Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/286

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WYCLIFFE’S SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE FUTURE.

of serious enquiry to be altogether wanting. In his formal exposition Wycliffe is as great a sinner as the rest. More than this, if we pardon the vices of his method, it is not, we must acknowledge, in deference to a commanding intellectual vigour. He had not, Ockham had only in part, that keen political insight which gives Marsiglio of Padua his enduring renown: but Ockham and Wycliffe were dominated by an overpowering religious principle; and it is the latter's instinctive, his prophetic, sympathy with the aims and ideals of the modern reformed churches that constitutes his real historical significance.