John Wycliffe (c.1330-December 31, 1384) was a professor at Oxford University, England.
He became one of the greatest English religious reformers, writing under the protection of John of Gaunt (1340-1399).
His most outstanding achievement was being the first to translate, along with his followers, the Holy Scriptures from the Latin Vulgate into the English language.
He was known as the "Morning Star of the Reformation.”
Reverend William Gilpin, Vicar of Boldre, wrote in The lives of John Wicliff, and of the most eminent of his disciples; Lord Cobham, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, and Zisca, 1765, quoted by Samuel Newton, Leading Sentiments of the People Called Quakers Examined, London, 1771. p. 50:
“It was now a distinguishing article of Wickliffe’s creed as appears from his publications whilst professor at Oxford that ‘the New Testament or Gospel is a perfect rule of life and manners and ought to be read by the people.’ And this was doubtless the confirmed opinion of Huss, his disciple.”
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Endnotes:
1330JW001. John Wycliffe, General Prologue of the Wycliffe Translation of the Bible, 1384. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1863, 1955), p. 1021, <The Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.>