Thus, during
his latter years, he lived in retirement at his little parish of
Lutterworth, escaping the dangers of the troublous time, and dying--struck
with paralysis at his chancel--in 1384, sixteen years before Chaucer.
TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.--The labors of Wiclif which produced the most
important results, were not his violent lectures as a reformer, but the
translation of the Bible into English, the very language of the common
people, greatly to the wrath of the hierarchy and its political upholders.
This, too, is his chief glory: as a reformer he went too fast and too far;
he struck fiercely at the root of authority, imperilling what was good, in
his attack upon what was evil. In pulling up the tares he endangered the
wheat, and from him, as a progenitor, came the Lollards, a fanatical,
violent, and revolutionary sect.
But his English Bible, the parent of the later versions, cannot be too
highly valued. For the first time, English readers could search the whole
Scriptures, and judge for themselves of doctrine and authority: there they
could learn how far the traditions and commandments of men had encrusted
and corrupted the pure word of truth.
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