Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

WILLIAM WHITE. 315
gerous agitator, and would have allowed the country
no rest. Every enemy of order and the existing
state of things was his friend.
What is true of Sir John Oldcastle may be said of
the Lollards as a body. They were ready to agitate,
and only remained quiet because
fc
they could not help
themselves. Sawtrey had followers in priests, who
were unfaithful to their vows, and then had " intellectual
difficulties ". In the early years of Henry
VI. a certain William White, a priest and a Wyclif-
fite, carried on in Norfolk an active propaganda of
his master's opinions. He was "converted " in the
usual way to pure Gospel truth, but Wycliffe's particular
views about matrimony facilitated matters
for those who felt, as White did, that they had not
the gift of chastity. The sacrament of marriage had
shared the fate of all the seven, and disappeared
from the Wvclimte */ code. White, then, could afford to
trample on the canons, and to live in sin with a young
woman, who, according to those canons embodied in
the law of the land, could never be his wife. This
was the man who accused the Pope of" wicked living,"
the Church of being the barren fig-tree, and the clergy
as the "lance knights and soldiers of Lucifer ". Vituperation
took the place of creed and dogma. White
fell into the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury
in 1424, and recanted for a time. Finally, however,
he was brought before the Bishop of Norwich, and,
persevering in his errors, was burnt in
1Stt'\vn.-.)ii, p. 146.