  The most immediate concern of a civil lord living in an age when the Church is being poisoned by avarice should be the radical divestment of all ecclesiastical ownership. Wyclif is tireless in arguing for the king's right to take all land and goods, and indeed, even the buildings themselves, away from the Church. Should the clergy protest against royal divestment, threatening the king with excommunication or interdict, the king should proceed as a physician applies his lancet to an infected boil. No grace-favored civil lord will be disposed to save up the divested goods of the Church for his own enrichment, despite the obvious temptation. He will distribute the Church's ill-gotten lands and goods to the people. This, Wyclif explains, will be his continued responsibility even after the Church has been purged, for he is the Church's custodian as well as its protector.  