*

ance of the party of Huss, be carried through, such a qualified one was passed as nobody could find fault with, because it was left open to each to explain the propositions in his own sense. It was decreed, namely, that no one should presume to maintain any one of those forty-five propositions, in their heretical, erroneous, or scandalous sense.' Men were not satisfied, therefore, with this measure, by which the desired end could in no way be attained. While hitherto every graduate had liberty to read lectures at the university of Prague on any book of a teacher of the universities of Prague, Paris, or Oxford;† and this permission had given occasion for the reading of lectures upon many of Wickliff's writings in Prague, and was taken advantage of to spread more widely the enthusiasm for him and for his doctrines; the liberty was now restricted, on this particular side. An ordinance was passed, that, for the future, no bachelor should hold public lectures on any one of the three tracts of Wickliff, entitled the Dialogue, the Trialogue, and the De Eucharistia ; and no person should make any proposition relating to Wickliff's books and doctrines a subject of public disputation. Neither does this prohibition, therefore, extend to all Wickliff's writings, but only to those in which he either had set forth his doctrine of the holy supper, or the whole of his theological system.

Up to this time, the good understanding between Huss and the archbishop had not been disturbed, in any open manner. Zbynek could not, as yet, have withdrawn from him his confidence; he must still have highly appreciated his zeal for the reform of the church, and for the removal of abuses; for he chose him, as late as the year 1407, to deliver the exhortatory discourse before his clergy assembled at a synod of the diocese. We recognise in it those prin

* Quatenus nemo quemquam illorum, articulorum XLV. audeat tenere, docere vel defendere in sensibus eoram hæreticis, aut erroneis, aut scandalosis. Palacky, I. c. D. p. 222.

+ Quivis magistrorum poterit super quolibet libro de facultate artium proprie dicta dare, per se vel per alium idoneum pronuntiando; poterit quoque scripta aliorum et dicta per se aut per alium pronuntiare, dummodo sint ab aliquo vel aliquibus famoso vel famosis de universitate Pragensi, Parisiensi vel Oxoniensi magistro vel magistris compilata, et dummodo ista antea fideliter correxerit, et pronuntiatorem assumserit idoneum et valentem. Palacky, p. 188. Palacky, III. 1, p. 222.

ciples with regard to the destination of the clergy, which Huss entertained in common with Matthias of Janow and Wickliff. They were the principles which, in theory and practice, distinguished the clergy who were friendly to reform, and who already bore, in Bohemia, the names clerus evangelicus and pauperes sacerdotes Christi.* He had chosen for his text the passage in Ephesians vi. 14; and employed these words for the purpose of bringing the clergy to a consciousness of their vocation, as opposed to the then existing worldliness of the clergy in Bohemia. For the purpose of bringing clearly to view the destination of the clergy, he explains the grounds of the division of Christendom into three orders, which ever lay at bottom of his proposal for the reform of the entire social state, viz. the clergy, the secular nobility, who should make their power subservient to the promotion of the law of Christ, and the rest of the people standing in obedience to the two parts, as their leaders in things spiritual and secular. The clergy ought to take the lead of all others in following Christ under the form of a servant, in meekness, humility, purity, and poverty. Huss was still entangled in the distinction made between the consilia evangelica and the præcepta, above which Matthias Janow had, as we have earlier seen, already risen in recognising the equal Christian vocation of all men. Huss regarded it as the calling of the clergy to exhibit to all, even in the observance of the " evangelical counsels," a pattern of Christian perfection. Hence he must have held to the necessity of celibacy in the clergy. The clergy ought literally to fulfil the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount; therefore never to give an oath; their yea and nay ought to be sufficient. They ought literally to realise what Christ had said in the sermon on the mount, on loving our enemies, on bearing wrongs. The thriving of Christian life in all others, must therefore be conditioned on the fact that the clergy let their light shine before others, in the literal copying after Christ. It was in the falling away of the clergy from this, their true destination, that Huss, as

*Paletz was disposed afterwards to find something arrogant in the claim, which seemed to be implied in these appellations, quod in doctrina et in scriptis se audent clerum evangelicum nominare. Hus, Resp. ad Scr. Paletz; Opera I. p. 260.

he here declares, found the cause of the corruptions in the rest of Christendom, the contemplation of which filled his soul, more and more every day, with that heart sorrow which formed one of the strong features of his character. He says in this regard, contemplating Christians as soldiers of Christ, and the clergy as those who ought to take the foremost position in the marshalled host; it is clearly evident that the clergy should lead the order of battle in the spiritual conflict. But if they are unfit for the contest, the victory is seldom or never won; since they, betaking themselves to flight, or struck down and put into confusion, fill the next ranks of the army with despair or irresolution. Now if the clergy are struck down or slain, this will hinder the rest of the army from conquering the enemy; but if they treacherously enter into a league with the enemy, they will prepare the way for them to vanquish, more easily and treacherously, the army of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this is the reason why, in our days, the Christian army is overcome by the flesh, the world, the devil, and pagans. * As Huss considered it a part of the clerical calling to set the example of following Christ, and regarded the clergy, as "vicars of Christ," in this sense, so when they exhibited the opposite of this in their lives, he stigmatises them as Antichrist; and accordingly he here expresses, before the archbishop and clerus, the view which, from the time of Militz, had been transmitted to all the representatives of this reform tendency, and which in the development of the consequences proceeding therefrom, would be directed against the whole hierarchical fabric, that the true Antichrist was already present in the corrupt clergy, whose life and doctrine stood in mutual contradiction. He also attacks expressly, in this discourse, the countenance given to superstition. Many," says he, "stand waiting for gifts by letters of fraternities,† by far

* Hus, Opp. II. p. 32.

66

+ Documents whereby certain spiritual societies adopted others into the community of their merits. Against abuses of this sort, and the confidence placed in them, Matthias of Janow had often spoken. Attacking these epistolæ fraternitatum was reckoned also among the peculiarities of Wickliffitism, as we may see from what the abbot Stephen of Dola says about it in the paper cited above. He tries to defend them

sought indulgences, by fictitious relics, by painted images of saints."*

Still the measures which the archbishop, by his interest to support the church and by the injunction received from Rome, was impelled to take to prevent the spread of Wickliffitism, would necessarily bring about by degrees a change in the relations which had subsisted between Zbynek and Huss. The archbishop's official, John of Kebel, presided over a judicial examination instituted against several clergymen accused of Wickliffite errors: Nicholas of Welenowitz, preacher at the church of the Holy Spirit in Prague, Master Matthias Pater of Knin, a certain bachelor Sigmund of Jistebnitz, and others. One of these, Nicholas of Welenowitz, commonly called Abraham, deserves special notice. He is said to have asserted that laymen as well as priests might be allowed to preach the gospel. This is an important fact to us, as an indication of the religious bent of spirit which had passed over from Matthias of Janow to the party of Huss,-the tendency which once more brought up to notice the universal priesthood of Christians. It is also a circumstance marking the character of these clergymen, that at his trial he declined swearing except by the living God, that he would not swear by the crucifix, the gospels, or the saints, because no oath could be taken on things created. Huss took part with the man in reference to this point, honouring the conscientiousness which refused to transfer to any created thing the honour due to God alone. He opposed to those judges the authority of St. Chrysostom.‡ In vain was the as special testimonies of love to persons who had conferred peculiar favours: Si quas autem tradimus humiliter et devote pro Deo petentibus societatis peculiaris in Christo literas, nihil aliud agitur, ubi recta intentio custoditur, nisi ut salvis communibus ecclesiæ præcibus, aliquid specialis beneficii specialibus benefactoribus faciamus pro talibus in vita et in morte pariter. L. c. p. 240.

* Multi enim stant quærentes munera per fraternitatum literas, per exquisitas indulgentias, per fictas reliquias et per imagines coloratas. P. 36.

From the Acts of the Consistory of Prague, of the year 1408, cited by Palacky, III. 1, p. 223, Note 287.

We take this from the Trial of Huss, in the year 1414, a document of which much use has been made already. The words of Huss are: Istud dixi coram inquisitoribus Magistro Mauricio et Jaroslao episcopo,

intercession of Huss. He was thrown into prison, and after some days released, but banished from the diocese. Huss, in a letter, vehemently reproached the archbishop on account of this proceeding. "What is this! that men stained with innocent blood, men guilty of every crime, shall be found walking abroad almost with impunity; while humble priests, who spend all their efforts to destroy sin, who fulfil their duties under your church guidance, in a good temper, never follow avarice, but give themselves for nothing to God's service and the proclamation of his word, are cast into dungeons as heretics, and must suffer banishment for preaching the gospel ?" * Here, for the first time, the thing came out openly which we have said was inevitable, that although the archbishop, at the beginning, countenanced the reform tendency in Huss, yet the opposite character of their principles and of their tempers, must lead to a rupture between them as soon as the activity of Huss as a reformer passed beyond a certain limit. And when the first impulse had been given, he could not fail to be carried still farther, by the movements in this period of a great crisis of the church. A document which bears testimony to the extreme excitement between the Wickliffite party in Bohemia and the representatives of the old hierarchical system in its whole extent, is a work composed et coram vicario in spiritualibus, quando vexabant sacerdotem Abraham, dicentes coram me, quod noluisset jurare. Ad quem dixi coram ipsis: Non vis tu jurare? Qui respondit: Juravi ipsis per Deum vivum, quod volo veritatem dicere, et ipsi urgebant me, ut jurarem supra evangelium et imaginem crucifixi. Quibus ego Joannes Hus dixi, quod sanctus Jo. Chrysostomus nos vocat stultos, qui expetunt juramentum super creatura, quasi majus sit jurare per creaturam, quam per Deum. Et statim vicarius in spiritualibus nomine Bibel dixit furiose Ha Magister, vos venistis huc ad audiendum, et non arguendum. Cui dixi: Ecce vos istum sacerdotem condemnare, dicentes eum tenere errorem Waldensium, et ipse juravit vobis per Deum, estne hoc justum? Et alia multa loquebar is. See Stud. u. Krit. 1. c. pp. 139 and 140.

*Qualiter hoc est, quod incestuosi et varie criminosi absque rigo correctionis-incedunt libere, sacerdotes autem humiles, spinas peccati evellentes, officium Vestri implentes regiminis ex bono affectu, non sequentes avaritiam, sed gratis pro Deo se offerentes ad evangelisationis laborem, tamquam hæretici manicipantur carceribus, et exilium propter evangelisationem ipsius evangelii patiuntur? cæt. Palacky, III. 1, p. 223, Note 288.