he concludes, by grace,
and grace alone, are we put in dominion over all things; once we are in
loyal subjection to God, we own all things, and hold them by the only
sure title. "Dominion by grace" is thus made to lead direct to
communism. His conclusion is quite clear: _Omnia debent esse communia_.

In one of his sermons (Oxford, 1869, vol. i. p. 260), when he has proved
this point with much complacent argumentation, he poses himself with the
obvious difficulty that in point of fact this is not true; for many who
are apparently in mortal sin do possess property and have dominion.
What, then, is to be done, for "they be commonly mighty, and no man dare
take from them"? His answer is not very cheerful, for he has to console
his questioner with the barren scholastic comfort that "nevertheless, he
hath them not, but occupieth things that be not his." Emboldened by the
virtue of this dry logic, he breaks out into his gospel of plain
assertion that "the saints have now all things that they would have."
His whole argument, accordingly, does not get very far, for he is still
speaking really (though he does not at times very clearly distinguish
between the two) much more about the right to a thing than its actual
possession. He does not really defend the despoiling of the evil rich at
all--in his own graphic phrase, "God must serve the Devil"; and all that
the blameless poor can do is to say to themselves that though the rich
"possess" or "occupy," the poor "have." It seems a strange sort of
"having"; but he is careful to note that, "as philosophers say, 'having
is in many manners.'"

Wycliff himself, perhaps, had not definitely made up his mind as to the
real significance of his teaching; for the system which he sketches does
not seem to have been clearly thought out. His words certainly appear to
bear a communistic sense; but it is quite plain that this was not the
intention of the writer. He defends Plato at some length against the
criticism of Aristotle, but only on the ground that the disciple
misunderstood the master: "for I do not think Socrates to have so
intended, but only to have had the true catholic idea that each should
have the use of what belongs to his brother" (_De Civili Dominio_,
London, 1884-1904, vol. i. p. 99). And just a few lines farther on he
adds, "But whether Socrates understood this or not, I shall not further
question. This only I know, that by the law of charity every Christian
ought to have the j