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The Great Controversy
Wycliffe fully expected that his life would be the price of his
fidelity. The king, the pope, and the bishops were united to accomplish
his ruin, and it seemed certain that a few months at most would bring
him to the stake. But his courage was unshaken. “Why do you talk of
seeking the crown of martyrdom afar?” he said. “Preach the gospel
of Christ to haughty prelates, and martyrdom will not fail you. What!
I should live and be silent? ... Never! Let the blow fall, I await its
coming.”—D’Aubigne, b. 17, ch. 8.
But God’s providence still shielded His servant. The man who for
a whole lifetime had stood boldly in defense of the truth, in daily peril
of his life, was not to fall a victim of the hatred of its foes. Wycliffe
had never sought to shield himself, but the Lord had been his protector;
and now, when his enemies felt sure of their prey, God’s hand removed
him beyond their reach. In his church at Lutterworth, as he was about
to dispense the communion, he fell, stricken with palsy, and in a short
time yielded up his life.
God had appointed to Wycliffe his work. He had put the word
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of truth in his mouth, and He set a guard about him that this word
might come to the people. His life was protected, and his labors
were prolonged, until a foundation was laid for the great work of the
Reformation.
Wycliffe came from the obscurity of the Dark Ages. There were
none who went before him from whose work he could shape his
system of reform. Raised up like John the Baptist to accomplish a
special mission, he was the herald of a new era. Yet in the system of
truth which he presented there was a unity and completeness which
Reformers who followed him did not exceed, and which some did
not reach, even a hundred years later. So broad and deep was laid the
foundation, so firm and true was the framework, that it needed not to
be reconstructed by those who came after him.
The great movement that Wycliffe inaugurated, which was to lib-
erate the conscience and the intellect, and set free the nations so long
bound to the triumphal car of Rome, had its spring in the Bible. Here
was the source of that stream of blessing, which, like the water of
life, has flowed down the ages since the fourteenth century. Wycliffe
accepted the Holy Scriptures with implicit faith as the inspired rev-
elation of God’s will, a sufficient rule of faith and practice. He had
been educated to regard the Church of Rome as the divine, infallible