Consider and ponder the human events which take place when one individual recognizes the importance of the Bible in the hands of the individual! For down to the middle of the fourteenth century the individual was separated from the Word of God, but when Wycliffe not only saw the importance of the individual having his own Bible but began to do something about it in spite of the danger to his life, God honored him, and within forty years a translation of the whole Bible had been executed with the design of becoming available to all.
Summarily, the Bible not only had to be seen as divine, and the authority for the church, but for the individual's salvation and sufficient for every phase of his life.
Almost immediately following Wycliffe's translation of the whole Bible, God began to call forth men to develop the many scientific and economic fields which would be necessary to enable man to sail the seas, and finally settle the lands across the vast Atlantic ocean. With the correlation so plain and easily documented between the Bible being made available to the individual in England, and the almost sudden development of basic inventions necessary for sailing the seas, and colonizing America, it is strange this is not better known by American Christians who have dramatically benefitted thereby. (q.v. p. 48) God had been reserving the land we know as the original colonies to begin establishing the Christian form of civil government, until there could be a handful of "peculiar people" properly rooted and grounded in His Word.
Summarily, the Bible not only had to be seen as divine, and the authority for the church, but for the individual's salvation and sufficient for every phase of his life.
Almost immediately following Wycliffe's translation of the whole Bible, God began to call forth men to develop the many scientific and economic fields which would be necessary to enable man to sail the seas, and finally settle the lands across the vast Atlantic ocean. With the correlation so plain and easily documented between the Bible being made available to the individual in England, and the almost sudden development of basic inventions necessary for sailing the seas, and colonizing America, it is strange this is not better known by American Christians who have dramatically benefitted thereby. (q.v. p. 48) God had been reserving the land we know as the original colonies to begin establishing the Christian form of civil government, until there could be a handful of "peculiar people" properly rooted and grounded in His Word.
- from page xxv, Christian History of the American Revolution