The Ministry of John Wycliff
By Kenneth H. Good, 1986Special notice must be given of the tremendous effect of Wycliff upon the life of England and the ultimate achievement of the Lollards in their work of preserving the truth in dark days.
Some declare that Wycliff was a Baptist (see Crosby, History I, 8, 9). Others point to the similarity of his views with those of the early Baptists (See Christian, History, p. 187). In any case it is easily demonstrated that his convictions on many points were the same as those of the Baptists. His disciples became identified as Lollards, and the “Bible Men” eventually merged with the Anabaptists who continued through Reformation times.
In any case, Wycliff made an impact upon the nation which was lasting, and he is well called the “Morning Star of the Reformation,” insofar as England was concerned. He is a graphic example of the fact that the continuity of true churches through the present age is not so much a matter of horizontal inheritance as it is a matter of vertical reception. After all, it is the Lord who said that he would build His church, and we should not be surprised to see rather remarkable examples of His raising up men to perpetuate the truth. It is refreshing to be reminded that the New Testament character whose ministry established the name “Baptist” in the Scriptures was raised up totally without New Covenant ecclesiastical ancestry. What John the Baptist began in the way of witness and testimony had no precedent! He was commissioned from heaven!
John Wycliff seems to have been one of those unusual persons whom God raised up, probably without demonstrable ecclesiastical lineage, to continue His testimony of true churches in the earth. As has been said before, the preservation was more of principles than it was of organized ecclesiastical structures. However, principles are held by people, and people with the same principles tend to gather into churches. As a consequence, from period to period, demonstrable lines of ancestry can be traced; however, the significance of this must await the chapter devoted exclusively to history.
That Wycliff held to many of the principles called “Baptist Distinctives” today is an important point in English history. Consider the following instances:
1. On the separation of church and state: David Fountain points out, “It is essential to see that he [Wycliff] differed from the later Reformers in his methods because of his attitude towards the relationship between Church and State. He did not want support from the State in furthering the Gospel.” While Wycliff is frequently referred to as ”Reformed,” it is evident that he did not hold to the classic Reformed ecclesiology. Fountain says: “He did not have as his objective a State Church run on Protestant lines (as did the Reformers)...
2. On the nature of the church: “What needs to be emphasized above all, however, is the way his thinking developed beyond that of any oof the Reformers on the Doctrine of the Church. . . He believed that the Church should be disendowed (freed from the entanglement of the State). Wycliff believed that the true church was made up exclusively of believers. Fountain declares, “In is doctrine of the Church, he considered that the church consisted only of the regenerate – true believers. ‘All who shall be saved in the bliss of heaven are members of the Holy Church and no more.’”
3. The fundamental article of faith in Wycliff’s theology was an exclusive reliance upon the Scriptures as the only and all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. “The Bible was, for Wycliff, the Word of God in every way. He was dedicated to the literal text. . . he could give no other explanation of the unwillingness of many to acknowledge the authority of Scripture than through their lack of sincere faith in the Lord Jesus Christ himself.“ His faith in the Scriptures as the literal Word of God motivated him to become active in the translation into the common English tongue of the day. He was very much like the Baptists in this article of faith.
Wycliff lived approximately two hundred years before Anabaptism appeared in Zurich, so that it becomes apparent that his espousal of similar principles could not have been the result of their subsequent missionary efforts in England, yet it is also apparent that he steadfastly held to many of those principles for which the Anabaptists suffered severe persecution. This serves to underline the fact that Christ’s preservation of His churches throughout this age if not dependent upon some quasi-Roman, chain-link succession of veritable organized congregations but rather upon His continued succession of absolute Lordship during the entirety of the dispensation.
As a consequence of the ministries of Wycliff and Tyndale (who appeared upon the scene about two centuries later) the Scriptures in English had been fairly well scattered throughout the kingdom, much to the displeasure of the bishops. This seed had been well watered by the ministry of the Lollards, and there had been an underground response to the Word of God for years. In the days of Elizabeth it was seen to emerge in the form of Puritanism as men in both high and low station became obedient to the Scripture. From the “ploughboy” who had been Tyndale’s concern, to the scholars who could read the Word in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin at the universities, there was a revival of learning in what the Scriptures actually taught rather than in what the church declared.
In her reign Elizabeth discovered that she could not repress nor control this spiritual movement, although she attempted desperately to do so, thus forcing Puritans into a visible position of opposition to the crown. Thereafter the term Puritan became a derogatory term of great opprobrium. Because they stood generally for the same things regarding the state, Baptists were often confused with the Puritans. But there were important ecclesiologic distinctions which would surface at another time. Temporarily, the common cause espoused by both Puritans and Baptists made them seem nearly identical.
One must not lose sight of the fact that the flame of true reformation had never been quite extinguished in the English mind despite the alternate tyranny imposed upon the people by both mitre and crown. As early as the first part of the fourteenth century the Scriptures available to the populace in their native tongue. This preservation and dissemination of the Word of God in written form for the people who were oriented in the English language provided continuity for that rue spirit of reformation which never departed from the island kingdom, even in the dark days of the Papal dominion, the restricted days of the Elizabethian Establishment, or the decadent days of the Restoration.
Finally, in the days of James II, and after a second form of revolution in the kingdom (1688), the forces which had been struggling for religious and civil liberation achieved a great measure of success. The Act of Toleration was passed in 1689, and a significant landmark was established in English history.
Throughout these turbulent events which followed one upon another in fairly rapid order, the Baptists survived and eventually emerged as identifiable and visible congregations. Through much of the time they had been hardly distinguished from the Puritans because of some commonly shared convictions and considerable merging of effort and identity; but gradually the differences surfaced and had to be addressed.
The Army debates provided for some of this clarification. At Putney, Whitehall, and Reading the Baptist and Puritan views on such crucial matters as liberty of conscience, the nature of the church, the relationship of the church to the state, and related subjects were addressed and discussed. . . .
The above is a brief, historical outline of the most crucial events of those days.
============================ [From Kenneth H. Good, Are Baptists Reformed, pp. 242-245. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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