English Reformer John Wycliffe (1324-1384), is characterized as the Morning Star of the Reformation and is described as "a man of slender frame, genial disposition, immense energy, immovble conviction and of austere plainness and purity of life."
Wycliffe was a true individual. He was the first Reformer who dared, when deserted and alone, to question and deny the creed of Christiandom around him.
The Theology of John Wycliffe was Predestinarianism, which formed the groundwork of his later revolt against Romanism. "In a severe Augustinian Predestinarianism, the more austere churchmen and all the first Reformers (or they would hardly have dared to be Reformers) met as to it's theory, if not it's application." (Hassell's Church History)
The religious liberty that we take for granted makes it difficult, if not impossible, for us to identify with Wycliffe. His was an era when an attempt to exercise freedom of religious thought could cost you your life. In our contemporary religious climate, who esteems their convictions that highly? Would you be willing to sign your "creed" with your blood? Wycliffe had such conviction.
One of the remarkable features of Wycliffe was the progressive development and understanding of scriptural truth. In his daily study and spiritual understanding of the scriptures he discovered more and more of the unscipturalness of Romanism.
Church historian Sylvester Hassell says: "His progress was not only in the Protestant but in the Baptist direction; and I am persuaded that, if he had lived longer, and additional Divine light had been given him, he would have bee a through-going Bible Baptist."
Wycliffe first denounced the corrupt practices, and then the corrupt doctrines of Romanism that led to those practices. He launched a vigorous assault on the manifold corruptions of the Mendicant Friars, branding the wealthier Friars as hypocrites and the poorer as able-bodied beggars who ought not to be permitted to infest the land.
Hassell observes: "Preaching had been almost entirely abandoned by the rich, worldly, corrupt and indolent Catholic clergy. Wycliffe encouraged many who believed and understood some important scriptural truths to go forth as 'poor preachers'. Barefoot, and clad in long russet garments of coarsest material, they declared, with simplicity and earnestness, the plain truths of the gospel in the vernacular tongue."
Wycliffe instructions were: "Christians need not visit the heathen for the purpose of converting them and dying as martyrs; but they could do plenty of preaching in England soon to win the crown of martyrdom." This prediction was verified in the next two centuries.
Wycliffe's greatest work was the translation of the entire Scriptures into the English language. This work was completed in 1384, the year he died. His enemies soon complained that "laymen and even women knew more of the Scriptures than the best educated of the clergy."
The effectiveness of Wycliffe's work might well be measured by the wrath it provoked in his enemies. In 1428 his enemies dug up his bones and burned them at Lutterworth, then cast the ashes into the river Swift.
It has been observed that as his ashes, being cast into the Swift, then conveyed through the Avon into the sea, so his teachings were dissemineated over the world."
[Source: Hassell's Church History]
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