The New Testament is of full authority and open to the understanding of simple men as to the points most needful to salvation.
Interpretation
The New Testament is accessible and authoritative, allowing even those who are not learned to understand essential truths about salvation.
John Wycliffe emphasizes the importance of the New Testament as a guiding text that is both authoritative and comprehensible, suggesting that its teachings on salvation are clear enough for everyone, regardless of their intellectual capacity. Wycliffe advocates for the idea that divine truths should not be limited to the educated elite, but are available to all who seek them, fostering a more personal and direct relationship with the scriptures.
In practice
During a church sermon to illustrate the accessibility of biblical teachings.
We should know that faith is a gift of God, and that it may not be given to men, except it be graciously. Thus, indeed, all the good which we have is of God; and accordingly, when God rewardeth a good work of man, he crowneth his own gift.
No man is to be credited for his mere authority's sake, unless he can show Scripture for the maintenance of his opinion.
By the law of Christ, every man is bound to love his neighbour as himself; but every servant is a neighbour of every civil lord; therefore every civil lord must love any of his servants as himself; but by natural instinct, every lord abhors slavery; therefore, by the law of charity, he is bound not to impose slavery on any brother in Christ.
The higher the hill, the stronger the wind: so the loftier the life, the stronger the enemy's temptations.
The gospel alone is sufficient to rule the lives of Christians everywhere - any additional rules made to govern men's conduct added nothing to the perfection already found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I shall not die, but live; and again declare the evil deeds of the friars.
Islamophobia, in all its guises, seeks to minimise the importance of the individual and maximise the importance of the group. Yet our instinctive stance ought to be one of suspicion towards such endeavours. For individuals are undeniably real. Groups, on the other hand, are assertions of opinion.
The ideal American type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality there are few left.
If we find ourselves increasing beyond example in numbers, in strength, in wealth, in knowledge, in everything which promotes human and social happiness, let us ever remember our dependence for all these on the protection and merciful dispensations of Divine Providence.
Now let us find solace in the finished work of our Lord Jesus. Everything is fully done: justice demands no more.
The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia; the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.
Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die.
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