Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

288 WYCLIFFE'S SYSTEM.
dispositions of thejbeliever, and is not inherent in
the Sacrament. Yet Wycliffe went further than the
present mind of England, for he did not believe in
"dispositions". A cold and hard fatalism was at
the bottom of his errors, and the most pernicious of
all. A man's good or bad actions mattered not, for
neither good deeds would save him who was predestined
to eternal damnation, nor bad condemn the
soul predestined to eternal happiness.
As he discarded man's free will, it is no wonder
that he put out of his system both Sacrifice and
Sacraments. Not one of the grace-giving Seven
*
was left. Baptism " impressed 110 character and
abolished no sin". Confirmation, its complement,
was an idle form. Penance was po\verless to
remit sins which man committed whether he
would or no. Matrimony, from a Christian sacrament,
was changed into a gross material arrangement,
in which indissombility had no place. The
need for Holy Orders, as the distinctive mark of a
priesthood created for Sacrifice and Sacraments,
had of course ceased to exist in so debased a system.
Wycliffe substituted the "minister" for the priest,
and to this end some kind of out\vard ceremony
seemed called for; but it was not the exclusive
privilege of the one sex. Women were allowed by
him to say mass, and freely availed themselves of
his licence. Jurisdiction follows in the wake of
Orders. Wycliffe destroyed both at one blow, and
let loose upon the country a set of itinerant preachers,