THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
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capacity, so that, e.g., God could lie; it is rather a power that is morally regulated, self-determined, and ordered by its own inner laws. The realism of Wyclif comes to light with especial clarity in his doctrine of God the Son as the Logos, who as the essential Word is the summation of all ideas, that is, of all intelligible realities. Such pronouncements as the following result: “ Every creature (thing created) that can be known is the word of God in relation to its intelligible being and therefore in relation to its essential being; every being is in fact God himself.’ Although these and other declarations aim at a monistic doctrine, Wyclif declined to accept pantheism. In this respect he was a follower of Augustine, who in his philosophical discussions was not always able to avoid a pantheistic tinge.
The same tendency is discoverable in his anthropology and his doctrine of the freedom of the human will and of sin. He regarded as especially important the affirmation of the freedom of the will,
being conscious that the ethical worth
6. Will, of an action is conditioned by this.
Evil, Faith, The complete guarding of the holiness Salvation. of Deity is an especial care, and he would not admit at all the imputation
of responsibility in God for the existence of evil. He held fast to the conception that in the innermost region of the heart and of the will there is at least a relative autonomy elevated above all compulsion. He also affirmed the view that evil is not a positive existence, but rather a non-existence, not an activity but a defect. These views were inspired by Augustine. He did not hesitate to state these ideas in his sermons, but he carefully guarded against the thought that it was permissible to do evil that good might result.- In his doctrine of the person of Christ he held to the ecclesiastical view as it was speculatively constructed by Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and others. Above all was emphasized the incomparable exaltation of Jesus Christ as the one mediator between God and man, the living medium between man and man’s one Ruler; and this he expressed in manifold methods and with many illustrations, as: ‘‘ Christ is the Saint of all saints, the one Fountain of salvation.” The saints, he taught, attained their dignity through the imitation of Christ. With respect to the festivals of the saints and their cult the “ Evangelical Doctor ”’ affirmed that they could be of service only so far as the soul could be through them inflamed with the love of Christ. In that Wyclif clearly and consciously established the truth that salvation was through Christ alone, and with this as a fundamental, he showed himself a real precursor of the Reformation. How far he dealt with the order of salvation and did not oppose the Roman-scholastic doctrine of the merits of the saints may on the other side be recognized from his dissent on the subject of the merit of works and his declaration for the truth of the free grace of God in Christ. He stressed the affirmation that faith is a gift of God which comes by grace to men. And with this corresponded his ethics, in which he valued humility as the root of all virtues, while the germ of Christian virtue is love to God and one’s neighbor. Yet he did not possess the Biblical and
really Evangelical idea of faith; he still adhered to the scholastic conception according to which faith becomes what it should be only through love, i.e., he ascribed justification in the presence of God to sanctification and good works, and did not deny all merit to the latter. Justification through faith alone was not within his view. His conception of the Church, as shown above, was different from that usual in his day; it was not the congregation of the bishop of Rome 7. Doctrine but the communion of those elected of of the God that formed the Church. Not Church. prelates and priests as such, but all pious members of Christ belong to that Church. Like Augustine, he made a distinction between the “true” and the “ pretended” or “‘ mixed ”’ body of Christ—unconverted hypocritical brothers are in but not of the Church, i.e., they do not belong to it. Of no man, not even the pope, can one be sure that he is a member of the Church; one can not recognize him as such except by his ethical fruits. So he applied the ethical measure, and by this he reached his conclusion with respect to the claims of Urban VI. and Gregory XI. to be true popes. His entire teaching respecting a true and a false papacy, a true and a false priesthood, rests upon this principle. Just as the powers of the apostles were equal, so may in the present no pope arrogate to himself the rule of the Church; if Peter possessed any prerogative above the others, it did not relate to jurisdictional powers but to his greater humility. The Church of his own day, he thought, needed no other ministry or priesthood than that of the primitive Church. He would, therefore, make no distinction between priest and bishop; every “elect ’’ may assume the office of priest, even though he have no episcopal ordination—he is a real priest made of God. His most serviceable work is the preaching of the Gospel, more precious than the distribution of the sacrament, and among all works charity is the noblest, best, and most desired. With this all the blessings and consecrations of wax and bread, of palms and candles, of salt and of other things, which have no relation to faith and so are to be rejected, similarly the worship of relics, the cult of the dead, pilgrimages, and worship of images do not compare. For the preacher nothing is more worth while than preaching; the only question is, what shall he preach to the people? Certainly not those comedies and tragedies, those apocryphal events and trifles, with which the preachers tickle the ears of their congregations in order that their purses may be made to ring with money after the sermon; but rather preach the Gospel truth. And this is to be done in a way that fits the capacity of the hearers. The object of the sermon is to induce the imitation of Christ: “ because to-day the Word of God is not heard, spiritual death broods over all.’’ Consequently this is to be brought to renewed life, and in the two languages—Latin for the learned and the common speech for the rest of the people. Hence in his Latin sermons Wyclif addressed himself to the learned, the priests, and those who were candidates for priesthood. His earlier sermons which he preached while he was teaching, those out of his ear-