Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

AT OXFORD.
295
Kichard of Armagh informed the Pope that there
were not then 6000.1
John of Gaunt, AVycliffe's friend and supporter,
travelled to Oxford on purpose to beg him to keep
to himself his views on the Holy Eucharist, but in
vain. The Archbishop of Canterbury, at that time
Courtney, the former bishop of London, who had
already tried to deal with Wycliffe and his royal
protector, interposed. "He had heard," he said,
" that many unlicensed preachers were spreading
heresies throughout his province," and he pro-
ceeded " to prohibit certain erroneous propositions
within the University". They were ten in
number. Three related to the Eucharist. One
affirmed that, when a bi shop or priest is in
mortal sin, he can neither ordain, nor consecrate,
nor baptise. The others taught that, if a penitent .
were truly contrite, confession is useless ; that Christ
did not appoint the Mass : that God should obey the
devil; that if a Pope were a bad man, he has no
power over faithful Christians, except (possibly) such
power as he may have received from the State ; that
there should be no Pope after Urban the Sixth, but
that every church should be governed by its own
laws.
^
On Friday after Pentecost in this same year 138:2,
when Wycliffe began openly to attack the most
august mystery of our faith, a procession of clergy
and laity was organised through London, in which
1 Yaughan, Life of Jl'iidiffe, p. 33. -Stevenson, p. 88.