The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 61

The European Union in Prophecy
laboring diligently to point men from the contending popes to Jesus, the Prince of
Peace. The schism, with all the strife and corruption which it caused, prepared the
way for the Reformation by enabling the people to see what the papacy really was. In
a tract which he published, On the Schism of the Popes, Wycliffe called upon the
people to consider whether these two priests were not speaking the truth in
condemning each other as the anti-christ. "God," said he, "would no longer suffer the
fiend to reign in only one such priest, but . . . made division among two, so that men,
in Christ's name, may the more easily overcome them both."--R. Vaughan, Life and
Opinions of John de Wycliffe, vol. 2, p. 6.
Wycliffe, like his Master, preached the gospel to the poor. Not content with
spreading the light in their humble homes in his own parish of Lutterworth, he
determined that it should be carried to every part of England. To accomplish this he
organized a body of preachers, simple, devout men, who loved the truth and desired
nothing so much as to extend it. These men went everywhere, teaching in the market
places, in the streets of the great cities, and in the country lanes. They sought out the
aged, the sick, and the poor, and opened to them the glad tidings of the grace of God.
As a professor of theology at Oxford, Wycliffe preached the word of God in the halls of
the university. So faithfully did he present the truth to the students under his
instruction, that he received the title of "the gospel doctor." But the greatest work of
his life was to be the translation of the Scriptures into the English language. In a
work, On the Truth and Meaning of Scripture, he expressed his intention to translate
the Bible, so that every man in England might read, in the language in which he was
born, the wonderful works of God.
But suddenly his labors were stopped. Though not yet sixty years of age,
unceasing toil, study, and the assaults of his enemies had told upon his strength and
made him prematurely old. He was attacked by a dangerous illness. The tidings
brought great joy to the friars. Now they thought he would bitterly repent the evil he
had done the church, and they hurried to his chamber to listen to his confession.
Representatives from the four religious orders, with four civil officers, gathered about
the supposed dying man. "You have death on your lips," they said; "be touched by
your faults, and retract in our presence all that you have said to our injury." The
Reformer listened in silence; then he bade his attendant raise him in his bed, and,
gazing steadily upon them as they stood waiting for his recantation, he said, in the
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