Biographia Evangelica.

JOHN WICKLIFFE,

THE FIRST REFORMER.

W HEN we look back upon the days of barbarism, and the gross ignorance of the true light of the gospel, which prevailed in the Christian world, for so many ages together, before the Reformation; when we reflect upon the stupid ceremonies and abominable superstitions and cheats, practised by the monks and others; and then survey the hand of GOD, working, in a most extraordinary manner, through all this mass of corruption and folly, and bringing about, by degrees, the clear shining of the everlasting gospel: We must stand astonished at the whole, and from the wonderful contrast of the times, may say; This hath GOD wrought; it is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

GOD vouchsafed to honour England with the first dawning of the Reformation: And an Englishman was the first champion of that cause, which afterwards received the name of PROTESTANTISM. This remarkable instrument of the divine blessing was JOHN WICKLIFFE, or JOHN DE WICKLIFFE, taking his sirname from a village once called Wickliffe, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, where he was born in the year 1324. It has been observed, that no such place exists at present under that name; but it is well known, that great numbers of our villages, and even towns and hundreds, have received different denominations from change of possessors in the course of ages. Wickliffe was sent early to Oxford, and was first admitted commoner of Queen's College, and afterwards of Merton, where he became fellow.

Merton