Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The name of John de Wycliffe appears in the page of history, as that of the first Englishman whose views of Christianity were such as to induce a renunciation of the spiritual as well as of the temporal power claimed by the pontiffs; and to his mind, nearly every principle of our general Protestantism may be distinctly traced. To diffuse his doctrine among his countrymen, was the object to which his energies were directed in the face of every danger, with an industry which is almost incredible, and with a success which his enemies describe as a leading cause of the revolution which signalized the reign of Henry the eighth. By that event, though the result of imperfect motives in the sovereign, and defective in many of its principles, a value was at length conferred on the birthright of the men of this land, which no second change could have imparted.