with their pleadings ; but their arguments and their influence were put forth in vain . In the age of our reformer , men may have begun to discover that their * seraphic' instructors , in promising them wisdom , had
pledged themselves for more than was performed . But it yet seemed to require the whole of WyclifFe's acknowledged talent to give popularity to the exploded , custom of lecturing on morals and divinity from the pages of holy writ . The charge , either of ignorance or of incapacity , as preferred against him , was known to be perilous ; accordingly his opponents invariably accuse him of design , rather than of weakness . "—rp . 234—236 .
The first occasion which brought Wycliffe prominently into notice ( about the year 1360 ) was his controversy with the mendicant friars , whose errors and vices had never before been so forcibly assailed , and whose vehement hostility he consequently encountered on every subsequent occasion . Shortly afterwards he was brought into collision with them at the papal court , in consequence of his appointment to the wardenship of Canterbury Hall ; and it deserves to be mentioned as a striking proof of the independence of his mind , that at the time when this suit was pending , he took an
active and spirited part in the controversy occasioned by the pope ' s most unseasonable demand from Edward III . o £ the ignominious census originally exacted from John . It is scarcely necessary to add , that he lost his suit at Rome ; but these were considerations which never weighed with him when the cause either of reli g ion or of his country called for his exertions . Froni this time forward he frequently appears as the active agent or counsellor of
the government , or of parliament , in their disputes with the pope , and his pen was ever ready to expose the abuses and corruptipns both pf the court of Rome and of the clergy in general . His appointment tq the professorshi p of divinity at Oxford , which occurred in the year 1372 , tended greatly to / increase his influence , and afforded him a most important field for its exercise .. Here . there ^ an , be no doubt that he greatly ad 4 ed to the number pf hi * followers a * d admirers , and , unfoWed to his pupjls with less reserve the theological tenets in ytfhiqh he differed from the church of Rome , But these are more fully developed in the variety of pieces , chiefly in English , which
Untitled Article
Review , —Life and Opinions of John de WucUffe , D . D > . 611
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1828, page 611, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2564/page/27/
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