The Seven Works of Mercy Spiritual

John Wycliffe is one of my heroes. He lived in the 1300s and is best known today (if he is known at all) for his translation of the New Testament into English. For more on Wycliffe you can go to http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/john-wycliffe.html

This is an excerpt from “The Seven Works of Mercy Gostly.” 14^th century English was a little different than modern English - they even had characters that we don’t, so reading it can be difficult. Therefore I have modernized this. Some sections I have even paraphrased or rephrased: not to correct or improve Wycliffe, it is only an attempt to make the text readable for those who can’t navigate 14^th century English. My only comments are explanatory and are in brackets.

There are seven works of bodily mercy [these are taken from Matthew 25]

I hungered, he says, and then you fed me in my members;

I thirsted, and you gave me drink;

when I was a guest, you harbored me in your house, and gathered me to rest.

I was naked and you clothed me,

sick and you visited me,

I was in prison and then you came and visited me.

And the seventh from Tobit, burying of dead men that need burying

All these seven works of mercy they do to Christ when they do them to his members devoutly in his name.

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THE SEVEN WORKS OF MERCY GOSTLY [Spiritual]

Since we should serve our parishes in spiritual alms, as they serve us in bodily sustenance, it will be good to speak of the seven works of mercy that we call spiritual; these are better than the first seven, and have been called by these seven words, — Teach, Counsel, Chastise, Comfort, Forgive, Suffer, and Pray.

A man teaches another by the law of love, when he teaches him to love the will of God. 

A man counsels another when he moves him to a way that leads surely to heaven.

A man chastises another by word or by deed, or else by withdrawing of bodily help, when he helps him leave the sin that he was in.

A man comforts another when he encourages his soul to draw near to God.

A man forgives another the sin that he did to him, when he seeks not vengeance, but helps him to return to God.

By the law of love a man should suffer another [longsuffering, forbearing one another in love], much more should a pastor suffer his folks.

And since a man should pray for his enemies, as Christ did, much more should a pastor pray for his people.

And as a man’s soul is superior to his body, so these seven spiritual works surpass the other seven. And therefore each Christian man is obligated to do these seven, but more so the pastors. And so men of the holy Church should beware of this heresy, that bodily alms is better than spiritual alms. And thus the fiend [Satan] blinds pastors to covet to be rich. They should know that Christ himself was a poor man, and ordained his apostles to do these spiritual alms, and not just the bodily alms. For since alms are designed for the profit of the one who receives them, which is better, to bring a man’s soul to bliss, or to feed his body that lasts but awhile? And therefore Christ told Peter to feed his sheep by the meat of his word. And so Peter fed the folk in the teaching of God’s word, and left bodily feeding, since it fell not to him. And thus should pastors do. And this fiendish heresy deceives the Church, when they emphasize bodily works more than spiritual works.

We should believe that these works surpass other works of love, and failure to do these does more harm to Christ’s Church than lack of worldly goods. And in this manner the apostles of Christ built up Christ’s children; but now our Church suffers from the lack of these seven works of spiritual mercy; for now men seek after bodily things, like beasts, and leave spiritual things, and their faith fails. And therefore Christ praises more the hearing of God’s word, and the keeping of it, than his mother’s giving birth to him. And surely it was a holy thing to give birth to Christ, and nourish him in his youth by bodily food, and yet by the testimony of Christ it is much more holy to hear God’s word and to keep it, and yet more than this is to preach God’s word.

Thus the most holy work is to defend the faith of Christ and to preach the gospel, and to stand for Christ even if it costs you your life. And therefore Christ says that no man had more love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends. And so did Christ, and other Christian martyrs, who spoke the truth of God’s law because of the love of Christ and his Church, and suffered death for the keeping of his law. And since this is the best work that man may do in earth, the most cursed work that Antichrist has found is to hinder this sowing of the Gospel.

[He then speaks strongly against the pastors who don’t preach the Word but actually bring doubt about the Word. Such preachers are false and antichrist. He says a little later, “And thus is God’s law reversed by Antichrist’s pastors, so that good is called evil, and evil is called good.”]

Jesus Christ commanded his pastors to despise the world, and to teach his people the right way that leads them to heaven, both in manner of life and in their preaching. And so pastors should teach how men should come to the bliss of heaven, and not go downward to hell.

Lord! How glorious would your Church be if it stood simply by the ordinance of Christ, without fiendish novelties!