JOHN DE WYCLIFFE, D.D.

A

Monograph.

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE WYCLIFFE MSS. IN OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE, THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LAMBETH PALACE, AND TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.

By ROBERT VAUGHAN, D.D.

 

Wycliffe Church.

Seeleys,

FLEET STREET AND HANOVER STREET.

LONDON: MDCCCLIII.

Digital Versions

Restored, Corrected and Reset

by

Central Highlands Congregation of God

23rd May, 2023

Revised 31st May

Published by

Central Highlands Christian Publications

PO Box 236 Creswick Vic 3363  Australia

info@chcpublications.net

chcpublications.net

Digital Edition Foreword

Though it is 639 years since John de Wycliffe died, he remains one of the great reformers of Christianity in England.  Not only did he dare to challenge the greed and avarice of the Roman Catholic clergy in England, but he also condemned many of their corruptions of scriptural beliefs.  He claimed that only doctrines which could be found in the Bible should be observed, and openly rejected the catholic hierarchy and transubstantiation, stances which made him a heretic in the eyes of the papacy, and thus worthy of death.  He was also the first person to translate the Bible into English.  His fellow Lollards enthusiastically copied his insightful writings, which not only laid the groundwork for reformation in England, but also on the Continent.  Indeed, John Huss was converted into a Reformer through Wycliffe’s work.  In many ways, Wycliffe’s goal was Restoration of Scriptural Christianity, and thus went well beyond the Reformation that resulted in the Church of England.

 

John de Wycliffe

English Father of the Reformation

Contents

ENGRAVINGS.

In the interior of Wycliffe Church the artist has dispensed with the modern deal pewing by which it is disfigured.  The exterior presents the edifice as it is, the interior, as it was.  The interior of Lutterworth Church also, gives the view of the building as it was in the time of Wycliffe.  Since then, the screen has been removed to a neighbouring Church, and the pulpit has been placed before the middle of the chancel.  This change took place when it was determined further to impair the beauty of the structure by the erection of galleries.  I should add that at Lutterworth the spire does not now appear on the tower; but it so stood in the time of Wycliffe, and a model of it has been preserved in the church since the time of the thunderstorm by which it was destroyed.  The present bridge also, crossing the river, has been erected within the memory of persons still living.  The bridges over such rivers in the fourteenth century were mostly rude wooden structures.  The houses built of late years near the river are not, of course, introduced.  The other Engravings give the objects as they at present appear.

DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.

Portrait, opposite the Title-page.

View of Wycliffe, opposite page 1.

Exterior of Wycliffe Church, opposite page 11.

Northam Tower, opposite page 13.

Meeting of the Greta and the Tees, opposite page 15.

Exterior of Lutterworth Church, opposite page 375.

Interior of the same, opposite page 382.

Lutterworth and the River Swift, opposite page 520.