"John Wicliff; whom we hesitate not to admire as one of the greatest ornaments of his country; and as one of those prodigies, whom providence raises up, and directs as its instruments to enlighten man kind. His amazing penetration; his rational manner of thinking; and the noble freedom of his spirit, are equally the objects of our admiration. Wicliff was in religion, what Bacon was afterwards in science; the great detecter of those arts and glosses, which the barbarism of ages had drawn together to obscure the mind of man. To this intuitive genius Christendom was unquestionably more obliged than to any name in the list of reformers. He explored the regions of darkness, and let in not a feeble and glimmering ray; but such an effulgence of light, as was never afterwards obscured. He not only loosened prejudices; but advanced such clear incontestable truths, as, having once obtained footing, still kept their ground, and even in an age of reformation wanted little amendment."