74
The Great Controversy 1888
families united to purchase a copy. Thus Wycliffe’s Bible soon found
its way to the homes of the people.
The appeal to men’s reason aroused them from their passive sub-
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mission to papal dogmas. Wycliffe now taught the distinctive doctrines
of Protestantism,—salvation through faith in Christ, and the sole in-
fallibility of the Scriptures. The preachers whom he had sent out
circulated the Bible, together with the reformer’s writings, and with
such success that the new faith was accepted by nearly one-half of the
people of England.
The appearance of the Scriptures brought dismay to the authori-
ties of the church. They had now to meet an agency more powerful
than Wycliffe,—an agency against which their weapons would avail
little. There was at this time no law in England prohibiting the Bible,
for it had never before been published in the language of the people.
Such laws were afterward enacted and rigorously enforced. Mean-
while, notwithstanding the efforts of the priest, there was for a season
opportunity for the circulation of the Word of God.
Again the papist leaders plotted to silence the reformer’s voice.
Before three tribunals he was successively summoned for trial, but
without avail. First a synod of bishops declared his writings heretical,
and, winning the young king, Richard II., to their side, they obtained a
royal decree consigning to prison all who should hold the condemned
doctrines.
Wycliffe appealed from the synod to Parliament; he fearlessly
arraigned the hierarchy before the national council, and demanded
a reform of the enormous abuses sanctioned by the church. With
convincing power he portrayed the usurpations and corruptions of
the papal see. His enemies were brought to confusion. The friends
and supporters of Wycliffe had been forced to yield, and it had been
confidently expected that the reformer himself, in his old age, alone
and friendless, would bow to the combined authority of the crown and
the mitre. But instead of this the papists saw themselves defeated.
Parliament, roused by the stirring appeals of Wycliffe, repealed the
persecuting edict, and the reformer was again at liberty.
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A third time he was brought to trial, and now before the highest
ecclesiastical tribunal in the kingdom. Here no favor would be shown
to heresy. Here at last Rome would triumph, and the reformer’s work
would be stopped. So thought the papists. If they could but accomplish