IV. CHAP. Dr. Wiclif met with this year by attending the Pope's Delegates, occasioned his having a dangerous fit of sickness, Bale, p.469. that brought him almost to the point of death. This seems to have happened soon after his return to Oxford A. D. 1379. the beginning of next year. The Friars Mendicant hearing of it, they immediately instructed deputies to be sent to him in their behalf, viz. four solemn Doctors whom they called Regents, every Order his Doctor; and that the message might be the more pompous, they joined with them four senators of the city, whom they call Aldermen of the wards. They, when they came to him, found him lying in his bed, and first of all wished him health, and a recovery from his distemper. After some time, they took notice to him of the many and great injuries which he had done to them [the Begging Friars] by his sermons and writings, and exhorted him that now he was at the point of death, he would, as a true penitent, bewail and revoke in their presence whatever things he had said to their disparagement. But Dr. Wiclif immediately recovering strength called his servants to him, and ordered them to raise him a little on his pillows; which when they had done, he said with a loud voice, "I shall not die, but live, and de"clare the evil deeds of the Friars." On which the Doctors, &c. departed from him in confusion, and Dr. Wiclif afterwards recovered. But though Dr. Wiclif did now thus escape without any formal sentence of condemnation being passed upon him; his adversaries were yet not wanting to take all possible advantages against him, as will be shewn in the following chapters. * Dominus Archiepiscopus sibi et omnibus aliis super illa materia, præsente Domino Duce Lancastriæ, indixit silentium. Murimuth. p. 137. CHAP. V. Dr. Wiclif preaches and writes against the Pride and College, DR. WICLIF in his lectures, sermons, and writings, laid A. D. 1380. hold on all occasions to expose the Romish Court, and lay open the vices of the Clergy both Religious and Secular. This appears very plainly by those sermons of his on the Ms. in C.C. Commune Sanctorum, and the particular festivals which are Cambridge. yet extant; and by his many other tracts, which seem to K. 15. 4o. have been written by him about this time. This perhaps provoked the new Pope Urban formally to condemn the forementioned twenty-four erroneous conclusions, as they Murimuth. are called, with the holding which Dr. Wiclif and his disciples were charged. But what seems to have given as great a provocation as any thing, was his and others undertaking to translate the holy Scriptures into English. This, it seems, was what had never been done before, into the English spoken after the Conquest: or, however some parts of them might have been rendered into English for particular persons' private use, they had not yet been a published in this language. Contin. p. 152. apud X. This is plainly intimated by Henry de Knyghton, who De Event. Angliæ thus declaims against Dr. Wiclif's translation of the Bible. "Christ," says he, "committed the Gospel to the Clergy, Scriptores, "and Doctors of the Church, that they might minister it "to the laity, and weaker persons, according to the exi ■ Such a distinction of books published and unpublished was used before the invention of printing. The books published were such of which copies were taken and dispersed into a considerable number of hands: the books unpublished were such as were written only for the owners' own use, or to be set up in libraries. Coll. 2644. CHAP. V. Wicket. gency of times, and persons' wants: but this Master "John Wiclif translated it out of Latin into English, and "by that means laid it more open to the laity, and to wo66 men who could read, than it used to be to the most "learned of the Clergy, and those of them who had the "best understanding: and so the Gospel pearl is cast "abroad and trodden under foot of swine, and that which "used to be precious to both Clergy and laity, is made as "it were the common jest of both; and the jewel of the "Church is turned into the sport of the laity, and what was "before the chief talent of the Clergy and Doctors of the 66 Church, is made for ever common to the laity." This is confirmed by what is reported of the Duke of Lancaster, that when, about ten years after, a bill was brought into the House of Lords to forbid the reading this translation of the Bible in English, the Duke stood up and said, " that "the people of England would not be the dregs of all men, 66 seeing all nations besides them had the law of God in their "own tongue." Had the holy Scriptures been published in English before, would the Duke have spoken thus ? Dr. Wiclif accordingly assures us, that the Clergy then said, "It is heresy to speake of the holy Scripture in "English, and so they woulde condempne the Holy Goste "that gave it in tongues to the Apostles of Christe, as it "is written, to speake the worde of God in all languages Husband-"that were ordayned of God under heaven." *So Lord man's Pray-Cobham complained; "Thilk that have the key of conning plaint. MS. "have y lockt the truth of thy teaching under many er and Com "wardes, and y hid it fro thy children." All this seems to make it pretty plain, that it is a mistake of Sir Thomas More, and some others since his time, to affirm, that before Dr. Wiclif's time there were old translations of the Bible into the English spoken after the Conquest. The author of the Prologue prefixed to a review of this translation, about 1396, sets himself to answer the objections made to the translating the Bible into English, by some that," as he expresses it, "semen wise and holy." These are all against the Bible's being translated into 66 : V. English by any body. It was pretended that men, should CHAP. not now attempt to translate the Bible into English, because they were not holy, nor learned enough for such an undertaking that the four great Doctors of the Latin Church durst never to do it. To which Dr. Wiclif replied, that “though the first of these objections seemed colour"able, it had no good ground, nor reason, nor charity: that "it was more agenst St. Jerome, and the first LXX trans❝lators, and holy Church, than agenst him and his friends "who had now translated the Bible into English; since St. "Jerome was not so holy as the Apostles and Evangelists, "whose bookes he translated into Latine; nor were the "LXX so holy as Moses and the Prophets: and holy "Church approved not only the true translation of meane "Christen men, stedfast in Christian faith; but also of open heretics." And therefore he concludes that "much 66 more the Church of England should approve the true and "holy translation of simple men, that would for no good in earth, by their witting and power, put away the least “truth, yea the least letter or tittle of holy Writ that "beareth substance or charge." As to the other objection, he styles it a very ignorant one, and not deserving an answer; for that these Doctors of the Latin Church were not Englishmen, nor did they live among Englishmen, nor understand the English language; but that they had the Bible in their mother tongue, or the language of their own people. But all that Dr. Wiclif or any one else could say in justification of his translating the holy Scriptures into English, would not put a stop to the clamours which were raised against him on this occasion. His person was had in the utmost hatred and disesteem by the Clergy of that time on account of his reproving their ignorance, and departing from their calling; and they reckoned this his making the holy Scriptures common to the laity, was an invasion of their rights and powers; a making them useless, and taking from them their chief talent. They had nothing now to do, it seems, but to throw up their Orders, CHAP. since the Church had no need of them. Against these and V. such like reproaches Dr. Wiclif thus defended himself. Speculum "Seeing," saith he, "the truth of the faith shines the more secularium "by how much the more it is known, and the Lords Bishops condemn the faithful or true opinion in the ears "of secular Lords, out of hatred of the person who main"tains it; that the truth may be known more plainly and Domino rum. MS. " apud Cl. Usser. diffusively, true men are under a necessity of declaring "the opinion which they hold not only in the Latin, but "in the vulgar tongue. It has been said in a former "Looking Glass for Secular Lords, written in the vulgar "tongue, that they ought wholly to regulate themselves "conformably to the law of Christ. Nor are those here"tics to be heard who fancy, that Seculars ought not to "know the law of God, but, that it is sufficient for them "to know what the Priests and Prelates tell them by word "of mouth: for the Scripture is the faith of the Church, "and the more it is known in an orthodox sense, the bet"ter. Therefore as secular men ought to know the faith, "so it is to be taught them in whatsoever language is best "known to them. Besides, since the truth of the faith is "clearer and more exact in the Scripture than the Priests "know how to express it; (seeing, if one may say so, there "are many Prelates who are too ignorant of the Scrip"ture;) and others conceal points of Scripture, such, to "wit, as declare for the humility and poverty of the "Clergy; and that there are many such defects in the "verbal instructions of Priests: it seems useful that the "faithful should themselves search out or discover the "sense of the faith, by having the Scriptures in a language "which they know and understand. Besides, according to "the faith taught by the Apostle, Heb. xi. the saints by "faith overcame kingdoms, and chiefly by the motive of "faith hastened to their own country. Why therefore "ought not the fountain of faith to be made known to the people by means by which a man may know it more clearly? He therefore who hinders this, or murmurs 66 against it, does his endeavour that the people should |