The physician was a person held in high esteem in Oxford.

He took no open part now in her counsels, he gave no lectures; he lived the life of a recluse, highly esteemed and respected.

He would have been a bold man who would have spoken ill of him or his household, and therefore it seemed to him that he could very well afford to take the risk of receiving young men here, who desired to speak freely amongst themselves and one another in places not so liable to be dominated by listening ears as the rooms of the colleges and halls whence they came.
Dr.Langton himself, being a man of liberal views and sound piety, would very gladly have welcomed some reforms within the church, which he, in common with all the early Reformers, loved and venerated far more than modern-day Protestants fully understand.
They could not bear the thought that their Holy Mother was to be despoiled, and the Body of Christ rent in pieces amongst them.

No; their earnest and ardent wish was that this purging of abuses, this much-needed reformation, should come from within, should be carried out by her own priests, headed up, if possible, by the Pope himself.

Such was the dream of many and many a devout and earnest man at this time; and John Clarke's voice always softened with a tender reverence as he spoke of the Holy Catholic Church.
So now his eyes lighted with a quick, responsive fire, as he turned them upon his host.
"That is just what I am ever striving to maintain--that it is not the church which is in fault, but those who use her name to enforce edicts which she knows nothing of.