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internal evidence, and conjectures that it was really
either the fragment of a sermon or a declaration
addressed to English readers, having "no epistolary
feature from beginning to end."^ On the 29th Dec,
1384, John Wycliffe sank down under a stroke of
palsy during the celebration of mass in his parish
church, and on the 31st he quietly passed away.
Wycliffe was undoubtedly the greatest Englishman
of his day. His personal character was free from the
slightest shadow of reproach. His bitterest adversaries
never ventured to cast an imputation upon Iiis
life and conduct. To attempt any lengthened conspectus
of his dogmatic views and opinions would be
impossible within the narrow limits of a book like
the present. They are brought forward in the most
distinct form in his " Trialogus," but he gave expression
to them also in a countless number of tracts,
as we should now call them, pamphlets. His ideal
of the relations of Church and State were brought
out in his book " De Dominio Divino." But he was
not the autlior of a new system of religion. " He
was destructive of the existing system, not reconstructive
of a new one. In the translation of the
Latin Scriptures and the assertion of the sole authority
of Scripture, he laid the foundation, but he built
ujion it no new edifice. He swept away one by one
almost all the peculiar tenets of mediceval Latin
Christianity, pardons, indulgences, excommunications,
absolutions, pilgrimages ;
he condemned images,
at least of the Persons of the Trinity; he rejected
or,
283-286.
Wycliffe and his English Precursors," vol. ii. pp.