distinction has to be settled. Every good man, we have
seen before, is lord of all things, but he is not on that
account at liberty to assert his possession of them in
contravention of civil right : so also m he cannot claim to
disobey the civil ruler because that ruler is personally
unworthy of his post ; his rule is at least permitted by
God. Thus Wycliffe expressly repudiates the inference
which might naturally and logically be drawn from his
premises. God, ran his famous paradox, ought to obey
the devil ;[1] that is, no one can escape from the duty of
obedience to existing powers, be those powers never so
depraved.[2] But there is logic also in Wycliffe s position.
As things are, he felt, the spheres of spiritual and temporal
sovereignty are kept asunder. The spiritual authority
has no competence to interfere with the temporal, nor the
temporal with the spiritual. Each is paramount within
its own area of jurisdiction, so far as the present state of
affairs is concerned ; but in the eternal order of the universe
right, power, dominion, and the practical exercise of
authority, are dependent on the character, the righteousness,
of the person to whom they belong.
It is Wycliffe s veneration for the spiritual dignity of the church that led him to sever its sphere of action from that of the world. No pope or priest of the church, he held, could claim any temporal authority: he is a lord. yea even a king, but only in things spiritual. So far as the pope, to take the salient instance, recedes from this position, so far as he holds any earthly power, so far is he unworthy of his office. For to rule temporal possessions after a civil
- ↑ This appears first in the- later list of Wycliffe s errors, 1382 : Lewis 358 ar vii, Shirley 278, 494. But it is perfectly in keeping with his earlier doctrine.
- ↑ Wycliffe has a chapter in the De civili dominio, i. 28, in which he discusses, and decides in the affirmative sense, the duty of obe- dience to tyrants. : Hic dicetur quod dupliciter contingit iuste obedire mundi potent i bus : vel pure paciendo, servata caritate, quod non poterit esse malum ; vel active ministrando in bonis for- tune aut ministerio corporali, quod indubie, servata de possibili cari- tate, foret bonum. Yet, he hints, a Christian, si esset veri- simile homini per subtraccionea temporalis iuvaminis destruere potentatus tyrannidem vel abu- sum, debet ea intcricione subtra- here: f. 66 A, B.
