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Light Breaks in England
53
Papal thunders were soon hurled against him. Three bulls were
dispatched commanding immediate measures to silence the teacher
of “heresy.
The arrival of the papal bulls laid upon all England a command
for the imprisonment of the heretic.
It appeared
certain that Wycliffe must soon fall to the vengeance of Rome. But
He who declared to one of old, “Fear not: ... I am thy shield”
(
Genesis 15:1
), stretched out His hand to protect His servant. Death
came, not to the Reformer, but to the pontiff who had decreed his
destruction.
The death of Gregory XI was followed by the election of two rival
popes. (See Appendix.) Each called upon the faithful to make war
on the other, enforcing his demands by terrible anathemas against
his adversaries and promises of rewards in heaven to his supporters.
[55]
The rival factions had all they could do to attack each other, and
Wycliffe for a time had rest.
The schism, with all the strife and corruption which it caused,
prepared the way for the Reformation by enabling the people to
see what the papacy really was. Wycliffe called upon the people
to consider whether these two popes were not speaking the truth in
condemning each other as the antichrist.
Determined that the light should be carried to every part of Eng-
land, Wycliffe organized a body of preachers, simple, devout men
who loved the truth and desired to extend it. These men, teaching in
market places, in the streets of the great cities, and in country lanes,
sought out the aged, the sick, and the poor, and opened to them the
glad tidings of the grace of God.
At Oxford, Wycliffe preached the Word of God in the halls of
the university. He received the title of “the Gospel Doctor.” But the
greatest work of his life was to be the translation of the Scriptures
into English, so that every man in England might read the wonderful
works of God.
3
Augustus Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, period 6,
sec. 2, pt. 1, par. 8.