John Wicliff proposed a solution of
the problem which, in the course of the following two hundred years,
acquired wide popularity and vast historical importance: Lollards,
Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Socinians, and
Anabaptists, whatever their disagreements, concurred in the proposal
to reduce the Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits
sanctioned by the Scriptures. None of the chiefs of Protestantism
called in question either the supernatural origin and infallible
authority of the Bible, or the exactitude of the account of the
supernatural world given in its pages. In fact, they could not afford
to entertain any doubt about these points, since the infallible Bible
was the fulcrum of the lever with which they were endeavouring to
upset the Chair of St. Peter. The "freedom of private judgment" which
they proclaimed, meant no more, in practice, than permission to
themselves to make free with the public judgment of the Roman Church,
in respect of the canon and of the meaning to be attached to the words
of the canonical books. Private judgment--that is to say, reason--was
(theoretically, at any rate) at liberty to decide what books were and
what were not to take the rank of "Scripture"; and to determine the
sense of any passage in such books. But this sense, once ascertained
to the mind of the sectary, was to be taken for pure truth--for the
very word of God.
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