up for that very purpose, in the midst of the great city of Prague? Nothing else can be at the bottom of this, but the jealousy of Antichrist.* He exhibits Pope Alexander V. in contrast with the apostles. "For," says he, "when that pope heard at his court that Bohemia received the word of God, he did not send Peter and John to pray for the Bohemians, and to lay their hands on them, that in hearing the word of God they might receive the Holy Ghost; but he sent back some ill-disposed persons belonging to Bohemia, and commanded, in his bull, that the word of God should not be preached in private chapels."† Huss opposes to the arbitrary self-will of a man, which would hinder him from preaching, his own divine call. He says: "He who lives conformably to the law of Christ, and animated by a disposition of sincere love, has singly in view the glory of God, and his own and his neighbour's salvation, and preaches not lies, not ribaldry, not fables, but the law of Christ and the doctrines of the holy fathers of the church, he who so preaches when times of distress come, when a pope or a bishop is wanting, or he who takes his stand in opposition to heretics or false teachers, such a person never arrogates to himself the call to preach without authority; and it is not to be doubted, that the man in such case is sent of God." The eternal divine call, Huss asserts, which springs from the work of the Holy Spirit on the soul, is of more authority than any outward call proceeding from men; and a person may be constrained by this internal call from God to stand forth even in opposition to the

*De Trinit. Opp. I. fol. 106, 2. The abbot of Dola quotes as a common saying among the party of Huss, that the word of God cannot be bound. His opinion, on the contrary, was, that Huss had not been forbidden to preach at all, but only, for special reasons, to preach in this particular chapel; and here the duty of obedience to his superiors ought to have been felt by him as of paramount obligation. The Bethlehem Chapel is here denominated the Wicleffistarum insidiosa spelunca. It had not been forbidden him to preach, but to found a school in this place; which, however, in the sense of Huss was nothing else than to found here a genuine Christian church; though to this abbot it would appear only as a "School of Satan.' So he expresses himself: Non ut verbum Christi occultetur, sed ut occasio conventiculi et satanica scholæ illius impii Wicleff hæretici de medio tolleretur. Antihussus, Pez, Thes. IV. 2, p. 373.

+ Responsio ad scriptum octo doctorum, Opp. I. fol. 298, 1.

ordinances of man. Those ecclesiastical laws had been given only for the purpose of restraining the bad. Not for a righteous man is the law made, but for sinners. Where the spirit of God is, there is liberty.* Now we may easily conceive how revolting such language of Christian freedom of spirit must have appeared to those who knew of nothing higher than the stiff ordinances of the church; how they must have looked upon it as tending to the overthrow of all ecclesiastical order! But the objection now brought up, was that such an internal divine call was hidden from all but the subject of it. Every man could affirm this of himself: every heretic, every fanatic, might stand up under that pretence. Some outward sign of such an internal divine call was requisite therefore; either an express testimony of Holy Scripture, or an evident miracle. To this Huss replied: and the reader will be struck with the coincidence of the views he expresses with those of Matthew of Janow, —“ Antichrist was to have the power of deceiving by wonders. In the last times, miracles are to be retrenched from the church. She is to go about only in the form of a servant; she is to be tried by patience. The lying wonders of the servants of Antichrist are to serve for the trial of faith. By its own intrinsic power, faith shall preserve itself in the elect, superior to all arts of deception. This is the substance of that which Huss sets forth and illustrates by copious extracts from the sayings of the older church teachers. "Prophecy," he says, "is wrapt in obscurity; the gift of healing removed; the power of long-protracted fasting diminished; the word of doctrine silent; miracles are withheld. Not that Divine Providence utterly suspends these things; but they are not to be seen openly and in great variety, as in earlier times. All this, however, is so ordered by a wonderful arrangement of Divine Providence, that God's mercy and justice may be revealed precisely in this way; for while the church of Christ must, after the withdrawal of her miraculous gifts, appear in greater lowliness, and the righteous who venerate her on account of the hope of heavenly good, not on account of visible signs,

*Justo enim lex non est posita, sed ubi spiritus Dei, ibi libertas, et si spiritu Dei ducimini, non estis sub lege. Def. Articul. Quor. J. Wicleff, Opp. I. fol. 115.

fail of their reward in this earthly life, there will, on the other hand, be a more speedy manifestation of the temper of the wicked who, disdaining to follow after the invisible things which the church promises, cling fast to visible signs."*

In this mode of contemplating the condition of the church in the last times, we recognise an adherent of the doctrine of absolute predestination; though the truth contained in these same views might also be held independent of this doctrine. This servant-form of the true church, in which the power of the invisible godlike is all that attracts, as contrasted with the abundance of lying wonders in the worldly church of Antichrist, appearing in visible glory, serves as a means of separating the elect from the reprobate. The elect must pass through this trial in order to bring out their genuine character; the reprobate must be deceived according to the just judgment of God. He proceeds to infer, therefore, from what had been said, that in these times it is rather the servants of Antichrist, than the servants of Christ, who will make themselves known by wonders. He says: "It is a greater miracle to confess the truth and practise righteousness, than to perform marvellous works to the outward senses." And he then adds: " The priest or deacon who loves his enemies, despises riches, esteems as nothing the glory of this world, avoids entangling himself in worldly business, and patiently endures terrible threatenings, even persecutions for the gospel's sake, such a priest or deacon performs miracles, and has the witness within him that he is a genuine disciple of Christ." He appeals to various fine remarks of Augustin, Gregory, and Chrysostom, on mira

* Nam prophetia absconditur, curationum gratia aufertur, prolixioris abstinenitæ virtus imminuitur, doctrinæ verba conticescunt, miraculorum prodigia tollentur. Quæ quidem nequaquam superna dispositio funditus subtrahit, sed non hæc, sicut prioribus temporibus aperte ac multipliciter ostendit, quod tamen mira dispensatione agitur, ut una ex re divina simul et pietas et justitia compleatur, dum enim subtractis miraculorum virtutibus sancta ecclesia velut abjectior apparet et bonorum præmium quiescit, qui illam propter spem coelestium, non propter præsentia signa venerantur, et malorum mens contra illa citius ostenditur, qui sequi quæ promittit invisibilia negligunt, dum signis visibilibus continentur. Defensio Articul. quor. J. Wicleff, Opp. I. fol. 115, 2.

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cles, those witnesses to the genuine Christian view of the miracle, which, inspite of all errors, runs through the whole history of the church, and also to the words of Christ, Matt. v. 16. John v. 38. Matt. vii. 22., and then concludes: It is evident that every priest or deacon, who confesses the truth and practises righteousness, has a virtual testimony in this very thing, that he is sent of God, and that he needs not prove this divine mission by miracles, nor by an express passage of Holy Writ, relating personally to himself as one sent of God to preach the gospel."*

Even now Huss gives utterance to the resolution, which

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he observed faithfully to the end. In order that I may not make myself guilty, then, by my silence, forsaking the truth for a piece of bread, or through fear of man, I avow it to be my purpose to defend the truth which God has enabled me to know, and especially the truth of the holy Scriptures, even to death; since I know that the truth stands, and is for ever mighty, and abides eternally; and with her there is no respect of persons.† And, if the fear of death should terrify me, still I hope in my God and in the assistance of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord himself will give me firmness. And if I have found favour in his sight, he will crown me with martyrdom.‡ But, what more glorious triumph is there than this? Inciting his faithful to this victory our Lord says: Fear not them that kill the body, (Matt. x. 28.)" We may here add the words uttered by

*Ex his patet, quod quilibet diaconus vel sacerdos confitens veritatem et faciens justitiam habet testimonium efficax, quod ipse est missus a Deo, et quod non oportet ipsum probare illam missionem per operationem miraculi, propter operationem justitiæ, nec per scripturam, quæ expresse ipsum nomine exprimeret, quod ad evangelisandum a Domino foret missus. Defensio, fol. 116, 2.

† Ne ergo istis speciebus consensus percuterer et specialiter consensu non reprehensionis, mutescens culpabiliter, propter buccellam panis, aut propter timorem humanum deserens veritatem, volo veritatem, quam mihi Deus cognoscere concesserit, et præsertim scripturæ divinæ usque ad mortem defendere, sciens, quia veritas manet et invalescit in æternum et obtinet in sæcula sæculorum, apud quam non est accipere personas neque differentias. De Trin., Opp. I. 106.

Et si timor mortis terrere voluerit, spero de Deo meo et Spiritus Sancti auxilio, quod ipse Dominus dabit constantiam. Et si gratiam invenero in oculis suis, martyrio coronabit. Ibid.

Huss in his tract on Tythes: "As it is necessary for men gifted with reason to hear, to speak, and to love the truth, and to guard carefully against everything that might thwart it; as the truth itself triumphs over everything and is mighty forever, (where he refers to the words of Christ: Let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay); who but a fool would venture to condemn or to affirm any article, especially in what pertains to faith and manners, until he has informed himself about the truth of it ?* If some writers, both in ancient† and in modern times, have been disposed to find in Huss a proud or a fanatical striving after martyrdom, we cannot in this agree with them at all. It was simply the presentiment of death, which could not, in such a time, fail to fill the mind of a witness for the truth, coming out in the face of the world: for that truth to which he had devoted his entire life as a sacrifice. The conduct of Huss down to the hour of his martyrdom will show us nothing but the genuine Christian martyr, who with enthusiasm, yet with cool self-possession and resignation to the divine will, seeks not but accepts when offered the martyr's crown in godly joy from the hand of the giver. It was laid as a serious charge against Huss, as we have seen, that he publicly discussed contested articles of faith. In reference to this, he says: "How often did Christ dispute with companies of the Jews and priests; how often, according to the Acts of the Apostles, did his disciples, how often have the holy teachers of the church, and the scholastic doctors, disputed on the matters of faith!"

The principles of Wickliff, which Huss defended, contained much that would make him appear to the advocates of the old hierarchical system a very dangerous adversary,

* De Decimis, Opp. I. fol. 125, 2.

The abbot of Dola, in the year 1411, already finds that Huss will die at the stake rather than recant; but from his false conception of humility and obedience, taken from the position of Roman Catholicism, he sees in this only a want of humility, and spiritual pride. So he says; Antequam humiliatus revocans revocanda de tuæ sublimitatis descenderes pestilenti cathedra, ut vel sic tuorum lapidea corda confirmares te sequentium, traderes te potius flammis ultricibus concremandum. Antihussus, Pez Thes. IV. 2, p. 383.

De Trinitate, Opp. I. fol. 107, 2.