[188] Finaliter veritas vincet eos. Vaughan, Appendix, ii. p. 453. [Sidenote: WICKLIFFE SUMMONED TO ROME.] He had not yet reached the harbour. He was living peacefully among his books and his parishioners, and the priests seemed inclined to leave him alone, when another blow was aimed at him. A papal brief summoned him to Rome, to appear before that tribunal which had so often shed the blood of its adversaries. His bodily infirmities convinced him that he could not obey this summons. But if Wickliffe refused to hear Urban, Urban could not choose but hear Wickliffe. The church was at that time divided between two chiefs: France, Scotland, Savoy, Lorraine, Castile, and Aragon acknowledged Clement VII; while Italy, England, Germany, Sweden, Poland, and Hungary acknowledged Urban VI. Wickliffe shall tell us who is the true head of the church universal. And while the two popes were excommunicating and abusing each other, and selling heaven and earth for their own gain, the reformer was confessing that incorruptible Word, which establishes real unity in the church. "I believe," said he, "that the Gospel of Christ is the whole body of God's law. I believe that Christ, who gave it to us, is very God and very man, and that this Gospel revelation is, accordingly, superior to all other parts of Holy Scripture.[189] I believe that the bishop of Rome is bound more than all other men to submit to it, for the greatness among Christ's disciples did not consist in worldly dignity or honours, but in the exact following of Christ in his life and manners. No faithful man ought to follow the pope, but in such points as he hath followed Jesus Christ. The pope ought to leave unto the secular power all temporal dominion and rule; and thereunto effectually more and more exhort his whole clergy.... If I could labour according to my desire in mine own person, I would surely present myself before the bishop of Rome, but the Lord hath otherwise visited me to the contrary, and hath taught me rather to obey God than men."[190] [189] This is the reading of the Bodleian manuscript--"and be [by] this it passes all other laws." In Fox, Wickliffe appears to ascribe to Christ himself this superiority over all Scripture,--a distinction hardly in the mind of the reformer or of his age. [190] An Epistle of J. Wickliffe to Pope Urban VI. Fox, Acts, i. p. 507, fol. Lond. 1684; also Lewis, Wickliffe, p. 333, Append.