In the early days of Christianity they ( they meaning Roman Catholic's and papa or their pope) believed that if a person is guilty of a religious crime that they should be punished in the way that God punishes people; and that is by burning them by fire.
It was intended before the death of John Wyclife that he would be burned. They tried on three different occasions to have him tried and found guilty but failed on every try.
It was forty-four years after his death that they dug his bones up from the church yard where they buried him. They burned them into ashes and threw them into the River Swift. In their superstitious and pagan thinking they thought that would spoil his chances of a resurrection. They intended to close the door on his influence in England but they didn't accomplish that.
In fact, when you stop and think about it symbolically, when they threw the ashes into the River, this river flows into the River Avon. The Avon flows into the Severn. The Severn flows into the Bristol Channel. The Bristol Channel empties out into the oceans of the world and eventually the influence of John Wyclife touched the shores of New England;
There dwelt not far off a certain doctor, that he been chancellor to a bishop, who had been of old, familiar acquaintance with Master Tyndale, and favored him well; unto whom Master Tyndale went and opened his mind upon divers questions of the Scripture: for to him he durst be bold to disclose his heart. Unto whom the doctor said, "Do you not know that the pope is very Antichrist, whom the Scripture speaketh of? But beware what you say; for if you shall be perceived to be of that opinion, it will cost you your life." Not long after, Master Tyndale happened to be in the company of a certain divine, recounted for a learned man, and, in communing and disputing with him, he drove him to that issue, that the said great doctor burst out into these blasphemous words, "We were better to be without God's laws than the pope's." Master Tyndale, hearing this, full of godly zeal, and not bearing that blasphemous saying, replied, "I defy the pope, and all his laws;" and added, "If God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than he did."
ECC,12:13 ¶ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.
